Web-based Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications

Web-Based Education:

Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Information Resources Management Association USA

Volume I

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Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com/reference and in the United Kingdom by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden London WC2E 8LU Tel: 44 20 7240 0856 Fax: 44 20 7379 0609 Web site: http://www.eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2010 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Web-based education : concepts, methodologies, tools and applications / Information Resources Management Association, Editor. vols. 1-3, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: "This comprehensive collection offers a compendium of research on the design, implementation, and evaluation of online learning technologies, addressing the challenges and opportunities associated with the creation and management of Web-based applications and communities, instructional design, personalized learning environments, and effective educational delivery"--Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-61520-963-7 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-61520-964-4 (ebook) 1. Web-based instruction. 2. Computer-assisted instruction. I. Information Resources Management Association. LB1044.87.W419 2010 371.33'44678--dc22 2010003720

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book set is original material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

Editor-in-Chief Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, DBA Editor-in-Chief Contemporary Research in Information Science and Technology, Book Series

Associate Editors Steve Clarke University of Hull, UK Murray E. Jennex San Diego State University, USA Annie Becker Florida Institute of Technology USA Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko University of Tampere, Finland

Editorial Advisory Board Sherif Kamel American University in Cairo, Egypt In Lee Western Illinois University, USA Jerzy Kisielnicki Warsaw University, Poland Keng Siau University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA Amar Gupta Arizona University, USA Craig van Slyke University of Central Florida, USA John Wang Montclair State University, USA Vishanth Weerakkody Brunel University, UK

Additional Research Collections found in the “Contemporary Research in Information Science and Technology” Book Series Data Mining and Warehousing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications John Wang, Montclair University, USA • 6-volume set • ISBN 978-1-60566-056-1 Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications In Lee, Western Illinois University • 4-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-943-4 Electronic Commerce: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications S. Ann Becker, Florida Institute of Technology, USA • 4-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-943-4 Electronic Government: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko, University of Tampere, Finland • 6-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-947-2 Knowledge Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Murray E. Jennex, San Diego State University, USA • 6-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-933-5 Information Communication Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Craig Van Slyke, University of Central Florida, USA • 6-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-949-6 Intelligent Information Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Vijayan Sugumaran, Oakland University, USA • 4-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-941-0 Information Security and Ethics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Hamid Nemati, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA • 6-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-937-3 Medical Informatics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Joseph Tan, Wayne State University, USA • 4-volume set • ISBN 978-1-60566-050-9 Mobile Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications David Taniar, Monash University, Australia • 6-volume set • ISBN 978-1-60566-054-7 Multimedia Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Minnesota State University, Mankato, USA • 3-volume set • ISBN 978-1-60566-054-7 Virtual Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications Jerzy Kisielnicki, Warsaw University, Poland • 3-volume set • ISBN 978-1-59904-955-7

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List of Contributors

Abdallah, Salam \ Abu Dhabi University, UAE .............................................................................. 1280 Adaktilou, Nektaria \ University of Athens, Greece ......................................................................... 643 Agudo, J. Enrique \ University of Extremadura, Spain .................................................................... 867 Ajjan, Haya \ University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA ...................................................... 1162 Akyol, Zehra \ Middle East Technical University, Turkey................................................................. 474 Alden, Jay \ National Defense University, USA................................................................................. 758 Amberg, Hilary G. \ University of Florida, USA ............................................................................ 1102 Arora, Anshu Saxena \ Savannah State University-Savannah, USA .............................................. 1531 Ashcraft, Donna \ Clarion University of Pennsylvania, USA ......................................................... 1146 Barclay, Kathleen \ University of Phoenix School of Advanced Studies, USA ............................... 1232 Barolli, Leonard \ Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan ............................................................ 1709 Bateman, Roger \ Unitec, New Zealand ............................................................................................ 671 Baylen, Danilo M. \ University of West Georgia, USA ...................................................................... 947 Beck, Diane E. \ University of Florida, USA ..................................................................................... 394 Bendixen, Roxanna \ University of Florida, USA ........................................................................... 1102 Blakey, Leah \ Drury University, USA................................................................................................. 28 Bodomo, Adams \ University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong................................................................. 133 Borich, Gary \ University of Texas at Austin, USA............................................................................ 228 Bovard, Bethany \ New Mexico State University, USA ..................................................................... 259 Braidic, Silvia L. \ California University of Pennsylvania, USA .................................................... 1203 Brinkman, Willem-Paul \ Brunel University, UK........................................................................... 1075 Bristol, Tim \ Crown College, USA ................................................................................................. 1342 Brown, Lorie \ Robert Morris University, USA ................................................................................... 59 Brown, Robert L. \ Mississippi State University, USA...................................................................... 119 Brozik, Dallas \ Marshall University, USA ........................................................................................ 738 Buckley, Clive N. \ Glyndŵr University, UK ..................................................................................... 939 Burford, Sally \ University of Canberra, Australia ........................................................................... 163 Busetti, Emanuela \ Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy . 1445 Bussmann, Susan \ New Mexico State University, USA .................................................................... 259 Cagiltay, Kursat \ Middle East Technical University, Turkey ......................................................... 1428 Carrier, Kristina K. \ University of Idaho, USA ............................................................................. 1118 Cartalis, Costas \ University of Athens, Greece ................................................................................ 643 Cawthon, Stephanie \ The University of Texas at Austin, USA......................................................... 923 Chaka, Chaka \ Walter Sisulu University, South Africa .................................................................. 1765 Chang, Klarissa Ting-Ting \ Carnegie Mellon University, USA ...................................................... 607

Chang, Mei-Yu \ National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan .............................................. 459 Changchit, Chuleeporn \ Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, USA .................................. 73, 1268 Chao, Han-Chieh \ National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan .......................................................... 1844 Chen, Irene \ University of Houston-Downtown, USA .................................................................... 1696 Chen, Wei \ City University of Hong Kong, China ............................................................................ 572 Cheng, Hsiang \ National Chi Nan University, Taiwan ................................................................... 1825 Cheok, Adrian David \ National University of Singapore, Singapore .............................................. 302 Chiazzese, Giuseppe \ Italian National Research Council, Italy .................................................... 1518 Chifari, Antonella \ Italian National Research Council, Italy ........................................................ 1518 Choi, Yongsoon \ National University of Singapore, Singapore........................................................ 302 Chou, C. Candace \ University of St. Thomas, USA ......................................................................... 524 Chu, Carol H. C. \ National Chi Nan University, Taiwan ............................................................... 1825 Cicciarelli, MarySue \ Duquesne University, USA ........................................................................... 293 Cochrane, Thomas \ Unitec, New Zealand ....................................................................................... 671 Cole, Michele T. \ Robert Morris University, USA ............................................................................ 222 Colorado, Jozenia Torres \ Emporia State University, USA ............................................................. 405 Cooper, Lesley \ Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada ........................................................................ 163 Cranton, Patricia \ The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, USA ....................................... 249 Crawford, Caroline M. \ University of Houston – Clear Lake, USA ............................................... 195 Crawley, Daria C. \ Robert Morris University, USA, USA ............................................................... 592 Csete, Josephine \ The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong ........................................ 1347 Cunha, Maria Manuela \ Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, Portugal............................... 1723 Daniel, Ben K. \ University of Saskatchewan, Canada ................................................................... 1607 Dettori, Giuliana \ Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy ................................................................................................................................ 1445 Dewever, Fanuel \ IBM, Belgium ....................................................................................................... 633 Di Scala, Roberto \ University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy .............................................. 1577 Dickenson, Virginia \ eLumenata, USA............................................................................................. 195 Doherty, John J. \ Northern Arizona University, USA .................................................................... 1127 Dominguez, Eva \ University of Extremadura, Spain........................................................................ 867 Donaldson, Susan A. \ University of Florida, USA ......................................................................... 1102 Downs, Elizabeth \ Georgia Southern University, USA .................................................................. 1325 Du, Jianxia \ Mississippi State University, USA ................................................................................ 119 Durocher, Rae Ann \ Southern New Hampshire University, USA ....................................................... 59 Durresi, Arjan \ Indiana University Purdue University, USA ......................................................... 1709 Dwivedi, Yogesh Kumar \ Swansea University, UK ....................................................................... 1075 Dziuban, Charles \ University of Central Florida, USA ................................................................... 852 Eberle, Jane H. \ Emporia State University, USA ............................................................................. 405 Edelweiss, Rose Dieng-Kuntz \ INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France .................................................... 820 Edwards, Patricia \ University of Extremadura, Spain ..................................................................... 867 El Helou, Sandy \ École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse, France ............... 1856 Elder, Jennifer H. \ University of Florida, USA.............................................................................. 1102 Ely, Katherine \ George Mason University, USA .............................................................................. 381 Emerson, Michelle \ Kennesaw State University, USA ..................................................................... 897 Engstrom, Richard \ Georgia State University, USA...................................................................... 1006 Ensminger, David C. \ Loyola University Chicago, USA ................................................................. 215

Entin, Eileen B. \ Aptima Inc., USA................................................................................................... 490 Escofet, Anna \ Universitat de Barcelona, Spain .............................................................................. 699 Evangelou, Christina E. \ Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece ................. 435 Faron-Zucker, Catherine \ University of Nice, France .................................................................... 820 Feldmann-Hahn, Felix \ Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany ........................................................ 1019 Ferdig, Richard E. \ Kent State University, USA .................................................................. 1102, 1162 Finger, Glenn \ Griffith University, Australia .................................................................................. 1684 Fontana, Lynn \ Sylvan Learning, USA............................................................................................. 962 Forcheri, Paola \ Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy ...... 1445 Frey, Barbara A. \ University of Pittsburgh, USA ............................................................................. 592 García, Karen \ University of Massachusetts, USA .......................................................................... 834 Garrison, D. Randy \ University of Calgary, Canada ...................................................................... 474 Gierlowski, Krzysztof \ Gdansk University of Technology, Poland ............................................... 1870 Gillet, Denis \ École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse ................................... 1856 Gkotsis, George \ Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece ............................... 435 Glazer, Hilda R. \ Capella University, USA ........................................................................................ 51 Gonzales, Carmen \ New Mexico State University, USA .................................................................. 259 GraziaIerardi, Maria \ Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy ................................................................................................................................ 1445 Grimes, Joe \ California Polytechnic State University, USA ............................................................. 540 Hadzilacos, Th. \ Hellenic Open University, Greece ......................................................................... 446 Hagle, Holly \ Robert Morris University, USA ................................................................................ 1590 Haghirian, Parissa \ Sophia University, Japan ................................................................................. 418 Hamilton, Karin \ Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA ................................................................ 1400 Hansen, Mary \ Robert Morris University, USA ............................................................................... 888 Hao, Tianyong \ City University of Hong Kong, China .................................................................... 572 Hao, Yungwei \ National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan ........................................................... 228 Harmon, Stephen W. \ Georgia State University, USA ..................................................................... 103 Harris, Alycia L.\ Walden University, USA ....................................................................................... 923 Hartman, Joel \ University of Central Florida, USA ........................................................................ 852 Hartshorne, Richard \ University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA ....................................... 1162 Hernández-Gantes, Victor M. \ University of South Florida, USA ................................................. 144 Hinkley, Maureen \ Fairfield University, USA ................................................................................ 1376 Holdan, E. Gregory \ Robert Morris University, USA ...................................................................... 888 Holler, Melissa B. \ Agora Cyber Charter School, USA .................................................................... 502 Hong, Junhee \ Kyungwon University, Korea ................................................................................... 553 Hope, John K. \ University of Auckland, New Zealand ......................................................................... 9 Hsu, Jeffrey \ Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA........................................................................ 1400 Hu, Dawei \ University of Science and Technology of China, China ................................................ 572 Hwang, Gwo-Haur \ Ling Tung University, Taiwan ....................................................................... 1825 Hwang, Gwo-Jen \ National University of Tainan, Taiwan ............................................................ 1825 Jackson, Lorraine D. \ California Polytechnic State University, USA ............................................. 540 Jain, Shobhita \ Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India .................................. 995 Jamieson-Proctor, Romina \ University of Southern Queensland, Australia ................................. 1684 Javery, Christine \ Southern New Hampshire University, USA .......................................................... 59 Johnson, Evelyn S. \ Boise State University, USA............................................................................. 277

Joia, Luiz Antonio \ Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation and Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil .................................... 975 Jones, Marshall G. \ Winthrop University, USA ................................................................................ 103 Kalkanis, George \ University of Athens, Greece.............................................................................. 643 Kalles, D. \ Hellenic Open University, Greece ................................................................................... 446 Kang, P. Toyoko \ University of Guam, Guam .................................................................................... 84 Karacapilidis, Nikos \ University of Patras, Greece ............................................................... 715, 1460 Karaiskakis, D. \ Hellenic Open University, Greece ......................................................................... 446 Karousos, Nikos \ University of Patras, Greece & Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece ................................................................................................... 435, 715 Kato, Shogo \ Waseda University, Japan ......................................................................................... 1055 Kelsey, Kathleen D. \ Oklahoma State University, USA ................................................................... 775 Kendrick, David \ University of Northern Colorado, USA ............................................................. 1392 Kennedy, Carol Kahan \ Fordham University, USA....................................................................... 1347 Kidd, Terry T. \ Texas A&M University, USA & University of Houston-Downtown, USA............................................................................................ 1, 1308, 1696 Kim, Minyoung \ Yonsei University, Korea ....................................................................................... 553 Kim, Soyoung \ Yonsei University, Korea.......................................................................................... 553 Klaus, Tim \ Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, USA ....................................................... 73, 1268 Koyama, Akio \ Yamagata University, Japan .................................................................................. 1709 Kwiatkowski, April \ Robert Morris University, USA ........................................................................ 59 Lam, Paul \ The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong .................................................... 1347 Laskri, Med Tayeb \ Université Badji Mokhtar, Algeria .................................................................. 820 Lautenbach, Geoffrey \ University of Johannesburg, South Africa.................................................. 801 Lear, Janet \ University of Nebraska at Kearney, USA ................................................................... 1422 Lee, Tsang-Hsiung \ National Chengchi University, Taiwan ............................................................ 508 Li, Haifei \ Union University, USA .................................................................................................. 1788 Lim, Cher Ping \ Edith Cowan University, Western Australia ........................................................ 1036 Lim, John \ National University of Singapore, Singapore ................................................................ 607 Lin, Hong \ Oklahoma State University, USA.................................................................................... 775 Liu, We \ National University of Singapore, Singapore..................................................................... 302 Liu, Yunyan \ Southwest University, China ....................................................................................... 119 Ma, Xueguang \ University of Maryland, USA ............................................................................... 1812 Marimon, Marta \ Universitat de Vic, Spain .................................................................................... 699 Martínez, G. Moltó \ Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain ...................................................... 910 Mastandrea, Lisa A. \ Robert Morris University, USA ................................................................... 1590 Matsuo, Keita \ Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan ................................................................ 1709 McNaught, Carmel \ The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong..................................... 1347 Mei-Ling, Charissa Lim \ Nanyang Technological University, Singapore....................................... 302 Merlo, Gianluca \ Italian National Research Council, Italy ........................................................... 1518 Min, Feng \ City University of Hong Kong, China ............................................................................ 572 Moskal, Patsy D. \ University of Central Florida, USA .................................................................... 852 Neal, Lisa \ eLearn Magazine, USA ................................................................................................... 490 Negash, Solomon \ Kennesaw State University, USA ........................................................................ 897 Nemati, Hamid \ University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA.............................................. 1256 Nguyen, Ta Huynh Duy \ National University of Singapore, Singapore .......................................... 302

Nishimura, Shoji \ Waseda University, Japan ................................................................................. 1055 Nordengren, F.R. \ Des Moines University, USA .............................................................................. 179 Normann, Sven A. \ University of Florida, USA ............................................................................... 394 Nousia, Dora \ Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece .................................... 435 Nowicki, Krzysztof \ Gdansk University of Technology, Poland .................................................... 1870 Olaniran, Bolanle A. \ Texas Tech University, USA ........................................................................ 1482 Omar, Nizam \ Mackenzie P. University, Brazil ................................................................................ 810 Ottaviano, Simona \ Italian National Research Council, Italy ....................................................... 1518 Parra, Julia \ New Mexico State University, USA ............................................................................. 259 Pash, Lori \ Robert Morris University, USA ........................................................................................ 59 Peiris, Roshan \ National University of Singapore, Singapore ......................................................... 302 Pérez, Elena Verdú \ CEDETEL, Spain .......................................................................................... 1362 Pérez, María Jesús Verdú \ Universidad de Valladolid, Spain....................................................... 1362 Philip, Donald N. \ University of Toronto, Canada ......................................................................... 1239 Pimentel, Edson Pinheiro \ Claremont Graduate University, USA .................................................. 810 Pitcock, Jane \ Walden University, USA ............................................................................................ 277 Pozzi, F. \ Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR, Italy............................................................. 345, 1472 Putnik, Goran D. \ Univeristy of Minho, Portugal ......................................................................... 1723 Qiu, Lin \ State University of New York at Oswego, USA.................................................................. 328 Qui, Tran Cong Thien \ National University of Singapore, Singapore ............................................ 302 Rada, Roy \ University of Maryland, USA....................................................................................... 1812 Rae, Andrew \ Brunel University, UK ............................................................................................. 1075 Ragusa, Angela T. \ Charles Sturt University, Australia ................................................................. 1661 Raisinghani, Mahesh S. \ TWU School of Management, USA........................................................ 1531 Ray, Julie \ Robert Morris University, USA ......................................................................................... 59 Rekik, Yassin \ École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse ................................. 1856 Repman, Judi \ Georgia Southern University, USA ........................................................................ 1325 Rico, Mercedes \ University of Extremadura, Spain ......................................................................... 867 Rineer, Ashley \ Robert Morris University, USA ............................................................................. 1590 Rockman, Saul \ Rockman et al., USA .............................................................................................. 962 Salzmann, Christophe \ École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse .................. 1856 Schwier, Richard A. \ University of Saskatchewan, Canada .......................................................... 1607 Sclater, Niall \ The Open University, UK ........................................................................................... 661 Scollon, Jennifer \ Regis University, USA ....................................................................................... 1590 Scott, Douglass J. \ Waseda University, Japan ................................................................................ 1055 Seta, Luciano \ Italian National Research Council, Italy ................................................................ 1518 Shelley, Daniel J. \ Robert Morris University, USA........................................................................... 222 Shen, Pei-Di \ Ming Chuan University, Taiwan ................................................................................. 508 Shin, Fu-Yu \ Chien-Kuo Elementary School, Taiwan ...................................................................... 459 Sidman, Jason \ Aptima Inc., USA..................................................................................................... 490 Simon, Bernd \ Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria .................. 418 Sitzmann, Traci \ Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory, USA ......................................... 381 Smith, Marion S. \ Texas Southern University, USA ......................................................................... 195 Snelson, Chareen \ Boise State University, USA ............................................................................. 1745 Song, Holim \ Texas Southern University, USA ............................................................................... 1308 Stein, David S. \ The Ohio State University, USA................................................................................ 51

Sun, Pei-Chen \ National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan .................................................. 1684 Surry, Daniel W. \ University of South Alabama, USA ..................................................................... 215 Suzuki, Renata \ Sophia University, Japan ....................................................................................... 834 Swartz, Louis B. \ Robert Morris University, USA ........................................................................... 222 Tarng, Wernhuar \ National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan .......................................... 459 Tay, Lee Yong \ Beacon Primary School, Singapore ....................................................................... 1036 Teh, Keng Soon \ National University of Singapore, Singapore ....................................................... 302 Tejedor, J. A. Gómez \ Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain ................................................... 910 Theng, Yin-Leng \ Nanyang Technological University, Singapore ................................................... 302 Thompson, Marcia \ University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA ....................................... 1256 Thornton, Julia \ RMIT University, Australia ................................................................................. 1211 Tomei, Lawrence A. \ Robert Morris University, USA.............................................................. 59, 1590 Toth, Eva Erdosne \ West Virginia University, USA........................................................................ 1550 Treadwell, Thomas \ West Chester University, USA ....................................................................... 1146 Tsai, Chia-Wen \ Ming Chuan University, Taiwan ............................................................................ 508 Tseng, Judy C.R. \ Chung-Hua University, Taiwan ........................................................................ 1825 Tzagarakis, Manolis \ Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece & University of Patras, Greece ..................................................................................... 435, 715, 1460 Valcante, Gregory \ University of Florida, USA ............................................................................. 1102 Vasilakos, Athanasios V. \ University of Peloponnese, Greece ......................................................... 302 Vidaurre, C. Barros \ Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain ..................................................... 910 Wang, Chengbo \ Glasgow Caledonian University & University of Bolton, UK ............................. 791 Wang, Xinchun \ California State University, USA ........................................................................ 1182 Wang, Yushun \ Zhejiang University, China ..................................................................................... 727 Wanstreet, Constance E. \ The Ohio State University, USA ............................................................... 51 Wenyin, Liu \ City University of Hong Kong, China......................................................................... 572 Wheeler, Steve \ University of Plymouth, UK.................................................................................... 746 Wherry, Peg \ Montana State University, USA ................................................................................ 1626 Wilcox, Marlene V. \ Bradley University, USA ................................................................................. 897 Wilkes, Heidi L. \ Northeastern University, USA ............................................................................ 1644 Williams, Angela M. \ Glyndŵr University, UK................................................................................ 939 Windes, Deborah Lundberg \ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA........................ 1626 Wisher, Robert \ U.S. Department of Defense, USA ......................................................................... 381 Wu, Tin-Yu \ I-Shou University, Taiwan.......................................................................................... 1844 Wu, Xiyuan \ Xi’an Jiaotong University, China .............................................................................. 1788 Xhafa, Fatos \ Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain ............................................................. 1709 Yang, Harrison Hao \ State University of New York at Oswego, USA ............................................ 1561 Yessad, Amel \ INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France ................................................................................ 820 York, Ann M. \ Des Moines University, USA .................................................................................... 179 Yukselturk, Erman \ Middle East Technical University, Turkey .................................................... 1428 Zaharias, Panagiotis \ University of the Aegean, Greece ............................................................... 1497 Zapalska, Alina M. \ U.S. Coast Guard Academy, USA.................................................................... 738 Zeng, Qingtian \ Shandong University of Science and Technology, China ....................................... 572 Zheng, Qinghua \ Xi’an Jiaotong University, China....................................................................... 1788 Zheng, Robert Z. \ University of Utah, USA ..................................................................................... 364 Zhong, Yingqin \ National University of Singapore, Singapore ....................................................... 607

Zhuang, Yueting \ Zhejiang University, China.................................................................................. 727 Ziegleder, Diana \ Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany .................................................................. 1019 Zinskie, Cordelia \ Georgia Southern University, USA .................................................................. 1325

Contents

Volume 1 Section I. Fundamental Concepts and Theories This section serves as the foundation for this exhaustive reference tool by addressing crucial theories essential to the understanding of Web-based learning. Chapters found within these pages provide an excellent framework in which to position Web-based education within the field of information science and technology. Individual contributions provide overviews of the history of e-learning, students’ decision to use online versus traditional courses, Web-based resources for teaching, and key elements of online learning communities. Within this introductory section, the reader can learn and choose from a compendium of expert research on the elemental theories underscoring health information systems research Chapter 1.1. A Brief History of eLearning .............................................................................................. 1 Terry T. Kidd, Texas A&M University, USA Chapter 1.2. Technological Trends in Adult Education: Past, Present and in the Future ....................... 9 John K. Hope, University of Auckland, New Zealand Chapter 1.3. The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education ............................................. 28 Leah Blakey, Drury University, USA Chapter 1.4. The Virtual University: Distance Learning Spaces for Adult Learners............................ 51 David S. Stein, The Ohio State University, USA Hilda R. Glazer, Capella University, USA Constance E. Wanstreet, The Ohio State University, USA

Chapter 1.5. Why Choose an Online Course? ...................................................................................... 59 Lawrence Tomei, Robert Morris University, USA April Kwiatkowski, Robert Morris University, USA Lorie Brown, Robert Morris University, USA Lori Pash, Robert Morris University, USA Christine Javery, Southern New Hampshire University, USA Julie Ray, Robert Morris University, USA Rae Ann Durocher, Southern New Hampshire University, USA Chapter 1.6. Online or Traditional: A Study to Examine Course Characteristics Contributing to Students’ Preference for Classroom Settings ........................................................ 73 Tim Klaus, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, USA Chuleeporn Changchit, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, USA Chapter 1.7. Teaching Online: What Does Blended Learning Require? .............................................. 84 P. Toyoko Kang, University of Guam, Guam Chapter 1.8. Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE) .................................................................................................. 103 Marshall G. Jones, Winthrop University, USA Stephen W. Harmon, Georgia State University, USA Chapter 1.9. The Key Elements of Online Learning Communities .................................................... 119 Jianxia Du, Mississippi State University, USA Yunyan Liu, Southwest University, China Robert L. Brown, Mississippi State University, USA Chapter 1.10. Instructional Interactivity in a Web-Based Learning Community ............................... 133 Adams Bodomo, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chapter 1.11. Teaching Adult Learners in Online Career and Technical Education........................... 144 Victor M. Hernández-Gantes, University of South Florida, USA Chapter 1.12. Collaborative Learning: Using Group Work Concepts for Online Teaching ............... 163 Lesley Cooper, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Sally Burford, University of Canberra, Australia Chapter 1.13. Dispatches from the Graduate Classroom: Bringing Theory and Practice to E-Learning .................................................................................................................. 179 F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren, Des Moines University, USA Ann M. York, Des Moines University, USA

Chapter 1.14. Classroom-in-a-Box: Rethinking Learning Community Classroom Environment Needs within Three-Dimensional Virtual Learning Environments ...... 195 Caroline M. Crawford, University of Houston – Clear Lake, USA Virginia Dickenson, eLumenata, USA Marion S. Smith, Texas Southern University, USA Chapter 1.15. Supporting the Implementation of Online Learning .................................................... 215 Daniel W. Surry, University of South Alabama, USA David C. Ensminger, Loyola University Chicago, USA Chapter 1.16. Measuring Effectiveness in Online Instruction ............................................................ 222 Louis B. Swartz, Robert Morris University, USA Michele T. Cole, Robert Morris University, USA Daniel J. Shelley, Robert Morris University, USA Chapter 1.17. A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses ........................................... 228 Yungwei Hao, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan Gary Borich, University of Texas at Austin, USA Section II. Development and Design Methodologies This section provides in-depth coverage of conceptual architectures, frameworks and methodologies related to the design and implementation of Web-based educational systems. Throughout these contributions, research fundamentals in the discipline are presented and discussed. From broad examinations to specific discussions on particular frameworks and infrastructures, the research found within this section spans the discipline while also offering detailed, specific discussions. Basic designs, as well as abstract developments, are explained within these chapters, and frameworks for educating and preparing online instructors, designing virtual classrooms, and creating effective user interfaces are provided. Chapter 2.1. Spiraling into Transformative Learning ......................................................................... 249 Patricia Cranton, The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, USA Chapter 2.2. Transitioning to E-Learning: Teaching the Teachers...................................................... 259 Bethany Bovard, New Mexico State University, USA Susan Bussmann, New Mexico State University, USA Julia Parra, New Mexico State University, USA Carmen Gonzales, New Mexico State University, USA Chapter 2.3. Preparing Online Instructors: Beyond Using the Technology........................................ 277 Evelyn S. Johnson, Boise State University, USA Jane Pitcock, Walden University, USA Chapter 2.4. A Description of Online Instructors Use of Design Theory ........................................... 293 MarySue Cicciarelli, Duquesne University, USA

Chapter 2.5. Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning................................................ 302 We Liu, National University of Singapore, Singapore Keng Soon Teh, National University of Singapore, Singapore Roshan Peiris, National University of Singapore, Singapore Yongsoon Choi, National University of Singapore, Singapore Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore, Singapore Charissa Lim Mei-Ling, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Yin-Leng Theng, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Ta Huynh Duy Nguyen, National University of Singapore, Singapore Tran Cong Thien Qui, National University of Singapore, Singapore Athanasios V. Vasilakos, University of Peloponnese, Greece Chapter 2.6. Balancing Tradeoffs in Designing, Deploying, and Authoring Interactive Web-Based Learn-By-Doing Environments............................................................... 328 Lin Qiu, State University of New York at Oswego, USA Chapter 2.7. Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments ......................................................................................... 345 F. Pozzi, Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR, Italy Chapter 2.8. Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application ........................... 364 Robert Z. Zheng, University of Utah, USA Chapter 2.9. Designing Web-Based Training Courses to Maximize Learning ................................... 381 Traci Sitzmann, Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory, USA Katherine Ely, George Mason University, USA Robert Wisher, U.S. Department of Defense, USA Chapter 2.10. Implementing Successful Online Learning Communities ........................................... 394 Diane E.Beck, University of Florida, USA Sven A.Normann, University of Florida, USA Chapter 2.11. Web Accessibility Essentials for Online Course Developers ....................................... 405 Jozenia Torres Colorado, Emporia State University, USA Jane H. Eberle, Emporia State University, USA Chapter 2.12. Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching ...................................... 418 Parissa Haghirian, Sophia University, Japan Bernd Simon, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria Chapter 2.13. Augmenting Collaboration with Personalization Services ........................................... 435 Christina E. Evangelou, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Manolis Tzagarakis, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Nikos Karousos, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece George Gkotsis, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Dora Nousia, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece

Chapter 2.14. Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces: The Hellenic Open University Case Study................................................................................... 446 D. Karaiskakis, Hellenic Open University, Greece D. Kalles, Hellenic Open University, Greece Th. Hadzilacos, Hellenic Open University, Greece Chapter 2.15. The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System........... 459 Mei-Yu Chang, National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan Wernhuar Tarng, National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan Fu-Yu Shin, Chien-Kuo Elementary School, Taiwan Chapter 2.16. Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning: Collaborative-Constructivist Approaches..................................................................................... 474 Zehra Akyol, Middle East Technical University, Turkey D. Randy Garrison, University of Calgary, Canada Chapter 2.17. Development of Online Distributed Training: Practical Considerations and Lesson Learned ............................................................................................. 490 Eileen B. Entin, Aptima Inc., USA Jason Sidman, Aptima Inc., USA Lisa Neal, eLearn Magazine, USA Chapter 2.18. Virtual Tour: A Web-Based Model of Instruction......................................................... 502 Melissa B. Holler, Agora Cyber Charter School, USA Chapter 2.19. Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated Learning: An Exploratory Study ......................... 508 Pei-Di Shen, Ming Chuan University, Taiwan Tsang-Hsiung Lee, National Chengchi University, Taiwan Chia-Wen Tsai, Ming Chuan University, Taiwan Section III. Tools and Technologies This section presents extensive coverage of the technology that informs and impacts Web-based education. These chapters provide an in-depth analysis of the use and development of innumerable devices and tools, while also providing insight into new and upcoming technologies, theories, and instruments that will soon be commonplace. Within these rigorously researched chapters, readers are presented with examples of the tools that facilitate and support the emergence and advancement of Web-based education. In addition, the successful implementation and resulting impact of these various tools and technologies are discussed within this collection of chapters. Chapter 3.1. Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course ................................................................................................................. 524 C. Candace Chou, University of St. Thomas, USA

Chapter 3.2. The Hybrid Course: Facilitating Learning through Social Interaction Technologies ................................................................................................................................. 540 Lorraine D. Jackson, California Polytechnic State University, USA Joe Grimes, California Polytechnic State University, USA Chapter 3.3. Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System for the Successful Implementation of University 2.0 ................................................................... 553 Soyoung Kim, Yonsei University, Korea Minyoung Kim, Yonsei University, Korea Junhee Hong, Kyungwon University, Korea Chapter 3.4. Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning ............................... 572 Dawei Hu, University of Science and Technology of China, China Wei Chen, City University of Hong Kong, China Qingtian Zeng, Shandong University of Science and Technology, China Tianyong Hao, City University of Hong Kong, China Feng Min, City University of Hong Kong, China Liu Wenyin, City University of Hong Kong, China Chapter 3.5. Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student Learning: An Exploratory Factor Analysis ......................... 592 Daria C. Crawley, Robert Morris University, USA Barbara A. Frey, University of Pittsburgh, USA Chapter 3.6. Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis ............................................................................................. 607 Klarissa Ting-Ting Chang, Carnegie Mellon University, USA John Lim, National University of Singapore, Singapore Yingqin Zhong, National University of Singapore, Singapore Chapter 3.7. Opportunities for Open Source E-Learning ................................................................... 633 Fanuel Dewever, IBM, Belgium Chapter 3.8. A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education: A Pilot Phase Application .......................................................................... 643 Nektaria Adaktilou, University of Athens, Greece Costas Cartalis, University of Athens, Greece George Kalkanis, University of Athens, Greece Chapter 3.9. eLearning in the Cloud ................................................................................................... 661 Niall Sclater, The Open University, UK Chapter 3.10. Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0 .......................................................... 671 Thomas Cochrane, Unitec, New Zealand Roger Bateman, Unitec, New Zealand

Chapter 3.11. Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education .......................................... 699 Anna Escofet, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain Marta Marimon, Universitat de Vic, Spain Chapter 3.12. Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration ....................... 715 Manolis Tzagarakis, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Nikos Karousos, Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Nikos Karacapilidis,University of Patras, Greece Chapter 3.13. Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques ............................................................................................................. 727 Yushun Wang, Zhejiang University, China Yueting Zhuang, Zhejiang University, China Chapter 3.14. Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista ............................................................ 738 Alina M. Zapalska, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, USA Dallas Brozik, Marshall University, USA Chapter 3.15. On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning ........................ 746 Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, UK Chapter 3.16. Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students .................................. 758 Jay Alden, National Defense University, USA Chapter 3.17. A Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning: Pedagogical Potential and Recommendations .............................................................................. 775 Hong Lin, Oklahoma State University, USA Kathleen D. Kelsey, Oklahoma State University, USA Section IV. Utilization and Application This section introduces and discusses the utilization and application of Web-based educational systems around the world. These particular selections highlight, among other topics, online teacher training programs, the creation of online virtual laboratories, and current Web-based teaching practices from India to Japan to Brazil. Contributions included in this section provide excellent coverage of today’s online environment and insight into how health information systems impact the fabric of our presentday global village. Chapter 4.1. Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage: An Empirical Case Investigation .................................................................................................. 791 Chengbo Wang, Glasgow Caledonian University & University of Bolton, UK Chapter 4.2. Stories of Engagement with E-Learning: Revisiting the Taxonomy of Learning .......... 801 Geoffrey Lautenbach, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Chapter 4.3. Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements ............................................................................... 810 Edson Pinheiro Pimentel, IMES University, Brazil Nizam Omar, Mackenzie P. University, Brazil Chapter 4.4. Adaptive Learning Organizer for Web-Based Education ............................................... 820 Amel Yessad, INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France Catherine Faron-Zucker, University of Nice, France Rose Dieng-Kuntz Edelweiss, INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France Med Tayeb Laskri, Université Badji Mokhtar, Algeria Chapter 4.5. The Blended Learning Classroom: An Online Teacher Training Program .................... 834 Karen García, University of Massachusetts, USA Renata Suzuki, Sophia University, Japan Chapter 4.6. Online Learning: A Transforming Educational Environment for Adults in Higher Education...................................................................................................................... 852 Patsy D. Moskal, University of Central Florida, USA Charles Dziuban, University of Central Florida, USA Joel Hartman, University of Central Florida, USA Chapter 4.7. Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life® .............. 867 Patricia Edwards, University of Extremadura, Spain Mercedes Rico, University of Extremadura, Spain Eva Dominguez, University of Extremadura, Spain J. Enrique Agudo, University of Extremadura, Spain Chapter 4.8. Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers ................................................................................................................ 888 E. Gregory Holdan, Robert Morris University, USA Mary Hansen, Robert Morris University, USA Chapter 4.9. Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning: Teaching Complex Information Systems Classes Online .............................................................................................................................. 897 Solomon Negash, Kennesaw State University, USA Marlene V. Wilcox, Bradley University, USA Michelle Emerson, Kennesaw State University, USA Chapter 4.10. An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity................................................................. 910 J. A. Gómez Tejedor, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain G. Moltó Martínez, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain C. Barros Vidaurre, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain Chapter 4.11. Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab............................... 923 Stephanie Cawthon, The University of Texas at Austin, USA Alycia L. Harris, Walden University, USA

Chapter 4.12. Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning: A Case Study ................................................................................................................................ 939 Clive N. Buckley, Glyndŵr University, UK Angela M. Williams, Glyndŵr University, UK Chapter 4.13. Adult Learners Learning Online: A Case Study of a Blogging Experience ................. 947 Danilo M. Baylen, University of West Georgia, USA Chapter 4.14. Reaching Beyond Bricks and Mortar: How Sylvan Online Expands Learners’ Options ......................................................................................................................... 962 Saul Rockman, Rockman et al., USA Lynn Fontana, Sylvan Learning, USA Chapter 4.15. Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil ..................... 975 Luiz Antonio Joia, Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation and Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil Chapter 4.16. Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India ................................................ 995 Shobhita Jain, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India Chapter 4.17. Integrating Classroom and Online Instruction in an Introductory American Government Course ................................................................................................... 1006 Richard Engstrom, Georgia State University, USA Chapter 4.18. Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr- University Bochum, Germany................................................................................ 1019 Diana Ziegleder, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Felix Feldmann-Hahn, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Chapter 4.19. Blending Classroom Activities with Multi-User Virtual Environment for At-Risk Primary School Students in an After-School Program: A Case Study .................... 1036 Lee Yong Tay, Beacon Primary School, Singapore Cher Ping Lim, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia Chapter 4.20. E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School: Japan’s First Undergraduate Degree-Awarding Online Program ............................................... 1055 Shoji Nishimura, Waseda University, Japan Douglass J. Scott, Waseda University, Japan Shogo Kato, Waseda University, Japan Chapter 4.21. Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction: A Case Study of Teaching Mathematics in an Online Learning Environment........................... 1075 Willem-Paul Brinkman, Brunel University, UK AndrewRae, Brunel University, UK Yogesh Kumar Dwivedi, Swansea University, UK

Chapter 4.22. Autism and Family Interventions through Technology: A Description of a Web-Based Tool to Educate Fathers of Children with Autism............................................ 1102 Richard E. Ferdig, Kent State University, USA Hilary G. Amberg, University of Florida, USA Jennifer H. Elder, University of Florida, USA Susan A. Donaldson, University of Florida, USA Gregory Valcante, University of Florida, USA Roxanna Bendixen, University of Florida, USA Section V. Organizational and Social Implications This section includes a wide range of research pertaining to the social and organizational impact of Web-based education. Chapters included in this section analyze the social psychology of online collaborative learning, provide guidelines for synchronous and asynchronous teaching in Web-based courses, discuss classroom management in Online courses, and present various student and faculty perspectives and experiences with online learning software. The inquiries and methods presented in this section offer insight into the implications of Web-based education at both a personal and organizational level, while also emphasizing potential areas of study within the discipline. Chapter 5.1. Perspectives on the Realities of Virtual Learning: Examining Practice, Commitment, and Conduct......................................................................................................... 1118 Kristina K. Carrier, University of Idaho, USA Chapter 5.2. Bothering with Technology: Building Community in an Honors Seminar .................. 1127 John J. Doherty, Northern Arizona University, USA Chapter 5.3. The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning: The Good, the Bad, and the Awkward .......................................................................................................... 1146 Donna Ashcraft, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, USA Thomas Treadwell, West Chester University, USA Chapter 5.4. Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education.................................................................................................................... 1162 Haya Ajjan, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA Richard Hartshorne, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA Richard E.Ferdig, Kent State University, USA Chapter 5.5. What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning in a Web-Based Course? ............................................................................................. 1182 Xinchun Wang, California State University, USA Chapter 5.6. Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students ..................................................................................................... 1203 Silvia L. Braidic, California University of Pennsylvania, USA

Chapter 5.7. Framing Pedagogy, Diminishing Technology: Teachers Experience of Online Learning Software ...................................................................................................... 1211 Julia Thornton, RMIT University, Australia Chapter 5.8. Humanizing Learning-at-Distance: Best Practice Guidelines for Synchronous Instructors ............................................................................................................. 1232 Kathleen Barclay, University of Phoenix School of Advanced Studies, USA Chapter 5.9. Herding Cats: Striking a Balance Between Autonomy and Control in Online Classes ........................................................................................................................ 1239 Donald N. Philip, University of Toronto, Canada Chapter 5.10. Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment ........................................................................................................... 1256 Hamid Nemati, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA Marcia Thompson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA Chapter 5.11. Classroom Preferences: What Factors can Affect Students’ Attitudes on Different Classroom Settings?............................................................................................... 1268 Chuleeporn Changchit, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA Tim Klaus, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA Chapter 5.12. Learning With Online Activities: What Do Students Think About Their Experience?....................................................................................................................... 1280 Salam Abdallah, Abu Dhabi University, UAE Chapter 5.13. A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses ....................................................................................... 1308 Terry T. Kidd, University of Houston-Downtown, USA Holim Song, Texas Southern University, USA Section VI. Managerial Impact This section presents contemporary coverage of the managerial implications of Web-based learning technology. Particular contributions address the cost of implementing e-learning courses and support on a traditional campus, and how to best address institutional factors that might impede adoption of e-learning technology. The managerial research provided in this section allows administrators, practitioners, and researchers to gain a better sense of how Web-based education systems can inform their practices and behavior. Chapter 6.1. Fulfilling the Promise: Addressing Institutional Factors that Impede the Implementation of E-Learning 2.0 ....................................................................................... 1325 Judi Repman, Georgia Southern University, USA Cordelia Zinskie, Georgia Southern University, USA Elizabeth Downs, Georgia Southern University, USA

Chapter 6.2. Issues in Implementing Online Education in a Developing Country ........................... 1342 Tim Bristol, Crown College, USA Chapter 6.3. Costs of E-Learning Support: An Investigation Across 139 Small Projects ................ 1347 Paul Lam, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Josephine Csete, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Carmel McNaught, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chapter 6.4. E-Learning University Networks: An Approach to a Quality Open Education ........... 1362 Elena Verdú Pérez, CEDETEL, Spain María Jesús Verdú Pérez, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain Chapter 6.5. An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication for their Classroom Teaching ...................................................................... 1376 Carol Kahan Kennedy, Fordham University, USA Maureen Hinkley, Fairfield University, USA Chapter 6.6. Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign: The Transformation Toward E-Learning...... 1392 David Kendrick, University of Northern Colorado, USA Section VII. Critical Issues This section addresses conceptual and theoretical issues related to the field of Web-based education, which include issues related to instruction, collaboration, and academic integrity. Within these chapters, the reader is presented with analysis of the most current and relevant conceptual inquires within this growing field of study. Particular chapters address the impact of a student code on distance learning classrooms, the use of blogs in Web-based educational projects, the role of orientation materials in online courses, and various methods to promote collaborative effort among students. Overall, contributions within this section ask unique, often theoretical questions related to the study of Web-based learning technologies and, more often than not, conclude that solutions are both numerous and contradictory. Chapter 7.1. Adult Learners, E-Learning, and Success: Critical Issues and Challenges in an Adult Hybrid Distance Learning Program ......................................................................... 1400 Jeffrey Hsu, Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA Karin Hamilton, Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA Chapter 7.2. Instructor Presence in Online Distance Classes ........................................................... 1422 Janet Lear, University of Nebraska at Kearney, USA Chapter 7.3. Collaborative Work in Online Learning Environments: Critical Issues, Dynamics, and Challenges ......................................................................................................... 1428 Erman Yukselturk, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Kursat Cagiltay, Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Chapter 7.4. A Pedagogical Approach to the Design of Learning Objects for Complex Domains ................................................................................................................ 1445 Emanuela Busetti, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy Giuliana Dettori, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy Paola Forcheri, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy Maria Grazia Ierardi, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy Chapter 7.5. Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach .................................................................................................. 1460 Nikos Karacapilidis, University of Patras, Greece Manolis Tzagarakis, University of Patras, Greece Chapter 7.6. Teaching Dimension in Web-Based Learning Communities ....................................... 1472 Francesca Pozzi, Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR, Italy Chapter 7.7. Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning .................................................................................................. 1482 Bolanle A. Olaniran, Texas Tech University, USA Chapter 7.8. Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability: An Empirical Investigation ........................................................................................................ 1497 Panagiotis Zaharias, University of the Aegean, Greece Chapter 7.9. Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning ........................................................... 1518 Giuseppe Chiazzese, Italian National Research Council, Italy Antonella Chifari, Italian National Research Council, Italy Gianluca Merlo, Italian National Research Council, Italy Simona Ottaviano, Italian National Research Council, Italy Luciano Seta, Italian National Research Council, Italy Chapter 7.10. Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments: An Empirical Analysis ....................................................................... 1531 Anshu Saxena Arora, Savannah State University-Savannah, USA Mahesh S. Raisinghani, TWU School of Management, USA Chapter 7.11. “Virtual Inquiry” in the Science Classroom: What is the Role of Technological Pedagogial Content Knowledge? ........................................................................ 1550 Eva Erdosne Toth, West Virginia University, USA Chapter 7.12. Blogging Minds on Web-Based Educational Projects................................................ 1561 Harrison Hao Yang, State University of New York at Oswego, USA Chapter 7.13. The Perfect Blend?: Online Blended Learning from a Linguistic Perspective .......... 1577 Roberto Di Scala, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Chapter 7.14. Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses? ......................................................................................................... 1590 Lawrence A. Tomei, Robert Morris University, USA Holly Hagle, Robert Morris University, USA Ashley Rineer, Robert Morris University, USA Lisa A Mastandrea, Robert Morris University, USA Jennifer Scollon, Regis University, USA Chapter 7.15. Did We Become a Community? Multiple Methods for Identifying Community and Its Constituent Elements in Formal Online Learning Environments .............. 1607 Richard A. Schwier, University of Saskatchewan, Canada Ben K. Daniel, University of Saskatchewan, Canada Chapter 7.16. When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code ............................................... 1626 Peg Wherry, Montana State University, USA Deborah Lundberg Windes, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Chapter 7.17. Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education ............................................................................................. 1644 Heidi L. Wilkes, Northeastern University, USA Chapter 7.18. The Impact of Sociocultural Factors in Multicultural Communication Environments: A Case Example from an Australian University’s Provision of Distance Education in the Global Classroom ........................................................................ 1661 Angela T. Ragusa, Charles Sturt University, Australia Section VIII. Emerging Trends This section highlights research potential within the field of health information systems while exploring uncharted areas of study for the advancement of the discipline. Chapters within this section highlight new trends in digital e-learning environments, mobile technology as an e-learning tool, and the use of Web 2.0 in the classroom. These contributions, which conclude this exhaustive, multi-volume set, provide emerging trends and suggestions for future research within this rapidly expanding discipline. Chapter 8.1. Emerging Frontiers of Learning Online: Digital Ecosystems, Blended Learning and Implications for Adult Learning ........................................................................... 1684 Glenn Finger, Griffith University, Australia Pei-Chen Sun, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan Romina Jamieson-Proctor, University of Southern Queensland, Australia Chapter 8.2. Wired for Learning—Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities for Education ................................................................................................ 1696 Irene Chen, University of Houston-Downtown, USA Terry T. Kidd, Texas A&M University, USA

Chapter 8.3. New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System ...................................................................................................................... 1709 Keita Matsuo, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan Leonard Barolli, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan Fatos Xhafa, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain Akio Koyama, Yamagata University, Japan Arjan Durresi, Indiana University Purdue University, USA Chapter 8.4. A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities? A Contribution to the University of the Future........................................................................................................ 1723 Maria Manuela Cunha, Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, Portugal Goran D.Putnik, Univeristy of Minho, Portugal Chapter 8.5. Web-Based Video for E-Learning: Tapping into the YouTube™ Phenomenon ........... 1745 Chareen Snelson, Boise State University, USA Chapter 8.6. E-Learning 2.0: Web 2.0, the Semantic Web and the Power of Collective Intelligence ................................................................................................................ 1765 Chaka Chaka, Walter Sisulu University, South Africa Chapter 8.7. A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners’ Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment .................................................................................. 1788 Qinghua Zheng, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China Xiyuan Wu, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China Haifei Li, Union University, USA Chapter 8.8. Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes: An Actor-Network Approach ..................................................................................................... 1812 Xueguang Ma, University of Maryland, USA Roy Rada, University of Maryland, USA Chapter 8.9. Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses ....................................................................................................... 1825 Gwo-Jen Hwang, National University of Tainan, Taiwan Hsiang Cheng, National Chi Nan University, Taiwan Carol H.C. Chu, National Chi Nan University, Taiwan Judy C.R. Tseng, Chung-Hua University, Taiwan Gwo-Haur Hwang, Ling Tung University, Taiwan Chapter 8.10. Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment .................... 1844 Tin-Yu Wu, I-Shou University, Taiwan Han-Chieh Chao, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan

Chapter 8.11. The eLogBook Framework: Sustaining Interaction, Collaboration, and Learning in Laboratory-Oriented CoPs ............................................................................... 1856 Yassin Rekik, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Denis Gillet, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Sandy El Helou, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Christophe Salzmann, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Chapter 8.12. A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems.................... 1870 Krzysztof Gierlowski, Gdansk University of Technology, Poland Krzysztof Nowicki, Gdansk University of Technology, Poland

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Preface

In an age where online universities and distance learning courses exist side by side with traditional classroom learning, the development, design, use and challenges of creating web-based learning systems that promote learning in students, whether over a distance or within a university proper, is increasingly complex and often difficult. With the constant changes in the landscape of web-based educational technology, it is a challenge for researchers, practitioners, and experts to take in the volume of innovative advances and up-to-themoment research in this diverse field. Information Science Reference is pleased to offer a three-volume reference collection on this rapidly growing discipline, in order to empower students, researchers, academicians, and practitioners with a wide-ranging understanding of the most critical areas within this field of study. This collection provides the most comprehensive, in-depth, and recent coverage of all issues related to the development of cutting-edge web-based educational technology, as well as a single reference source on all conceptual, methodological, technical and managerial issues, and the opportunities, future challenges and emerging trends related to the development, application, and implications of web-based educational technology. This collection titled, “Web-based Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications” is organized in eight (8) distinct sections, providing the most wide-ranging coverage of topics such as: 1) Fundamental Concepts and Theories; 2) Development and Design Methodologies; 3) Tools and Technologies; 4) Utilization and Application; 5) Organizational and Social Implications; 6) Managerial Impact; 7) Critical Issues; and 8) Emerging Trends. The following provides a summary of what is covered in each section of this multi-volume reference collection: Section I, Fundamental Concepts and Theories, serves as a foundation for this extensive reference tool by addressing crucial theories essential to the understanding of web-based educational technology. Chapters such as “A Brief History of eLearning” by Terry T. Kidd and “The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education” by Leah Blakey treat the reader to an overview to web-based education and provide a historical look at its evolution. “Why Choose an Online Course?” by Lawrence Tomei, April Kwiatkowski, Lorie Brown, Lori Pash, Christine Javery, Julie Ray, and Rae Ann Durocher and “Online or Traditional: A Study to Examine Course Characteristics Contributing to Students’ Preference for Classroom Settings” by Tim Klaus and Chuleeporn Changchit provide insight into the decision making process of students considering online courses, and offer guidelines to institutions considering online courses. Later selections, including “Measuring Effectiveness in Online Instruction” by Louis B. Swartz, Michele T. Cole, and Daniel J. Shelley and “A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses” by Yungwei Hao and Gary Borich highlight and respond to the challenges of creating frameworks for evaluating the effectiveness of web-based courses. These and several other foundational chapters provide a wealth of expert research on the elemental concepts and ideas which surround web-based education.

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Section II, Development and Design Methodologies, presents in-depth coverage of the conceptual design and architecture of a web-based educational systems, focusing on aspects including teacher training, virtual space design, and user interfaces. Design concerns are the focus of such chapters as “Where Do I Begin? Designing Online Learning Courses Which Work” by Kathleen P. King and “Designing Web-Based Training Courses to Maximize Learning” by Traci Sitzmann, Katherine Ely, and Robert Wisher, emphasizing the need to create feasible web-based courses and successfully impart knowledge to students. “Transitioning to E-Learning: Teaching the Teachers” by Carmen Gonzales, Susan Bussmann, Bethany Bovard, and Julia Parra and “Preparing Online Instructors: Beyond Using the Technology” by Evelyn S. Johnson and Jane Pitcock explore various aspects of online instructor training, including successful utilization of online technology and facilitation of learner-to-learner interaction. Francesca Pozzi’s “Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments” tackles the question of how to integrate individual learning differences in the design of Web-based collaborative learning experiences. With contributions from leading international researchers, this section offers copious developmental approaches and methodologies for the design and implementation of web-based education. Section III, Tools and Technologies, presents extensive coverage of the various tools and technologies used in the development and implementation of web-based learning. This comprehensive section opens with the chapter , “Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course,” by C. Candace Chou, which describes student views of various e-learning tools in an online course for pre-service and in-service teachers. The application of Web 2.0 technologies is explored in selections such as “Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0” by Thomas Cochrane and Roger Bateman and “Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education” by Anna Escofet and Marta Marimon. Later selections such as “On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning” by Steve Wheeler, “Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students” by Jay Alden, and “A Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning: Pedagogical Potential and Recommendations” by Hong Lin and Kathleen D. Kelsey explain how Wiki technology can be used for collaborative learning in web-based educational environments. In all, this section provides coverage of a variety of tools and technologies that inform and enhance modern web-based educational environments. Section IV, Utilization and Application, describes how web-based educational systems have been utilized and offers insight on important lessons for their continued use and evolution. Including chapters such as “Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage: An Empirical Case Investigation” by Chengbo Wang and “Stories of Engagement with E-Learning: Revisiting the Taxonomy of Learning” by Geoffrey Lautenbach, this section investigates the numerous methodologies that have been proposed and enacted as web-based learning technologies have grown in popularity. As this section continues, a number of case studies in the use of web-based learning are presented from all over the world, in selections such as “Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil” by Luiz Antonio Joia, “E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School: Japan’s First Undergraduate Degree-Awarding Online Program” by Shoji Nishimura, Douglass J. Scott, and Shogo Kato and “Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India” by Shobhita Jain. Contributions found in this section provide comprehensive coverage of the practicality and current use of web-based learning. Section V, Organizational and Social Implications, includes chapters discussing the importance of addressing organizational and social impact in the evaluation and design of any web-based education. “Herding Cats: Striking a Balance Between Autonomy and Control in Online Classes” by Donald N.

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Philip explores effective classroom management techniques for use in web-based distance courses, and “Humanizing Learning-at-Distance: Best Practice Guidelines for Synchronous Instructors” by Kathleen Barclay address specific issues and trends in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments, offering theoretical and practical techniques to support collaborative synchronous instruction. This section continues with investigations of student and teacher reactions to web-based and e-learning technology in chapters such as “Framing Pedagogy, Diminishing Technology: Teachers Experience of Online Learning Software” by Julia Thornton, “Learning With Online Activities: What Do Students Think About Their Experience?” by Salam Abdallah, and “Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education” by Haya Ajjan, Richard Hartshorne, Richard E.Ferdig. Overall, these chapters present a detailed investigation of the complex relationship between individuals, organizations and web-based courses and technologies. Section VI, Managerial Impact, presents focused coverage of web-based educational technologies as they relate to improvements and considerations in academic environments. “Fulfilling the Promise: Addressing Institutional Factors that Impede the Implementation of E-Learning 2.0” by Judi Repman, Cordelia Zinskie, and Elizabeth Downs highlights the limits of the business model approach to online learning,especially for faculty who want to utilize Web 2.0 technologies to create e-learning experiences for their students. “Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign: The Transformation toward E-Learning” by David Kendrick presents evidence that transitioning from traditional to electronic course instruction can not only grant access or improve achievement for the student, but can offer a cost savings for the institution. In all, the chapters in this section offer specific perspectives on how managerial perspectives and developments in web-based education inform each other to create more meaningful user experiences. Section VII, Critical Issues, addresses vital issues related to web-based education, which include collaborative work, cultural considerations, and the creation of community among course participants. Chapters such as “Collaborative Work in Online Learning Environments: Critical Issues, Dynamics, and Challenges” by Erman Yukselturk and Kursat Cagiltay and “Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach” by Nikos Karacapilidis and Manolis Tzagarakis discuss issues that impact the success of collaborative working online learning groups, as well as tools that can be used to successfully foster collaborative work. Later selections, such as “Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability: An Empirical Investigation” by Panagiotis Zaharias discuss the need to design international e-learning applications, with special focus on sensitivity to cultural differences. “When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code” by Peg Wherry and Deborah Lundberg Windes sheds lights onto the challenges to academic integrity in online learning, and offers steps to aid administrators and course designers as they work to improve honesty in online courses. This section continues by asking unique questions about orientation materials in web-based courses, optimal flow experiences in online environments, and web accessibility for students with disabilities. The concluding section of this authoritative reference tool, Emerging Trends, highlights areas for future research within the field of web-based education, while exploring new avenues for the advancement of the discipline. Beginning this section is “Emerging Frontiers of Learning Online: Digital Ecosystems, Blended Learning and Implications for Adult Learning” by Glenn Finger, Pei-Chen Sun, and Romina Jamieson-Proctor. This selection proposes digital ecosystems as successors to current e-learning environments, in order to facilitate centralization, interoperability, and utilization of technologies for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. New approaches to virtual and flexible university education are presented in “A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities? A Contribution to the University of the Future” by Maria Manuela Cunha and Goran D. Putnik. This chapter proposes an Agile/Virtual University concept

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for web-based learning, and outlines the supporting environment that such an implementation would require. These and several other emerging trends and suggestions for future research can be found within the final section of this exhaustive multi-volume set. Although the primary organization of the contents in this multi-volume work is based on its eight sections, offering a progression of coverage of the important concepts, methodologies, technologies, applications, social issues, and emerging trends, the reader can also identify specific contents by utilizing the extensive indexing system listed at the end of each volume. Furthermore to ensure that the scholar, researcher and educator have access to the entire contents of this multi volume set as well as additional coverage that could not be included in the print version of this publication, the publisher will provide unlimited multi-user electronic access to the online aggregated database of this collection for the life of the edition, free of charge when a library purchases a print copy. This aggregated database provides far more contents than what can be included in the print version in addition to continual updates. This unlimited access, coupled with the continuous updates to the database ensures that the most current research is accessible to knowledge seekers. As a comprehensive collection of research on the latest findings related to technologies and healthcare delivery, Web-based Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications, provides researchers, administrators and all audiences with a complete understanding of the development of applications and concepts in web-based education. Given the meteoric rise in web-based courses, distance learning, and e-learning in both traditional settings and virtual environments, Web-based Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications, addresses the demand for a resource that encompasses the most pertinent research in web-based educational design, deployment, and impact.

Section I

Fundamental Concepts and Theories This section serves as the foundation for this exhaustive reference tool by addressing crucial theories essential to the understanding of Web-based learning. Chapters found within these pages provide an excellent framework in which to position Web-based education within the field of information science and technology. Individual contributions provide overviews of the history of e-learning, students’ decision to use online versus traditional courses, Web-based resources for teaching, and key elements of online learning communities. Within this introductory section, the reader can learn and choose from a compendium of expert research on the elemental theories underscoring health information systems research

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Chapter 1.1

A Brief History of eLearning Terry T. Kidd Texas A&M University, USA

AbstrAct

MAIn thrust

The purpose of this chapter is to explore prior research associated with the history of eLearning. While issues related to the eLearning, technology and innovation adoption, the online environment, the role of faculty in online environments, and preparing faculty for online instruction are important, it is prudent to examine the history of this innovation in order to chart the future of such practices.

historical Perspectives of eLearning

IntroductIon Investigation into faculty adoption of eLearning for the purpose of quality teaching and its implications for training and faculty development, policy, and leadership, not only draws upon academic foundations, but also advances practice aimed to explore the technical, cognitive, and aesthetic basis of signifying human interaction as mediated by technology. This chapter will center upon several interrelated topics to explore the historical developments of eLearning. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-830-7.ch004

The origins of eLearning as currently practiced in higher education stem from the insightful work of Suppes (1964) and Bitzer (1962). While others such as Porter (1959) and Uttal (1962) were also active early in this field (Fletcher, 2002), only Suppes and Bitzer clearly situated the use of technology within a broader educational agenda (Suppes, 1964, 1966, 1986). It is important to note that there is no single evolutionary point of which the eLearning originated nor is there a single agreed definition of eLearning. Since the 1960s, eLearning has evolved in different ways affecting Business, Education, the Training sector, and the Military (Fletcher & Rockway, 1986) in different ways. eLearning means different things in different sectors. In the higher education sector, “e-Leaning” refers to the use of both software-based and online learning, whereas in Business, Higher-Education, the Military and Training sectors, it refers solely to a range of online practices (Campbell, 2004). Our focus for this paper is e-learning in higher education.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Brief History of eLearning

In the 1960s, there were few educational applications of computers in universities. It was thought that the high cost of technology would prevent its ubiquitous uptake as an educational tool. Suppes (1964; 1966) argued that: in the future it would be possible for all students to have access to the service of a personal tutor in the same way that ancient royals were once served by individual tutors, but that this time the tutors would be in the form of a computer. (Suppes, 1964; 1966) Further, he argued that the single most powerful argument for the use of computers in education is individualized instruction and the dialogue that it supports. This was not an idle conjecture, but was based on Bloom’s (1984) research that demonstrated that one-on-one tutoring improved student achievement by two standard deviations over group instruction. Individual tutorials, Suppes (1964; 1966) argued, were also a core aspect of the university and computers would embrace and extend this through the use of virtual learning environments. Suppes work (1964; 1966; 1986) and teaching was confined to structured fields and views of knowledge, with “drill and practice” approaches. Further, Suppes was concerned with both producing better learning, and learning how to be a better teacher with computers. Contemporary critiques of his approach often overlook the lack of viable alternative paradigms at that time, something that Suppes was aware of. His research found that computer mediated instruction produced profound effects on learning, and identified changes in students’ understandings ranging from simple to complex. While his use of computers was essentially as a tool, he foresaw the potential for wider applications of computers in education. His research led to the foundation ground work for computer assisted learning. With Suppes foundation work on computer assisted learning (1964; 1966; 1986), it was

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not until Blitzer (1962) who created PLATO, a timeshared computer system, can to address concerns about student literacy. According to Blitzer (1962) PLATO could be used to develop and deliver computer-based education, including literacy programs. It allowed educators and students to use high resolution graphics terminals and an educational programming language, TUTOR, to create and interact with educational courseware and to communicate with other users by means of electronic notes – the forerunner of today’s conferencing systems (Bitzer, Lichtenberger & Braunfeld, 1962). Woolley (1994) argues that as well as PLATO’s advances in Computer Assisted Instruction, its communication features were equally innovative and were the foundations of today’s conference and messaging systems: Two decades before the World Wide Web came on the scene, the PLATO system pioneered online forums and message boards, email, chat rooms, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, and multiplayer games, leading to the emergence of what was perhaps the world’s first online community. (Woolley, 1994) Comparing e-learning practice over time is problematic and fraught with a host of methodological concerns (Charp, 1997; Herrington, Reeves & Oliver, 2005; Mortera-Gutiérrez, 2006; Nicholson & McDougall, 2005; Pilla, Nakayama, Nicholson, P., 2006; Thomson, 2005). Table 1 provides an historical perspective based on macrolevel features, it says little about the processes and agency occurring under the various categories. The history of e-learning is best summed up as: “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” (Sun Tzu, 410bc) as for the past 40 years, educators and trainers at all levels of higher education, business, training and the military made use of computers in different ways to support and enhance teaching and learning (Charp, 1997; Molnar, 1997). Consequently, the contemporary use of the term

A Brief History of eLearning

Table 1. Historical context of e-learning development Era

Focus

Educational Characteristics

1975-1985

Programming; Drill and practice; Computer-assisted learning – CAL

Behaviorist approaches to learning and instruction; programming to build tools and solve problems; Local user-computer interaction.

1983-1990

Computer-Based Training Multimedia

Use of older CAL models with interactive multimedia courseware; Passive learner models dominant; Constructivist influences begin to appear in educational software design and use.

1990-1995

Web Based Training

Internet-based content delivery; Active learner models developed; Constructivist perspectives common; Limited end-user interactions.

1995-2005

e-learning

Internet-based flexible courseware deliver; increased interactivity; online multimedia courseware; Distributed constructivist and cognitivist models common; Social networking; Remote user-user interactions.

“e-learning” has different meanings in different contexts (Campbell, 2004). Zahm (2000) described computer-based training (CBT) as delivered via CD-ROM or as a Web download and that it is usually multimedia-based. Karon (2000) discussed the convenience factor of well-designed computer-based learning by saying that any well-designed computer-based learning whether by a networked based or delivered via the Internet is more convenient than traditional instructor-led format. Hall (1997) incorporated both Zahm (2000) and Karon (2000) definitions by underlining computer-based learning as an all-encompassing term used to describe any computer-delivered learning including CD-ROM and World Wide Web. Hall further explained that some people use the term CBT to refer only to old-time, text-only training. Like CBT, online training was classified as an all encompassing term that refers to all training done with a computer over a network, including an organizations intranet, the organizations local area network, and the internet (Gotschall, 2000). Gotschall (2000) states that online learning is also known as net-based learning. Urdan & Weggen (2000), related that online learning constitutes just one part of e-learning and describes learning via internet, intranet and extranet. Urdan & Weggen (2000) added that levels of sophistication of online learning vary. It can extend from a basic

online learning program that includes text and graphics of the course, exercises, testing, and record keeping, such as test scores and bookmarks to a sophisticated online learning program. This sophistication would include animations, simulations, audio and video sequences peer and expert discussion groups, online mentoring, links to materials on a intranet or the web, and communications with corporate education records. Schreiber & Berge (1998) agreed with Gotschall (2000) and purported that online learning is any technology-based learning, that is, information currently available for direct access. Hall (2000) contends that e-learning takes the form of complete courses with access to content for “just-in-time” learning, access. Learning is and will continue to be a lifelong process, that could be accessed anywhere at anytime to meet a specific need or want. Hall added that more links to real-time data and research would become readily available. Given the progression of the definitions, then, web-based training, online learning, e-learning, distributed learning, internet-based learning and net-based learning all speak of each other (Hall & Snider, 2000; Urdan & Weggen, 2000). Similar to e-learning and its related terms is technology-based learning (Urdan & Weggen 2000). Urdan & Weggen shared that e-learning covers a wide set of applications and processes,

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A Brief History of eLearning

including computer-based learning, web-based learning, virtual classrooms, and digital collaborations. For the purpose of their report, they further customized their definition to the delivery of content via all electronic media, including the Internet, intranets, extranets, satellite broadcast, audio/video tape, interactive TV, and CD-ROMra. They warned, however, that e-learning is defined more narrowly than distance learning, which would include text-based learning and courses conducted via written correspondence. Like Hall & Snider (2000), Urdan & Weggen (2000) have set apart distance learning and e-learning in their glossaries, making, however, e-learning inclusive and synonymous to all computer-related applications, tools and processes that have been strategically aligned to value-added learning and teaching processes. Interestingly, Urdan & Weggen (2000) saw e-learning as a subset of distance learning, online learning a subset of e-learning and computer-based learning as a subset of online learning. Further, another rationale for the choice of e-learning is that “just-in-time” learning is a major advantage of e-learning but not of distance learning. Distance learning purports planned courses, or planned experiences, e-learning does not only value planned learning, however, it also recognizes the value of the unplanned and the self directedness of the learner to maximize incidental learning to improve performance (Wentling, Waight, Gallagher, Fleur, Wang & Kanfer, 2000). In the higher education, business, and training sectors e-learning relates particularly to Internetbased flexible delivery of content and programs that focus on sustaining particular communities of practice. e-learning in business and training can be characterized as being driven by notions of improved productivity and cost reduction, especially in an increasingly globalize business environment, with a focus on content delivery and online course management. However for the contexts of this paper, we will focus on elearning in the higher education sector. These

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sectors initially employed the limited learning models extant at the time, but have since moved to incorporate a diverse range of learning models and foci (Nicholson, 2004). Campbell (2004, p1) argues that: Broadly, in industry settings, e-learning reflects an emphasis on informal and non-formal, just-in-time learning where the emphasis is on collaborative productivity. Whilst, in higher education settings, best practice online learning emphasizes the development of metacognitive skills, where the emphasis is on reflective and collaborative learning. (Campbell, 2004, p1) In the context of the wider education community, the use of the term e-learning has historically had wider connotations that embrace a diverse range of practices, technologies, and theoretical positions. It is not only focused on online contexts, and includes the full range of computer-based learning platforms and delivery methods, genres, formats and media such as multimedia, educational programming, simulations, games and the use of new media on fixed and mobile platforms across all discipline areas. Further, e-learning is often characterized by active learning student centered pedagogical techniques (McDougall & Betts, 1997). The growth of E-learning in business and higher education, and its marketing as a “killerapp” (Friedman, 1999), has led to concerns about the influence of quality assurance driven models on the structure and quality of these programs (King, 2002; McGorry, 2003). Related concerns about its ability to deliver meaningful pedagogically structured learning experiences or to have a clearly identifiable learning paradigm have also been raised (Gillham, 2002; Stone Wiske, Sick, & Wirsig, 2001; Suthers, Hundhausen Girardeau., 2003). Recently, driven by such concerns, its focus has expanded to accommodate the incorporation of learner engagement and social-learning models (Mortera-Gutiérrez, 2006; Schroeder & Span-

A Brief History of eLearning

nagel, 2006). Since its inception, technological advances in computers and networks facilitated advances in e-learning as educators seized on new features in an attempt to adapt them to their needs, to accommodate new educational theories, or looked for the promise of enhanced functionality. Since its inception, e-learning has assimilated a diverse range of pedagogical practices, however the defining aspect of e-learning—the trend towards collaborative online learning environments—is not only a result of the increasing adoption of constructivist paradigms, but is also a consequence of the affordances of ubiquitous global networks that have facilitated the realization of individualized learning and interpersonal interactivity on a large scale, perhaps far exceeding the expectations of Suppes (1964; 1966; 1986) and Bitzer (1962) in its scale and scope. The contemporary claims for E-learning being ‘new or different’ arise in the different and independent development of the application of computers to educational needs in the business and education sectors, as well as from the ‘lost history’ of educational computing. It is clear that the early pioneers, confined by the dominant paradigms and technologies of their time, were striving to move beyond their contemporary practices to better engage learners and to enhance teaching and learning: at the inception of the field, PLATO contained features that pre-empted, and now characterize, cutting-edge third generation E-learning systems. It is accepted that according to Wentling, Waight, Gallagher, Fleur, Wang & Kanfer (2000), e-learning can be seen as the acquisition and use of knowledge distributed and facilitated primarily by electronic means. This form of learning currently depends on a variety of mean such as networks, computers, a variety of channels (e.g., wireless, satellite), and technologies (e.g., cellular phones, PDA’s) as they are developed and adopted. Further, e-learning can take the form of courses as well as modules and smaller learning objects that may

incorporate synchronous or asynchronous access that can be distributed geographically with varied limits of time.

Future dIrectIon And concLusIon E-learning offers a worldwide forum in which to teach courses. One can assume, for example, that each student at any time has an excellent encyclopedia at his or her disposal. Course material can be dynamically updated and linked across several related sources. Course text, examples and exercises can be interactive in the sense of immediately illustrating equations with graphs, changing parameters and seeing the results, linking to other web-sites according to the interests of the student. E-learning is free from limitations of space and time, while reaching adult learners in a global context. In addition, the e-learning offers students a wealth of information and opportunities for social networking that was never possible from the traditional classical setting. The possibility of linking to information worldwide in a multitude of formats creates a remarkably rich medium for learning. E-learning is not merely an electronic duplicate of the original course material. It represents a new type of educational materials which takes full advantage of the emerging Web and multimedia technologies in order to achieve an effective yet enjoyable learning process (Michael & Tait, 2002). Thus, complex concepts are introduced in innovative ways – ways that involve the adult learner and integrate them into the learning process. Full linking to vast resources available worldwide, introduces new levels of value to online courses in distance education. A e-learning is envisioned as a dynamically-evolving resource that will prove beneficial to both the adult learner and non tradition students and instructors alike. In light of its historical development, it is evident that the design of e-learning is a multifaceted process that resembles movie making in

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A Brief History of eLearning

cinema productions. Thus, e-learning is developed through the efforts of a team of professionals with a complementary range of skills, as opposed to classical course design, which is typically developed by faculty alone. Designer and instructors alike will have to take head to principles in design, usability, interaction, etc in order to make online distance learning courses the top quality product for the next generation. The richness of modern Web and multimedia technologies allow for unlimited creativity when it comes to electronic courseware development. Such richness offers educators new opportunities to develop very interesting course material while it also poses a substantial challenge in that it requires faculty to rethink their own course offerings in the light of the new technologies. In order to best serve the adult learner population instructional designers, instructors, and course administration will have to take an active look at effective course design and communication strategies within online and web based courses. It is not enough for university, colleges, and other educational institutions to just give financial resources, hardware and software, but should fundamentally equip instructor to effectively teach, engage, extend, and enhance the adult learner’s learning experience, while in an online course offered via a distance. The future entails faculty training and development in designing effective and efficient online courses for the adult learning population. This trend can be seen at many major research institutions that offer online courses and e-learning training courses specifically for the adult learner. By equipping the instructor to effectively design e-learning courses in terms of online course interaction with both students and with the online content and materials, visual aesthetic in design and web architecture, convenience and open access to materials, positive and useful user feedback, communication, and usability of both the course content materials and course website, students will develop a consensus toward a positive view on the instructional quality of the online course. 6

It is important to understand that in order to foster an environment conducive to effective learning in the online atmosphere, we must pay close attention to the historical developments of e-learning. For such developments, the future seems very bright and encouraging. There is a great of discussion on the effective and systematic design of instruction, effective design of visual aesthetics, design of communication structure, and the available of open access to course content and materials in online courses, specifically for adult learners. This theme will be repeated as other aspects of e-learning come under scrutiny. We know enough at this point to optimize quality in design and delivery, however as history has shown us, e-learning has become a genre difficult to define and measure; that is why the more we discuss the topic of e-learning, the more strategies, processes, and procedures will be developed to effectively engage adult learner.

reFerences Bitzer, D. L., Lichtenberger, W., & Braunfeld, P. G. (1962). PLATO II: A multiple-student, computer controlled, automatic teaching device. In J. E. Coulson (Ed.), Programmed learning and computer-based instruction (pp. 205-216). New York: John Wiley. Campbell, L. (2004). What does the “e” stand for? (Report). Melbourne, Australia: Department of Science and Mathematics Education, the University of Melbourne. Charp, S. (1997). Some reflections. (the 30-year history of computers in education). [Technological Horizons in Education]. T.H.E. Journal, 24(1), 8–11. Fiedman, T. L. (1999, November 17). Next, It’s E-ducation. New York Times, p. 25 (Section A).

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Fletcher, J. D., & Rockway, M. R. (1986). Computer-based training in the military. In J. A. Ellis (Ed.), Military contributions to instructional technology (pp. 177-222). New York: Praeger.

McGorry, S. Y. (2003). Measuring quality in online programs. The Internet and Higher Education, 6(2), 159–177. doi:10.1016/S10967516(03)00022-8

Gillham, D. (2002). Web resource appraisal process (WRAP): A framework to establish critically appraised nursing knowledge--an active web based learning exercise. Nurse Education in Practice, 2(4), 257. doi:10.1016/S1471-5953(02)00053-7

Michael, M. M., & Tait, A. (2002). Open and distance learning: Trends, policies, and strategy Consideration. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

Gotschall, M. (2000). E-learning strategies for executive education and corporate training. Fortune, 141(10), S5, S59. Hall, B. (1997). Web-based training cookbook. New York: Wiley. Hall, B. (2000). How to embark on your e-learning adventure: Making sense of the environment. Elearning, 1 (2). Hall, B. (2000). New study seeks to benchmark enterprises with world-class e-learning in place. E-learning, 1(1), 18–29. Hall, B., & Snider, A. (2000) Glossary: The hottest buzz words in the industry.In D. A., & Berge, Z. L. (Eds.) E- Schreiber. Herrington, J., Reeves, T., & Oliver, R. (2005). Online learning as information delivery: Digital myopia. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 16(4), 353–367. Karon, R. L. (2000). Bankers go online: Illinois banking company learns benefits of e-training. E-learning, 1(1), 38–40. King, K. P. (2002). Identifying success in online teacher education and professional development. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(3), 231. doi:10.1016/S1096-7516(02)00104-5 McDougall, A., & Betts, J. (1997). Learning with the media of their time: a snapshot of infrastructure, policy and practice in a technology immersion school. Melbourne, Australia: Computing in Education Group of Victoria.

Molnar, A. (1997). Computers in education: a brief history. [Technological Horizons in Education]. T.H.E. Journal, 24(11), 63–69. Mortera-Gutiérrez, F. (2006). Faculty best practices using blended learning in e-learning and face-to-face instruction. International Journal on E-Learning, 5(3), 313–337. Nicholson, P. S., & McDougall, A. (2005). eLearning: 40 years of evolution? In IFIP (Ed.), The eighth IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education [ISI 1571-5736]. Stellenbosch, South Africa: IFIP. Pilla, B. S., Nakayama, M. K., & Nicholson, P. (2006). Characterizing e-learning practices. In Proceedings of WCC2002, Santiago, Chile, July 2006. New York: Springer. Schroeder, U., & Spannagel, C. (2006). Supporting the active learning process. International Journal on E-Learning, 5(2), 245–264. Stone-Wiske, M., Sick, M., & Wirsig, S. (2001). New technologies to support teaching for understanding. International Journal of Educational Research, 35(5), 483. doi:10.1016/S08830355(02)00005-8 Sun Tzu. (410 BC). The Art of War. Suppes, P. (1964). Modern learning theory and the elementary-school curriculum. American Educational Research Journal, 1, 79–93. Suppes, P. (1966). The uses of computers in education. Scientific American, 215, 206–220.

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A Brief History of eLearning

Suppes, P. (1986). Computers and education in the 21st century. In W. Neilson & C. Gaffield (Eds.), Universities in Crisis: A mediaeval institution in the twenty-first century (pp. 137-151). Toronto, Canada: The Institute for Research on Public Policy. Suthers, D. D., Hundhausen, C. D., & Girardeau, L. E. (2003). Comparing the roles of representations in face-to-face and online computer supported collaborative learning. Computers & Education, 41(4), 335. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2003.04.001 Thompson. (2005). History of eLearning. Retrieved on June 25, 2008 from http://www.knowledgenet.com/corporateinformation/ourhistory/ history.jsp Urdan, T. A., & Weggen, C. C. (2000). Corporate e-learning: Exploring a new frontier. San Francisco, CA: WR Hambrecht Co.

Uttal, W. R. (1962). On conversational interaction. In J. E. Coulson (Ed.), Programmed learning and computer-based instruction (pp. 171-190). New York: John Wiley. Wentling, T., Waight, C. L., Gallagher, J., Fleur, J., Wang, C., & Kanfer, A. (2000) E-Learning: A review of literature. Knowledge & Learning Systems Group, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Woolley, D. R. (1994). PLATO: The Emergence of Online Community. Retrieved June 25, 2008, from http://www.thinkofit.com/plato/dwplato.htm. Zahm, S. (2000). No question about it – e-learning is here to stay: A quick history of the e-learning evolution. E-learning, 1(1), 44–47.

This work was previously published in Online Education and Adult Learning: New Frontiers for Teaching Practices, edited by T. T. Kidd , pp. 46-53, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.2

Technological Trends in Adult Education: Past, Present and in the Future John K. Hope University of Auckland, New Zealand

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

The purpose of this article is to provide a critical review of the past two decades of technology use in adult education. The article begins with a brief summary of technological trends, such as the introduction of the Internet and the World Wide Web, that have influenced adult education over the past two decades. Political, economic, social, and pedagogical issues that have influenced the use of technology in adult education are also discussed and possible solutions to these issues are outlined. The article concludes with an attempt to extrapolate future technological trends that could influence the direction of adult education in the decade to come.

Knowles 1970s prediction that adult education would be delivered electronically in the 21st century has proved spectacularly accurate. Thirty years later potential adult learners have a bewildering plethora of electronic delivery options available at the touch of a keyboard. Almost all adult educators use distance technology in one form or another and most are either involved with electronic delivery systems, or are contemplating such. Yet traditional face-to-face delivery methods survive alongside the new technological innovations and are likely to continue in the foreseeable future. Just as the invention of the computer and, more latterly, the widespread availability of the

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Technological Trends in Adult Education

Internet, changed the face of the adult education at the end of the 20th century, recent dramatic changes in the political, social, educational and economic systems of the world could stimulate new trends in adult education that will once again change its visible face in directions that as yet, we know not. This article attempts to analyse the past and extrapolate technological trends that will help us plan for an exciting but, uncertain, future in adult education.

bAcKGround At the time of completing this article in early 2009, the last two decades encompassed the period from the late 1980s until the present. What significant technological developments influenced adult education during that that time? Use of new technology (reading glasses) in adult education is mentioned in one of the first recorded books devoted to adult education, that of Thomas Pole who wrote of his 1811 experiences teaching adults to read in England, “when their (adults) attention is gained and fixed, they soon learn: their age makes no great difference, if they are able, by the help of glasses, to see the letters” (Pole, 1968, p. 3). We now jump several generations of technological development in adult education, such as the postal system and ballpoint pen, to the 1980s when most readers of this book will have been involved with education in some form, as either student or teacher. It is likely that most adult educators would recall that use of educational technology in the form of a computer was minimal, being confined to a small group of “early adopters” (Jones, Kirkup, & Kirkwood, 1993) who had access to mainframe computers, or very early purchasers of desktop personal computers mainly used for word processing. In the late 1980s most adult education was hard copy print based (Bates, 1993). Some institutions were experimenting with live audio and video technology (Isenberg, 2007), television (Bates, 1993) and institutions such as Jutland

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Open University in Denmark investing hugely in teleconferencing (Jones et al., 1993), but these institutions were the exception rather than the rule (Moore, 1995). Over the last one hundred and seventy years since the recorded inception of adult education, technological innovation was generally limited to print innovations. In 1981 the IBM PC arrived (Olle, 2004), allowing the decentralisation of computer terminals linked to mainframe computers to stand-alone desktop devices. The widespread and extremely rapid of uptake of personal computers in the 1980s and 1990s (Kodama, 2008) was one of the most significant technological developments of that period. Most adult learners, being by definition more mature learners rather than younger computer whiz kids, were not the earliest adopters of the new computer technological aids but the convenience of simplified editing of written text on a personal computer, available in the home, led to rapid growth in computer use by both adult learners and their teachers. The enhanced convenience of a less significant but, still important technological leap, the invention and mass marketing of the laptop computer, was not lost on adult students either. First developed for the space shuttle programme in 1979 but not mass marketed until Compaq launched their laptop in 1988 and Apple launched the first Mac laptop in 1989 (Roseberry, n.d.), the laptop is today the computing tool of first choice for people on the move. By its portable nature, the laptop computer helped bring home, workplace and tertiary institution together rather than having students limited to using computer laboratories in tertiary institutions. Writing associated with an adult learning programme could continue regardless of location, a major incentive for busy adult learners to trying to pursue their education while working and running a family. Intensive expansion and innovation in adult education e-learning through the late 1980s and 1990s was the result of the PC and later laptop introduction, leading to a subtle but profound paradigm shift in not only the

Technological Trends in Adult Education

design and delivery of education, but also in the very nature of learning (Harasim, 2006). Electronic campuses, meaning electronically linked departments via ethernets within one physical institution, were in vogue in the late 1980s and 1990s (Gardner, 1989), but of more significance to this article was the launch of the first totally on-line adult education course in 1981, followed by the launch of the first large scale, on-line learning institution in 1989, the Open University in the United Kingdom (Harasim, 2006). As is often the case with very new technology, the first on-line courses were disasters. There were no pedagogical models to follow and the technical problems associated with using 48K Apple II computers linked to early, slow modems deterred all but the most enthusiastic (Feenberg, 1993). The most significant new technological development in adult education during the years of the review period must surely be the move from purely experimental use of the Internet up to the late 1980s to its public launch in 1989, use by learning organisations in the early 1990s (Leiner, Cerf, Clark, Kahn, Kleinrock, Lynch, et al., 2003) and its widespread adoption for educative purposes during the past decade. The electronic campus became the virtual campus; geographic proximity no longer limiting the linking of electronic devices. Physical distance barriers to adult education were instantly removed, equity of access to adult education enhanced and the widespread availability of the World Wide Web from its inception in 1990 (Berners-Lee & Mark, 1999) meant that the knowledge of the world became available to any who could purchase and connect to the technology. Such was the impact of this technological leap that use of information and communication technology (ICT) and the more contemporary term e-learning were seen by adult educators in many developed countries as the “technological fix” for adult education (Selwyn, Gorard, & Furlong, 2006). Explosive growth in the provision of distance education for adult learners (Johnson, 2003) was

a predictable outcome from the moment that widespread and cheap electronic communication via the Internet became available. Rather than having the immediate, geographical area as a catchment for recruitment of potential adult learners, or expensive and slow, paper-based mail-out recruitment to more distant areas, educational institutions could inexpensively advertise their programmes almost anywhere on the globe, and they did. The English Open University, one of the “early adopter” universities to offer distance education to adults grew from 70,000 paperbased distance students in the 1980s to more than 180,000 electronically linked students in 2008 (Open University, 2009). The percentage of U.S.based institutions using Internet-based learning technologies tripled between 1994–5 and 1997–8 (NCES, 2000) and other developed countries rapidly followed suit. Growth of electronic learning is such that in 2009 it would be difficult to find an educational institution in a developed country that did not include at least some Internet-based courses within its adult education offerings. The ultimate expression of the influence of the Internet and World Wide Web in 2009 can be seen by the growing list of virtual universities in first and, more recently, third world countries, many catering for adult students; all distinguishable in that they have no physical campus because all courses are offered on-line. Explosive growth does not occur without reason. Internet-based technological innovations have been widely adopted within adult education because ICT offers a number of potential advantages for adult educators. Frequently touted advantages include broadening the provision of adult education into new fields, extending participation to more marginalised learners and improving educational outcomes. But these potential benefits have been mitigated by wider issues. These issues will be the focus of the next section of this chapter.

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Technological Trends in Adult Education

technoLoGIcAL trends In the Future And theIr IMPLIcAtIons For AduLt educAtIon Any academic able to accurately predict technological trends in the future would be unlikely to waste their time writing book chapters, they would be far better employed investing their own money in lucrative technological innovations or, at the least, being first to implement the innovation within their own institution. Future prediction is known to be an inexact science, well demonstrated by the inaccuracy of some future predictions, particularly when new technological inventions are the subject. One example of many that are available from the public school system will suffice. Between 1950 and 1959, television ownership in the United States soared from 10% to 90% (Putnam, 1995), leading to confident 1950s predictions that educational television would be the dominant form of technology used in education. With 50 million dollar backing from the Ford Foundation and Congress, a plane was commissioned to circle above the Midwest beaming educational television to six states. Finding that classroom uptake was only 2– 4%, the plane was grounded (Tyack & Cuban, 1995). There was and, still is, some use of educational television, but the domination of educational television that was so confidently predicted and expensively funded, did not happen. The same can be said for use of radio, film and video in education, limited uptake and no golden bullet solution to educational problems. Unlike its predecessors, the personal computer, and particularly the almost universal availability of the Internet, has fulfilled the touted potential of changing the face of adult education, but their implementation has introduced other problems. Widespread implementation of the Internet has introduced issues such as hacking that were unheard of when earlier educational technology was in use. Examination of the technologically based issues confronting adult educators today may offer

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glimpses of potential solutions for the future. A selection of political, economic, social and pedagogical issues that some see as having an influence on adult education will be presented in the next section, followed by an attempt to confront the inexact science of predicting the near future, that of the next decade. Issues, controversies, Problems It is said that optimists see opportunities where pessimists see problems. The next section discusses technologically based issues for adult education but in so doing, also notes the opportunities that may accompany the issue. Political Issues Internal, regional and international political issues all have potential to impact on the technological provision of adult education. Western democracies traditionally lurch between left and right over time, often with consequent change to funding and direction for adult education. Examples include national provision of new technology such as high end broadband capability to educational institutions, and policy directives regarding use technology to address the digital divide (enhancing technology-based access to adult education for disadvantaged groups). International examples of governmental policy shifts for adult education oriented technological progress include tax incentives for ICT purchases in Hungary, government funding for the provision of ICT based adult education to targeted groups in Italy, provision of virtual schools in Finland (Pont & Sweet, 2006) and installation of broadband capability for educational institutions in New Zealand. Evidence of the internationalisation of education can be seen in countries such as China, India and Malaysia that were previously exporters of adult students now becoming or, about to become, net importers of international students. New political forces have emerged, such as the BRIC axis (Brazil, Russia, India, China), where major

Technological Trends in Adult Education

investment in technological development, often supported by adult education programmes, has generated a new force in world politics. Politically motivated international and domestic terrorism by individuals and groups in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States has resulted in reluctance by some to gather in public educational institutions or to travel to providers of adult education in countries deemed unsafe. Politically inspired visa restrictions have also begun to limit physical movement between some countries. The recent emergence of politically inspired censorship of access to the Internet has limited access for some adult students to Web sites deemed a threat to moral standards or the ruling authority and, in turn, has become a threat to wider uptake of electronically mediated adult education. Economic issues will be discussed in the next section, but protectionism and ultra-nationalism are political issues often arising from economic downturns, as may occur when the global economy confronts a major economic downturn in 2009. Some international markets for adult education by distance may be closed to external providers in such circumstances, but that correspondingly provides an opportunity for domestic providers of adult education to pick up where international providers have been excluded. economic Issues Economic issues have had a major impact on adult education in the past ten years and are likely to have even greater impact in the future. Widespread utilisation of ICT’s has increased the rate of globalisation with consequent economic impact, both positive and negative, on many domestic economies. Competition from other countries drives the need for better skilled workers who can compete on a global scale, in turn creating a need for more commercially and internationally oriented adult education programmes. This trend is seen as a potential narrowing of adult education

(Selwyn et al., 2006) to vocationally oriented skill training with a consequent reduction in broader adult education provision. Rapid escalation in oil-based fuel costs has resulted in sky rocketing international fuel surcharges being imposed that can limit the ability of adult international students to travel to other countries to further their education, but also provides a consequent rise in demand for electronic delivery of coursework. Adult educators are not spared either, rising fuel costs encouraging more use of electronic communication for conferences and meetings, in place of face to face gatherings. Of greater concern for adult education is the so-called credit crunch that at the time of this writing, has the potential to have a greater economic impact than any other issue in the era being addressed in this chapter. Serious budget deficits stop growth, reduce spending, increase unemployment and have the potential to increase protectionism and sharing of economically sensitive information. Adult education, being traditionally seen by some as of lower priority than compulsory schooling, can suffer massive budget cuts or be directed toward outcomes that have immediate commercial application rather than wider educational merit. An alternative view of the outcome of the global “credit crunch” is that it provides an added incentive for the provision of electronically mediated adult education, a view addressed in a later section of this chapter. social Issues Economic issues often create social issues that, in turn, impact on adult education. Social issues that have emerged in the last ten years include increasing limitations on the time available for adult education students to address their continuing education needs. Longer working hours, working spouses and partners, and an increasing emphasis on leisure are social changes that have the potential to limit participation in adult education, but also create an opportunity for electronic delivery

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Technological Trends in Adult Education

methodology to supplant face to face delivery that involves time consuming travel. Those who live within large cities increasingly experience traffic deadlock that can limit the ability to travel relatively short distances to an educational institution in a timely manner. In contrast, longer life spans in many countries create a larger pool of retired workers who have free time and want to continue learning for health, leisure, or social reasons, but also to fulfil life dreams of an education that was thwarted in earlier years for cultural, economic or family reasons. Growth in electronic communication forums dedicated to those more senior in years, such as SeniorNet, have introduced a new generation of learners to electronic communication and, in turn, generated opportunities for Internet-based adult education provision to a group not previously targetted (O’Day, Ito, Adler, Linde, & Mynatt, 2006). Unemployment can limit the financial capacity of those so affected to enrol in adult education but unemployment, or employment insecurity, can also generate the motivation to obtain better education qualifications that may improve the chance of further employment. Future unemployed workers may look to electronic delivery of courses as a more cost-efficient alternative delivery method and governments may look toward funding targeted adult education programmes to provide a form of work for the unemployed by enhancing workplace skills. Other rapidly emerging technological trends within adult education include issues related to the conservation movement, sometimes termed “the greening of the adult education academy” (Taylor, 2006). Eco-sensitive adults are more aware of their carbon footprints and may be less inclined to travel overseas to further education, or may want to limit use of paper-based print technologies to save forests, so they turn to electronic delivery mechanisms that are seen as more eco-friendly. In countries emerging from the third world, a new wave of upwardly mobile adults who are ICT literate and have been denied chosen educational

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opportunities earlier in their lives may also turn to electronic adult education to meet their adult learning needs. Pedagogical Issues Pedagogical issues that have, or are likely to impact on adult education in the near future include the emergence of Mandarin to challenge the domination of English as the chosen Internet language of choice in the world. Internet traffic in Mandarin is likely to surpass Internet traffic in English in the near future (Riley, 2008) yet almost all of the adult education research literature is written in English. Electronic translation methodologies offer adult educators possible solutions to this issue, and to the likely emergence of other languages becoming better represented in net traffic, but the translation technology is still in its infancy and is often subject to questionable accuracy of interpretation (Hung, Chen, & Wong, 2006). In addition to languages other than English having a greater presence in electronic communication, the era under discussion has seen greater awareness of Islamic educational methodologies. On-line adult education is tightly regulated but does exist in Islamic countries, particularly in the moderate Islamic countries such as Malaysia (McCarty, Ibrahim, Sedunov, & Sharma, 2006). Immigration, refugee flows and economic drivers of international mobility have created new pools of potential Islamic adult learners in non-Islamic countries and, in doing so, raised awareness in destination countries of religiously sourced pedagogies different from indigenous pedagogies. Similarly, greater movement of people from countries with varying Asian pedagogies has created more awareness in destination countries of differing perceptions of appropriate learning styles. Adult students who have received their childhood education using transmitive pedagogies focussed more on direct instruction, and whose only experience of assessment has been examinations with a focus on memorisation and

Technological Trends in Adult Education

recall, may struggle to adapt to contemporary Western pedagogies often more focussed on critique, synthesis, and formative assessment. A student raised in some Eastern countries may be taught never to challenge their teacher as this would be a mark of disrespect. The same student in a Western educational environment will have difficulty when asked to critique a work by an academic “superior” because it would be a mark of disrespect to criticise. The challenge for adult educators is to bridge this pedagogical gap, with ICT having an important role in providing personal tutorial support to bridge pedagogical differences. Computer skills are now a critical necessity for students pursuing adult education programmes in most countries, particularly where net-based distance methodologies are utilised. Adult students were most likely to have had some experience with computers if they attended compulsory education in childhood within the last thirty years, so the generations of adult learners who lack computer skills because they engaged in their compulsory education in pre-computer years are becoming smaller every year. Many of those that did not obtain computer skills during their compulsory schooling have gained computer skills through their employment, or from pursuing recreational and personal interests, so the number of adult students who need basic computer skills is reducing every year. Of more pertinence to this discussion is the nature and quality of their computer skills. Many adult students have missing skill sets, searching academic databases being one and learning to discriminate between the qualities of different sources of data being another. technical Issues All users of modern technology know that technical issues can be a problem, often unexpectedly. An example of serendipitous technical issues was found when a New Zealand university set up a distance education adult learning programme

in remote farming areas of New Zealand. Adult students studying in their homes in one area were experiencing unexplained, random network crashes that the technical support staff could not solve. The solution was found to be voltage drops caused by sheep farmers turning on electric fences in a remote area where mains power supply was tenuous at best. Technical problems such as these are accentuated in less developed countries with non-existent or uncertain electricity supplies, where technical support is often unavailable and the technology in use is of earlier vintage. A technical issue that annoys most adult learners is unsolicited electronic spam, but that can usually be controlled by anti-spam programmes. The spam that gets through is a minor irritant only requiring use of the delete button, but the more insidious unsolicited and unwanted arrival is the electronic virus. Discontented student hackers can sometimes infiltrate adult learning programme computer servers with the consequence that adult learners wherever in the world becoming infected too. An adult learner who is completing their studies part-time while maintaining a busy lifestyle, but is not a confident user of ICT and is removed from immediate technical expertise support, may lack the technical knowledge to protect their computer system so can lose data and, at the least, lose their motivation to continue when these technical issues strike. Electronic plagiarism is a recent and unwelcome visitor to adult education programmes. When adult education was paper-based, copying of unacknowledged material was laborious, relatively simple to detect and consequently infrequent. The availability of the world’s netsourced literature in the home at the touch of a keystroke increases the temptation to plagiarise. The convenience of technology assisted searching followed by “copy and paste” also simplifies the process. Some adult learners remain unaware of the importance of acknowledging sources and will plagiarise innocently, others come from an education background where plagiarism is not

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Technological Trends in Adult Education

considered as much of an issue as in most developed countries. In pre-computer years, cheating was limited to unlawful strategies such as paying someone to write essays or copying essays from students studying in previous years, all dangerous and difficult to attempt. The net-based adult learner of today will receive unsolicited e-mail offering to provide bogus degrees, ready written essays for popular courses, and offers to provide custom-written assignments for a fee. Cheating has become easier and the pressure to acquire qualifications in contemporary society provides the motivation for some to cheat. solutions and recommendation Issues are relatively simple to list, solutions and recommendations less so. One article is insufficient to address complex solutions to the host of adult education issues, controversies and problems that have occurred in the last two decades. Some issues as yet have no solutions, others have partial solutions; some have potential solutions that have yet to be tested, others have been solved. This section will address a selection of the issues raised in the previous section and introduce some newer forms of technology that are beginning to be used, or have potential for future use, in adult education. Political solutions Political issues cannot usually be solved by adult educators. War, terrorism, protectionism and ultra-nationalism all pose threats to adult education, but also provide opportunities for more electronic delivery to those most affected by these issues. Potential students in countries vulnerable to such problems are not usually able to travel to other countries for their education so will seek options at home. International concerns are such that the United Nations General Assembly is

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holding a special session in 2009 to debate the crucial role of education in national emergencies and post-crisis situations. Home based education, whether for security, or nationalistic reasons, is an opportunity for domestic distance providers, or, where approved, international distance education providers, to establish programmes within the political environment of countries in crisis. Web censorship is a threat more difficult to counter but it is the much maligned hackers who sometimes find unofficial electronic fixes for state censorship of the Web, that ultimately lead to easing of difficult to police Web restrictions. In the longer term, hunger for knowledge is a powerful motivator such that popular opinion can influence unpopular political policy. Adult educators would be advised to constantly look to take advantage of government policy shifts in broader technical areas that could have application in their own industry. Examples of policy shifts likely to increasingly occur in the future are technical measures to address digital divides of various kinds such as poverty, gender discrimination and unemployment. Adult education workforce skill upgrade opportunities are likely outcomes from the global economic difficulties of 2009, either to keep those unemployed in constructive activity, or to develop new skills more appropriate to the more competitive business environment generated by the economic downturn. The good news for adult educators working internationally when the global economy recovery begins is that the internationalisation of education, technology and trade is an economically generated political force likely to continue in the longer term, and this political force should be seen as an opportunity by all providers of adult education. An example of this trend in the midst of the economic downturn is a major move by UNESCO, initiated by China, to promote multilinguism by developing an international cyber network for learning languages (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009).

Technological Trends in Adult Education

economic solutions Transnational education is rapidly growing where economic drivers are encouraging technologically advanced countries such as Denmark to request tertiary students to include an international component within their tertiary education. Tertiary enrolments of students from less developed countries seeking education in middle income countries have increased by 77% in the past decade (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2005), many of those enrolling being adult learners. Globalisation will require more workers to have international experience, forcing adult learners to go off-shore using electronic technology to meet the employment requirements of the global order. Adult learners paying for their education themselves will be increasingly likely to Google the world in their efforts to source the cheapest and highest quality provider of distance education to meet their learning requirements. Boom and bust economies can have a marked influence on adult education take up. While this article was being written, the credit crunch knocked trillions of dollars off the stock exchange and left old age pensioners bereft of their life savings. Dire predictions of declining numbers of tertiary students, particularly international students, were frequently heard in the latter part of 2008. From where I write in the southern hemisphere, we have begun semester one 2009 to find that both international and domestic student enrolments have increased. Shortage of money has deterred some but they have been replaced by greater numbers of students enrolling in tertiary programmes to improve their employability after leaving school, or to upgrade their qualifications in new areas if they have been made redundant. The dotcom crash of the year 2000 and the more recent credit crunch have eroded public confidence in business. Some confidence has been lost by revelations of illegal activity by

greedy entrepreneurs, and other by distrust of the “smoke and mirrors” technology systems that can mask signs of economic woe from the sight of investors. Many people have become suspicious of Web site promotional material, such as bogus qualifications, due to bitter experience, lack of user friendliness and lack of transparency. This applies as much to adult education as to business. Urban (2008) sees Web 2.0 technologies helping to improve consumer trust by facilitating user control and ownership of data. Adult educators can provide a friendly Web presence and authentication of their material via provision of transparent and authentic information sharing, thereby developing a trusting relationship that will endure over time (Dennis & Wisely, 2008). Fisher and McKee (2008), commenting on reports indicating that since 1995, 25% of United States economic growth is the result of electronic network and information technologies at a cost of only 3% of GDP, suggest that cost benefits such as these are likely to continue in the future. When tertiary budgets are squeezed, cost effectiveness drives change. Despite the social and pedagogical advantages of electronic delivery of adult education that are evident to many academics, the economics of delivering more education to more students at what is perceived to be less cost is attractive to those in politics. Electronic delivery may also be perceived as good preparation for the ‘real’ world of work and hence become a desirable economic goal. OECD surveys have established the importance of adult education for improved living standards and productivity. A 2005 report found that an equitable distribution of skills across the workforce had such a strong, positive impact on economic performance that it justified policies to address educational disadvantage for disadvantaged groups such as older adult learners. The pedagogical section below will address these solutions further.

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Technological Trends in Adult Education

Pedagogical solutions The UNESCO statistical report noted above states that much of the improvement in education participation across the globe can be attributed to increased participation in adult education. For example, in the countries surveyed, the proportion of 35–44 year olds with less than primary education has decreased from three quarters to half in eight years (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2005). Adult education via situated e-learning in the workplace is driven by economic factors but provides opportunities for adult educators to develop on-line pedagogies tailored to workplace needs and delivered in a manner sensitive to time and location constraints. Examples include greater use of formative assessment to increase feedback to learners struggling with new concepts and pedagogies or lacking in confidence. Continuous on-line assessment utilising electronic portfolios provides flexibility for students, limits the constraints of assessment fixed in time and place and assuages known issues for more mature learners such as exam anxiety. Generation X and Y adult learners can be encouraged into adult education by utilising their social networking skills and dispositions honed on Facebook, Twitter and the like. The developing cyberpedagogy or cybergogy will be based around collaborative learning models where learners construct their own learning in collaboration with other learners via various discussions, role playing and problem solving strategies (Luke, 2006) delivered on new and more creative software platforms such as Moodle. Most adult learners who have access to the Internet are unlikely to use it purely for educative purposes. The Internet has become the entertainment forum for many. Witness the phenomenal growth of the social interaction sites already described, such as Facebook and Twitter. Futurists see the distinction between education and entertainment become increasingly difficult to define (Pauling, 2006), as in the virtual reality developments discussed later in this chapter.

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Facial recognition technological developments (Mitchener, 2008) are likely to make on-line communication more personal and allow, for better or for worse, interpretation of emotions during discussions. More importantly, facial recognition would help solve cheating problem that blight many on-line programmes by answering the question: who is it that is responding to these questions? One concern the has already surfaced is that facial recognition has the potential to be misused by cyber stalkers looking for attractive targets in chat groups but, equally, facial recognition has the potential to make it more difficult for cyber stalkers to make out they are someone other than in real life. Face to face synchronous communication, such as freely downloadable with Skype, offers cheap communication for those with a computer and screen mounted camera. Little used by adult educators, technologies such as Skype improve interactivity, student confidence and help educators tailor the content they are delivering to the needs of their students. Recent moves away from the hypertext language HTML that was used to develop the Web hold promise for adult educators. The semantic Web may not be fully developed until the end of the next decade (Warren, Davies, & Brown, 2008) but is a potential solution to some problems that adult educators experience, particularly when working across different cultures, languages and pedagogies. Differing interpretations of words and concepts can lead to misunderstandings that discriminate against learners working across cultures and languages. The previously quoted United Nations cyber linguistic initiative is one strategy that may assist in alleviating this problem. It took 75 years for fixed line phones to reach 50% of consumers but only twenty years for most people in western countries to own a cellular phone. Internet uptake in the United Kingdom soared from 14% to 61% between 1999 and 2005 (Warren et al., 2008). New technologies, such as intuitive and collaborative Web 2.0 knowledge articulation processes, are showing even faster

Technological Trends in Adult Education

uptakes, at a pace never seen before (Warren et al., 2008). One particularly significant trend that can be expected to accelerate in the future is that of Web users increasingly designing their own content (Anderson & Stoneman, 2008), obvious examples being content sharing via blogs, shared knowledge creation on wikis or Wikipedia and the burgeoning plethora of social communication Web sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, BeBo, Flickr, YouTube and the like. Asynchronous electronic social communication networks have great potential for use in adult education. In a personal communication a colleague at another university explained that she had set up an alternative Web presence on Facebook and now gets more hits on Facebook than on the official university Web site. An adult learner in an ICT foundation class (preparation programme for entry to university for adults who did not attain university entrance qualifications while in compulsory schooling) that I was teaching responded to my suggestion that she e-mail to herself some work she had written in my class. Her response was: it is much easier to copy and paste to my BeBo page. For many adult learners, Web-based social networks have become the repository for their tacit knowledge, personal knowledge they are willing to share (Marwick, 2001). When such knowledge becomes explicit via the Web site, it can be a rich, but as yet often little exploited, data source for learning communities within adult education programmes. Wikis, blogs and the like can exploit for educational purposes the Web networking and knowledge sharing characteristics of many of today’s adult learners. Kings, Davies, Verril, Aral, Bryniolfsson, and Alstyne (2008) suggests that future knowledge management systems will build on Web 2.0 type knowledge articulation processes such as those mentioned above because they create a link between Web-based social recreational activity and shared learning. Wikis became available on the Internet in 1994 but widespread uptake only began in the

new millennium. The best known wiki is Wikipedia, now one of the most often quoted sources of information by students. Wikipedia’s success comes from its open and interactive environment; anyone who has access to a Web browser can read it and add to it. The great attraction of wikis for adult educators is their use in collaborative learning models. Just as collaborative writing has made Wikipedia arguably the most used encyclopaedia of knowledge in the world, adult educators can create student groups where subtasks are delegated and the resultant work assembled electronically on the wiki. The resultant collaborative information resource is private to those who have access to the wiki allowing all those who take part to benefit from the collective research and expertise of the group. Blogs differ from wikis as the information contained therein is available to any who can access the appropriate Web site. Blog authors document in reverse chronological order their musings in an informal manner and the blog so created, being public, can encourage input from others. Adult educators have been slow to grasp the potential of blogs because blogs have tended to be the domain of the young, particularly those in secondary schools. More recently, blogging has also becoming the domain of the not so young and this trend can be expected to continue as the younger generations enter adult education. The potential of the personal narrative contained in many blogs is an opportunity deserving of more attention in adult education. Adult educator hesitancy in using blogs relates to their open nature, others can input and move the blog away from the educational objective, or it can degenerate when interpersonal issues are introduced. Despite these disadvantages, blogs are very popular with many students and can provide rich chronological data in much the way that diaries once did, so should be considered by adult educators as another technological tool to improve learning. Portfolios of student work are now popular at tertiary level and the e-portfolio has particular

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Technological Trends in Adult Education

relevance for adult education. E-portfolios are compilations of student work assembled electronically, so they can include videos, graphic work and creative art genre as well as traditional text information. An e-portfolio is usually private to the student and their tutor, but could include blogs as a valid information source contributing to the e-portfolio. technological solutions Most of us eventually buy the latest technological device. Are there any adult educators who do not have a cellular phone, use a computer or access the Web? Only the computer existed two decades ago and for many of us, a PC was still too expensive and a laptop a dream. What is in store for us during the next decade? Mitchener (2008) sees more seamless, automatic, synchronous and numerous network connections, developments we would all applaud. Specific technological developments likely to occur include improved voice recognition as is now available in exotic cars, wider use of improved touch screens as on the Apple iPhone and even technology that could include physical movement as a learning tool. Physical movement capable software is already available in interactive gaming systems such as the physical swings of golf clubs or baseball bats on the popular computer game Wii. Rapid increases in memory storage capacity utilising physically smaller componentry, particularly through use of nanotechnology, is likely to increase the physical portability of technological devices and hence access for distance learners. Handheld mobile technology such as PDAs and mobile phones are increasingly merging into smartphones, always-connected Blackberrys and iPhones with their ready access to e-mail and Web on a handheld phone anywhere, anytime. Intelligent mobile devices allow lecturers and students to communicate asynchronously and cheaply by text or e-mail or synchronously by phone. Student to student and student to tutor text messaging (the

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correct term for text messaging is Short Messaging Service abbreviated on phones as SMS) to ask questions about coursework and share ideas, instant data recording while at work and recreation, capturing video clips for use in learning portfolios and using the in-built planner to keep track of assignment timelines are all examples of the technological applications currently in use by some adult educators (Dawson, 2007). 3G phones are common now, 4G phones with more seamless connectivity and roaming are most likely to be available within the next ten years (Dennis & Wisely, 2008). Improvements to batteries and greater use of intelligent alternative sources of electricity from sunlight, movement, sound and pressure changes are likely to create opportunities for adult education by improving access to information and communication in less developed countries and isolated areas. The frustration, shared by teaching staff members and students, arising from slow downloads is a major barrier to the uptake of distance education. More information sharing is required, more documents include graphic material and Web sites that increasingly incorporate video clips all slow downloads. The touted answer to this problem has been increased bandwidth. In many countries broadband has become the rule rather than the exception and in this case Asian countries are outstripping their Western counterparts (Payne, 2008). Increased bandwidth capacity is quickly soaked up driving demand for even more bandwidth that exceeds the capacity of copper wire technology to deliver. Fibre optic networks are now common on many campuses but any component of the network in use that is not an optical network will slow downloads. Similarly, information entering and leaving network nodes is slowed. New intelligent network technology that bypasses unnecessary nodes can also be expected to increase speed (Payne, 2008). Adult educators can expect to see more complete optical systems installed in the next ten years, including interconnectivity across regional and national boundaries

Technological Trends in Adult Education

(Wittgreffe, Dames, Clark, & McDonald, 2008) that will, in turn, increase capacity to deliver more graphics-based and video based adult education programmes to more students. Storage technology has increased incrementally in the last five years. Most of us now use a $10 memory stick that can store everything that we have written in our lifetime. Memory sticks may soon have wireless capacity to enable them to talk to each other, allowing transfer of information anywhere, anytime from a small object around the neck, on a key ring or in a pocket, without being plugged into a computer (Pearson, 2008). With time pressures and transport problems driving increasing situated e-learning in the workplace instead of going to dedicated learning institutions, memory sticks that could communicate with each other would allow information transfer to occur over lunch or while working, without the need for a larger computer or smartphone. Replacement of expensive, technically demanding, distance delivery software packages such as WebCT and Blackboard with cheap and easy to use technologies such as Moodle will further simplify and facilitate delivery of adult education. Many potential students avoid on-line courses because they consider themselves technologically illiterate or sign up with trepidation only when there is no other option available to them. Tertiary educators who teach their courses on-line have come to expect calls asking whether IT qualifications are required to join the course, or “I have not done this before” comments indicating lack of confidence. Easy to use software packages give new distance learners confidence, are less likely to crash at critical moments and are designed to increase student to student, teacher to student and student to teacher communication. They are also easier for adult educators to use for the first time. Obtaining approval to purchase a new paperbased journal has become problematic in the author’s university; new journals must be electronic journals. Variously described as E-libraries or

digital libraries, virtual libraries are reality, or a partial reality, in many universities now. They provide an electronic interface between repositories of knowledge and learners individual needs that is more than the traditional index cards or electronic catalogues. Their unique feature is their ability to be searched using increasingly complex and inductive search engines to suit a learner’s individual needs. In doing so they support the newer pedagogies where learners construct their own learning, the remaining limitations being the learner’s technological literacy and the sophistication of the library search access (Brophy, 2006). Initially adopted to save expensive space needed for paper-based technology, virtual libraries are a boon for busy adult learners as they can completely obviate the need to attend a library in person. Journal and database searching is simplified and available from any keyboard, anywhere, anytime. Although electronic books are still not in vogue with many in adult education because they find reading a book on a screen odious, the increasing availability of electronic books combined with declining paper availability and cheapness, will force adoption. New electronic readers are becoming available that come closer to replicating the paper book. They still do not duplicate the physical page turning of a book, but can be read in bed or on the bus and are a great deal easier to transport in quantity. Solutions to the cheating and plagiarism issues have centred around use of products such as Turnitin and MyDropBox, effectively large databases of written works that allow comparison of student text with that written previously. New pedagogical strategies such as portfolio assessment raise new issues for the detection of illegal activity that are beyond the scope of existing electronic detection methods. As always, a technological problem breeds a technological solution and new open architecture systems are being developed that can detect plagiarism in other media such as graphics and even the audio component of podcasts (Butakov & Scherbinin, 2009).

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Technological Trends in Adult Education

Cyberspace was a term coined by a science fiction author in 1984, but it soon become reality and was being discussed as a potential medium for adult education in the early 1990s (Boyd, 1993). Virtual games are now commonplace, but their use in adult education less so. Technology enabled virtual worlds formed by the merger of Google Earth and virtual reality programmes like Second Life offer the ability to inhabit a virtual world via avatars “that will be at best a virtual representation of planet earth and at worst, the frighteningly deep and dark spaces of collective human consciousness without the shackles of convention surrounding an evolved society!” (Dennis & Wisely, 2008, p. 139). Virtual reality provides unique opportunities for adult education based on personal choice and decision-making. Its potential advantages are that it happens in no fixed physical place and involves communities of learners interacting and collaborating to solve problems in ways not possible within the real world (Burbules, 2006). Boyd (1993) saw application of virtual reality in adult education such as “gateways to other organisations’ cyberspace worlds to provide observations of people at work, and apprenticeship-internship situations” (p. 245). Fifteen years on that prediction is already reality. One early example is use of virtual reality adapted to teach humanistic subjects such as history. Virtual Harlem is a collaborative learning environment where students can learn about the history of Harlem via virtual reality, giving the impression of being there (Sosnoski, Jones, Carter, McAllister, Moeller, & Mir, 2006). In 2009, virtual reality must still be regarded as experimental, expensive and of limited availability, so its current use in adult education is still limited. This article began with a look at the technological past in adult education and there was mention of technology such as educational television that did not ever become mainstream. In contrast, strewn throughout the sections above are many examples of extremely rapid uptake of newer

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technology such as the Internet and its slightly slower, but nevertheless pervasive adaption for use in adult education. What of the future? Will we all be working as avatars in virtual reality scenarios?

Future reseArch dIrectIons This essay has highlighted many examples of the ever increasing speed of technical change, change that generates the most persistent and pervasive technological issue within adult education. The world’s total knowledge doubles in ever shorter time frames and new products that have potential for application in adult education arrive regularly. How to keep up? Should we keep up? These questions beggar the real question, where is the research-based evidence in favour of improved pedagogy for each new technological tool? Technological change can happen much more quickly than the time required to develop a research base rigorous enough to analyse the applicability of new technologies for improved educational outcomes. Good research takes time and it often takes even longer to become available in published form. By the time research into the veracity of a new technology is readily available, there is a newer technology. This places the adult educator in a difficult position. Students are often early adopters of new technology so look for courses utilising the latest technology, while lecturers tend to favour more conservative approaches. The moral high ground for the educator is to focus research on the pedagogy involved by posing the question, will it improve learning? Until that question is answered by sound, evidence-based research the adult educator is at risk of promoting a 90 day wonder that will go the way of educational television. The role of the teacher is clearly changing in the increasingly cyber oriented world of adult education. Zao, Lei, and Conway (2006) see the traditional teachers’ role as that of gatekeeper to knowledge, but the e-learning teachers’ role as

Technological Trends in Adult Education

more akin to that of a designer of technological strategies and a learning facilitator rather than an instructor. But what will the adult educator working on a virtual reality learning model need to know and be able to do? The technical scientists are often generously funded to complete the technical research needed to make new technologies commercially viable because there is a potential economic return. Funding for pedagogically-based research into the application of new technology in adult education is often less readily available, as is adult educator’s time to pursue the necessary research. In the course of writing this article, it has become clear that that there are a plethora of books devoted to the more abstract and theoretical issues within adult education but less devoted to applied research around the application of new technologies. Timely technological support when applying new technology can be difficult to come by. Does this new, technically oriented environment require the e-learning adult educator to acquire new technological skills, should adult educators work collaboratively with technical experts, or can they depend on on-line support services to solve pedagogical and technical issues? Current experience with new technologies suggests that immediate support for the baby boomer generation adult educator is never on-site when required, and when the immediate problem is resolved another becomes apparent just after the technician has left the room, hung up the phone or terminated the link. The hope on the horizon is that the younger generation of more technologically savvy adult educators who have grown up with computers will fare better. Pauling (2006) notes that Japanese researchers are working on hyper-reality models of learning, where reality and virtual reality blend at the whim of the learner and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is virtual, such that it would be difficult to know if people are real or not, or even if they

have human or artificial intelligence (Tiffen & Terashima, 2001). The new generations X, Y and Z adapt much more quickly, but how much more difficult will it be for all generations when they have to work with a completely new technical environment beyond their immediate experience, particularly if it becomes adopted as quickly as the Internet did? Future oriented research that attempts to define the knowledge, skills and dispositions required to link the pedagogical and technical requirements of future adult educators is not abundant but urgently needed. Solutions and recommendations as outlined above are the personal views of the author. They are neither comprehensive nor inviolate but are intended to stimulate thought about an adult education future that becomes increasingly difficult to predict as the pace of technological change quickens. The overwhelming impression gained from the literature reviewed is that demand for adult education will continue to grow and the role of the adult educator and their students will continue to change with ever increasing momentum, due to societal changes and technological advances. For that we must be prepared as best we can.

concLusIon The audience laughed when Maxwell Smart used a shoe phone in the 1970s television comedy series Get Smart. Does any reader of this article not have a mobile phone thirty years later? History tells us that many technological developments that were initially in the realm of the experimental laboratory have become pervasive. It also tells us that some have not. It remains to be seen whether the newer technologies described above are adopted as mainstream tools for adult education, whether those that are adopted last very long, and whether other technologies not envisaged above, arrive within the next ten years. What does not remain to be seen is that new technologies will arrive, and that some will become mainstream in adult education.

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It seems likely that the trend of the last two decades to move away from paper-based provision of adult education to electronic provision will continue, as will the increasing prevalence of distance education delivery. History has shown us that predictions of the demise of the classroom teacher face to face with students, to be replaced with intelligent computers, did not happen in schools (Cuban, 2001), nor is it likely to happen in adult education. Some face to face delivery will continue. What did change in schools, and in adult education, was the mode of electronic delivery, the technical developments associated with electronic delivery and the pedagogy utilised via electronic delivery. History is our best predictive resource. Two decades of incredibly rapid technological change in adult education suggests that the future is more of the same.

reFerences Anderson, B., & Stoneman, P. (2008). Predicting the socio-technical future (and other myths). In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service (pp. 3-16). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Augar, N., Raitman, R., & Zhou, W. (2006). Wikis: Collaborative virtual learning environments. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 2) (pp. 1251-1270). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Bates, T. (1993). Theory and practice in the use of technology in distance education. In D. Keegan (Ed.), Theoretical principles of distance education (pp. 213-233). New York: Routledge. Berners-Lee, T., & Mark, F. (1999). Weaving the web: Origins and future of the world wide web. Stamford, UK: Orion Business.

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Boyd, G. (1993). A theory of distance education for the cyberspace era. In D. Keegan (Ed.), Theoretical principles of distance education (pp. 213-233). New York: Routledge. Brophy, P. (2006). The eLibrary and learning. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 2) (pp. 895-914). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Burbules, N. C. (2006). Rethinking the virtual. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 37-58). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Butakov, S., & Scherbinin, V. (2009). The toolbox for local and global plagiarism. Computers & Education, 52, 781–788. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2008.12.001 Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dawson, D. (2007). Handheld technologies for mobile learning. London: Latimer Trend. Dennis, R., & Wisely, D. (2008). Mobility and ICT. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service (pp. 129-142). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Feenberg, A. (1993). Building a global network: The WBSI executive education experience. In L. Harasim (Ed.), Global networks: Computers and international communication (pp. 185-197). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fisher, M., & McKee, P. (2008). Flexible ICT infrastructure. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, realtime and secure service (pp. 67-78). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

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Gardner, N. (1989). The electronic campus: The first decade. Higher Education Quarterly, 43, 332–350. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2273.1989.tb01518.x Halavais, A. C. (2006). Weblogs and collaborative web publishing as learning spaces. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 2) (pp. 1215-1236). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Harasim, L. (2006). A history of e-learning: Shift happened. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 59-94). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Hung, D., Chen, D. T., & Wong, A. F. L. (2006). An overview of virtual learning environments in the Asia-Pacific: Provisos, issues, and tensions. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 699-722). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Leiner, B., Cerf, V. G., Clark, D. D., Kahn, R. E., Kleinrock, L., Lynch, D. C., et al. (2003). A brief history of the internet. Retrieved March 11, 2009, from http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/ brief.shtml Luke, C. (2006). Cyberpedagogy. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 269-278). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Marwick, A. D. (2001). Knowledge management technology. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 814-830. Retrieved October 2, 2007, from http://www. research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/marwik.html McCarty, S., Ibrahim, B., Sedunov, B., & Sharma, R. (2006). Global online education. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 723-788). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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O’Day, V. L., Ito, M., Adler, A., Linde, C., & Mynatt, E. D. (2006). Cemeteries, oak trees, and black and white cows: Newcomers’ understandings of the networked world. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 2) (pp. 873-894). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Kings, N. J., Davies, J., Verrill, D., Aral, S., Bryniolfsson, E., & Alstyne, M. V. (2008). Social networks, social computing and knowledge management. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, realtime and secure service (pp. 17-26). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Kodama, M. (2008). New knowledge creation through ICT dynamic capability. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

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Olle, T. W. (2004). Eight significant events in the 50 year history of computing. In J. Impagliazzo & J. A. N. Lee (Eds.), History of computing in education (pp. 47-56). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

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Pauling, B. (2006). Virtual learning environments in higher education “down under”. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 609-652). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Paulson, K. (2002). Reconfiguring faculty roles for virtual settings. The Journal of Higher Education, 73, 123–141. doi:10.1353/jhe.2002.0010 Payne, D. (2008). The future all optical network— why we need it and how we get there. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service (pp. 93-114). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Pearson, I. (2008). Over the horizon. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service (pp. 215-226). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Pole, T. (1968). A history of adult schools (3rd ed.). London: Woburn Press. Pont, B., & Sweet, R. (2006). ICT and learning: Supporting out-of-school youth and adults. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65–78. doi:10.1353/jod.1995.0002

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Selwyn, N., Gorard, S., & Furlong, J. (2006). Adult learning in the digital age. Milton Park, UK: Routledge. Sosnoski, J., Jones, S., Carter, B., McAllister, K., Moeller, R., & Mir, R. (2006). Virtual Harlem as a collaborative learning environment: A project of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s electronic visualization Lab. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 2) (pp. 1289-1320). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Taylor, E. W. (2006). The greening of the adult education academy. In S. B. Merriam, B. C. Courtenay, & R. M. Cervero (Eds.), Global issues and adult education: Perspectives from Latin America, Southern Africa, and the United States (pp. 254264). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Tiffin, J., & Terashima, N. (2001). Hyper-reality: Paradigm for the third millennium. London: Routledge. Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering towards utopia: A century of school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2005). Educational trends in perspective. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://www.uis.unesco.org/TEMPLATE/pdf/wei/WEI2005.pdf

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UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2009). Expert meeting on cyber network for learning languages. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://portal. unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=44836&URL_ DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html Urban, G. L. (2008). Online trust and customer power: The emergence of customer advocacy. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service (pp. 39-54). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Warren, P., Davies, J., & Brown, D. (Eds.). (2008). ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

Wittgreffe, J., Dames, M., Clark, J., & McDonald, J. (2008). End-to-end service level agreements for complex ICT solutions. In P. Warren, J. Davies, & D. Brown (Eds.), ICT futures: Delivering pervasive, real-time and secure service (pp. 115-128). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Zhao, Y., Lei, J., & Conway, P. F. (2006). A global perspective on political definitions of e-learning: Commonalities and differences in national educational technology strategy discourses. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The international handbook of virtual learning environments (pt. 1) (pp. 673-698). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 4, edited by E. M. W. N; N. Karacapilidis; M. S. Raisinghani , pp. 82-99, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.3

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education Leah Blakey Drury University, USA

executIve suMMAry Online education has been a growing field in higher education for the last decade, and the number of students choosing online over seated classes continues to increase. The proliferation of online programs forces one to ask, “Is online education a good thing?” The resounding answer is YES, when best practices are followed. However, even the best online programs experience challenges as they deal with institutional, student, and growth issues. These struggles, their resolutions, and the knowledge gained from them are the focus of this chapter.

IntroductIon The proliferation of distance education programs in the last few years is unprecedented in the history of higher education. Technologies such as video conferencing and the Internet enable the delivery of educational content at a speed and level of interaction not previously possible (Monolescu, 2004, back cover).

As a professor with a Ph.D. that focused on military history, the term proliferation conjures up very negative connotations. My seven years of graduate school were spent focusing on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of rogue governments, the proliferation of terrorists, etc. Therefore, with so many books and articles discussing the proliferation of online programs, it begs the question, “Is online education a good thing?” The resounding answer is YES, when best practices are followed.

bAcKGround Drury University began offering online undergraduate and graduate level courses in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Between 1999 and 2004, the growth rate of students enrolling in online classes increased by nearly 50% every year. In 2004, the University requested and acquired accreditation to place all of the degrees in its College of Graduate and Continuing Studies online. In their request, Drury pledged to predicate its growth on the Higher Learning Commission’s (HLC) “Best Practices for Electronically

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-870-3.ch011

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Offered Degree and Certificate Programs”. After careful market analysis pointed to online courses as the wave of the future for the adult learner, the program became the “technological and pedagogical hub around which CGCS configured its future growth” (HLC Change Request, 2004, 6). With this commitment to adherence to best practices and future growth, the online education wing of Drury University set off on its path for excellence.

settInG the stAGe Online education has been a growing field in higher education for the last decade, and the number of students choosing online over seated classes continues to increase. This nationwide trend is incredibly strong in the Midwest, where—in many colleges and universities—the online program’s growth continues to outpace all other areas of university growth. Sloan Consortium found that “The nearly 20% growth rate expected in online enrollments far exceeds the overall rate of growth for the entire higher education student population” (Sloan-C, 2002). While many of these programs are praised by their peers and customers, the online programs have experienced challenges and growing pains. These struggles, their resolutions, and the knowledge gained from them are the focus of this chapter. The first question asked when someone mentions online classes always has to do with the students. How can you teach students you cannot see? How can you engage online students in various media of learning and experiences? How do you keep them from cheating? How can you build the rapport that small, liberal arts colleges are famous for if the students are spread out across the world? The answers to these questions are the keys to successful online teaching. Successfully helping you deal with all of the challenges, both positive and negative, that an online program faces is the overall goal of this chapter. Online education is a rapidly growing

part of higher education. The strengths it offers mean expanded opportunities for persons in all regions of the developed world, a way for students to curtail the amount of their small budgets that goes to transportation, and a way to bring great minds from diverse locations together to engage the problems of the 21st century. Mastering the art of educating people over the internet is a must for schools vying for a place in the future market, and the most successful way for them to do that is by learning from others’ experiences and following guidelines for best practices in online education.

cAse descrIPtIon IncLudInG oPPortunItIes And chALLenGes The issues faced by a successful online program can be grouped into three categories: student, institutional, and those associated with growth. These issues are similar whether the program is at a small, Midwestern, liberal arts school; a large public university; or a community college. The successful resolution of all three of these issues is necessary for any online program to grow and prosper.

student Issues Reaching students in an online class is one of the issues most often debated. How can you teach students you cannot see? The truth is that a multitude of distance education programs have successfully been teaching students they could not see for decades. For example, correspondence courses have been used in colleges and universities for years, and the instructor does not see the student in a classroom setting. The beauty of online is that now the distance can be spanned through multiple interactive means through the internet rather than through the static medium of a paper or a video distance education

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The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

course. Teaching students via this global wonder is actually based on the same ideas that traditional classroom instruction has been based on for decades. These ideas take into consideration that people have different learning styles and that they need to be reached on multiple knowledge levels.

Learning Styles Everyone learns in a way that is somewhat unique. However, most people fall into one (or perhaps two) of three learning style categories: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (Rose, 1991). Visual learners tend to take a lot of notes, like to see what they are learning, remember things best if they see them in vivid detail, often close their eyes to visualize or remember something, and prefer to not be distracted by sound and activity when they are learning. Auditory learners acquire knowledge by listening to lectures, reading aloud, and talking their problems out. Kinetic learners “remember what was done, but have difficulty recalling what was said or seen... rely on what they can directly experience or perform... enjoy field trips and tasks that involve manipulating materials... (and) are uncomfortable in classrooms where they lack opportunities for hands-on experience” (http://www.usd.edu/trio/ tut/ts/styleres.html). Instructors in online classes can reach visual learners with the simplest online tools. Online platforms present multiple ways of stimulating the visual learner. For example, Angel, Blackboard, eCollege, and Moodle offer places for lectures, pictures, and discussions. The key is for the instructor to find the most direct route between the student and the material the instructor wants them to learn. Often, this means short (no longer than 300 words) lectures (or a series of short lectures) coupled with visual aids such as pictures, charts, maps, etc. Even a visual learner will become lost in a lecture if it is too long or goes off on too many tangents. 30

When online classes first began, many auditory learners were not very successful because the online instructors did not know how to properly reach them. Now, there are many tools that can be used to stimulate auditory learners. First, and perhaps easiest for those who might be technologically challenged is simply using what is already on the World Wide Web. Websites such as YouTube, Science Daily, www.learner.org, and www.merlot.org have a lot of free videos that can easily be worked into online curriculum. The key for instructors is to find online resources that they can use in educative ways. “Teachers in effect become curriculum makers, developing parts of the curriculum by using the internet” (Wallace, 2004, p.451). One thing to always keep in mind is if the student must download the video or if they can watch streaming video. If they must download it, then students on dial-up internet may have trouble viewing it. In addition to these tools that already exist on the internet, there are multitudes of audio file software that can be used to deliver lectures – much of it for free. Photo Story from Microsoft, is a free tool that can be used with a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to put sound with each of the slides. It is then streamed over the internet, which makes it easier for those students using a dial-up internet connection. Camtasia Studio and Speech-Over Studio are similar tools that can be used to add sound to a PowerPoint presentation, but these programs are not free. In the fall of 2008 Camtasia Studio 6 Student Version was selling for $169 and Speech-Over was $599, which in this budget-conscious time can possibly prohibit their use. There are also programs for adding pure audio files in an online course. The most popular of these, Wondershare PPT to iPOD, can also be downloaded and listened to on MP3 players and iPods. The most challenging students for online instructors to reach are those who learn through kinetic or hands-on instruction. These are the students who benefit the most from laboratory experiments, field trips, and projects. Tools and

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Table 1. Remember

Understand

Apply

Analyze

Evaluate

Create

Factual Knowledge Conceptual Knowledge Procedural Knowledge Meta-cognitive Knowledge

procedures for reaching this type of learner vary by discipline, but every good online class incorporates a few projects for the kinetic learner. The projects normally require the student to leave the computer and complete an activity and then return to the computer to either craft a paper or share their experience via other means with their classmates. Some examples of how Drury University online instructors have reached these students include an online sociology of religion class that requires students to attend worship services outside of their faith and then report on the experience to their classmates; an online astronomy class that requires students to visit an observatory during a given week and report on the experience on the discussion page; and an online manned space flight class that requires students to watch shuttle launches and in orbit videos and discuss the events daily in the online class.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Once instructors have designed elements into their classes to reach all of the various types of learners, they then must consider the level of learning they want to take place in their class. The most foundational way to consider this question is to apply the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to the list of objectives and build assignments from here. (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001). The best way to describe this approach to learning is through a table (Table 1). (http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/ bloomrev/index.htm) This revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy combines the cognitive process (across top of

table) and the kind of knowledge to be learned (down the left side of the table). By combining both what needs to be learned with the type of learning involved, instructors can better plan out their course and ensure they reach beyond the surface of learning into the deeper and more advanced levels of learning.

Cheating Pushing students to excel and learn multiple levels of material is the goal of most classes. However, the challenge that this type of academic rigor presents often instead pushes students to cheat. Many educators feel that cheating is easiest and thus occurs more often in online classes, but most online instructors actually feel that they are better at detecting cheating online than they are in their face-to-face classes. “For example, in one online program an instructor who suspected plagiarism confronted the student. . . The instructor said that in the average large lecture classroom course he would have been far less likely to have identified the plagiarism because he wouldn’t have been as familiar with the student’s work as he was, seeing it regularly in the online discussions” (Maeroff, 2003, p.158). Unfortunately, cheating appears to be rampant in most areas of education, but instructors can work to make it more difficult for students to find the easy way out of an assignment. First and foremost, instructors must take the time to educate their students on what constitutes cheating and how the student can best avoid it. It has been my experience that more than half of the plagiarism that occurs in my classes is “ac-

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The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

cidental;” meaning that in most cases, the student did not realize that what they were doing was wrong. Students need to be taught how to take their research findings and couple this information with their own analysis in their writings. Students should be warned against cutting and pasting and pushed to put most of their paper into their own voice and prove their own arguments. Many schools, such as the University of Maryland University College’s required one-credit hour Information Literacy and Research Methods course, have been created to teach students to understand and recognize plagiarism (Maeroff, 2003). Secondly, instructors need to construct assignments in a way that makes cheating or plagiarism more difficult. For example, if a history instructor asks students to write a five page paper on the causes of the American Civil War, the students are given an assignment that is easily plagiarized. By comparison, if a history instructor asks his or her students to write a five page paper comparing the five causes of the American Civil War discussed on the weekly discussion page and then apply the rationalist ethics theory to the two they believe are the most important, the instructor has built an assignment for a paper that is not easily downloaded from the internet. By making students pull in specific examples from class discussions and instructor lectures as well as making the question subjective instead of objective, the instructor has personalized the question to their own class and made the ease of plagiarism more difficult. Third, there is a school of thought that pushes instructors to find new methods of assessment that are not easily plagiarized or otherwise taken advantage of by those looking for an easy way out. These instructors rely less on large exams or papers and more on smaller, interactive assignments that require multiple levels and times of involvement by the student. Wallace Pond, chief academic officer of Education America’s online program argued that, “’There are lots of lecture hall courses where a student might not interact with a professor at all and the final grade is based on two

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exams and a paper. An environment of that sort may engender poor decision making by students who turn to such activities as plagiarism. . . In a well-taught online course with an involved professor and 25 students, it would be very difficult for a student to put bits and pieces of someone else’s work into his work. Everything, every word, in an online course is archived. The professor can go back and review all of the student’s work’” (Maeroff, 2003, p.159). Unfortunately, there are also the cases where the person completing the exam, discussions, or paper are actually the person sitting in front of the computer screen but they are not the person enrolled in the class. There are multiple ways to attempt to combat this, but there is no perfect answer to this dilemma. Many schools require at least one proctored exam that necessitates the student to show identification and prove they are the person enrolled in the class. Many instructors check the properties on the paper they receive to verify the owner of the computer the paper was created on. None of these methods are foolproof and they all add to the time and energy an instructor or administrator must put into an online class, but they do offer a way to find a few imposters and get the word out that they are checking for such things, which is often all that is necessary to deter a student from cheating. Finally, perhaps one of the best ways to keep students from cheating is to build a rapport with them that motivates in them a love of learning and a respect for the instructor or professor. Online instructors may go about this relationship building in different ways, but all good online instructors strive for it. The key to successful online relationship building is timely and meaningful feedback. Good instructors talk to most of their online students at least once every day through either e-mail, asynchronous discussion, or a virtual world. They talk to all of their online students multiple times each week through one of these venues. When a student learns and comes to trust that they can reach their

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

instructor to get questions answered, assignments explained, or lectures expanded upon; then they start to build a much deeper relationship than can be built when a student only has contact with an instructor one, two, or even three times per week. The trust that comes from this relationship will motivate students to approach the instructor with issues regarding assignments that might otherwise have been solved by cheating. This relationship also gives the instructor a perfect venue for reaching and challenging more advanced students.

Student Expectations Most online instructors claim to have had their most academically advanced and most academically challenged students in online classes. The online environment tends to accentuate whichever one of these categories students fall into. One reason for this emphasis is the close relationship good online instructors have with their students. Another big reason is the fact that many students enroll in their first online class thinking it will be easier than the seated version of the same class. This is far from the truth. Online classes are meant to be more convenient – not easier. This is an oft made mistake. Students new to the online world quickly become overwhelmed by the larger workload of an online class. Steve Hynds, Director of Online Education at Drury University, listed this as the biggest issue he deals with regarding students. “Convenience doesn’t mean easy. Convenience just means convenience. . . The bigger concern with the students I’ve seen is the amount of work that is required . . . then [students] feel that online is a harder or actually a more enriched program because of the challenges that they have to go through for that convenience” (S. Hynds, Interview, October 24, 2008). The increased stage on which advanced online students can perform lets stars shine and those hungry to learn truly test themselves.

Institutional Issues While instructors and students wish to focus on the personal issues, administrators are much more concerned with institutional issues. The first hurdle the institution must cross is accreditation. After accreditation is acquired, the majority of institutional challenges will lay within the confines of the campus. These issues often involve the platform choice, staffing, scheduling, pricing and overall procedural guidelines. The biggest challenge, and often the most difficult to overcome for new programs, often deals with proving the academic quality and prestige of the program to the tenured personnel of the institution.

Accreditation A critical point in the development of a quality online program is acquiring the proper accreditation. Drury University went through this process in 2003-2004. It was a tremendous amount of work, but the payoff was certainly worth it. The scenario is described in detail here. In 2003 Drury University’s College of Graduate and Continuing Studies (CGCS) was beginning preparation for a visit from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) under a new dean who had extensive experience regarding accreditation. As they undertook the self-study and contemplated what they wanted to achieve from the visit, it became obvious that the ability to grant degrees online was the next step. They already had an Associate of Science (AS) degree in environmental science management online through a contract with the military. There were several packages students could put together online to construct other AS degrees that were not official nor advertised nor even considered as online degrees. There were also several Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees that offered all but one class online. In order to stay within the requirements of the accreditation body, they needed to have an HLC

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The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

focused visit and request accreditation for online degree completion. The leadership team then guided the Drury accreditation team through the arduous task of compiling all of the documents and data to demonstrate they had the necessary requirements to acquire online accreditation. The following lists highlight the areas they felt HLC would be most concerned with and were areas where Drury University could show it was ready to be granted accreditation for online degree completion. 1.

2.

3.

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Technological Improvements: Drury had moved from initially offering online courses through Electronic Reserves System (ERes) to using WebCT as its online platform. Drury University also appointed a Technical Advisor to provide training in the use of WebCT/online pedagogy. The online office also established an initial web presence via the University server for online course information. Drury hosted its online classes on campus servers until it outgrew the servers’ capability to support the program. In the fall of 2003 Drury University contracted with WebCT to host its courses at WebCT’s technology center in Vancouver, British Columbia. These technological improvements gave the online program “more robust Internet access with redundant backbones and [the] larger capacity server provides evidence that Drury is committing substantial financial resources to support this online course delivery initiative” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.30). Online Tutoring: Drury University contracted with SMARTHINKING to “provide online student support in the areas of writing, the basic sciences, and mathematics, including statistics and accounting” at no additional cost to the student (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.30). Library Resources: Drury University’s Olin Library increased its ability to serve online

4.

5.

6.

students at remote locations by providing “online access to books, periodicals and resource materials maintained by Drury as well as access to interlibrary loan materials through Off-Campus Library Resources (OCLS) and Missouri Bibliographic Information User Service (MOBIUS)” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.31). Olin Library also continued to offer ERes where instructors could post articles that were accessible by students via the Internet. Academic Advising and Registration: Every semester the online office provided all satellite and main campus staff current details about registration, adds, drops, and advising issues. The University also designated an advisor specifically for students taking online classes, who could field an array of questions regarding online classes. Drury also added an Advising Module to help students see how specific courses “fit into their program of study. Additionally, students can access their grades at the end of each term, print an unofficial transcript, and even calculate a future G.P.A.” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.32). All registration was enhanced to allow complete web registration. Schedule Coordination: Beginning in spring 2004, the online course schedule was “developed into a rotational online schedule for the spring, summer and fall classes. The general undergraduate courses offered online are now undergoing a process of planning whereby students planning their academic strategy can rely upon specific online courses offered at planned intervals. . . . Overall, the online schedule . . . has evolved into an integral part of the CGCS institutional planning and development strategy” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.33). Financial Aid Counseling: “Beginning in fall 2003, students were notified of financial aid awards through their University e-mail

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

7.

8.

accounts. . . This information allows students to logon to eRegistrar through the Drury University webpage to access their personal and financial information, register for online and seated courses at the appropriate times, access their academic degree history as well as a graduation audit” (HLC Change Request, 2004, pp.33-34). First Point of Contact: First Point of Contact was created to “make appointments for advisors, supply information about CGCS to those who inquire, track prospective inquiries and assist in mailings, assist with student surveys and various other duties” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.34). The goal of the student worker-staffed position was to “provide more timely feedback, to provide for a central flow of information and to relieve some of the congestion from the front liners area” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.34). This was a key element in providing a supporting structure for online students contacting the University from remote locations who needed various student services but did not know where to find them. Science Labs for the Online Learner: In 2003, Online Education at Drury University was awarded a 3M Science Grant for the purpose of researching online science labs. The funding was used to “investigate and research online science labs as adjuncts to current online science courses that incorporate lab activities into the course. The investigation was undertaken as part of the continuous improvement of online science courses for non-science majors and in preparation for offering the AS in Environmental Management degree online” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.35). Many areas of the University were included in this research and subsequent discussion including the full-time science faculty, administrators, and members of the Academic Affairs Committee. “The most important goal was to help the committee and

the science faculty to develop an approach most suitable for non-science majors who cannot attend seated science courses” (HLC Change Request, 2004, p.35). The research examined the trends, options, and models used by other universities for online science lab delivery. 9. Student Technical Support: Online students needed a way to receive technical support at all hours of the day and on weekends. This was accomplished by three approaches a. General online information and general technical questions were listed on the online programs web pages. b. Specific online course questions were directed to the Online Education Office during normal business hours. c. Zavata, a private firm, was contracted out of Georgia that provided answers to technical computer questions 24/7 via phone. 10. Online Orientation: Students were given 24/7 access to an online orientation website that contained basic information on all aspects of WebCT as well as practical tips. 11. Online Bookstore: Automated enhancements were made to the Drury University bookstore’s capability to serve online students from remote areas. Students were able order their books for their online classes via the Online Education website and pay for them via a secure credit card payment method. The amount of work that went into planning for the HLC visit was enormous and involved many parts of the University, even though the visit only focused on the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies. The payoff was substantial, though. The HLC granted Drury University approval to offer any course in the Drury catalogue online. This allowed Drury University to offer any of its Associates and Bachelor’s degrees completely online.

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The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Questions from Outside Online Education When schools started delivering education via the internet over a decade ago, there were many questions regarding the pedagogy and quality of the instruction. Most of these questions came from the established academy. For centuries, classes had been taught the same way – with instructor and student sitting in the same room. The possibility that the same quality of teaching and learning could be accomplished with the instructor and students on different continents was difficult to imagine. However, studies such as those published by Simonson, Smaldino, Albrght, and Zvacek in 2000 have proven that done correctly, student outcomes are quite similar regardless of whether the student is face-to-face with an instructor or thousands of miles away. (Simonson, M., Smaldiino, S., Albright, M., &Zvacek, S., 2000). In an interview with Dr. Gary Rader, who initiated a now thriving online program a decade ago, he discussed how he dealt with the doubts of the traditional academy on his campus. His response was through something he termed “chair diplomacy”. In short, it took spending time with each department and sometimes even each individual in a department and showing them how online classes worked, the assessment outcomes, and final projects and statements of the students from the classes. Basically, the idea of online parity had to be marketed and sold. And sold it was. Today online education is the fastest growing area at Drury University. Today’s leaders in online education do not have to deal with “selling” the idea of online education. Instead, they deal with the varieties of options facing established programs.

Learning Management System Options One of the first major decisions leaders in online education deal with is the choice of learning management system (LMS). There are numerous

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factors involved in this decision and many of the factors can be further sub-divided. The LMS must “meet the requirements, functions and features as aligning with the program’s needs. Much due diligence has to be done to find out what the institution needs with input from many stakeholders” (T. Melacon, Interview, November 19, 2008). The features of the LMS must be forward thinking and able to support all of the exciting educational technology that is on the horizon. The LMS must function easily and without interruption; it must interface well with the programs the school already has in place; it must come with a strong support staff and may possibly need to offer hosting. These considerations would vary based on the institution’s needs and culture, but all should be considered.

Scheduling and Staffing Mature online programs share some of the same issues that new programs do – namely in the areas of scheduling and staffing. All types of higher education institutions – whether they be a small private institution, a community college, or a large public university – express a desire to alter the way classes are scheduled and staffed. The majority of schools still have the responsibility of staffing and scheduling falling to the department chairs or deans. This allows the experts in academia to ensure the academic qualifications of the instructors as well as the academic plan of the department by scheduling certain classes during specific semesters. Many leaders in online education would like to see changes to this, though. In recent interviews with leaders in online education, they were asked “If you could change something about your program, what would it be and why would you change it?” Almost everyone said they sought improvement in relation to the part of the institution that develops the schedule and staffing decisions related to it. In essence, while department chairs and deans may be able to see the goals and plans for their part of the

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

academic pie, the online director can see the whole picture for the online program. This means they can best see what students seeking a degree completely online need in order to fulfill all of the requirements. The online director also has a better feel for the pulse of the online instructors. They know which instructors generate a following and which have completed the required (and perhaps even beyond what is required) training. This appears to be the next major area of discussion between leaders in online education and traditional academia, and it may very well control the growth and profitability of the online program and ultimately the school.

Money Associated with Online Programs Online programs are growing and outpacing the growth of all other areas of higher education. With this growth are coming large profits, which are often desperately needed by the university. The amount of money generated by online programs is both a product of the number of courses and the price of those courses. For example, at Drury University the price per credit hour for an online class is $239, while the price per credit hour for a face-to-face class is $190. The difference of $49 is one of the reasons online programs have to potential to be such large revenue makers. It is necessary for institutions to consider their student body, the culture of the university, and their competitors when setting their price schemes. This revenue potential will continue to motivate institutions of higher education to add to their online programs.

Staffing Online Departments Most online programs are supported by an online office staffed by many individuals with significant online experience or degrees in the field. Some of these degrees include instructional design, educational technology, instructional systems

technology, education with an emphasis in elearning technology and design as well as Masters in Education degrees with emphasis in online teaching and learning. Each person in the office handles various areas of the online experience. There is normally a director, one or more technical support personnel, instructional designers, faculty liaisons or trainers, curriculum designers, marketing specialists, and others depending on the culture and makeup of the university. The jobs of these individuals are designed to complement each other to make all areas of the online program run smoothly. The director is the highest ranking position on most online offices. This person has oversight authority and responsibility for every aspect of the program. When interviewing numerous directors of various programs, it became obvious they consider the most important aspects of their jobs to be very similar. The two most oft mentioned areas were promotion of the program both outside and inside their respective universities and maintaining or enhancing control over scheduling and staffing. Many institutions of higher education are pushing their online departments to grow and expand in many ways because studies show that this is the most rapidly growing area of higher education. Directors of online education must market to many people in their own institution. They have to be constantly selling and reassuring faculty, chairs, deans, and trustees that the product they are delivering fits the school’s mission and academic niche. They also must keep all of these constituents apprised of the changes in technology and online education so the school can evolve with the industry, remain on the cutting edge, and maintain their market share. In order to promote their programs to potential students, many online offices are hiring marketing personnel who are well-informed and in tune with the particulars of online education in order to bring in new students. These marketing people must be able to highlight the advantages of online

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The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

classes – namely, convenience and flexibility as well as address issues such as technology requirements and understanding to potential students. The marketing person must work closely with the director in order to ensure the information communicated to potential students is accurate and timely. The director’s other main task involves maintaining or enhancing control over scheduling and staffing. As mentioned previously, this is an area that most directors wish they had more control over. There is an art to scheduling the correct classes at the correct time in the correct time frame (5, 8, 12, or 16 week classes). Many students prefer to take some classes in a particular order or balance their workload by considering the intensity or time necessary to complete a class when enrolling. For example, many history majors only like to enroll in one 300 or 400 level history class at a time because they are writing-intensive classes that will require a great deal of time. The online office understands this and would like to schedule classes according to what their customer (the student) wants. The department would like for history majors to complete all of their 100 level history courses before moving onto their 200 and 300 level courses and save the 400 level courses for their senior year. They are not looking at the situation from a customer’s point of view but rather the curriculum and how certain classes build upon others. These two different motivating factors push the department chairs and the director of online education in different directions regarding the scheduling of classes. This is a difficult issue to resolve. A clear cut mission statement for the online program is the only way most universities relieve the tension. Control over staffing goes hand in hand with scheduling. The most talented lecturer with a wall full of teaching awards from the experience in the traditional face-to-face classroom may never master online teaching. Conversely, an instructor who fails to communicate well or skillfully manage their face-to-face class may shine in an

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online setting and become a popular and effective educator. This dichotomy is difficult to explain to chairs and deans, particularly if they have never taught online themselves. Furthermore, tenured faculty who are accustomed to having a large amount of power over their schedule balk against new and diverse systems of scheduling.

Growth Issues Once you have a successful program up and going, you want to grow it. However, with this growth comes a whole new set of challenges. Quality control procedures must change as a program expands. Instructor training, which may have been easily managed when instructors were small in number and local, takes on a whole new dimension when growth and diversity issues push the University to hire instructors located all over the world. Growth in an online program often creates a challenge to other parts of the university because of a loss of students from traditionally seated classes to the online environment. Successful online classes logically lead to online degrees, but this is yet another challenge. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, “The proliferation of distance education programs n the last few years is unprecedented in the history of higher education” (Monolescu, 2004, back cover). A perfect example of this is the growth in Drury University’s online program. Figure 1 shows the number of online course offerings over the last nine years. This rate of growth for online classes far surpasses the rate of growth for any other area of the university. However, this growth, while bringing a wealth of opportunity also brings it own set of challenges.

Quality Control Assessing both an online program as well as online classes is a challenge for many schools as they grow from a small online program offering a few

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Figure 1.

courses to a large program offering full online degrees. Any online education program must match its institution’s mission, scope, objectives, and goals. Additionally, a strong online program must have a visionary and highly motivated director who is able to effectively communicate with multiple constituents. The director must have a highly skilled support staff that can handle the everyday workings of the program. He must also be associated with an institution that can adequately fund the program and serve all student needs outside of the actual classroom instruction. The semester to semester, if not week to week, evaluations of specific classes are what most people examine when considering the quality of an online program. There are several tools for doing this including focus groups, in-class evaluators, in-house evaluations, or outsourcing evaluation through a program such as IDEA (Individual Development and Evaluation Assessment). The key things factors any evaluation should look for are • • • • •

Instructor to student interaction Student to student interaction Fulfillment of course objectives Clarity of communication Timeliness and quality of instructor feedback

All types of assessment tools should look to measure both faculty and student satisfaction as well as gather information that could be used to improve the program in the future. Drury University has a multi-level concept of course evaluation. All faculty are selected through a four step approval process. First, the faculty are considered by the Director of Online Education, who evaluates their comfort level with technology and the Drury culture. Second, the department chair evaluates the academic credentials of the proposed instructor. Third, the Dean of the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies (CGCS) evaluates the proposed instructor and based on the notes from the Director of Online Education and the department chair makes a proposal to the Vice President of Academic Affairs, who ultimately makes final approval. This process is meant to ensure that no one enters the online training program without first having been vetted by all areas of the academic and administrative team. Once the person is approved and the course assigned, they fall into a set of evaluations specifically designed for new instructors. New instructors must have all of the materials for the first two weeks of their course posted by two weeks prior to the start of the course. The course is then visited by what the online office calls a “secret student”. This is a senior-level student or a recent graduate, who looks at the class from a

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The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

student’s point of view and give feedback as to how well the instructor did designing the class. A sample report can be found in Appendix A. This feedback is then given to the new instructor along with help to fix the necessary areas before the course begins. New instructors are also given a special mid-term evaluation, which can be viewed in Appendix B. The goal of this evaluation is to see how well the original plan has been implemented in the first half of the semester and to show administrators what (if any) help needs to be given to the instructor in order to improve the second half of the semester. All online courses, both those of new instructors and veterans, are visited by a faculty monitor multiple times each semester. The monitor fills out a report that is then submitted to the Director of Online Education. The Director then contacts each faculty to let them know the findings. A copy of the report can be found in Appendix C. This evaluation looks at everything from the appearance of the class to the timeliness of the instructor’s grading and feedback. This report is very helpful early in the semester to ensure that each class is organized in a way that students can understand exactly what is going on. It is useful throughout the semester as a measurement of instructors’ timeliness and commitment to constant and quality feedback. The final tool Drury University uses to access online classes is the Individual Development and Evaluation Assessment (IDEA) program administered through Kansas State University. This tool provides both statistical data and constructive feedback from the students. A sample of each can be found in Appendix D. These evaluations are administered towards the end of the semester. The conclusions are sent to the instructor, department chair, Director of Online Education, and the Dean of the College approximately three months later. After receiving information back from all of these assessment tools, steps must be taken to either fix stated problems or change the expecta-

40

tions so that they better fit the reality of an online class. This takes a great deal of time – both for the instructor to make the changes and for the administrator charged with ensuring the changes are made. This is why it is critical that the online office team be well staffed with competent individuals who understand all aspects of the operation.

Faculty Training Training of online faculty has evolved a great deal over the last decade. Most schools began by bringing their entire online faculty into the online office or together in a large computer lab for training sessions. For many schools, this practice has evolved to a mostly or even totally online training program. Instructors now understand that “online teaching forces a systematic rethinking of the course content in minute detail” (Little, Titarenko, and Bergelson, 2005, p.357) and are hungry for instruction in how to take the materials from a face-to-face course and apply them to an online course. A local community college with a thriving online program has evolved its faculty training into a very impressive system. When the college’s online program began in 2001, they did not have any faculty training per se. Then, they went to voluntary face-to-face training meetings. As they grew, this finally evolved into an online immersion type of training that lasted eight weeks. The instructors complained that eight weeks was too long, so it was shortened to the current system of four weeks. The completion of this four week training program for online faculty is now required of every individual before they are allowed to teach online. The training places the instructors in the student’s role. It is highly interactive and instructor facilitated. It is taught by an instructional designer and expert in online teaching. The training is broken into four modules that cover such things as managing discussion boards, completing activities in the practice course, and

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

skilled competencies. The training began as very heavy in theory with little instruction in how to use the course management system. However, “practicing teachers, a lot of them subject experts in academic disciplines, never having taken an education class could care less about studying about pedagogy and reading the articles. . . . so we take an approach of teaching the theory at the end. . . . showing them how to do it or modeling best practices of online teaching and then relating it to theory in the back end so they can see. . . . the actual reason and philosophy behind hit” (W. Salley, Interview, October 20, 2008). Each instructor must score a minimum of 80% each week in order to continue with the training and teach at the end. They also offer optional online faculty development courses such as multi-media survival skills and using synchronous tools in the online classroom. These optional classes are very well attended because they strive to make them very valuable and not very time intensive.

Online Learning and Teaching Certificate Programs Many other online programs are mirroring this type of program, which also has similarities with some of the Certificates in Online Teaching being offered. Colorado State University offers a Certificate in Online Learning and Teaching through their Global Campus, which they describe as being “designed for professionals in the educational, public or private training sectors who would like to develop the skills necessary to design, produce and facilitate online courses. College or university faculty, K-12 teachers, corporate trainers, program administrators, instructional designers and others who would like to enhance their skills, or prepare for a teaching or administrative career in online learning will find this program appealing” (http://www.csuglobal.org/certificate_programs. php). The four courses offered in this certificate program are

1. 2. 3. 4.

Instructional Theory and Design for Online Learning Online Learning Technologies Multimedia Technologies and Design Principles Evaluation and Assessment in Online Learning

This program is similar to California State University, East Bay’s certificate in Online Teaching and Learning, which they describe as meeting “the needs of university and college faculty, K-12 teachers, corporate and military trainers, educational administrators, curriculum designers, technical support staff and others who design, implement and teach online courses. Those with experience in online education and those who seek the necessary training will both find the program appealing. . . The program’s online-only format makes it convenient for anyone in the world, not just those who live or work in the San Francisco East Bay Area. Students can look forward to a hands-on, rigorous curriculum in which both the instructors and fellow students provide detailed feedback on every project and should expect to spend 10-12 hours or more per week on each class. They can communicate with their instructors and advisors in a variety of ways: email, telephone, chat room office hours and/or videoconference. A high-speed Internet connection is strongly recommended” (http://www.extension.csuhayward.edu/ certificate/online_teaching/index.shtml). This program, like Colorado State University’s is comprised of four courses. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning Teaching Models for Online Instruction Technology Tools for Online Instruction Designing Curriculum for Online Instruction

Throughout this certificate program, students employ what is learned on a single class as they

41

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Figure 2.

construct it from inception through completion. These are just two of the many great certificate programs out there that appear to be laying the ground work for institutions to follow as they set out to train their own faculty.

Purposeful Online Growth The growth of online programs has caused many in academia to question whether the online option is pulling students out of face-to-face classes. This is a concern to administrators who are responsible for maintaining head counts in seated classes as well as the traditional academy who still feel students who can be in a seated class should be. Students are speaking with their enrollments and telling educational institutions that they prefer online classes to face-to-face classes. The reasons have a lot to do with the hectic lives many Americans live and the economic situation they currently face. Many students are working full-time while attending school full-time. Many adult students even add family responsibilities on top of fulltime jobs and school. These students want – even

42

demand – convenience in their education. They want to go to class when it fits into their schedule, and that often means at midnight after working all day and putting their children to bed. Students are also dealing with rising gas prices that have a direct impact on their education by forcing them to consider the price of driving to campus to attend a traditional seated class. These forces are combining to push students to increasingly choose internet classes over traditional seated ones. So, where do these students come from? Are they new to the educational institution? In some cases, yes; but in many cases, no. They are the students that had been attending face-to-face classes. Figure 2 shows how the rise in credit hours enrolled in online classes has obviously impacted the credit hours enrolled in seated classes at one university.

Rigor of Online Classes Students are increasingly pursing the online option, however many are quite vocal in criticizing the increased rigor encountered in online classes.

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Here are what some history students have said regarding online and face-to-face classes: •

•

•

The difference between online and seated classes, are many. Online classes provide the convenience of going to class at home. However, the student must be organized and disciplined as the workload is readingwriting intensive and generally double to that of a seated class. (Slagle, 2008) In a seated course, if you show up, turn in your assignments and participate in the discussions, that’s basically all there is to it. With online classes, your participation is based on your posts. You are required to post at least once and reply to two other students, which, if done correctly, is the equivalent of writing a thorough, well-researched, two-page paper every week, on top of any assignments. (Bayless, 2008) My 2 cents worth after 3 years of online work. I have only had 4 seated classes... Online classes unlike seated classes require that the student be decidedly responsible to the online program. It is much more than just one day a week but a dedicated everyday occurrence. Decisions have to be made in the beginning where your priorities are... This is where you must manage your time and take every opportunity to log into the classroom. (Terrey, 2008)

Of course, an online student’s experience is dependent on the particular class and instructor they have. However, the evaluation statements seem to support the assertion that online classes are preferred yet require more time and commitment on the student’s part. Many faculty from traditional academia contend that the educational experience simply cannot be the same in an online class as it is in a traditional seated class. Many tenured faculty are also able to see multiple sides of the issue, such as Elizabeth Paddock, Chair of the Department of

History and Political Science at Drury University, who stated, “Online classes offer students and faculty an alternative that was not available even a few years ago. The experience obviously is not the same. It often is not possible to achieve the same depth or range of discussion in online classes that academics seek in seated classes. Faculty cannot call on students in the same way, and students in online discussions miss out on the passion and thrill of intellectual discovery and debate that are such a part of the traditional classroom. However, online education offers some significant benefits that are not available otherwise. The flexibility of online classes matches the fast-paced reality of modern society. These classes also allow a wider range of students to pursue their education, people who otherwise would not be able to fit their schedules with traditional seated courses. Finally, discussions in online classes often are more measured and less impulsive than discussions in traditional classes, and hence tend to be less passionate in some ways. At the same time, however, online discussions allow students more time to deliberate and consider their responses to questions and observations. Those students who may be intimidated in participating in regular classroom debates may find their voices more readily in the relative anonymity of the online classroom. There obviously are tradeoffs. The success of an online class ultimately rests with both faculty and students and their commitments to engagement in online assignments” (E. Paddock, Interview, November 24, 2008).

Online Degrees Many online programs are growing past online classes into complete online degrees. It is impossible to search the internet for anything dealing with education without having ads from various online colleges and universities appearing in advertisements on the page. While many of these institutions are outside the main academic and accreditation circles, numerous well-respected

43

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

institutions of higher education are venturing into the area of online degrees. The challenges for offering completely online degrees relate back to several ideas already discussed in this chapter. First, most quality institutions will seek accreditation to deliver the online degrees. Second, when students are being drawn into a program with the promise of a degree being completely online, it is critical that the scheduling of classes for that degree be done in a calculated and well-thought out manner. As previously mentioned, online education departments strongly feel that this means they should hold the power and responsibility for scheduling. Finally, when degrees are offered totally online, it becomes necessary for the educational institution to put student services online as well. Many educational institutions struggle with putting student services online because that reaches outside of the parameters of the online department. First and foremost, the library must offer adequate online holdings or ways to deliver research materials to students in various locals for students to complete research intensive courses. Other areas such as advising, financial aid, the bookstore, and business office must also offer students from far distances the same types of services they do for students who can walk up to their service windows. This requires staff, financial, and resource commitments from the institution.

concLusIon As students demand higher education with convenience and rigor, online programs must meet this challenge. The development and growth of online programs has become a permanent mark on the landscape of higher education, and in order to perfect high quality programs a set of best practices must be followed. Divided into three categories, these can be summarized as:

44

Student Issues: 1. Student learning styles remain based on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic stimulation whether the student is faceto-face with an instructor or a thousand miles away. Therefore, all three learning styles must be incorporated into a high quality online class. 2. The revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy combines the cognitive process (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create) and the kind of knowledge to be learned (factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, or meta-cognitive knowledge). This criteria should be used when developing objectives and assignments for an online class. 3. Instructors need to steer students away from cheating by educating their students on what constitutes cheating and how the student can best avoid it; constructing assignments in a way that makes cheating or plagiarism more difficult; finding new methods of assessment that are not easily plagiarized or otherwise taken advantage of by those looking for an easy way out; and building a rapport with students that motivates in them a love of learning and a respect for the instructor. 4. Online programs need to communicate to potential students that the convenience of an online class does not translate into it being easier than a face-to-face class. Students need to be prepared for the extra time required to complete the work and succeed in an online class. Institutional Issues: 1. Acquiring accreditation is the first step in building a high quality online education program. The specific case

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

study of Drury University’s preparation for a focused visit from the Higher Learning Commission highlights the importance of having the infrastructure in place to support the online students and faculty. It is necessary for a leader in the online education program to spend time with department chairs and deans showing them how online classes work, assessment outcomes, and final projects and statements of the students from the classes in order to garner inner institutional support for the program. The choice of a learning management system is a major decision for online programs. The system needs to fit the educational institution’s culture, budget, goals, and vision. Scheduling and staffing need to be done with consideration given to academic qualifications and goals as well as with a vision of the online program as a whole and students seeking online degrees in particular. Prices for online classes tend to be higher than prices for face-to-face classes. However, the demand for the online classes is outpacing the demand for the face-to-face classes. It is necessary for institutions to consider their student body, the culture of the university, and their competitors when setting their price schemes. In most cases, though, online classes will be a profit enhancer. It is imperative that online education departments have adequate and highly qualified staff. Most offices normally employ a director, multiple technical support personnel, instructional designers, faculty liaisons or trainers, curriculum designers, marketing spe-

cialist and others depending on the culture and makeup of the university. Growth Issues: 1. Quality control is a major issue as online programs grow to encompass several hundred classes taught by instructors located all over the world. A case study of Drury University’s quality control and assessment program highlights the need for courses to be evaluated at multiple times (before, during, and after the semester) by multiple perspectives (students, peers, administrators). The evaluation must then be followed up by corrective measures and often additional guidance from the online education department. 2. Training faculty to teach online is very important and evolving process. Today’s most successful strategies include emersion in an online training course set up much like the faculty’s potential online course. Most institutions of higher education have developed their own unique programs for their faculty, however several certificate programs in Online Teaching and Learning have emerged in the last few years as well. 3. Schools must accommodate student demands for flexibility and convenience in their educational experience. This often means readjusting curriculum and schedules of areas outside online education to help students fulfill their desires for education on their time table. 4. The rigor and time commitment required to achieve success in an online class are often not understand by persons who have never taken an online course. Students considering enrolling in their first online course need to have the expectations clearly communicated to them prior to the first day of class.

45

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

5.

Online degree completion requires a great deal of commitment from the educational institution. The most important considerations involve accreditation, specific scheduling of classes in a calculated and well-thought out manner, and the transition of student services online.

Any online program’s adherence to these best practice guidelines and examples must, of course, be tempered and made to fit the educational institution’s culture and academic governance system. However, if done correctly, the proliferation of online programs is a very positive development for students seeking a rigorous educational experience highlighted by flexibility and convenience.

reFerences Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl (Eds.). (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning,Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman. Bourne, J., & Moore, J. (Eds.). (2002). Elements of Quality Online Education. Sloan Center for Online Education.

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HLC Report. (2003). [A Classroom of One: How Online Learning Is Changing Our Schools and Colleges. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.]. Gene, I. Little, C. B., Titarenko, L., & Bergelson, M. (2005). Creating a Successful International DistanceLearning Classroom. [from http://www.jstor.org/]. Teaching Sociology, 33(4), 355–370. Retrieved October 18, 2008. Monolescu, D., Schifter, C., & Greenwood, L. (2004). The Distance Education Evolution: Issues and Case Studies. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing. Rose, C. (1991). Accelerated Learning. Aylesbury, Bucks.: Accelerated Learning Systems Ltd. Simonson, M., Smaldiino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2000). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Wallace, Raven McCrory (2004). A Framework for Understanding Teaching with the Internet. American Educational Research Journal Vol.41, No.2, 447-488. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from http://www.jstor.org/

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

APPendIx A Figure 3. Secret student evaluation of new online instructor’s course

APPendIx b

Table 2. New instructor mid-term evaluation form Mid-Term Evaluation Form

Please complete this Evaluation Form. Your answers to the following questions will be relayed to the instructors in such a fashion as to ensure your confidentiality. Do not put your name on this form. These do not become part of the instructor’s file, but instead are designed to give the instructor important feedback from the student at the midpoint in the semester. Circle your response to the following questions: A. This course is well-organized and carefully planned. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree COMMENTS: B. The instructor has good teaching skills; he or she produces steady interest in the subject, creates real desire to learn, keeps things moving. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree COMMENTS:

continued on following page 47

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Table 2. continued C. Assignments are explained well and students clearly understand the tasks of each new assignment. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree COMMENTS: D. Class discussions are handled well; the questions are challenging and demand sound thinking, and the discussions are interesting and stimulating. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree COMMENTS: E. Examination questions are thought-provoking, carefully selected, and clear. Results are given to students quickly. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree COMMENTS F. The instructor has an excellent mastery of subject material. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree COMMENTS:

APPendIx c

Table 3. Course visitation report sheet Monitor’s Name: Course Number: Instructor: Course Duration: Date of Visit: Text Block Usage:

Yes

No

Color Choices:

Excellent

Good

Poor

Course Navigation/Structure:

Easy

Challenging

If challenging, what are your suggestions to make it easier?

Syllabus Clearly Visible:

Yes

No

Schedule Posted:

Yes

No

Grading Scale:

Yes

No

Calendar Available and Up To Date:

Yes

No

Grading Rubric:

Clear

Neutral

Course Materials Current:

Yes

No

Discussion Board Read:

24 Hours

48 Hours

72 Hours

E-mails Answered:

24 Hours

48 Hours

72 Hours

48

Unclear

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

APPendIx d Figure 4. Idea evaluation feedback form

49

The Proliferation, Pitfalls, and Power of Online Education

Figure 5. Idea evaluation feedback form (continued)

This work was previously published in Cases on Distance Delivery and Learning Outcomes: Emerging Trends and Programs, edited by D. Gearhart, pp. 167-189, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.4

The Virtual University: Distance Learning Spaces for Adult Learners David S. Stein The Ohio State University, USA Hilda R. Glazer Capella University, USA Constance E. Wanstreet The Ohio State University, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

By offering self-designed, guided independent study, for-profit virtual universities began as alternatives to traditional graduate education that emphasized full-time study and ignored the life demands of adult students. However, through the process of gaining accreditation, recognition by the academy, and acceptance in the marketplace, virtual universities now more closely resemble traditional institutions. Their challenge to traditional academic practices predominately rests with the use of electronic tools for learning and the access virtual universities provide thousands of part-time learners pursuing doctoral degrees.

New delivery systems are challenging the supremacy of the physical classroom. Virtual (online) institutions of higher education are disputing the primacy of land-based universities as the only legitimate form of education for adults. Online and mobile learning tools are increasing access to opportunities for postsecondary adult education. However, little has been published about the ways in which adult learning is taking place in the virtual universities (VUs). These institutions have emerged in the past decade as providers of proprietary higher education to thousands of adults who otherwise may not have opportunities to engage in postsecondary study. How virtual universities came about, what they are doing to help adult learners achieve better lives, and what their future holds are the themes of this chapter.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch004

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Virtual University

bAcKGround As the educational marketplace becomes predominately adult-dominated, and as higher education institutions compete for adult enrollments, understanding how virtual universities are changing the landscape of higher education will be a significant issue in adult education. A number of trends are converging. For example, students learning online will outnumber those in seats for the majority of their education (Allen & Seaman, 2007). Learning is globally available at any time and in any place. Students entering the university have grown up with technology and expect to interact and learn through electronically mediated environments. For example, students are able to access information online while sitting in class. This necessitates additional skills to evaluate sources of information critically. University faculty will need to consider the question of how they deal with the changing nature of the classroom, access to information, and how private VUs can provide opportunities for learning on a global basis, especially at the graduate level to otherwise disenfranchised learners (Cassano, 2008). Additionally, private VUs are challenging the notion of the traditional campus and the interactions that take place on a land-based campus. In essence, the virtual university suggests that learning opportunities should come to the adult learner rather than adult learners having to come to the campus. Considering the classroom as the space in which learning occurs, we can reconceptualize learning spaces to include the virtual as well as the face to face. This will influence how formal education is provided and, in turn, how adults will learn in the networked age. Attempts at forecasting the future of learning have relied on applying current technologies to learning and have manipulated the settings for learning. For example, Levin (2002) forecasted the idea of tele-task forces for collaborative learning, neighborhood learning centers, and tele-apprenticeships. The models were rather conservative

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and did not fundamentally alter the manner in which content was provided or the roles of the instructor and learner. Virtual universities are on the technological edge regarding adult learning. They are altering how graduate education is obtained and are redefining the interactions between faculty member and adult learner. Distance learning institutions held forth the promise of providing high-quality adult education any place, any time, and at any pace. This chapter describes the manner in which VUs are delivering on that promise. This chapter is informed by public sources of information as well as our experience teaching in various private VUs. The authors and the voices reflected in this chapter have lived the lives of online instructors. They have been involved with graduate online distance education as it evolved from the idea of distance learning as independent study to the notion of education delivered through the virtual campus. This chapter addresses the following questions in the context of independent, for-profit virtual institutions: • • •

What were the visions guiding the development of adult-focused online universities? What characteristics do VUs share that help adult learners achieve better lives? What trends are emerging for VUs in relation to traditional universities?

The emergence of the for-profit, virtual university primarily serving adult learners continues the evolution of offering opportunities for those learners who, because of geographic location, work and family commitments, or prior academic experience, could not attend or not be accepted at many of the established land-based universities. Although Hanna (2007) characterizes these universities as motivated by profit, these institutions have provided greater opportunity for adult learners by responding to their needs for baccalaureate to graduate education. In addition, VUs have adopted online and collaborative tech-

The Virtual University

nologies more rapidly than traditional land-based universities. Clark (2007) defines the virtual campus as an educational organization that offers courses through the Internet or Web-based methods. This is a simplistic view and ignores the structure and organization that have developed to support the online learner. The virtual campus as it has evolved embraces the full range of services that might be found on a land-based campus, with the exception of sports and other inter- and extramural activities. Private VUs share many common characteristics regarding formation, mission, and delivery of services. Garber (2006) suggested a conceptual scheme for analyzing characteristics of an educational delivery system that include (a) an adult focus, (b) alignment with the professional/working needs of adults, (c) movement through a degree, (d) accessibility, and (e) learning connected to the work force and the community for the betterment of both. We will examine the virtual university in the context of those characteristics.

the vIsIon oF An AduLtFocused InstItutIon The 1960s were a time of unrest and innovation at North American universities. Given the zeitgeist, the climate was supportive of alternative approaches to the ways in which graduate education was provided and completed. The for-profit VUs began as a reaction to the place- and time-bounded requirements that dominated graduate education. Traditional institutions’ emphasis on full-time study also neglected the life demands of the adult students. The idea of the VU was to provide a place and space for working adult learners to meet and achieve their educational objectives with a faculty strongly committed to innovation and learnercentered philosophical stances. At first, the VU was not a technological innovation but an educational alternative grounded in the ideas of andragogy and learning contracts (Knowles, 1970). According to

Brian Austin (personal communication, July 23, 2008), who was a faculty member and later dean of psychology at two virtual universities, the VU was conceptualized as a place for doctoral students to take control of their education and complete their degrees, thus building on the concept that adult learners investigate topics of interest to them and build from their experiences. Admission was granted to those learners who had been in traditional doctoral programs and were unable to complete the dissertation for financial, personal, work, or other reasons. Bruce Francis, a faculty member at two VUs, recalls the impetus behind the curriculum design: The essence of doctoral education was the relationship between the learner and the mentor. The idea was to change doctoral education to establish a more collegial relationship in which the learner was not looked down upon. . . . The model of education had to fit the lifestyle of the learner, not the learner fitting into the lifestyle of the program. Thus, the needs of learners were central. (B. Francis, personal communication, August 5, 2008) Graduate education could be provided at a distance. Alternative educators viewed an alternative form of graduate education as a vehicle for introducing reform in public education. In describing the early years of distance education, Austin (personal communication, July 23, 2008) expressed the excitement and hope that alternative graduate education would bring to higher education. Distance education in the mid-1970s was primarily a commitment to correspondence and a four-week summer session. In the early 1980s, VUs moved to a formal curriculum and a four-week summer session with focused seminars. VUs no longer thought of distance education in terms of correspondence but rather as dispersed residency. This was a critical point in their development. Distance education meant dispersed residency with knowledge/competency demonstration through

53

The Virtual University

modules. This approach had been well under way in Europe during the 1970s but was new to the United States (Mason, 2000). The residency model was built on the need to engage the community in sustained study for short periods of time. It was an institute for innovative practices for teachers, curriculum developers, and leaders. The founders sought to provide useful knowledge for informed practice. Therefore, they looked for faculty to develop innovative practices through applied professional research in education, human services, and business. The mission of this type of institution was to develop a scholar-practitioner, one who could be a leader in his or her professional setting and use theory to inform and guide practice (B. Austin, personal communication, July 23, 2008).

ALIGnMent wIth the ProFessIonAL/worKInG needs oF AduLts The early curriculum models consisted of guided independent study with a faculty assessor. The curriculum was designed around a core set of knowledge modules and specialization modules. Each module was designed to respond to theory in a basic social science area of inquiry and examine the empirical research in depth. Each module also included a component in which the learner was to demonstrate application of theory and research to a real-world problem. The unique feature of the learning model was an emphasis on the needs of the adult learner in the context of the learner’s professional life. Rather than faculty determining readings, activities, and evaluation, learners, given general guidelines, developed learning agreements based on their discipline and professional interests. This learning model emphasized a general understanding of social science knowledge as applied at the individual, group, and societal levels. It matched the ways people lived and learned (B. Francis, August 5, 2008). The learning model was

54

based on the mission of the institutions to connect theory and practice, thus bringing about positive changes in society. According to Austin (personal communication, July 23, 2008), the VUs “never lost sight of their potential to change practice and communities through innovative ideas in adult and collaborative learning.” VUs were built upon the belief that students have an obligation to practice in their fields and apply their knowledge in ways that move their field of inquiry, their communities, and society toward higher levels of thinking and acting. The focus of the VU is to promote the idea of the scholar-practitioner, a degree holder, especially at the doctoral level, who applies theory, conducts research, and acts on that research in the world of practice. The VU learning model emphasized the learning of intellectual skills over receiving a grade. Recognizing the busy lives that working adults maintained, learning activities were accomplished on a schedule designed by the learner rather than by an academic calendar. Generally, a learning project could last from six to 12 months. Projects were redone as often as necessary until the criteria for an acceptable learning outcome was determined by the faculty and student.

MoveMent towArd successFuL deGree coMPLetIon Early in the graduate program, the learner was expected to develop the skills necessary to conduct and report on independent research. Each stop of the learning model respected the time constraints and individual learning styles of the adult learner. The learning model was designed to begin the process of thinking through a dissertation topic as well as developing the thinking and writing skills needed for independent research. One VU committed to social change delivered content and learning process skills through knowledge area modules in which learners were expected

The Virtual University

to address content from a theoretical, empirical, and applied knowledge base. The modules were completed on a timetable developed by the learner using the vehicle of a learning contract. The learning contract specified the readings, topics to be investigated, and the evaluation plan. With the emphasis on social change, learnercenteredness, and connection to practice issues, the learning model reinforced the notion of independent exploration of a topic under the guidance of a faculty assessor. Writing a learning agreement taught the learner how to frame a problem, obtain sources, and integrate the content to develop an original argument that had theoretical, empirical, and practical dimensions. The course work was designed to develop the cognitive skills needed to write and present a dissertation. The model suggested that the learner would easily be able to transition from writing in a knowledge area to writing a dissertation. In that way, there would be continuity between the skills needed to plan and organize content areas and those needed to write the dissertation. Learner-centeredness included extensive collaboration between the assessor and learner in the development of critical thinking skills, assessment tools, and a sense of responsibility for learning on the part of the student. Students were responsible for shaping the curriculum to best meet their contextual needs. Students were developing skills in constructing purposeful learning activities and approaches, the idea of meta-learning; i.e., learning about their own learning (Bosch et al., 2008; Emes, 2003).

Accessibility The most notable feature of the VU is the student body. The ideal of a dispersed learning model, a self-designed timetable for completing the degree, and an open admissions policy provided an opportunity for working adults in midlife to return to an academic institution and work toward obtaining a graduate degree.

In the VU, life experience and desire are factors in the admissions process. For working adult learners, the opportunity to study at the doctoral level may be hindered by requirements such as full-time status, grade point average (GPA), the graduate record examination (GRE), interviews, and the university academic calendar designed around daytime rather than evening classes. VUs have provided access to higher education and the opportunity to succeed to those who might be denied admission. In 2006, one VU admitted more than 15,000 graduate students, of whom approximately 4,000 were doctoral students. Although GRE scores are not required, applicants must have a master’s degree and an acceptable GPA. The GPA range across the university was 3.24-3.77. Twenty applicants were denied admission because of low GPAs and 103 applicants were denied admission due to inadequate preparation for the intended field of study. Another VU offers more than 970 online courses and 21 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in 109 specialized areas of study. One VU has more than 23,700 learners from all 50 states and 45 countries. Women outnumber men 68% to 32%, and urban learners (at 79%) outnumber learners in rural areas (at 21%). The average age is 40 (ranging from 19-86), and 42% of the learners are people of color. Only 10% of those enrolled attend full time, with 90% studying part time (Capella, 2008). The VUs have also increased accessibility to graduate education for women and minorities. In 2006, women constituted more than 80% of the applicants in two colleges and were the majority of applicants across the campus. Minorities accounted for 48% of the applicants. Applicants tend to come from other innovative and nontraditional programs that attract adult learners rather than from the traditional universities. VUs have increased the accessibility of doctoral education and have increased the diversity of students. VUs have purposefully made decisions to comply with accessibility standards related to as-

55

The Virtual University

sistive technologies and have active ADA offices to work with individuals on needed accommodations. With students all over the world participating in courses, asynchronous technology is employed because it is universally accessible.

Availability As VUs have grown in terms of faculty and students, they have used technology to provide services that learners would find on any physical campus. Learners can conduct all daily transactions with university administration online. Services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. VUs also offer phone contact for those who prefer that method of communication. In addition, faculty services in the form of mentoring and instructional responsibilities are available around the clock. The expectations for faculty-student interactions are carefully prescribed in terms of responsiveness for feedback, postings in the online classrooms, and turnaround time for grading of weekly assignments. In virtual institutions, teaching is also a 24/7 activity. Expectations for faculty include (a) reviewing postings and discussions three to four days a week on a staggered schedule, (b) posting to the discussion forum three to four days a week and responding to at least two-thirds of the class weekly, (c) checking and responding to e-mail messages every 48 hours during weekdays, (d) grading assignments within seven business days, and (e) holding office hours two hours per week. VUs have no tenure systems. Teaching appointments are annual and based on responsiveness to learner needs as well as content expertise. Faculty activities are monitored for quality and consistency. The classrooms can be checked regularly for interactions between faculty and learners against the standards for timeliness and interaction. Building connections through frequent instructor-learner interaction increase student identification with the university as well as keep students involved in course activities.

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For doctoral students, a mentoring program was originally the norm. This has evolved in some institutions to assigning mentors closer to comprehensive examinations and the dissertation. Advising is the responsibility of staff so that the faculty can develop a mentoring relationship with their learners. The online faculty member is either core or adjunct. Faculty are hired for their teaching and content expertise; and research is generally not supported, although it is valued. Adjunct faculty may teach in a number of VUs and still continue to conduct professional activities or hold jobs in industry.

connectInG the worKForce And coMMunIty For the betterMent oF both Providing graduate education for the professions is a hallmark of virtual institutions, and social change is at the heart of their missions. The goal is to provide professions with individuals who will work directly to bring about positive social change in concrete ways. The social change mission as exemplified in the learning model requires a deliberate process of creating and applying ideas, strategies, and actions to promote the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, organizations, institutions, cultures, and societies. Positive social change, by definition, results in the improvement of human and social conditions. The commitment to social change guides the curriculum, the nature of doctoral dissertations, and the activities that are part of the residency requirement. One VU that believes so strongly in this mission awards scholarships to faculty and students who pursue social change in their practice (Walden, 2008). The delivery system has the potential to increase the quantity and quality of individuals working in professions. At the undergraduate level, students are prepared for specific jobs.

The Virtual University

At the master’s level, the focus is on mid-career professionals who want to improve their knowledge and skills. Today, programs are available in pubic health, education, nursing, professional psychology, mental health services, and public administration.

MovInG towArd A trAdItIonAL systeM Have VUs met the promise of providing highquality adult learning any place, any time, and at any pace? By the year 2000, VUs had adopted online learning systems resembling typical landbased courses. Traditional grades had replaced the competency-based grading system, and classes were structured like traditional graduate courses. VUs retained their goal of meeting the lifestyle needs of adult learners but have moved toward traditional goals of graduate education. Components of the self-designed, self-directed independent learning model are still present. However, to meet accreditation standards imposed by professional organizations, demands of learners for courses and transcripts more recognizable by employers and other funding agencies, and a more structured approach to learning, VUs are turning toward a traditional campus learning model. The transition is occurring in three phases. Phase one involves gaining legal accreditation; e.g., negotiating with libraries and hiring credentialed faculty. Phase two involves gaining recognition by the academy; e.g., hiring faculty who connect their research and publishing to the university and moving to an administrative structure of deans rather than vice presidents. Phase three involves demonstrating to employers that graduates are qualified to meet workplace expectations. Phases two and three continue to evolve. In the process, VUs have focused less on offering alternative ways of learning. The difference is in the delivery more than the design of the learning experience.

Virtual universities have increased the number of learners pursuing graduate degrees and have opened up doctoral degrees to those who wish to apply their knowledge and skills to improve practice and contribute to dealing with complex problems in their communities. The doctoral degree is now available any place and to nearly anyone who wishes to undertake graduate study. By graduating thousands of doctoral degree holders each year, VUs have raised the question of the meaning of the doctoral degree itself and have challenged the exclusivity of the doctoral degree. Despite becoming more mainstream, we believe VUs will continue to question traditional academic practices in higher education. A tension in the desire to be innovative and on the edge is counterbalanced by the need for respectability and acceptance in the graduate academic community. While VUs continue to be on the edge of technology and promote electronic tools for learning, the experience of learning itself more closely resembles traditional institutions. At the same time, VUs challenge traditional universities to learn from them and move into the virtual world, thus making their own mark on learning alternatives in the 21st century.

reFerences Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2007). Online nation: Five years of growth in online learning. Needham, MA: Sloan-C. Bosch, W., Hester, J., MacEntee, V., MacKenzie, J., Morey, T., & Nichols, J. (2008). Beyond lipservice: an operational definition of “learningcentered college.” . Innovative Higher Education, 33(2), 83–98. doi:10.1007/s10755-008-9072-1 Capella University. (2008). Capella learners and alumni. Retrieved October 1, 2008, from http:// www.capella.edu/online_learning/students.aspx

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The Virtual University

Cassano, C. (2008). The global advantages of learning online. Distance Learning Today, 6. Retrieved September 25, 2008, from http://www. dltoday.net/viewart.php?pk=45

Hanna, D. (2007). Organizational change in higher distance education. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of Distance Education (2nd ed., pp. 501-514). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Clark, T. (2007). Virtual and distance education in North American schools. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of Distance Education (2nd Ed., pp. 473-490). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Knowles, M. (1970). The modern practice of adult education. New York: Association Press.

Emes, C., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2003). A journey toward learner-centered curriculum. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 33(3), 47–69. Garber, R. (2006, November 3). Next governor has promised to boost education of work force. The Columbus Dispatch, p. A13.

Levin, J. (2002). A 2020 vision: Education in the next two decades. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(1), 105–114. Mason, R. (2000). From distance education to online education. The Internet and Higher Education, 3, 63–74. doi:10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00033-6 Walden University. (2008, August). Scholarships awarded for social change efforts. The Walden Ponder. Retrieved October 1, 2008, from http:// ponder.waldenu.edu/c/11468_26275.htm

This work was previously published in Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes, edited by T. T. Kidd; J. Keengwe, pp. 32-39, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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59

Chapter 1.5

Why Choose an Online Course? Lawrence A. Tomei Robert Morris University, USA April Kwiatkowski Robert Morris University, USA Lorie Brown Robert Morris University, USA Lori Pash Robert Morris University, USA Christine Javery Southern New Hampshire University,USA Julie Ray Robert Morris University, USA Rae Ann Durocher Southern New Hampshire University,USA

AbstrAct OCICU is the Online Consortium of Independent Colleges and Universities and consists of five provider institutions which are located throughout the United States and Ireland. This consortium is the first of its kind to exist in distance education. The researchers wanted to understand why students choose to take courses through the consortium as well as why students opt for online learning

instead of traditional face to face instruction. The research was limited courses that were completed in the Fall 2006, Spring 2007, and Fall 2007. The review of the literature revealed several factors of teaching online that affect why member schools recommend an OCICU course to their students and why these students succeed or fail in an online environment. The response rate of 25% diminishes the ability of this investigation to generalize to this population of 64 institutions.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Why Choose an Online Course?

IntroductIon OCICU is the Online Consortium of Independent Colleges and Universities and consists of five provider institutions which are located throughout the United States and Ireland. Currently there are 64 member institutions that refer approximately 550 students per academic year to the consortium. OCICU allows students from member institutions to register for approved courses being offered by provider schools and course credit is granted by the home / sending institution. The target market for OCICU are small institutions which currently have limited to no access to online courses but have identified a need by their students for online courses. Provider institutions help member institutions increase enrollment, retention, and revenue by allowing them to offer their students a wider breadth of courses without having to develop an internal online program. The researchers want to understand why students choose to take courses through the consortium and as well as why they, students, prefer online learning to traditional face to face instruction.

PurPose oF the study This study explored online learning, particularly within the Online Consortium of Colleges and Universities (OCICU) program. This consortium is the first of its kind to exist in distance education. Because of the infancy of this program and the lack of available research within this realm, the provider institutions requested that a research project be undertaken to benefit the future course planning of the OCICU. Within this study, the researchers investigated the course selection for students, the reasons why member institutions recommend these courses to students, and why students choose to enroll in the courses within this

60

consortium. Along with the course investigation, this study compared and contrasted the provider schools, attempting to identify the reasons why some institutions entice more students than other institutions. The overall goal of this research project was to further examine this program with the target of allowing the OCICU to better align itself with the demands and requirements of potential students and member institutions.

LIMItAtIons And deLIMItAtIons The research limitations encountered include: limiting courses and orientations to those completed in the Fall 2006, Spring 2007, and Fall 2007; excluding the Summer 2007 courses in this study; level of difficulty of the online course, (e.g. an advanced accounting course); considering the success of the orientation of students who completed their online course; considering the success of the orientation for those students who dropped the online course. The delimitations to the study included: knowledge and previous experience of the online course instructors; level of instruction readiness of the student; follow-up of member institutions with students to ensure completion of the orientation; the motivation of the student to complete the orientation; the interest of the student in completing the orientation; the time of day the student accessed the online course and that factors impact on their success; the technological capacity of the student to access and complete an online orientation; the varying lengths of the courses offered by the providers of the consortium; whether the member institutions provided face to face orientation in addition to the online orientation; the number of individual who attended any face to face orientation group; and the length of online orientation sessions.

Why Choose an Online Course?

sIGnIFIcAnce oF the study As our society changes through the information age, and now into the telecommunication age, formal education has become essential for the economic success of individuals. Individuals seeking college course offerings are becoming increasingly diverse to include older, married, employed, and non-residential students (Beller & Or, 1998). A factor influencing higher education is increased competition for students. Universities are banding together to form consortiums to offer additional degrees and flexibility in course offerings. At many institutions, the effectiveness of distance and on-line learning methodologies has not been well researched prior to adoption. To better understand how these consortium course offerings are affecting the consortium member institutions and providing institutions, this study will provide insight as to the future of the OCICU and similar consortiums. The results will serve as a guide when determining what the future of the OCICU should entail. Should the entity grow by member institutions and provider institutions? Should the providing institutions expand course offerings?

revIew oF the LIterAture Primary research of why students choose to take online courses over traditional face-to-face classes overwhelming shows that there is no single reason why students choose online over traditional classroom based courses. However studies do show similarities in the reasons students prefer to take online courses. (Caruso 2007, Chang 2001, Cooper 2003, Diaz 1999, Dutton 2002, O’Malley 1999, Galusha 1997, Pope 2006) Dutton, Pope, Caruso, and Chang identified six general characteristics common in online students, work and family schedules, shorter / no commute, flexibility, life style, control over

schedule, and need for high demand courses. Additionally students who have physical disabilities are also more likely to take classes online as opposed to traditional classes. (Galusha, 1997) Research conducted by Diaz, O’Malley, and Caruso also show the average age of the “typical” online learner is older than that of the traditional day student and that individual perceptions, prior experiences, comfort level with technology, and learning style all play an important role in the student’s success rate. According to Sabine Seufert of the University of St. Gallen, located in Switzerland), colleges as well as businesses are competing globally. Seufert ascertains that both corporations and universities need to utilize “new e-learning strategies…to react to the changes in a competitive and global education market” (p. 3). One such strategy is the development of an educational consortium. An example of a well-established consortium is the “Next Generation University,” which was founded in 1997. This consortium offers business courses to various companies by working with the leading business schools worldwide. In Seufert’s case study, he identifies potential benefits of consortiums, including a reduction in the necessary funds associated with course development, superior course quality, and greater flexibility for students. We live in a global society with technology infused into every aspect of our lives. Education from kindergarten through college has greeted technology ranging from computers in the classroom to online and distance learning. In order to stay competitive in this global society, higher education has adjusted and adapted the courses offered, and the way they are offered, to attract students. Through 2014, the National Center for Education Statistics projects a rise of 11 percent in enrollments of people younger than 25, and an increase of 15 percent in the number of 25 and older (Hatfield, 2007). This growth of students

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Why Choose an Online Course?

creates a need to expand course offerings through online and distance education. Nationwide, 20 percent of all college students at the graduate and undergraduate level are enrolled in at least one online course according to the Sloan Foundation (Robbins, 2007). In 2006, Picciano cited information from a survey conducted nationally by Allen & Seaman in 2004, noting that 52.6 percent of chief academic officers asked viewed online learning as critical to their institutions overall long-term strategy. Colleges and universities are increasing their involvement in online learning for a number of reasons that include: expanding access to their educations for students not geographically close to the institution, providing more convenient access to students with busy lives that combine career/ work/family responsibilities with education, opportunities for home bound students and allowing military personnel to continue their education (Picciano, 2006). The use of the Internet for educational purposes is widespread and rapidly growing. With the online student population expanding by 30 percent a year, thousands of university courses have been developed for delivery entirely via the web (Dutton & Perry, 2002). This trend will only accelerate as more colleges and universities band together to offer online courses in consortiums. Online classes provide greater flexibility to students who benefit from being able to control the time during which they study the course materials. In addition to flexibility, online classes offer greater convenience since the class can literally be taken anywhere there is access to a computer (Dutton & Perry, 2002; O’Malley, J., McCraw, H., 1999). The two major reasons students choose online courses are: to avoid conflicts between class meetings and other responsibilities; and to avoid travel when the student’s residence is far from campus (Dutton & Perry, 2002).

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summary The review of the literature revealed several factors of teaching line that affect why Member Schools recommend an OCICU course to their students and why these students succeed or fail in an online environment. Member schools who best match student needs (in a litany of factors that are yet undetermined) to Provider School course offerings will do more to increase student satisfaction than any other factor impacting registration. Advising for online programs seems to be more successful when initiated by faculty and academic advisors than other institutional administrators. Timing is important; the literature suggests that provider term dates should match as closely as possible with member dates. Such equivalencies are more likely to result in a suitable match. The most important characteristics common to online students should be considered when developing and scheduling online courses and programs and include: student scheduling considerations and the advantages of asynchronous and/or synchronous tools; totally online versus hybrid formats and the necessary commute time for any courses not offered 100 percent online; flexibility in instructional delivery methods using the breadth of available technologies at the institution; personal life style demands that include socio-economics considerations such as cost of the technology, fees, and tuition; and, the most flexible scheduling scheme for satisfying student needs for high demand courses.

MethodoLoGy oF the study survey Instrument Members of the research team compiled a list of factors that were to be evaluated using online survey instruments. Two members of the team each selected a specific target group for evaluation: member schools and students who completed

Why Choose an Online Course?

Table 1. List of factors examined Semesters per year of active OCICU participation Reasons for advising students to take OCICU courses Students per OCICU provider Reasons for selecting a particular OCICU provider Student satisfaction Advising Satisfaction with OCICU Satisfaction with Provider School Experience with the OCICU portal Ease/ understanding of the registration process Contact/ interaction with the instructor Orientation package Delivery platform Semester start/ end dates Prior technical experience and expertise Successful course completion Overall experience with course, learning environment, administrative process, other factors Demographic information

an OCICU-sponsored course. Using many, if not all, of the factors presented in the review of the literature (See Table 1), team members composed their surveys, refined the items, and presented a draft of the surveys to other members of the team for refinements. Final survey instruments are available in Appendix A and B.

Investigation conduct OCICU provided participant email addresses for the surveys. Each team member was permitted to use whatever survey platform was most familiar (most chose Survey Monkey). An email request for participation was prepared by the principal investigator and the links to the respective surveys sent in January 2008.

FIndInGs And resuLts oF the study Participation from member schools had a response rate of 16 of 64 institutions responding (25%). The Student response rate was estimated at 7.8% (43 of 550 email invitations). Participation for this first round of investigative research was acceptable but needs emphasis to ensure that the results are generalizable throughout the OCICU community.

results from Member surveys The member schools response rate of 25% diminishes the ability of this investigation to generalize to this population of 64 institutions. Still, the results infuse valuable new information into the conduct of the OCICU as seen from the perspec-

63

Why Choose an Online Course?

tive of our “middle man” customers. And, since these institutions are the go-between matching provider school courses with student needs, care will be taken during the review of the results to identify valid findings versus suppositions and non-validated conclusions.

results from student surveys Forty-three (43) students completed the survey for a 7.8% response rate. It is obvious that a better response would produce more generalizable findings and we would hope to achieve those better rates in subsequent research efforts. For this paper, the following results were uncovered.

recoMMendAtIons And ProPosed FoLLow-uP InvestIGAtIons recommendations Based on the findings and analysis of the member schools and the students participating in this study, the following recommendations pertaining specifically to key reasons that member institutions recommend a particular OCICU course are offered for consideration. 1.

summary of Findings and results of the study Regarding the member schools who participated in the study, they appear satisfied with the OCICU. 88.3% of respondents rated the OCICU excellent or good. As such, 88.2% of the responding schools said they would recommend other schools become members of the OCICU. From the student perspective, it appears the students are satisfied with the courses they have taken through the OCICU. 94.1% of responding students said they thought the courses they had taken were excellent or good yet only 78.6% would take another course through the OCICU. It was interesting to note that 69.2% of responding students said they took the OCICU course because they needed it to graduate while 12.8% of respondents took the course just for fun. Some 97.6% of respondents successfully completed their course and 92.1% received either an A or B. No students reported receiving an incomplete for the course they selected and only 2.4% of respondents failed the course. Most students who take courses through the OCICU are upper classmen (72.1%)

2.

3.

Proposed Follow-up Investigations From the survey results, additional research questions have been formulated and are offered for further consideration. 1.

64

Provider schools should closely examine the convenience of the online course format that member schools choose a particular provider for their students. As much as possible, this consideration should be measured when creating course schedules, assigning faculty, and creating orientation materials matching course objectives and learning goals with member institution programs of study. This needs to be a two-way street with member schools informing providers of programs that need online courses. Provider schools should communicate their programs with all levels of student advisement, but especially with academic and faculty advisors and the registrar’s office of each member school. OCICU needs to increase their communication regarding the use of the OCICU portal for member schools.

What are the qualities of provider schools and member schools that could be used by

Why Choose an Online Course?

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

member schools to recommend OCICU to colleagues at other institutions? What barriers are noted by member schools and students to using the OCICU to its fullest potential? What information packets are provider schools and OCICU using to spread the word about OCICU to registrars, academic and faculty advisors, and student support offices on the campuses of member institutions? What characteristics of good web page design and content information were found on the web sites of provider schools, member schools, and OCICU that make them easy to use and navigate? Why would students take OCICU courses in place of courses offered through the home institution? What are some of the most important barriers experienced by students that would cause them not to consider taking another course through the consortium? What is the extent of term start/ end dates across the provider schools compared to the member schools and how does that difference impact a student’s choice whether or not to register for a provider school’s course? What are the common reasons that student rate their overall experience with OCICU courses as unsatisfactory?

reFerences Beller, M. & Or, E. (1998). The crossroads between lifelong learning and information technology: A challenge facing leading universities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4. Caruso, J. (2007) “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007” ECAR Educause Center for Applied Research. Retrieved from http://www.educause. edu/ecar/

Chang, S. (2001) “What Types of Online Facilitation Do Students Need?”, National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Retrieved from EDRS Cooper, M. (2003) “Voices on the Web: Online Learners and Their Experiences”, 2003 Midwest Research to Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education Diaz, D. (1999) “Comparing Student Learning Styles in an Online Distance Learning Class and an Equivalent On-Campus Class, Cuesta Community College, Retrieved from http://home.earthlink. net/~davidpdiaz/LTS/html_docs/grslss.htm Dutton, J. (2002) “How Do Online Students Differ From Lecture Students?” JALN (Vol 6, Issue 1) Galusha, J. (1997) “Barriers to Learning in Distance Education”, University of Southern Mississippi. Retrieved from http://www.infrastruction. com/barriers.htm Hatfield, Michelle. (2007, October 18). College enrollment swells: rising student bodies at local institutions follow national trend. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Washington, D.C. O’Malley, J. (1999) “Students Perceptions of Distance Learning, Online Learning and the Traditional Classroom”, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (Vol 2, Number 4). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu?~distance/ omalley24.html Picciano, Anthony. Journal of thought. San Francisco: Spring 2006. Vol. 41, Iss. 1; pg. 75. Pope, J. (2006) “Some Students Prefer Classes Online”, USA Today Online. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-01-15college-online-course_x.htm Robbins, Richard. (2007, December 9). Online classes gain favor at region’s universities. McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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Why Choose an Online Course?

Seufert, Sabine (2001) “E-Learning Business Models Framework and Best Practice Examples”, Swiss Centre for Innovations and Learning, Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen. Retrieved from http:// elearning-reviews.com/

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Why Choose an Online Course?

APPendIx A: MeMber schooL survey Q1. One average how many semesters / terms per year are you referring students to take courses through OCICU? 1

5.9%

1

2

0.0%

0

3

47.1%

8

4

0.0%

0

5

5.9%

1

6

41.2%

7

Convenience

100.0%

16

Courses not offered at member school this semester

93.8%

15

Free electives needed for graduation

75.0%

12

Online format desired

31.3%

5

Scheduling flexibility

6.3%

1

Yes

88.2%

15

No

11.8%

2

Selection of courses

100.0%

16

Course content and objectives consistent with member school

87.5%

14

Apparent quality of the syllabus

62.5%

10

100.0%

16

Q2. What are the top 3-5 reasons for advising students to take classes through OCICU?

Q3. Do you refer students to more than one provider institution?

Q4. What are the top 3 reasons for choosing the provider institution(s) currently used by your students?

Q5. On average how many students have you referred to take courses through OCICU per academic year?

Q6. How would you rate your student’s overall satisfaction with the courses they have taken through OCICU? Excellent

29.4%

5

Good

64.7%

11

Fair

5.9%

1

Poor

0.0%

0

continued on following page

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Why Choose an Online Course?

APPendIx A: contInued Q7. How do students at your institution hear about OCICU? Academic Advisor

87.5%

14

Student Support Personnel

18.8%

3

Faculty Advisor

25.0%

4

Registrar

25.0%

4

Comments

5

Q8. How do you rate your institutions overall satisfaction with OCICU? Excellent

41.2%

7

Good

47.1%

8

Fair

11.8%

2

APPendIx b: student survey Q1. How did you hear about OCICU? Registrar

50.0%

15

Academic Advisor

36.7%

11

Faculty Advisor

6.7%

2

Student Support

6.7%

Comments

2 14

Q2. Overall the registration process was easy to understand. Strongly agree

36.4%

16

Agree

52.3%

23

Unsure

6.8%

3

Disagree

4.5%

2

Strongly disagree

0.0%

0

Strongly agree

25.6%

11

Agree

67.4%

29

Did not use website / unsure

2.3%

1

Disagree

4.7%

2

Strongly disagree

0.0%

0

Q3. Overall the school’s website, the school who hosted the course(s) you took, was easy to use and navigate.

continued on following page

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Why Choose an Online Course?

APPendIx b: contInued Q4. Why did you choose the particular course(s) you took through the consortium? Check all that apply. Advised to do so

17.9%

7

Needed course to graduate

69.2%

27

Took in place of course offered through home institution

28.2%

11

Took as an elective

12.8%

5

Took for personal development / enjoyment

5.1%

2

Comments

7

Q5. Did you have a difficult time finding information on the courses offered through the consortium? Yes

2.3%

1

No

93.0%

40

Unsure

4.7%

2

Comments

6

Q6. Would you take another course through the consortium? Yes

78.6%

33

No

4.8%

2

Unsure

16.7%

7

Comments

8

Q7. How would you rate your contact / interaction with the instructor? Above average

34.9%

15

Average

46.5%

20

Unsure

7.0%

3

Below average

7.0%

3

Poor

4.7%

2

Above average

20.9%

9

Average

67.4%

29

N/A - No orientation materials were provided

7.0%

3

Below average

4.7%

2

Poor

0.0%

0

Q8. How would you rate the orientation provided by the institution where you took your class?

continued on following page

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Why Choose an Online Course?

APPendIx b: contInued Q9. The course delivery platform, blackboard, webct, ecollege, was easy to learn and use. Strongly agree

30.2%

13

Agree

67.4%

29

Unsure

0.0%

0

Disagree

2.3%

1

Strongly disagree

0.0%

0

Yes

37.2%

16

No

60.5%

26

N/A

2.3%

1

Yes

74.4%

32

No

25.6%

11

1-2

25.0%

8

3-4

25.0%

8

5-6

28.1%

9

7 or more

21.9%

7

Above average

51.2%

22

Average

44.2%

19

Unsure

4.7%

2

Below average

0.0%

0

Never used technology for learning

0.0%

0

Yes

97.6%

40

No, I failed the class

2.4%

1

No, I withdrew during the term

0.0%

0

No, I dropped prior to the start of the term

0.0%

0

Q10. Did the difference in term start / end dates affect your decision to take classes through the consortium?

Q11. Had you used any online learning tools, taken an online class, or had any experience with online learning prior to enrolling in a class with the consortium?

Q12. How many courses have you taken online?

Q13. What was your comfort level using technology as a learning tool prior to taking an online course?

Q14. Did you successfully complete the course?

Comments

6

continued on following page

70

Why Choose an Online Course?

APPendIx b: contInued Q15. Your final grade in the last class you took through the consortium was? A

76.3%

29

B

15.8%

6

C

5.3%

2

D

2.6%

1

F

0.0%

0

Incomplete

0.0%

0

Excellent

50.0%

20

Good

32.5%

13

Fair

10.0%

4

Poor

7.5%

3

Q16. How would you rate your overall experience with the course, learning experience, administrative processes, etc.

Comments

13

Q17. Would you recommend OCICU to a friend, family member, or colleague? Yes

83.7%

36

No

7.0%

3

Unsure

9.3%

4

Comments

3

Q18. Gender M

18.6%

8

F

81.4%

35

18-20

2.3%

1

21-23

7.0%

3

24-26

2.3%

1

27-29

20.9%

9

30 or older

67.4%

29

Q19. Age

continued on following page

71

Why Choose an Online Course?

APPendIx b: contInued Q20. How many credits do you currently have? 3-21

19.0%

8

22-33

0.0%

0

34-42

0.0%

0

43-60

9.5%

4

61-75

7.1%

3

76-90

9.5%

4

91 or more

54.8%

23

Freshman

4.7%

2

Sophomore

7.0%

3

Junior

32.6%

14

Senior

39.5%

17

Graduate Student

16.3%

7

Q21. Are you currently a

Q22. Are there any other topics / items you would like to provide feedback on for this survey? Provided comments

6

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 2, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 60-72, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

72

73

Chapter 1.6

Online or Traditional:

A Study to Examine Course Characteristics Contributing to Students’ Preference for Classroom Settings Tim Klaus Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, USA Chuleeporn Changchit Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, USA

AbstrAct Technological advancements currently penetrate society, changing the way that some courses are taught. It has become more apparent in higher education institutions that all classes are not as adaptive to an online format as others. Since many institutions of higher education further incorporate online courses into their curriculum, it is important to understand the characteristics

of courses that affect students’ preferences for either traditional classroom environments or online environments. Indications of this can be seen in the attrition and retention rates of classes offered online. This study explores the characteristics of courses that affect students’ preferences towards online and traditional classroom settings. These results should help providing guidelines to institutions considering courses to offer online.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Online or Traditional

IntroductIon Technology advancements are important drivers of societal change. In particular, the advancement in technological tools and communication technologies has influenced the number of students taking online courses. The increase is considerable, from 1.6 million students (9.6% of total enrollment) in 2002 to 3.9 million students (21.9% of total enrollment) in 2007 (Allen and Seaman, 2008). Much of this increase is due to changes occurring in student demographics and demands. For example, higher education institutions have faced changes in their student demographics in recent years as more students no longer fit the traditional profile of a young, full-time, in-residence student. As college demographics change and technological tools are available and widely adapted, the education needs are altered and there is a higher demand for more flexible and convenient methods in obtaining a higher education. Higher education course curriculum has been altered in recent years to better fit some of the demands for online courses. The popularity of online courses can be attributed to the perceived benefits online learning can provide students along with its convenience. However, quite a few students still do not perceive that these benefits outweigh the downside of online courses and thus prefer traditional courses. In particular, some students do not feel that certain courses are suitable to be offered online. As such, adoption of online learning for certain subjects or course content has been slow (Allen and Seaman, 2008). Instead, these subjects seem to be better fit for a traditional learning environment. Through an understanding of these perceptions of needs and student satisfaction, higher education institutions should be better able to offer appropriate courses in various formats for learning environments that best suit their student population.

74

It has become more apparent in higher education institutions that all classes are not as adaptive to an online format as others. Even though online courses can produce higher enrollment numbers, they also suffer from higher attrition and retention rates (Moody 2004). Perhaps one reason for this is that students realize that the course format is not what is preferred and thus the online course is dropped in order to take the course in a traditional format. One case study examining attrition rates found a 43% attrition rate for an online section of a statistics course versus 13% for its traditional format counterpart. For a managerial marketing course the attrition rate was 24% for the online format versus a 9% rate for the traditional format, and an international economics course had a 3% attrition rate for its online format versus a 2% attrition rate for its traditional format (Terry 2001). The results from these studies indicate the likelihood that course characteristics may affect students’ preferences towards online or traditional courses. As institutions of higher education consider further incorporating online capabilities into course curriculum and formats, it is important to understand which courses students think are more suitable for a traditional classroom environment and which courses are more suitable for an online environment. To investigate this issue, this study examines the following research question: Which course criteria influence students’ preference for online courses? The purpose of this study is to explore course characteristics and its effect on students’ preference for online versus traditional courses since previous studies have not examined this issue. To accomplish this purpose, this study first examines the current literature related to online courses. This is followed by a description of the data collection methodology followed by an analysis of the data. This study concludes by providing suggestions for future research and for institutions and instructors considering setting up online courses.

Online or Traditional

LIterAture revIew Online courses were first offered in the mid1990s. However, around this time, the perception widely existed that online learning environments were sterile environments not much different from correspondence courses upgraded from a post-office to an e-mail box, and their educational value was suspect (Rudich 1998). However, the availability of the ubiquitous Internet and the advancements of technology have enabled students and educators to interact in a new environment. Many higher education institutions now offer a smorgasbord of courses in an online environment. As technology and its applications advance in the education sector, it is important that both educators and students become more aware how these technologies are best used (Wang 2004). As the trend for online course development expands, more teachers are becoming adept at utilizing various features of online classroom technology for offering their courses to a wider audience than their physical classroom environments can serve. These expanded features available for online courses provide many benefits to institutions and their students and are useful tools for advancing students’ education (Smith, Ferguson, & Caris 2002). They provide the convenience and flexibility for different learning needs to be met. This allows for a variety of students to have needs met that are not possible through traditional class formats (Anstine & Skidmore 2005; Bentley 2003; Cooper 2001; Rudich 1998). Students may take courses from a location that is convenient, such as at home or in an Internet café, and at a time that is convenient. The convenience of online courses provides students the opportunity to take courses they would otherwise be unable to take (Anstine & Skidmore 2005; Flowers 2005). One study found that convenience, flexibility, and self-regulated learning were advantages of online courses (Ku & Lohr 2003).

Despite the benefits, there is still some contention as to the validity of online courses as quality educational formats. For example, one study found that a lack of interaction was a clear disadvantage (Ku & Lohr 2003). Furthermore, Anstine and Skidmore (2005) found that the online class environment had significantly lower educational outcomes with students than their traditional class environment counterparts, controlling for factors such as previous knowledge, test scores, and time spent studying. However, a limitation of the study was that although the same professor taught the same class in both the online and traditional environment, the professors had little experience in teaching both environments prior to the study. Furthermore, there is no indication of previous experience with online courses as a determinant factor in self-selection of the class environment format by students. Other studies have found that there is no inherent inferiority in the quality of education opportunities in online courses versus their traditional, face-to-face counterparts (Shachar & Neumann 2003; Shank 2005; Vroeginday 2005; Wyatt 2005). In fact, online courses at times have been found to be more challenging than a traditional course for students due to the greater degree of independent learning that the online format demands (Wyatt 2005; Yang & Cornelius 2004). Although the value and validity of online courses is still under debate, some studies suggest that it is not necessarily the format that is the main factor that hinders education quality but the participants (i.e. students and professors) and course design (Arbuagh 2001; Shank 2005). Another study found that the instructor’s willingness to keep up with technological changes, course content, and the motivation of students are also important factors (Medlin, Vannoy, & Dave 2004). Prior studies also found that technology, instructor, course, and student characteristics all affected student perceptions (Changchit & Klaus, 2008; Gregory, 2003).

75

Online or Traditional

Although these various characteristics affect student perceptions, specific characteristics of a course have not been examined in previous studies. This study focuses on the examination of course characteristics. Since they are tangible characteristics higher education institutions can use to judge whether a course should be offered as an online or traditional course. Since certain types of courses are better suited for an online environment, it is important to consider various characteristics that affect a student’s preference for an online course. Based on feedback received from four professors experienced in teaching online courses and nine students who have taken online courses, three issues were identified as factors contributing to class setting preferences. Figure 1 below shows these three factors. The first factor as shown in the research model below is lecturebased courses – if courses are not interactive and primarily lecture-based, students then prefer an online teaching environment. The second factor is Instructor Support Requirements – if students think that the support of the instructor is necessarily throughout the class, a traditional course is preferred. The third factor is Technical/Scientific Courses – if courses are fairly technical or scientific, such as those that require

mathematics or computer skills, a traditional course is preferred. Based on the research model, three hypotheses are examined as follows: H1: Students enrolled in a lecture-based course prefer an online class setting. H2: Students enrolled in a class that needs a higher level of support from an instructor prefer a traditional class setting. H3: Students enrolled in technical/scientific classes prefer a traditional class setting.

MethodoLoGy Since this is an exploratory study on an area not examined previously, studies were not available from which to identify course characteristics. Thus, as mentioned in the previous section, discussions were held with several professors and students to identify potential course characteristics that could possibly affect a student’s preference towards the course format. Based on these discussions and from questions compiled from previous studies pertaining to online courses

Figure 1. Research model

Course Characteristics Lecture-Based Courses Instructor Support Requirements Technical/

76

Course Format Preference (Online vs. Traditional)

Online or Traditional

Table 1. Subjects’ demographics Age (in years) Under 18

18-29

30-41

42-49

Over 49

No Answer

0(0.00%)

166(92.22%)

11(6.11%)

1(0.56%)

0(0.00%)

2(1.11%)

Gender Male: 82(45.55%)

Female: 97(53.89%)

No Answer: 1(0.56%)

Ethnicity African

Anglo

Asian

Hispanic

Native American

No Answer

4(2.22%)

94(52.22%)

5(2.78%)

69(38.33%)

4(2.22%)

4(2.22%)

Computer Knowledge (Scale 1 thru 7) 1 (Very poor)

2

3

4

5

6

7 (Excellent)

No Answer

2(1.1%)

0(0.0%)

9(5.0%)

28(15.6%)

60(33.3%)

47(26.1%)

29(16.1%)

5(2.8%)

Own a Computer Desktop

Laptop

Both

Neither

No Answer

61(33.9%)

62(34.4%)

51(28.3%)

5(2.8%)

1(0.6%)

Internet Access at Home Dial-up

High speed (i.e., DSL,)

None

No Answer

12(6.67%)

150(83.33%)

16(8.89%)

2(1.11%)

Distance from Home <10 min.

10-30 min.

30-60 min.

1-2 hours

>2 hours

No Answer

70(38.89%)

71(39.44%)

26(14.44%)

7(3.89%)

4(2.22%)

2(1.11%)

Commute to the University Car

Bus

Walk

No Answer

147(81.67%)

3(1.67%)

29(16.11%)

1(0.56%)

Employment Status Full Time

Part Time

Unemployed

No Answer

56(31.1%)

73(40.6%)

50(27.8%)

1(0.6%)

continued on following page

77

Online or Traditional

Table 1. continued Took an Online Course Before Yes

No

No Answer

83(46.11%)

96(53.33%)

1(0.56%)

Yes

No

No Answer

30(16.67%)

148(82.22%)

2(1.11%)

Currently Taking an Online Course

(Changchit et al. 2006; Demb et al. 2004; Luarn & Lin 2004; Moore & Benbasat 1991), a total of ten items were developed to examine the three factors shown in the research model. A 26 item questionnaire was developed based on these ten course characteristic items. The first question of the questionnaire asked students to identify one specific course that was taken in the previous semester. In order to minimize the bias toward the best or worst course, students were asked to identify the course with the highest course number. The next ten questions were asked to measure students’ perceptions of the characteristics of the course they identified, using a Likert-scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 being “strongly agree”. The question after that asked whether the student would have preferred to take the course as an online course or traditional course, if the option is available. The remaining 14 questions collected demographic data. To improve the clarity of these questions and identify potential problems, three professors and three students read through the survey questions. Revisions to the survey were made based on the feedback received. Surveys were distributed to 225 students enrolled in a mid-sized university. The participants were given the survey and allowed class time to complete the survey. All participants were informed that participation in the study was voluntary and that individual responses

78

would be kept anonymous. One hundred eighty (180) participants completed and returned the survey instruments. Table 1 summarizes the demographics of the respondents.

AnALysIs And dIscussIon A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to validate the course characteristics questions used to measure each proposed variable. Three factors were extracted which have factor loadings greater than the acceptable level of 0.5 (Hair et al., 2006), and their distinction from the other factors. The questionnaire items are shown in Tables 2 and 3. In order to determine if there were significant differences between the groups of students who prefer to take the class online (online group) versus students who prefer take the class in traditional format (traditional group), t-tests on the means were conducted. The responses from participants were divided into two groups based on the question “If I have an option, I will take the class ___ ”, in which respondents could either mark “online” or “traditional”. Table 4 below shows the factors exhibiting a significant difference between the two groups. As shown in Table 4, all three course characteristic factors displayed statistically significant results (p<0.05) between the students who preferred to take the course as

Online or Traditional

Table 2. Rotated component matrix Factors 1

2

3

Question 1

-0.131

0.337

0.476

Question 2

0.043

0.682

0.257

Question 3

0.179

0.713

-0.109

Question 4

-0.163

0.696

-0.326

Question 5

0.888

-0.028

0.043

Question 6

0.814

0.008

-0.055

Question 7

-0.318

0.565

0.029

Question 8

0.849

-0.088

0.052

Question 9

0.299

-0.245

0.715

Question 10

-0.081

-0.032

0.829

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

Table 3. Questions grouped into three factors Factor

Question Number 2

I understand the contents in this class more when the instructor writes on the board.

3

Using PowerPoint slides to explain the materials in this class is appropriate.

4

This class is a lecture-based class (i.e., not a hands-on class).

7

I spend a lot of time reading the textbook for this class.

5

The professor explains the material very well in this class.

6

I understand all the material in this class.

8

This class is well-organized.

9

Computer skills are important in order to do well in this class.

10

Mathematics knowledge is important in order to do well in this class.

Lecture-based Courses

Instructor Support Requirements

Questions

Technical/Scientific Courses

79

Online or Traditional

Table 4. Group differences Mean Online Group

Traditional Group

p-value

Lecture-based Courses

3.563

3.826

0.03639

Instructor Support Requirements

3.265

3.023

0.02815

Technical/Scientific Courses

2.960

3.620

0.00009

Course Characteristic Factors

an online course versus those who preferred to take the course as a traditional course. The first significant factor is regarding whether the class is lecture-based. This result indicates that overall, if a course is setup as a primarily lecture-based class, then students have a greater preference for the class being online. On the other hand, a non-lecture class, such as a hands-on lab class would be preferred as a traditional class. If the level of interaction with students is low in a class, perhaps the preference for online courses is due to the ability to learn the material on their own or watch videos of a lecture online at a time or place that is convenient. However, for classes that are more interactive, the importance of the class interaction may outweigh the convenience of online courses. In addition, if students feel that the professor explains the material well, then a traditional course is preferred. Material that is not explained well may be viewed as less valuable or a waste of time and thus students prefer an online course because they do not have to sit through a lecture which is not making sense to them. The second significant factor is Instructor Support Requirements – if students think that the support of the instructor is necessary throughout the class, a traditional course is preferred. On the other hand, if the support of an instructor is not necessary, then there is a higher preference for an online course. Although online courses do provide some tools for instructor support,

80

such as discussion boards, email, and online whiteboards, the richness of this communication is limited. It may take longer to describe problems using these online tools than it takes to communicate in the traditional face-to-face format. In addition, students who feel that they spend a greater amount of time reading the textbook prefer an online course. This may be because of the different learning styles of students and students who comprehend the material well from reading the textbook may not feel a need for instructor support. Furthermore, if learning primarily comes from comprehending the textbook material, students usually perceive that the traditional course adds little value as they can read the material on their own. The third factor is the degree of technical content of the course. If students feel that there is a higher level of technical content, then a traditional course is preferred. Students who think that computer skills are more important for a course prefer to take the course as a traditional course. There are several reasons for this finding. First, courses requiring technical skills tend to require projects. Students may prefer interaction with other students as they work on projects and thus prefer traditional courses. Second, if computer skills are required, the course will generally be a hands-on course, which has already been shown in the first significant variable that students prefer online courses if the course is lecture-based. Third, for students that have low

Online or Traditional

computer self-efficacy, or do not know which buttons to push on a scientific calculator, they will probably prefer a traditional course format as they can ask questions easily in class and receive immediate feedback from the instructor.

concLusIon Despite the benefits of online courses described in the literature review, online courses are not preferable for every student or every course. Clearly, as shown through the results of this study, course criteria affect students’ preference towards online or traditional courses. This study provides several contributions. First of all, this study shows that course criteria can definitely affect student preferences. Universities considering expanding online course usage need to consider course content and course characteristics as they examine if the courses are suitable for an online format. A second contribution is an understanding of individual course characteristics that influence students’ preference. Individual characteristics that affect students’ preference are whether a class is lecture-based, whether instructor support is required, and whether the course is technical in nature. These conclusions have interesting implications for course design. First, students’ perceptions of online courses indicate that the level of instructor support is inadequate for some classes. Perhaps some online courses should be supplemented with traditional labs in which better provide support desired by students. In addition, teacher assistants could be made available to serve as tutors in these courses to enhance the level of support available to students. Second, to make traditional courses more attractive to students, the results imply that instructors should have more interactive communication styles, and better provide better support to students. Although the content of some course may seem

appropriate for pure lecture, the preference of students overall is to have more interactive courses. Third, if a decision should be made regarding which courses to change to online courses, the three factors identified in this study are useful in providing guidelines for determining which courses may be suited as online courses. In reality, faculty availability, knowledge, willingness to teach online courses, and technical expertise are factors in determining which classes to offer online, but the factors brought forth in this study serve as guiding principles. There are several directions for future research. First, since the purpose of this study is to explore course characteristics, three course factors which comprised a total of ten course characteristics were selected rather than a comprehensive list. To increase the value to instructors considering development of such courses, the results of a comprehensive list of course factors that affect student preferences for online courses could be useful. Furthermore, the list could lead to practical guidelines for designing specific online courses. A second area of future research would be to examine the technology, instructor, and student characteristics that affect a students’ preference towards online courses. There are various technology platforms that universities use for online courses as well as differing technologies that individual instructors use within a university, such as some instructors loading videos of lectures to an online site while other instructors only posting documents online. Furthermore, the examination of instructor and student characteristics could be useful for universities setting up online courses.

reFerences Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2008). Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States. The Sloan Consortium, (pp. 1-28).

81

Online or Traditional

Anstine, J., & Skidmore, M. (2005). A Small Sample Study of Traditional and Online Courses with Sample Selection Adjustment. Journal of Economic Education, 36(2), 107-127.

Ku, H., & Lohr, L. (2003). A Case Study of Chinese Students’ Attitudes toward their First Online Learning Experience. Educational Technology Research and Development, 51(3), 95-102.

Arbaugh, J. B. (2001). How Instructor Immediacy Behaviors Affect Student Satisfaction and Learning in Web-Based Courses. Business Communication Quarterly, 64(4), 42-54.

Luarn, P., & Lin, H.H. (2005). Toward an Understanding of the Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile Banking. Computers in Human Behavior, 21(6), 873-891.

Bentley, B. (2003). City University Students Get Flexible Study Courses with Virtual Learning Environment. Computer Weekly, 59.

Medlin, D. B., Vannoy, S. A., & Dave, D. S. (2004). An Internet-based Approach to the Teaching of Information Technology: A Study of Student Attitudes in the United States. International Journal of Management, 21(4), 427-434.

Changchit, C., Cutshall, R., & Elwood, S. (2006). Students’ Perceptions of the Laptop Program: What Factors Should be Considered before Implementing The Program? International Journal of Information & Communication Technology Education, 2(2), 53-61. Changchit, C., & Klaus, T. (2008). Classroom Preferences: What Factors Can Affect Students’ Attitudes on Different Classroom Settings? International Journal of Information & Communication Technology Education, 4(1), 33-43. Cooper, L. W. (2001). A Comparison of Online and Traditional Computer Application Classes. T.H.E. Journal, 28(8), 52-55. Demb, A., Erickson, D., & Hawkins-Wilding, S. (2004). The Laptop Alternative: Student Reactions and Strategic Implications. Computers & Education, 43(4), 383-401. Flowers, J. C. (2005). The Effect of Online Delivery on Graduate Enrollment. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 42(4), 7-24. Gregory, V. L. (2003). Student Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Web-based Distance Education. New Library World, 104(10), 426-431. Hair, J. F., Black, B., Babin, B, Anderson, R., & Tatham, R. L. (2006). Multivariate Data Analysis (6e). Prentice-Hall.

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Moody, J. (2004). Distance Education. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 5(3), 205-210. Moore, G. C., & Benbasat, I. (1994). Development of Instrument to Measure the Perceptions of Adopting an Information Technology Innovation. Information Systems Research, 2(3), 192-222. Rudich, J. (1998). Internet Learning. Link-up, 15(5), pp. 23. Shachar, M., & Neumann, Y. (2003). Differences between Traditional and Distance Education Academic Performances: A Meta-Analytic Approach. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4(2), 1-20. Shank, P. (2005). Five Common Fears about Teaching Online - Fact vs. Fiction. Distance Education Report, 9(24), 5-7. Smith, G. G., Ferguson, D., & Caris, M. (2002). Teaching over the Web versus the Classroom: Differences in the Instructor Experience. International Journal of Instructional Media, 29(1), 61-67. Terry, N. (2001). Assessing Enrollment and Attrition Rates for The Online MBA. T. H. E. Journal, 28(7), 64-68.

Online or Traditional

Vroeginday, B. J. (2005). Traditional vs. Online Education: A Comparative Analysis of Learner Outcomes. Dissertation Fielding, Graduate University, 150 pages. Wang, W. (2004). How University Students View Online Study: A PCP Perspective. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 21(3), 108.

Wyatt, G. (2005). Satisfaction, Academic Rigor and Interaction: Perceptions of Online Instruction. Education, 125(3), 460-468. Yang, Y., & Cornelius, L. F. (2004). Students’ Perceptions towards the Quality of Online Education: A Qualitative Approach. Association for Educational Communications and Technology, (pp. 861-877).

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 3, edited by L. A. Tomei, pp. 14-23, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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84

Chapter 1.7

Teaching Online:

What Does Blended Learning Require? P. Toyoko Kang University of Guam, Guam

AbstrAct This chapter provides an argument endorsing blended learning and teaching for foreign language (FL)/second language (L2) courses, in lieu of total online learning and teaching or total face-to-face learning and teaching (FFLT). Two main arguments are posed, citing concrete examples. First, that in total online learning and teaching, one of the greatest challenges is to reduce the psychological and social distance between teacher and student that leads to a dysfunctional parser (a mental language processor) for FL/L2. And secondly, online learning and teaching encourage more input, hence clarify communication—-by making not only currently incomprehensible input comprehensible but also hard-to-be-comprehended output easy-to-comprehend—— through “self-negotiation of form and meaning,” and the parser’s strategy of being “first (prosodic phrase) come, first interpreted/processed.” This chapter proceeds to strongly recommend that FL/L2 teachers make simple audio files to provide their students with spoken input to prevent students DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-880-2.ch007

from employing the L1 strategy of “first come, last interpreted/processed.” Furthermore, this chapter shows what kind of spoken input is to be recorded in audio files for students in Elementary Japanese II and Intermediate Japanese I.

IntroductIon Researchers in the field of computer assisted language learning (CALL) like Hauck and Sticler (2006) and Colpaert (2006) raise an intriguing question: What does it take to teach online? Due to the fact that our main concern is not total online learning but blended learning (BL), this chapter modifies their question as follows: What does it take to teach online for BL? Omaggio (1984) opens her chapter with the following provocative question: The question addressed in this chapter is as old as the language-teaching profession itself: How do we help students learning a second language classroom setting become proficient in that language? Historically, the responses to this question have been as varied as… those who have tried to answer it. (p. 43, the italic I mine)

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Teaching Online

It is not the purpose of the present chapter to tackle this question, but to make the question more specifically focus on the issues of input and output: How can we help students in a second language classroom setting make incomprehensible input comprehensible, and hard-to-be-comprehended output easy-to-comprehend, such that they eventually become proficient in that language? As this modified question indicates, this chapter’s answer to the question in the title “what does BL require (to make it work)?” is “to design an online FL/L2 learning & teaching in order to make not only currently incomprehensible input comprehensible, but also currently hard-to-be-comprehended output easy-to-be-comprehended.” This chapter has two purposes. One is to argue that for FL/L2 classes, blended learning and teaching (BLT) are more effective than total online or totally face-to-face learning and teaching (FFLT). The other is to demonstrate simple ways of scaffolding students in the second and third semester of Japanese language courses, by making currently incomprehensible input more comprehensible, and hard-to-be-comprehended output easy to comprehend under a memory efficient approach (MEA) issuing from human parser learning theory (HPLT). Kang (2007a) has demonstrated how to blend technologies in an advanced Japanese class. The present chapter, however, shows how to blend online learning in Elementary Japanese II (JA102) and Intermediate Japanese I (JA201).

bAcKGround comprehensive Input and output in L2 Acquisition Krashen (1985) proposes an Input Hypothesis claiming as follows: “humans acquire language in only one way—-by understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input” (p. 2). In other words, speaking has nothing to do with L2 acquisition. This is an extreme way to look at

the L2 acquisition process. Swain (1985, 2005) claims as an Output Hypothesis that an “incomprehensible output” that is “pushed” to generate comprehensible output for the listeners also facilitates L2 acquisition. In this section, two pitfalls of input comprehension are described; the third pitfall will be shown in the section for Case Description. Input comprehension is achieved not only through interactive or task-related conversation, but also in the context of one-way communication such as radio, TV broadcasting, and reading newspapers or magazines. Research has been conducted regarding the specific ways that interaction helps learners make incomprehensible input comprehensible (e.g., Gass 1997; Pica et al., 1987; VanPatten, 1996). However, when it comes to processing written input, the Japanese language learner whose L1 (first language) is English may understand a sentence by processing it as “first come, last interpreted.” This development may occur in a case like the following, where the learner, in order to comprehend a sentence using their L1 syntactic knowledge, does not process the sentence in the order of “first come, first interpreted”: (1) kono kuruma-o ka-oo to omou this car-Acc. buy-will that think (Acc. = accusative) ‘I think that I will buy this car ’ The challenge taken up by the present study is to avoid the above type of (written) input comprehension and thereby not repeat the failure common to traditional grammar translation. This chapter will endorse the solution of providing audio files for reading comprehension material. This technique can enable learners to process according to “first come, first interpreted” (Kang, 2008). In the reading comprehension questions of VanPatten (1996), there are many complex sentences in the reading materials. His Input Processing and Grammar Instruction fails, as the traditional grammar-translation approach did, for those students whose L1 is a language like Korean or Japanese. This is because Spanish is a 85

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head-initial language like English, while Korean or Japanese are head-final languages. A Japanese native speaker translates an English sentence like (I) think I will buy this car backward; “First come, last interpreted.” This means that the parser of a Korean or Japanese student learning Spanish understands by processing the written Spanish with an L1 processing algorithm. This process occurs without any opportunities for parsers to start processing input on a “first come, first interpreted” basis, as a Spanish native speaker does. Let us now turn to the other pitfall of input comprehension with which this chapter is concerned. The following interlanguage case provides a good example: (2) ‘a cheap book’ in Japanese a. *Yasui no hon (* means that a sentence with it is ungrammatical) cheap one/of book b. Yasui hon cheap book A Japanese learner who uttered this kind of sentence over-generalizes the genetive case no; the genetive case marker is only attached to a pre-nominal noun/noun phrase, but not to a prenominal adjective. This kind of utterance indicates that the learner seems to have comprehended Japanese input like yasui hon, only paying attention to content words, which is the tendency of

beginners. (It is noteworthy that VanPatten also observed the problem of input comprehension in terms of content words, but was not concerned with output.) As output, an utterance like this causes “garden path” for a native speaker of Japanese. It is well known that a “garden path” sentence like the English sentence, A horse raced past the barn fell, fails an adult native speaker’s first parse, and requires reprocessing or reanalysis. In other words, to process a garden path sentence is difficult. The same goes for the following Japanese utterance: •

1st parse: First input: yasui no→cheap one Second input: hon →crash! (because the noun ‘book’ is not expected, but a verb or a particle) • 2nd parse: yasui hone →cheap book (eliminating no ‘of’)

This chapter’s L2 learning theory does not exclude output hypotheses; as shown in Figure 1 below, HPLT has a generator, another mental language processor, for production. However, output like this can be comprehended only with difficulty, severely burdening short-term memory. Therefore, we have to help our students make difficult-to-comprehend output easy-to-comprehend, to reduce the listener’s (short-term) memory burden.

Figure 1. Linguistic processors in human parser model (Source: Kang 1993, p. 225; GB stands for “Government & Binding” model by Chomsky, 1982)

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why bLt for FL/L2 classes?

technological developments

The need for FFLT must be clarified. As the scholarly literature shows, in a FF meeting/ classroom it is best to establish human connection, thereby eliminating psychological distance (Conger & Lawley, 2005; Wagmann & McCauley, 2007) regardless of subject of a class, or training. When it comes to FL/L2 learning, psychological distance must be kept to a minimum, (Higgs, 1984; Pica et. al., 1987), enabling trust to develop in teacherstudent relationship in FFLT. This development facilitates not only input comprehension, but also helps the student to produce output easily comprehended by interlocutors. One may still ask why online learning is needed instead of FFLT. It must be emphasized that FFLT in FL/L2 classrooms is solely for the purpose of input comprehension and easy-to-be-comprehended output production. We must expect more. Our learning theory, HPLT, promotes a learning situation that exposes students to spoken input as often as possible to force their parsers to start operating, so as to expedite process input. In so far as students are attentive and motivated to understand input, input forces to their parser will start to work and move understanding forward. We are arguing, in short, that online self-learning is more desirable, more effective than FFLT (although the online learning is an extension of FFLT) for the following reasons: online self-learning provides students with more spoken input relevant to what they are learning in the FF classroom; it makes currently incomprehensible input comprehensible; and it makes hard-to-be-comprehended output easy-tobe-comprehended. The aforesaid is accomplished by means of self-aware behaviors that independently conduct acts of repetition, correction, and so on. Such independent learning behaviors have lasting value; in this regard, FL/L2 learning is lifelong learning (Kang 2007a). The independence instilled by online learning is obviously desirable; moreover, blended learning enables our students to easily transfer their refined learning skills to a fully online learning environment.

Foreign language courses at the University of Guam (UOG) had been blended before I arrived at this institution in 1993. To be exact, 20% of a class is allocated for “self-study” by listening to the tapes in the library. I started using digital technologies in my instruction about ten years ago, when the digital language lab was built at UOG. In the digital language lab, at that time, our students had access the Internet, and listened to the CDs in target languages (TL). The Internet provided plenty of authentic reading materials, but not authentic listening materials or video clips. It follows that digital instructional materials could only improve reading or writing skills at that time (Kang, 2000). Since then, technological development has stunningly advanced, and more instructional materials became available on the Internet for Japanese language learners. It became possible to watch news video clips that assist the students in improving their listening comprehension skills; to use pop-up multilingual dictionaries; and to see the stroke orders of kanji in movies. Like many of my academic peers, I soon took advantage of these technological developments, and made instructional use of authentic reading materials available on the Internet. I subsequently designed the 4th year Japanese class as described in Kang (2007a). At that point, UOG adopted Moodle as a course management program, but for a while it was not possible to use Japanese characters in the English mode setting. It was only possible to use audio files, and I learned how to use Audacity to create audio files. Then, around 2005, it became possible to use Japanese characters in English mode; however, since Spring 2007, no Japanese character input was readable. This time I switched to another affordable course management program, Quia, which costs only $40 per year with technical supports.

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synopsis of First experience with Fully online teaching The present author’s first time to teach Japanese online without FF classroom meetings, but with FF individual meetings, was the fall semester of 2006. This was a course in which the regular instructor unexpectedly took medical leave mid-way through the semester. The course was JA201. For a number of reasons having to do with tight staffing, to teach this intermediate Japanese course as FFLT or BLT was physically impossible; total online learning and teaching was the only solution.

synopsis of bL for JA102 The present author conducted outcomes assessment of student learning for JA102 in both spring and fall semesters of 2007, in order to assess student learning of reading kanji, writing kanji, verbal grammar, adjective grammar, reading comprehension, and directional task completion. One noteworthy finding is that verbal grammar learning is one of the worst. To improve student learning of verbal grammar, it was decided to create some simple online but effective exercises or quizzes to help my students learn verbal grammar for self-study.

synopsis of bL content for JA201 JA102 requires the students to read short stories or journals, which have complex sentences. In JA201, the length of stories or journals becomes longer, and more complex sentences are in the reading materials. In addition, more kanji are used. To make their reading easier, and to let them “first come, first interpreted,” I decided to make audio files of those reading materials in JA201 as well as for JA102.

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settInG the stAGe As mentioned above, Moodle became available at UOG in 2005. Workshops on Moodle were initiated by a colleague, Brian Millhoff, and I attended them during the Fall semester of 2005. Through these workshops I became comfortable using Moodle and came to recognize its functional relevance. My own research discovered the helpful Web site, Moodle for Language Teaching (http:// moodle.org/login/index.php). I also learned how to make audio files, and discovered Audacity, audio recording software available online for free. Employing Japanese characters was not a problem at that time; therefore, I was able to offer total online teaching to JA201 in the fall of 2006. It is noteworthy to point out that before committing to Quia, I tried a 30 days free trial. I found that it is easy and simple to use to create quizzes, especially to upload audio files in a quiz; this is accomplished in a couple of clicks. So, I subscribed it to start making audio file with Audacity.

cAse descrIPtIon concepts Relation between Parser and Generator in HPLT The present chapter employs the same language learning theory as in Kang (1993), namely HPLT. According to HPLT, human beings have two language processors, parser and generator (as shown in Figure 1), in addition to a mental dictionary, or lexicon. Krashen’s claim, as mentioned briefly above, that “humans acquire language in only one way— by understanding messages, or by receiving ‘comprehensible input,’” is translated under HPLT in the following way: humans acquire language only through successful parsing (“successful parsing” means that input is correctly comprehended),

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Figure 2. At a developmental stage (The dotted lines show “being not-yet-developed”)

but not through generation at all. It is difficult to agree with this claim. In our model, in terms of learning of grammar and vocabulary, parser and generator help each other’s development at the developmental stage, as shown by arrows in Figure 2. On the other hand, well-developed and mastered grammar and vocabulary will facilitate smooth operation of both parser and generator. The degree of development at a particular developmental stage between the parser and the generator, however, may not be the same. The commencement of the generator’s operation is assumed to be later than that of the parser. The development of the ability of the parser is more likely higher than that of generator, as shown in Figure 2. In terms of learning grammar (regardless explicit or implicit) and vocabulary, the parser and generator help each other’s development. On the other hand, grammar and vocabulary in progress will facilitate the parser and generator to successfully operate. This is a mechanism of interaction whereby “negotiation of meaning/ form” by the learner can facilitate comprehension of currently incomprehensible input, as well as make hard-to-be-comprehended output, easy-tobe-comprehended. It is generally understood among FL/L2 teachers and researchers that without input no language learning occurs. To my knowledge, however, it has never been explained how and why input, especially spoken input, plays a crucial role in L2 acquisition, except for “only when input is

comprehended; it will be in-taken, and be incorporated in inner grammar or acquired. As shown in Figure 1, the model has the parser situated between input and implicit mental grammar, whose operation is done subconsciously. In HPLT, an input sentence is correctly comprehended, which means “an input sentence is successfully parsed.” What needs to be learned in HPLT is parsing algorithms/mechanisms for TL (Kang, 1993). However, parsing algorithms—how to process incoming sentences (input)—are not something to be learned by teaching, but only spoken input can force the parser to operate, or to figure out/learn how to process the input. Although it is unclear how much input is required to attain the adult native speakers’ level, learners should be exposed to a tremendous amount of input. Besides, the learner’s parser needs to start to operate in real time speed, or in NS’s speed to understand NS’s utterances, when he/she has reached an advanced level, although this chapter will not touch on this aspect of input comprehension.

Input comprehension, Prosodic Phrases & syntactic Acquisition Spoken input carries amazingly various, useful linguistic information for processing. More relevant to this chapter’s discussion are the following two phenomena: (1) Comprehension units, and (2) Branching directions. HPLT assumes that parser will decide branching direction, one

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comprehension unit after another, in the manner of “first come, first interpreted/ parsed.”

Comprehension Units What indicates or marks a comprehension/processing unit? Simply put, it is a prosodic phrase (Kang, 2003), because prosodic phrasing consists of “a sense unit” (Selkirk, 1984). The following English examples are from Pierrehumbert (1980, p. 8). The English sentence in (3) means Three mathematicians in ten derive a lemma as (4b). However, when a prosodic phrase is placed between mathematician and in, as in (3a), the sentence is not interpreted as Three mathematicians in ten derive a lemma, but as (3b). (3) Three mathematicians in ten derive a lemma. a. [Three mathematicians] [in ten derive a lemma]. b. Three mathematicians intend to rival Emma. (4) Three mathematicians in ten derive a lemma. a. * [Three mathematicians] [in ten derive a lemma] b. [Three mathematicians in ten] [derive a lemma] In Japanese as is the case of (5a), the intended meaning is I will listen to the radio, whose prosodic phrasing is either (5b-i) or (5b-ii). However, if a prosodic boundary is placed between rajio and o, the meaning will be Please make the (volume of) radio louder. (5) a. Rajio o kiku ‘I will listen to the radio.’ b. i) [Rajio o] [kiku] or ii) [Rajio o kiku] radio-Acc listen-will ‘I will listen to the radio.’ (Acc = accusative) c. *[Rajio] [o kiku] ‘Please make the (volume of) radio louder.’ radio bigger/louder These cases show that a comprehension/processing unit is indicated by a prosodic phrase. Branching direction and “first (prosodic phrase) come, first interpreted” 90

In HPLT, what need to be learned is how to parse oral/spoken input in TL. Input is parsed in the manner of “first (prosodic phrase) come, first served.” The parsed tree branching direction will be taken care of by the following Branching Principle. (6) Branching Principle a. Right Association (RA): Terminal symbols optimally associate to the lowest nonterminal node. (Kimball 1974) b. Left Association (LA): Terminal symbols optimally associate to the highest nonterminal node. (Kang 2007b) RA is for a head-initial (syntactic) phrase, while LA works for a head-final phrase. As seen in the following case, head-final and head-initial is determined in terms of whether the head precedes or follow its complement; the SPEC (ifier) is not involved in the heading parameter. (See Figure 3) Once the parser determines the branching direction according to head direction, it is assumed to follow either RA or LA depending on the head direction in a prosodic phrase. A prosodic phrase carries the information regarding the branching, too. According to Kubozono (1993), a prosodic phrase can include only terminal symbols of which branching directions are the same. In other words, spoken input seems to be organized for highly efficient processing. However, it is not clear how much input is needed for the parser to operate automatically RA or LA depending on the heading parameter. In the case of a previous example (1), cited here again, Japanese input with two prosodic phrases in (8i) will be parsed in (9ii), but the English correspondent will be processed in (9i). (1) kono kuruma-o ka-oo to omou this car-Acc. buy-will that think ‘I think that I will buy this car ’ (8) i) [kono kuruma-o ] [ka-oo to omou] this car-Acc. buy-will that think ii) [I think] [that I will buy this car] However, under the traditional grammartranslation approach, a Japanese learner whose

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Figure 3.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

L1 is English will translate according to “first comes, last interpreted/comprehended.” (9) Parsing incoming prosodic phrase a. First input/prosodic phrase (See Figure 4) b. Second input/prosodic phrase (See Figure 5) This means that, as demonstrated in the following case, the learner uses their L1 processing/ branching algorithm, RA, but not LA. This is because under the traditional grammar-translation approach the learner is never exposed to the native speakers’ spoken input. (10)

8)

i) 1st input: omou (I think) (See Figure 6) ii) 2nd Input: to (that) (See Figure 7) iii) 3rd Input: kaoo (I will buy) (See Figure

iv) 4th Input: kono kuruma-o (this car) (See Figure 9)

output comprehension, Lexicon and Memory efficiency The phenomenon of the lexicon/mental dictionary is not the main concern of Generative Grammar, but remains a concern of our HPLTs. Relevant to 91

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Figure 6.

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

this chapter are the following issues associated with the lexicon: (1) learning of vocabulary; (2) subcategorization; and (3) morphology (e.g., conjugation/inflection). In HPLT, vocabulary learning is important, because unknown words cannot be associated to the parsed tree and hence cause extra burden to the short-term memory where the syntactic parser operates to try to figure out how to process incoming input. Ambiguity causes extra burden, too. Therefore, it is desirable to provide our students memory keys to introduced vocabulary (Kang, 1993).

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Subcategorization of a verb or an adjective in L2 is not always the same as L1’s. In Japanese, adjectives have two classes (adjective-na and -i), and verbs have three major classes including the irregulars. For example, English subcategorization of the verb become is different from the Japanese counterparts. The verb become in English is subcategorized as become [ __ NP/ADJ], but in Japanese naru [ __ NP-ni/ADV(erb)]. To derive the adverb from from an adjective the following morphological rules need to be learn. (11) i) adjective-na: na —-> ni ii) adjective-i: i —-> ku The following are the examples of Japanese become-construction; compare them with English counterparts: (12) i) English ii) Japanese a. i) He became quiet. ii) sono hito-wa shizukani natta. That person-topic quiet became (shizuka= adjective-na) b. i) Yen became expensive. ii) en-ga taka-ku natta (takai = adjective-i) yen-Nom. expensive became Because noun and adjective-na both take ending ni, the students assume it is applicable to an adjective-i. The following fossilized case of interlanguage due to overgeneralization (Selinker 1972) is common in beginners, but sometimes occurs even among intermediate students. Compare the following with (12b-ii). Takai ‘expensive’ is an adjective-i, but it is treated as an adjective-na. (13) en-ga takai-ni natta. This exhibits the same pitfall of “input comprehension” method or approach as (2) above. Let us proceed to discuss this example in terms of output comprehension. Native speakers of Japanese can comprehend this utterance, as en-ga takaku natta, ‘Yen became expensive,’ correcting the mistakes of the adjective’s lexical categorization and inflection; this development causes tremendous extra burden on the addressee’s short-term memory, forcing the addressee to reanalyze/reprocess

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Figure 9.

the ungrammatical utterance. The output can be comprehended, but with more difficulty than in the case of (2) above. The teaching methodology or approach issuing from HPLT is MEA (Kang 1993), as mentioned above, which recommends FL/L2 teachers “eclectic” methods in the sense of Higgs (1984). Kang (1993) did not consider the addressee’s short-term memory burden. However, the present chapter does address this problem because the learner’s generator and parser mutually influence each other—unless, that is, the learner strongly refuses to speak TL for some kind of sociolinguistic reasons. One way to know whether the parser is functioning well with its lexicon is to check whether the learner understands input in TL. Moreover, a method for determining whether the generator is functioning well with a lexicon is to observe if the learner’s utterance is comprehended without causing the addressee extra short-term memory burden.

how can currently Incomprehensible Input be comprehended, and hard-tocomprehend output become More easily comprehended by bLt? This section raises the following issues: (1) repetition; (2) recasting; (3) negotiation of meaning and linguistic form. With regard to the negotiation, we refer to Gass (1997): “Negotiation refers to communication in which participants’ attention is focused on resolving a communication problem” (p.107). In the literature (e.g., Pica et. al., 1987; Swain, 1985), as mentioned above, interaction is one of the ways to make incomprehensible input/output comprehensible. According to Gass (p.150), “interaction is a priming device, allowing learners to focus attention on area that they are working on.” In other words, through interaction learners have opportunities to negotiate their problems of form or/and meaning with their interlocutors, which encourages the students to make a transition from the developmental stage n to n + 1. In our terms, interaction is one of the ways to make not only currently incomprehensible input comprehended, but also hard-to-be-comprehended output easy-to-be-comprehended, as in typically understood “interaction,” conversational or taskoriented. The following interesting conversation was observed at a restaurant. The NNS was not sure about her interpretation regarding chili (incomprehensible input for the NNS), and the NS repeated the phrase, pronouncing of more clearly, putting stress on it (which shows in bold in d of the following), to enable the NNS to understand what he ordered (the NS made the incomprehensible input comprehended as the result of negotiation). (14) a. Waitless: what would like to order? b. NS: I’ll take a hot dog with [sku:bə] chili. c. NNS: SCUBA (diving/diver’s) chili? (being surprised) d. NS: Well, no, but a scoopof chili. e. NNS: Oh. 93

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The above case seems self-evident. However, we need to look at this process of comprehension more carefully. The NNS has a problem in comprehending the input by the NS. Then, by virtue of the NS’s adjusted pronunciation, the NS realizes that what is perceived originally was wrong. Parsed in (i) of the following (treating the problematic prosodic phrase like a compound noun), it should be parsed as (ii) of the following, because of is cliticized to scoop; [sku:bəv]. Here it is behaving like an affix of scoop (see also Shelkirk, 1984, about the cliticization of English function words). When the NS re-pronounced the noun phrase into three prosodic phrases—[a scoop] [of] [chili]—the NNS’s parser processed it after negotiating the form, as in (iii) of the following. But this is not the case as in (ii), which poses another problem involving the input comprehension approach. The NNS’s parser probably will not be able to process the cliticized of as in (ii) unless the NNS perceives a cliticized of. The present chapter suggests that English learners (like this NNS) be provided with plenty of input with cliticized function words (I like’ em, how’d you do it? etc.) including of (a cup of [ək/\bəv] tea, a group of [əgru:bəv] people, etc.), with explicit grammar instruction about the cliticization. (See Figure 10) Figure 10.

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According to Duff (2000), the term “repetition” is not interpreted as behaviorist “habits,” but rather, “…repetition is viewed as a way of providing learners greater access to language forms” (p. 109). In other words, this is a way of providing learners with more relevant input. Recast is a mode of repetition for corrective feedback. The importance of having learners reproduce forms they have heard to help them notice gaps between their own and other’s production is understood in several current accounts of language acquisition (Duff, p.109). L2 researchers have not evaluated recast highly because their findings indicate that it is not so effective for the students learning TL as teachers expects. According to Ohta (2000), in learner-centered classroom settings, recast/corrective feedback functions effectively because in learner-centered settings, private speech occurs; in such private speech, learners effectively realize their own errors. The following excerpts of classroom conversations evince adjective inflection: (16) Excerpt 4, Candance, January 24 (Ohta p. 61- 62) 1. T: Hai soshite (..) suteeki suteeki wa? (..)= longer pause Yes and (..) the staek staek was?

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2. Ss: Chiisakatta desu ne. = portion of special note to the current It was small, isn’t it analysis is underlined 3. T: Oishikatta desu ne. Demo It was delicious, right. But 4. Ss: Chiisakatta [desu] = overlap with similarly bracketed It was small ((correct from)) portion in neighboring turn = transcriber’s comments →5. C: [Chiisai deshita] → =indicated line of excerpt It was small ((wrong form)) 6. T: [Chiisakatta desu. Ne? Chiisakatta desu It was small. Right? It was small ((right form)) →7. C: “ah” reduced volume—soft voice 8. T: Ne. Chiisakatta desu ne? Ookiku arimasen deshita. Ne? Hai, ja rokubann Right. It was small, Right? I was not big. Right? Ok, number six Candance kept producing the wrong form chiisai deshita for ‘it was small,’ even if she heard several students correctly say chiisakatta. But, finally due to the teacher’s repeated recast of the correct form, she realized the discrepancy “as evidenced by her utterance of the change-ofstate token…‘ah’ in Line 7” (Ohta, p. 62). This is a case of recast, or teacher’s negotiation of forms. In our terms, the teacher tried to help the student make hard-to-be-comprehend output easy-tocomprehend by negotiating the form. There is another interesting case of recast repeated by a non-native speaker (NNS) to another NNS in Gass and Varonis (1994, p. 288): (17) a. Ana: Can you tell me where is the train station? b. Keiko: Can you tell me where the train station is? c. Ana: Can you tell me where is the train station? d. Keiko: Can you tell me where the train station is?

e. Ana: Can you tell me where is the train station? f. Keiko: Can you tell me where the train station is? g. Ana: Can you tell me where the train station is? h. Keiko: Can you tell me where the train station is? i. Ana: Can you tell me where the train station is? Here, Keiko helped Ana make hard-tocomprehend output easy-to-comprehend due to a syntactic over-generalization problem, by repeatedly providing her with the correct input. To put it more simply, we can make this kind of recast leading to self-correction, self-repair as online learning, combined with FFLT. Moving forward, the following subsection demonstrates collaborative learning and self-study activities the present author has designed and implemented for online learning in the second and the third semester of Japanese classes—JA102 and JA201, respectively—to make not only incomprehensible input comprehensible, but also hard-to-comprehend output easy-to-comprehend.

Practice Collaborative Learning for Fully Online JA201 Class In BLT, I designed collaborative learning for FFLT, but self-learning for online learning. However, in this context of total online learning and teaching, I switched to both for online learning. I implemented two collaborative works: (1) nazo nazo (riddles) relay by email (asynchronous), and (2) the task of describing the story of the pictures, using 4-koma manga ‘Japanese 4 panel cartoons’ (synchronous).

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Conducting Nazo Nazo (Riddles) Relay by Email Nazo nazo (nazo means ’mystery, puzzle, enigma, etc,’ and is a Japanese language game) for this class consists of two, or more than two, sentences, or one sentence with a simple relative clause, or a subordinate/coordinate clause and come up with the correct answer. Some of the examples are in the following: (18) Examples of nazo nazo for the relay. 日本に行ったら、見られます。日本で一 番(ばん)高いです。きれいです。
いつも一 番(ばん)上に雪があります。夏になったら、 登(のぼ)れます。
何ですか。 ‘If you go to Japan, you can see it. It is the highest in Japan. It is beautiful. It always has snow on the top. When it becomes summer, we can climb it. What is it?’ (Answer: Mt. Fuji) Why nazo nazo or puzzles? To come up with the right answer, one must correctly comprehend the sentences describing things, people, or places. This is one of the ways to check whether the students’ parsers are capable of processing the sentences in one question, by observing whether they come up with the right answer or not. In the case above, when a student answered correctly, he/she has successfully comprehended the input sentences of a nazo nazo, which indicates that his/her parser has processed input correctly, i.e., successfully. However difficult, this is the way to measure input comprehension or parser’s successful processing. If a nazo nazo question is given with spoken input, the students have to use “first come, first interpreted/parsed’ in real time processing speed. That is what I have been doing with students in JA102, although the sentence structures are less complicated than those in this class.

Narrative of Nazo Nazo (Riddles) Relay I sent ten questions of nazo nazo to the class (twelve students) to find out how good they are or not. I made the nazo nazo by using vocabulary,

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Chinese characters (kanji), and sentence structures they were supposed to know. Even so, they could look up dictionaries whenever they required them. First come, first served, so to speak, but the first student had to answer my ten nazo nazo, and make at least five his/her own nazo nazo to email to the class. The rest of the runners should answer the previous student’s nazo nazo and make at least five his/her own nazo nazo and then email to all of us. They had to answer in Japanese. I sent them on Saturday of the first week of my instruction, but surprisingly on the following day I found that one of the students had already emailed us her answers with her five nazo nazo. And soon after that (on the same day), another student emailed us the following message (the student name is kept in blank). hey, () your 5th riddle was kind of hard to understand. i dont think your second sentance is correct. can you clarify it for me, so i can change my answer if you made a mistake on your number 5? thanks! have fun, everyone! Actually, the second runner’s 5th nazo nazo (riddle) is not so bad, but this student had a hard time comprehending it. Here we can see “negotiation of form and meaning” of input sentences, although the question was presented in English. This student gave me another surprise; she made 10 questions of nazo nazo, and emailed us soon after her email message above. My surprise did not end with that. The following day, Monday, when I stopped by the class between my two classes, another student was upset because she had not received my email message with 10 questions of nazo nazo. I sensed her competitiveness. Indeed, soon after that, the class received this student’s answer to the 10 riddles by the previous student with five her own riddles. After that episode, four students participated in the relay without any surprises. However, what bothered the present author was that five students did not participate in this activity. Those five stu-

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dents did not submit homework on time, nor come to see me in my office for oral interaction or oral recitation of dialogues in the textbook, although all of them took paper exams or quizzes administrated by a part-time teacher or staff. I was sure that the production of TL is harder than the reception of TL, but no questions I was asked from those five silent students. Every class day, I visited the class about 5 minutes between my two regular classes to try to connect them, and nicely remind them the participation in the relay, and homework, but nothing happened for a while until the last week of my instruction. In that week, finally two of the five students participate in this relay. On the third week of my instruction of the class, I gave the class another collaborative work, “Tell us a story of your 4 panel cartoon” adopting “Establishing the sequence of a picture story in four acts,” in Brandl (2005, p. 21). This activity revealed that two of the five students were well motivated to learn Japanese, but their Japanese language knowledge was just not as high as the seven students who participated in the relay much earlier. One of these two students was able to participate in the relay on the last week (the 4th week) of my instruction. In FFLT, I could have found out much earlier about these five silent students’ problems or difficulties.

Tell Us a Story of 4-Koma Manga (4-Panel Cartoon) Since the class has twelve students, this activity worked well in terms of grouping; each group has four students for four-panel cartoon. Each student received an URL to see his/her panel of cartoons by email. I used the Moodle’s “Forum” with the technical assistance of my colleague, Brian Millhoff. I scanned each panel of three 4-panel cartoons for three groups, and emailed them to Brian, who in turn emailed each one of the 12 students an URL where each student could find a panel of cartoon. Each student individually described his/her cartoon, and posted it in his/her

group’s forum. When everyone posted his/her description, the team started to find the correct sequence of four pictures. In this collaborative work, more interaction is observed than in the nazo nazo relay. There are four types of problems which caused more interaction, generating more input and output for the participants: (1) unknown kanji; (2) unknown vocabulary; (3) a incomprehensible sentence; and (4) insufficient information for the completion of the task. To collect enough information (due to insufficient information for determining the order of each cartoon) the students interacted with each other most frequently. The following is a case of unknown kanji, while (15) involves negotiating the description of the picture to determine the order of 4 panels/pictures. To understand the interaction in the following, the story of a 4-panel cartoon—-being adopted from a textbook Genki II; this class employed another textbook called Yookoso—-is depicted as follows: An 8-10 year-old boy walking along the street to go to the bakery to buy bread. He has a shopping bag in one hand and some bills in the other hand. At the bakery, he bought bread, but forgot to pay, and he still holding money in his hand. The baker realized that he did not get paid from the boy. Then, he ran to the boy’s house. Then, Mother and the boy came out, and the boy’s mother standing at the entrance of the house paid to the baker. (p. 297) (19) Incomprehensible kanji usage (because wrong one was used) J:パン家でこの男の子はパンを買いまし た。The boy bought bread at the bakery パンやのてん印はとてもうれしいです。 The bakery worker is very happy. L: Can you use kanji that we know please? Sorry, I just don’t understand some parts. Thanks! (The kanji she was talking about is underlined in the sentence above.)

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J:パン家でこの男の子はパンを買いまし た。 The boy bought bread at the bakery パンやの店員はとてもうれしいです。 The bakery worker is very happy (The corrected kanji is marked with underline.) “note” 前の漢字は違いました。 I used a wrong Chinese character. でも、いま漢字がいいです。 but now my Chinese characters are correct. (20) negotiation of description of a picture N:男の子は何かを持っていますか? Does the boy have something? J:男の子の右の手に紙をも持っていませ ん。The boy does not have paper in his でも店員はかばんを持っています。 right hand, but the bakery worker has a bag. In addition, it is worth noting, this kind of activity promotes understanding of Japanese culture because of the usage of Japanese 4-panel cartoon. In the bakery cartoon, for example, the bakery worker/owner wears Japanese traditional wooden sandals called geta.

Online Self-Study Blended for JA201 & JA102 Classes “First (prosodic phrases) Come, First Interpreted” In both of the classes, JA102 and JA201, the textbooks used are titled Genki; Genki I is for JA102, and Genki II for JA201. The textbooks have good reading comprehension materials; however, no audio files for the reading materials are included. Be this as it may, as I argued above, if one teaches a language in which the phrasal head-position is different from the learner’s L1, one does so to prevent them from processing in the way “first come, last interpreted/comprehended.” Remember that only spoken input tacitly force the students to follow “first come, first interpreted/ comprehended.” The following contents have been recorded in the audio files for “first come, first interpreted/parsed”:

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(21) Contents of audio files as spoken input for JA102 and JA201 i. ii. iii.

each reading material in the textbooks, by reading it aloud. my own questions about the content of each reading material. my own questions about the content of the dialogs in each lesson.

It is important to set the number of trials to “unlimited,” to let our students try until they can find out the correct answer. In other words, let them try and try again until incomprehensible sentences are comprehended. I employed the grading scale for these quizzes lower than the activities involved other three skills (speaking, reading and writing) to reduce my students’ anxiety, but also to motivate them to challenge their listening comprehension skills. As for recording my own reading of the reading material of the textbook, for JA102 students, I recorded one batch of reading material in two ways: one, by reading slower, and the other by reading at my normal speed. In slower reading, I do not change any prosodic boundaries, but try to insert more prosodic phrase boundaries. As for the questions for the reading comprehension materials, although textbooks have printed questions, it is desirable the questions in audio files are given, and that the questions are not the same as those written ones in the textbooks. The questions about the dialogs of each lesson are created for the following two reasons: (1) I want to check whether they have studied and understand what they are talking about in each dialog, although the dialogs have English translation; and (2) I want to provide my students with more authentic spoken input.

Self-Negotiation of Form and Meaning I made more audio files for JA102 than for JA201. This is mainly due to the following: (1) JA102’s

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Figure 11.

the students in JA102 there are not so many listening comprehension materials, except for “real world” Japanese http://www.ajalt.org/rwj/, and (2) In the outcomes assessments, as mentioned above, the students’ learning of both adjective and verb inflections is as difficult as learning of writing the correct kanji corresponding to a given reading. In (a- I-1) of the following “fill-in questions,” I speak “before I was healthy, but,” and a student type in their answer in Japanese. In order to come up with the correct answer, what I am speaking in the audio file needs to be comprehended through self-negotiating of meaning and forms. (22) Fill-in questions a. For JA102 i) To learn adjective inflection: To fill an adjective in the blank, switching the tense and positive/negative of the pre-noun adjective 1) 元気だったお母さんが______!(answer: 元気じゃない) Mother who was healthy is not healthy (Surprise)! 2) 難しくないテストが______!(answer: 難 しかった)

The test that is usually not difficult was/has turned out difficult (Surprise)! ii) To learn “want-construction” 1) 帰りたくなかった。でも、______。 (answer: 帰った) I do not want to go back, but went back. 2) 心配する。でも、______。 (answer: 心 配したくない) I worry, but I do not want to worry. b. For JA201 To learn “give/receive-construction” 1) お金がなかったから、父にお金を貸し て______。 Because I do not have money, I loaned money from Dad. 2) 漢字が分からなかった。でも、友達が 教えて______。 I did not understand the kanji, but my friend kindly teaches it to me. In the case of the following “translation of verbal expression” in only one prosodic phrase, the students have to type in an English correspondent, listening to my pronunciation of each verbal expression; again, by self-negotiation of form and meaning. (23) Translation of complex verbal expres-

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sions for JA102 1)つかれなかった (was not tired) 2)ならいたくない (do not want to learn) 3)のぼった (climbed) 4)あかかった (was red) 5)やめたかった (wanted to quit) The following is an example of teaching grammar with songs. The following is not a quiz, but encourages my students to listen and sing the songs whose lyrics I made, inspired by one of my colleagues, Yoko Morimoto. The idea here is to use a melody of a song learned by our students in L1, and put Japanese words in it. The following one in (24) was made accordingly. The decision was made that for learning a “had-better” construction, it would be effective to adopt a Christmas song, “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I made not only an audio file of my singing, but a slide show to show the sentences and English translation, and then put them in Moodle. This song has three parts, so I made three slides for it. Each slide was displayed during my singing of each part; this is the third part (#3) of the song. Songs are also good for latent learning of “first come, first interpreted/parsed.” Japanese characters in the songs persist in Moodle because the lyrics are inserted as slides. (24) Songs for learning the relevant structures for JA102 (See Figure 11)

current chALLenGes FAcInG technIcAL IMPLeMentAtIon There are two challenges regarding Moodle. As mentioned above, one is that Japanese characters are no longer readable, unless I use pdf format, or picture (JPEG) format. Secondly, even if this problem is solved, instructors take note that Moodle availability is subject to the financial conditions of one’s home institution. Quia, unfortunately, lacks two functions. First, it cannot replace “Forum” in Moodle. Second, it cannot present slide shows like the song’s slide shows in (24) above.

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Even if I use Moodle, Japanese characters typed in are, as mentioned above, no longer readable. Therefore, my students are no longer able to engage in some meaningful collaborative tasks like “Tell Us a Story with 4-panel cartoon”. Even if I give up using Moodle for collaborative tasks, I need to use both Quia and Moodle. That is, Quia is used for quizzes and Moodle for the songs to learn grammar and the strategy of “first come, first interpreted”. I also found that it is quite a challenge for the instructor to let the majority of the students log into Moodle only for the song’s slide shows.

concLusIon In conclusion, the present chapter repeats its endorsement of BLT because it significantly reduces psychological and social distance in FFLT. Furthermore, instructors need to produce audio files to provide students with spoken input so they can self-negotiate form and meaning, and so that students’ parsers process in the manner of first (prosodic phrase) come, first served. The outcome is important: incomprehensible input becomes comprehensible, and hard-to-be-comprehended output becomes easy-to-comprehend output. The question in the title of this chapter, “Does More Input Improve Comprehension?” can be answered as follows: if input is relevant or effective for the students’ developmental stage to move up to one step higher, the answer is “Yes.” “More input” and its comprehension takes place as the result of the students’ parsers invoking processing principles like RA or LA, depending on TL’s phrasal heading parameter. However, this chapter claims that input comprehension is not good enough, but output development also contributes L2 acquisition. It needs to be said in all modesty that this chapter has not conducted assessment of the self-negotiation of form and meaning, and leaves it for future work.

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reFerences Bonno, E., Ohno, Y., Sakane, Y., & Sinagawa, C. (1999). Genki I: An Integrated course in elementary Japanese. Tokyo, Japan: The Japan Times. Brandl, K. (2005). Are you ready to “Moodle”? Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 16–23. Chomsky, N. (1982). Government and biding theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Colpaert, J. (2006). Pedagogy-driven design for online language teaching and learning. Computer Assisted Language Instruction COnsortium (CALICO) . Journal, 23(3), 47–498. Conger, J., & Lawler, E. (2005, August 26). People skills still rule in the virtual company. [London.]. Financial Times (North American Edition), 10. Duff, P. A. (2000). Repetition I: Foreign language classroom interaction. In J. K. Hall & L. S. Verplaetse (Eds.), Second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction (pp. 108-138). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gass, S. (1997). Input, interaction, and the second language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gass, S., & Varonis, E. M. (1994). Input, interaction, and second language production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16(3), 283–302. doi:10.1017/S0272263100013097 Hauck, M., & Sticler, U. (2006). What does it take to teach online? Computer Assisted Language Instruction COnsortium (CALICO) . Journal, 23(3), 463–476. Higgs, T. V. (1984). Introduction: Language teaching and the quest for the holy grail. In T. V. Higgs (Ed.), Teaching for Proficiency, the Organizing Principle (pp. 1-9). Lincolnwood, Chicago: NTC Publishing Group.

Kang, P. T. (1993). Parser strategies of adult English speakers learning Japanese as a second language: Theory and Application. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Kang, P. T. (2000). A digital classroom for a foreign language course; A case study of Japanese language courses. PIALA 2000: Selected Papers from the 10th Pacific Islands Association of Libraries and Archives Conference Joint with the 13th Annual Regional Language Arts Conference, 74-80. Kang, P. T. (2003). Surface X-bar theory, prosodic structure and first language acquisition. Paper presented at the conference of UG Principles and Input: How do we get Plato’s heaven into Skinners box? the LSA Linguistic Summer Institute, Michigan State University. Kang, P. T. (2007a). Technology, lifelong learning, and effective foreign language instruction under the memory efficient approach. In Y. Inoue (Ed.), Online education for lifelong learning. (pp. 73-98). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing/ IGI Global. Kang, P. T. (2007b). Left association for a headfinal phrase. Paper poster-presented at the International Conference on Processing Head-final Structures at Rochester Technology Institute, Rochester, NY. Kang, P. T. (2008). First come, first interpreted and a performance-based Assessment for advanced L2 (Japanese) parser development. Paper presented at the conference, The 20th Annual Meeting of the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, May 31-June 1. Kimball, J. (1973). Seven principles of surface structure parsing in natural language. Cognition, 2, 15–47. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(72)90028-5

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Krashen, S. D. (1985). Input hypotheses. New York: Longman. Kubozono, H. (1993). The organization of Japanese prosody. Tokyo: Kuroshio. Ohta, A. S. (2000). Rethinking recasts: A learnercentered examination of corrective feedback in the Japanese language classroom. In J. K. Hall & L. S. Verplaetse (Eds.), Second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction. (pp. 47-72). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Omaggio, A. C. (1984). The proficiency-oriented classroom. In T. V. Higgs (Ed.), Teaching for proficiency, the organizing principle (pp. 43-84). Chicago, IL: NTC Publishing Group. Pica, T., Young, R., & Doughty, C. (1987). The impact of interaction on comprehension . TESOL Quarterly, 21(4), 737–756. doi:10.2307/3586992 Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). Phonology and phonetics of English intonation. Doctoral dissertation. MIT. Reprinted Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistic Club in 1987. Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. IRAL, 10(3), 209–231.

Selkirk, E. O. (1984). Phonology and syntax: the relation between sound and structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible input in its development. In S. Gass & C. Madden (Eds.), Input in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 235-253). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and econd language learning (pp. 97-114). Ocford, UK: Oxford University Press. Tohsaku, Y. (1999). Yookoso! Continuing with contemporary Japanese. New York: McGraw Hill. VanPatten, B. (1996). Input processing and grammar instruction: Theory and research. Norwood, NJ: Alex publishing. Wegmann, S. J., & McCauley, J. K. (2007). Can you hear us now?: Stance towards interaction and rapport. In Y. Inoue (Ed.), Online education for lifelong learning (pp. 29-50). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing/IGI Global.

This work was previously published in Cases on Online and Blended Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices, edited by Y. Inoue, pp. 112-131, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.8

Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE) Marshall G. Jones Winthrop University, USA Stephen W. Harmon Georgia State University, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

This chapter deals centrally with one emerging aspect of Web 2.0 for education, that of the increasing demand for real time and near real-time interaction among users. Whereas most online learning has, to date, taken place in an asynchronous format, there is a growing need for an ability to provide learning opportunities in a synchronous setting. This chapter discusses synchronous online learning environments (SOLEs) and the affordances they present for teaching and learning. Particularly it focuses on a capability of these environments known as ancillary communications. It discusses ancillary communications as an intentional instructional strategy and presents guidelines for its implementation. And, in the spirit of Web 2.0, this chapter was written using the Web 2.0 application Google Docs.

Internet-based classes appear to dominate the landscape of distance education today. Online classes are common place in most colleges and universities and are becoming more common in high schools as well. While pioneering courses were offered through techniques using email, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) or bulletin boards, today’s courses are almost all managed by portal systems such as WebCT™, Blackboard’s CourseInfo™, or Elluminate™ to name but a few. These systems share many communication features such as bulletin boards, email, chat, whiteboards and assignment drop boxes. As technology advances and bandwidth improves, we see changes in these environments. Today’s systems offer audio and video communication tools as well as traditional text based communication. These new tools provide us with a unique opportunity. No longer is an online environment constrained to text for synchronous meetings and packaged media for asynchronous meetings. The environment now

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-729-4.ch005

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Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

affords unique opportunities for communication patterns that are usually reserved for face-to-face classes, mainly the ability to talk and listen. Moreover, with the addition of audio and video we are able to add new channels of information to the online environment. Historically there has been much research done on multiple-channel communication and cue summation. Moore, Burton, and Myers (2004) provide an exhaustive review of the literature on both. At the risk of oversimplifying this review, we can say that on the positive side multiple-channels of information may provide greater enrichment in learning. On the negative side it may lead to cognitive overload for learners. We have studied the use of these communication tools for a number of years (Harmon & Jones, 1999, 2001; Jones & Harmon, 2002, 2006) and found that the implementation of multiple communication channels in an online environment (e.g. audio, text, or whiteboards) may be used to provide redundancy of information and enrichment of material, (in the manner of traditional multiple-channels or cue summation). However, these channels can be used another way as well. They may be used as either a primary communication mode or a supporting communication mode, such as chat supporting audio, or audio supporting whiteboards, or audio supporting chats. When these tools are present, students will use them. We have found that they will certainly use them for personal discussions, such as an updated version of passing notes in class. This can, obviously, be distracting and can cause lack of attention to learning and hinder the ability of an individual learner to focus on class materials. However, when used in a purposeful manner these multiple channels may create increased learner focus and more efficient communication. Moreover, the use of multiple channels of communication may provide instructors a powerful physical manifestation of constructivist learning. In traditional positivist learning environments the primary instructional communication

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occurs between the teacher and the students. In constructivist learning environments the primary instructional communication may occur between the instructor and students or between students and students. In either environment the instructional emphasis of the communication is almost wholly on one or the other. We argue that potential learning benefits may accrue if we place more emphasis on the communications that are occurring in a learning environment simultaneously with, but outside the focus of the primary communications. We call the exchange of information in support of learning that occurs synchronously with, but is physically and semantically separate from a primary communication mode Ancillary Communication.

reseArch FoundAtIons For AncILLAry coMMunIcAtIon Ancillary Communication as an intentional instructional strategy is based on our ongoing study of an online course we teach on the topic of online learning (Harmon & Jones, 1999, 2001; Jones & Harmon, 2002, 2006). It follows, then, that the design of the course has influenced the development of our definition of Ancillary Communication. To that end, we offer some of the guiding literature we use in designing and refining our course. Our course is based on the discussions of constructivist learning (Jonassen, 1999), situated cognition (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989) and anchored instruction (Bransford et al, 1990; Cognition and Technology Group, 1990). The class was set up to be experiential and to create a learning environment that is driven by the learner (Papert, 1980; Wilson & Ryder, 1996; Greening, 1998). Analysis of early offerings of the class (Harmon & Jones, 2001) indicated that students were unprepared for the responsibility of this type experience initially and typically floundered during the early portion of the semester. Today the course employs a pedagogical shift approach, with a more positivist

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perspective and instructor delivered content early in the semester, to a more constructivist perspective with student generated content and instructor guidance later in the semester. This shift allows the students to quickly gain confidence in the online environment and master the fundamental knowledge and skills they will need to succeed later on, while still affording them the benefits usually conferred by a student-centered learning environment (i.e. greater motivation and enhanced transfer) (Land, S. & Hannafin, M., 2001). This is particularly important since motivation has been found to be a key component for successful online learning (Kawachi, 2003). This work draws heavily upon a taxonomy of web-based instruction developed by Harmon and Jones (1999), research focusing on analyzing learner interaction in online classes (Harmon & Jones, 2001; Jones & Harmon, 2006) and discourse patterns in online discussions (Mcklin, Harmon, Jones & Evans, 2002). Additionally it is related to the foundational research in communications theory (Schramm, 1961; Shannon & Weaver, 1964) and multiple-channel communication and cue summation (Moore, Burton, & Myers, 2004).

web 2.0, LeArnInG, And AncILLAry coMMunIcAtIon For centuries the teacher was seen as the center of epistemological authority in the classroom. Information entered the classroom largely, if not solely through the teacher. Either he or she directly imparted information to the students, or vetted content provided by others such as textbooks and readings. As other avenues of information dissemination evolved, the teacher’s hold on learners began to weaken. The rise of constructivism acknowledged that different learners created knowledge in different ways. The Internet gave learners access to far more information than ever before. Savvy teachers realized this and began

changing the way they taught. The well known aphorism “sage on the stage” gave way to the now well-known aphorism “guide on the side.” In the earliest applications of the Internet in the classroom this was often manifested by teachers facilitating learners’ exploration of content instead of providing them with vetted content. But even this exploration of multiple and varying perspectives that exist on the Internet had its limitations. And the most significant limitation was that most of that content still originated from a limited number of sources and the students themselves had little opportunity to engage with or add to the content that they were discovering on the Internet. Despite the increased access to information, the overall model of Internet use in teaching and learning was still remarkably similar to traditional classroom learning: learners were still seen as information consumers. This circumstance was reflected in the practice of many Internet service providers who allotted customers substantially more bandwidth for downloading than for uploading (Moran, 2007). The major difference that the Internet made in learning and instruction is that the teacher was now no longer able to vet all of the information coming in to the classroom. Students were still consumers of information. With the rise of what has been called Web 2.0 the paradigm of students as consumers of information has begun to change. We are still in the nascent stages of Web 2.0 in education, but already we are beginning to see the impact (Alexander, 2006). Web 2.0 is centered on the concept of user generated content. Instead of the majority of Internet users being consumers of information coming from a limited number of sources, Web 2.0 is currently in a state where there is increased parity between consumption and production of information by users. Just as desktop publishing software and laser printers allowed everyone to have the equivalent of his or her own printing press in the 1990’s, the tool sets and protocols of Web 2.0 allow everyone to have not only his or

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her own publishing company, but rather, if you prefer, his or her own broadcast network. When applied to education, the user-created content aspect of Web 2.0 has been referred to as Learning 2.0 (Brown & Adler, 2008). In an educational setting this changes the traditional model of students as consumers of information to one where students are producers of information. The content creation and collaboration tools of Web 2.0 give students the ability to interact and form communities of practice (Wenger, 1998; Alexander, 2006) like never before. This, in turn, opens up a range of instructional and learning strategies that have not been easily accessible in the classroom. These strategies have the potential to achieve real advances in education and training. According to Brown & Adler (2008), The most profound impact of the Internet, an impact that has yet to be fully realized, is its ability to support and expand the various aspects of social learning. What do we mean by ‘social learning?’Perhaps the simplest way to explain this concept is to note that social learning is based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning. (Brown & Adler, 2008, p.2) That is the heart of Learning 2.0, the promise of Web 2.0 for education, and the compelling rationale for Ancillary Communication as an instructional strategy. Besides just sounding like a good idea, there is a sound theoretical underpinning for this concept. On the surface, the notion of students creating content may not seem like a good idea. Students, almost by definition, are novices in whatever content they are studying. If they already knew the content there would be no need for them to learn it. But, if they do not know the content, how can they create it? Presumably

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their fellow students will be learning from the content they create. This seems like it could lead to the widespread adoption of fallacies and fact. Imagine a student of brain-surgery making up his or her own content and other brain-surgery students adopting it in practice. Most of us would decide to choose another group of surgeons or forgo the operation entirely if our brain-surgeons were trained this way. Where then, is the benefit in student-generated content? As noted above, it is the act of generating the content that has value. Papert (1991) advocated a similar notion in his work on constructionism. Constructionism is the idea that students learn by building something in a public context. There is still a roll for the teacher, only it is not as a disseminator of knowledge, but as a quality control agent, who insures that the knowledge created is consistent with current and generally accepted thought on the topic, or in the case of some states, with whatever the state standards happen to say is accurate. The fact that students create this concept in collaboration also resonates with the social constructivism theory of Vygotsky (1978). Reality is a shared social construct. It is, in effect, whatever we agree it is. The earth may not be flat but the world is, if you get our drift. Vygotsky held that we learn by creating this reality and negotiating meaning. There is perhaps no better example of this than the Web 2.0 space, Wikipedia. In Wikipedia users come together to negotiate the official entry for any given topic. One has only to follow the discussions that occur behind the main entry page to see that in most cases the negotiation of meaning that occurs typically results in all participants coming away with a richer, more nuanced understanding of the topic. While most Web 2.0, and therefore Learning 2.0 tools, are asynchronous, there is a growing trend for more real-time interaction. The growth of social networking services like Twitter and Spoink, and of instant messaging services like AOL’s AIM or Windows Live Messenger point to a desire on the part of users for more synchronous

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interaction. While education has traditionally been synchronous (face to face classes), elearning has traditionally been asynchronous (content modules and bulletin board based discussions). The tools did not exist, or were not readily accessible to allow for synchronous online teaching and learning. In the last few years, however, that has changed. Today a wide variety of platforms exist that allow us to take advantage of what we know about synchronous instruction, combine it with what we have learned about asynchronous instruction, and create new learning environments online. The trick is figuring out how to use this new capability in ways that maximize its effectiveness. We have been attempting to do just that.

teAchInG And LeArnInG wIth soLe Since 1998 we have been preparing professional educators for work with online learning by teaching an online class on the subject of online learning. Two sections taught at two different universities are joined together to study the theories behind online learning and to experience an online class from a variety of different perspectives. This recursive opportunity appealed to us and seemed to present an exciting challenge and advantage: we could provide learners with a realistic way to study online learning in an online environment and we could study the environment to contribute to the body of knowledge in the field on online learning. The goal of the class was to provide students with both a realistic web-based course and experience in designing, developing, using, and evaluating realistic web-based courses. It was designed to be a multi-site distance education class with half the class in one location, and half the class in another distant location thus creating a realistic distance education environment. Since the topic and the delivery mechanism were essentially the same, it seemed that situated cognition (Brown,

Collins & Duguid, 1989) and anchored instruction (Bransford et al, 1990; Cognition and Technology Group, 1990), might apply to the design of this particular course. To study the class we used qualitative methodologies such as interviews, observations, and document analysis. Data is generated through public and private chats, bulletin boards, emails, transcripts of team meetings, formal and informal interviews (both online and face to face) and an analysis of student projects. A single class tends to generate an enormous amount of data (a typical course offering can be in excess of 4,000 printed pages of data from bulletin board postings and chat logs and over 30 hours of recorded class interactions). This data was analyzed using constant comparative analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). During subsequent offerings of the class we were able to identify specific phenomenon to study and were able to combine constant comparative analysis with analytic induction (Patton, 1990). Research results, including more details on data collection and analysis on many of these course offerings may be found at Harmon and Jones (1999, 2001) and Jones and Harmon (2002, 2006).

AncILLAry coMMunIcAtIon Historically the class has been offered through a portal system such as WebCT™ or CourseInfo™. Consequently our communication tools were bulletin boards, email, and drop boxes for asynchronous meetings and IRC for synchronous meetings. During 2004 we added a course system called Elluminate™ which provided two way audio communications between students and students, faculty and students, and faculty and faculty. The system provided space for posting packaged PowerPoint™ presentations and also provided the ability to break students into small groups in the synchronous meetings and provide them with audio tools and whiteboard space for group work during class meetings. As instructors we were able

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to see all communications in the class, even those that were “private” to the students. Students were given problems during class, such as doing the front end analysis for a web-site for a client, in a small group and then brought back together with the larger class to present their findings. Student interactions and discourse using these tools and strategies were analyzed both at the small group level and the whole class level. Initially we found that these tools were not technically difficult for people to use, but that students were not clear on why they should use them and how they could be best used. Through the use of recursive data analysis we began to develop strategies to use these new tools. What we found was that they were best used when one communication tool or mode was used to support the other. During a typical course interaction, such as a student presentation, a dominant mode might arise. For example, a small group’s white board (a visual mode) might be perceived to be the dominant mode. To support this, students may explain it using an ancillary mode, such as the audio functions, (a verbal - audio mode) while taking questions from faculty and other students through another ancillary mode, the chat window (a verbal - text mode). The dominant and Ancillary Communication modes might change without notice, but participants in the system were able to recognize and adapt to this almost immediately. They were then able to use Ancillary Communication modes to support the dominant mode. Consequently, audio was used to support whiteboards and vice versa depending on which mode was perceived to be dominant. At no point was one mode stated to be dominant. The class appeared to be able to develop and instantly manifest a shared understanding of which mode is dominant and which mode is ancillary. But what we found most interesting was that people were not confused by the tools or by what sounds like a barrage of information. They were actually engaged by the communication and able to make sense out of multiple streams of informa-

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tion coming at them at one time. Evidence of this is found both in their test scores and in the quality and quantity of their interactions. Consequently, data from the study suggests initially that this is more than enrichment or cue summation, especially since the Ancillary Communications often varied widely from the content being discussed in the primary channel. These communication tools are seen by participants as being interconnected in one sense, but separate in another. Therefore their mutual support of each other makes them unique and allows us to focus on their use as an intentional instructional strategy.

LeArner InterActIons In A soLe Generally, we found that students in the course interact in a manner consistent with the types of interaction noted by Miltiadou & Savenye (2003). Learner-content interactions occur when students in the course work directly with course materials. These types of interactions are perhaps the most common when viewed from the perspective of time on task, both in traditional and online environments. Reading a text book or website, researching a paper, or working through a tutorial would all be examples of learner content interaction. This type of interaction can occur concurrently with Ancillary Communications and frequently does so in our classes. Learner-instructor interactions occur when the student works directly with the instructor. These types of interactions are also very common in both traditional and online classes, but may frequently be characterized by a greater flow of information in pedagogical approaches that view the instructor as content provider. Interestingly, direct learnerinstructor interactions may be less common in the type of eLearning environments that have come to dominate education with the advent of course management systems (CMS). While in traditional CMS learner-instructor interaction typically oc-

Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

curs both on bulletin boards and in chat rooms, there is also a greater prevalence of stand alone instruction in which there is little or no direct learner-instructor interaction. In SOLE’s however, we found there to be copious and intense learner-instructor interaction. Indeed, we found the level of learner-instructor interaction to frequently exceed that which is found in a face-to-face environment. We have noted four sub-categories of learner-instructor interaction in this environment. 1.

2.

3.

4.

In the first sub-category the instructor is communicating with the entire class at once through audio and visual channels. This sub-category interaction may be most easily thought of as an instructor presenting a lecture via PowerPoint. Note though, that while this is the easiest way to characterize the interaction, it is also a bit misleading since pure lecture is a technique we try to employ rarely, preferring instead a more interactive form of discourse. The second sub-category of learner-instructor interaction occurs when the instructor is communicating with the class as a whole through the chat window. This type of interaction is a central component of the discussion of Ancillary Communication we are presenting. The third sub-category of learner-instructor interaction occurs with the instructor communicating with an individual student or a small group of students privately in the chat window. By privately we mean that the communication is not seen by the class as a whole, only by the intended recipients. The fourth type of sub-category is what we refer to as a pseudo-private communication, in which the instructor communicates with the class as a whole via the chat window, but does so as a private communication. This means that each recipient may think that the communication was intended only

for him or her even though in fact the entire class got the same communication. The third type of interaction noted by Miltiadou & Savenye (2003) is learner-learner interaction. This occurs when learners communicate directly with each other. This type of interaction may occur in traditional classrooms, particularly those that are set up along constructivist lines, or may occur perhaps surreptitiously in a classroom set up with a direct instruction format. In a traditional online classroom, this type of interaction may occur more often than in a traditional face to face classroom, particularly with student interaction that might occur on a discussion board, or in a chat room. We observed that like learner-instructor interaction, there are sub-categories for this type of interaction in the virtual classroom. These include, learners communicating with the class as a whole via audio and visual channels; learners communicating with the class as a whole via the chat window; and learners communicating with other individual or small groups of learner’s via private chat. Note that in both the learner-instructor, and the learner-learner sub-categories we suppose that there could be an additional category of accidental communications, in which either the learner or the instructor sends a private message that was supposed to the public, or more commonly, a public message that was intended to be private. For the purposes of this chapter we will not consider these unintentional communications. The fourth type of interaction noted by Miltiadou & Savenye (2003) is learner-interface interaction. Unlike the other three types of interaction which may have learning as their primary purpose, learner-interface interaction has as its primary purpose the enabling of the other types of interactions. While it may be possible to design online learning environments in which the interface itself is intended as a mechanism to enhance instruction and learning, we know of no course management system or virtual classroom environment in which this is the case.

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AFFordAnces oF AncILLAry coMMunIcAtIon It has been well documented in the literature that media do not themselves influence learning (Clark, 1994). It makes no difference whether instruction is delivered via a book, or a film strip, via a computer or via a television. In study after study it has been shown that it is not a medium itself that makes a difference in learning outcomes, it is the instructional strategy that is employed. If that is the case, then why should we use one medium instead of another? Why use a rather expensive medium, such as a computer, instead of a relatively inexpensive medium, such as a newspaper? The answer is because different media have different capabilities for delivering instruction. Televisions can do things that newspapers can’t and computers can do things that neither televisions nor newspapers can. The key to using technology successfully in instruction is to identify the unique capabilities of the technology and employ them in ways that are most advantageous to their strengths and least prone to their weaknesses. Another term used in discussing the capability of media is the term affordances. An affordance is a potential for action that exists in a given object or technology (Gibson, 1977; Norman 1988). Different media afford us the ability to do different things. Text affords us the ability to rapidly peruse a lot of information in a highly abstract form. Video affords us the ability to fairly rapidly evoke strong emotional response in viewers. If we are to improve education overall we must be able to determine the affordances of new technologies and create effective instructional strategies that use them. Synchronous online learning environments afford us new capabilities that did not exist or would be difficult to implement in a traditional classroom. One of these capabilities, or affordances, is Ancillary Communication. Ancillary Communication can be difficult to implement. This may be due to its relative infancy as an instructional strategy or to the fact that it

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requires facility with online tools, such as reading and responding to chat messages quickly while still maintaining the flow of a verbal discussion. Imagine sitting in front of your computer and speaking to your class room of twenty students while they all ask questions at once. To read and process all of this information takes patience and practice. It is a skill that a growing number of students implement quite effortlessly in daily communication, but one that has not been commonly used instructionally. We have worked almost exclusively in a multi-instructor environment which has made it somewhat easier. While one of us speaks, the other can manage the questions from the students. Instructors new to SOLEs and Ancillary Communication may want to get some help to implement them. Using a team teaching approach or a graduate or teaching assistant should prove beneficial. It is also possible to designate individual students in a class to serve as teaching assistants during the class to help with the management of the environment. This rotating assistant arrangement can both solve the problem of dealing with potential information overload and also increase student engagement. Additionally it has the added benefit that students seem to be sympathetic to their peers working as teaching assistants, thus creating a greater level of collegiality in the classroom. Groups of students may work as assistants during the class to actually present course material by themselves or with the instructor, thus creating a unique constructivist environment. Ancillary Communication harnesses the increased facility students have with both experiential cognition (Norman, 1988) and online tools to provide greater focus on learning goals and instructional tasks. We find that students use video game like speed to ask and answer questions in class. Ancillary Communication appears to be a way for us to harness this new set of skills students bring to class based on their non-academic use of Instant Messaging and “Googling” for answers during a discussion. But let us be clear:

Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

we found that students were using this quick reaction and quick response in instructionally meaningful ways. Because Ancillary Communication can be so intense, we recommend blending the synchronous online class with an asynchronous component as well. This allows instructors to balance the fast paced experiential cognition of the environment with more reflective cognition activities (Norman, 1988). For both students and instructors in our graduate level course, two hours appears to be the maximum amount of time one can spend in a SOLE using Ancillary Communication without losing focus or becoming overly fatigued. Our examination of Ancillary Communication has yielded the following affordances. Below we discuss the development of our understanding of how these affordances can be used.

community and shared experience The addition of audio to an online classroom appeared to provide a greater sense of community and shared experience with the students and the instructors. Because so many classes are built, traditionally, on a model of teacher talking and students listening, the addition of audio to an online class made it fell “like a real class,” as one participant put it. Having the ability to hear the professor and your fellow students talking lessened the sense of isolation in the online classroom. Students reported feeling more connected and indeed a greater sense of collegiality was noted in course offerings using audio than in offerings in the past. We have always required weekly synchronous meetings, historically in text only chat rooms. And while meeting regularly has more of a “real class” feel than a completely asynchronous class, the addition of audio appeared to be the variable for increased community building. Examples of community building are included in other findings below.

shared work space The use of whiteboards as a shared work space on which to think as a group provided richer interactions between students than text chats alone. In previous offerings of the class it was possible to break students into small groups to have them do small group discussions. We have recommended the use of smaller chat communities as a method of increasing student interactions in the past (Jones & Harmon 2002). But the addition of a shared workspace increased the amount of interaction. For example as students worked on the problem of creating motivational strategies for a piece of online instruction in a chat window they could write down what they thought. When they returned to present their work to the entire class they could tell people what they did through the use of text in a chat window. But the addition of the white board gave them someplace to hold the information while they discussed it. It also provided them with something tangible to refer to during their presentations. We like to think of it as the digital equivalent of a student generated flip chart. The result was greater engagement in small group work and more concrete representations of abstract thoughts during in class presentations.

chat window summaries The use of chat windows to summarize what the speaker is saying grew naturally out of the environment. The novelty effect of using a microphone for live audio was significant initially, to be sure. Both instructors and the students relished the idea of being able to talk instead of type during synchronous meetings. The way the system works, only one person was able to talk at a time. Students are given microphone “privileges” by the instructor, but only one person can talk at a time. During one presentation, while one instructor spoke, the other instructor began to summarize what the other was saying in the chat window because a student was having problems with

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audio. What was unexpected was that students who had audio found the summaries not to be distracting, but helpful. The instructor who was typing in the chat window could not provide a full transcript of the audio, so he would shorten and summarize and at times add more detail or a different perspective than that being presented by the speaker. Watching the instructor do this seemed to provide the students permission to do much the same thing. Students began to use the chat window to ask questions while the instructor spoke, and the instructors used the questions to shape the direction of their comments. While the instructors modeled this technique originally, the students were coming to the same conclusion at the same time. While the novelty effect of using audio initially made the audio the “best” way of communicating, or the primary communication mode, if you will, the use of chat as a way to supplement audio or to communicate when the microphone was not available elevated the use of text chats in the eyes of the students. Soon the use of chats became not just a secondary mode of communication but actually rivaled the use of audio. In a current course offering students seemed to prefer the use of chatting to the use of audio as a way of making their thoughts heard. We suspicion that one reason that text based communication is so popular for students today is because of their familiarity and facility with online communication tools such as IM and mobile phone based text chats.

Increase in collegiality Ancillary Communication through the use of the chats provided people with the ability to comment at will, make jokes, and generally increased the collegiality of the class from past offerings. If a presenter, either a professor or a student, made a joke, or a malapropism, the chat window would light up with people commenting that they were “LOL” (laughing out loud) or “ROFL” (rolling on the floor laughing). Students used the private

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messaging feature to pass notes to each other and to discuss things off topic, to be sure, but they also used the private messaging feature to ask each other questions that were on topic. Because students and professors were able to comment at will while someone was speaking it created an atmosphere that was not only conducive for sharing information, but it actually demanded that people share information. The use of the chat windows increased engagement, and this engagement in turn increased the quantity and quality of the communication. The collegiality seemed to help in the building of community as well. If you are a regular reader and commenter of a blog you have witnessed this type of collegiality. And as people got to know each other better, both personally and academically, the level of trust and collegiality increased.

Manifesting understanding The use of chat windows for Ancillary Communication allowed students to manifest their cognitive processes instantly. This thinking out loud, if you will, provided the instructors in an online class with a tool that is often cited as a benefit of face to face instruction but typically not found in face to face classes. In a face to face class, instructors often talk about being able to “see the eyes” of their students. This lets a teacher know that person is on task or “gets it,” if you will. Because one mode of communication is happening through audio, the ancillary mode of chat provides a remarkable opportunity to get instant feedback from the learners. And because the learner must write what they are thinking it leaves little doubt as to whether they “get it” or not. Additionally Ancillary Communication allowed the students to explore aspects of the course content not covered in the primary instructional communication mode, and thus potentially enhanced their motivation and understanding. Students were able to use the ancillary mode of communication to make comments that contributed to their private understanding of

Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

Table 1. Methods of ancillary communication 1. Agree-disagree 2. Elaborate 3. Diverge 4. Scaffolding 5. Reiterate 6. Emphasis 7. Show relevance of 8. Social Engineering

the material in a public way. Because of this their private thoughts became public and these public thoughts helped provide other learners with examples the professors were not able to provide. Faculty soon began to use private and public communication intentionally as a way to further the benefits of Ancillary Communication.

Methods oF AncILLAry coMMunIcAtIon Using Ancillary Communication in an online environment can be made more concrete through the application of one or more method as listed in Table 1 and discussed in the narrative below. While there are many potential methods emerging from our work in employing Ancillary Communication in synchronous online learning, we will review eight of these that we have used and refined in our own work. We note at the outset that our circumstances may be a bit uncommon in that we are fortunate to have two instructors present in the classroom at the same time. The methods of Ancillary Communication we employ typically take the form of one instructor being responsible for the primary communication which is occurring in audio and visual channels, and the other instructor responsible for the Ancillary Communication which occurs in the chat window. It is possible to use students in the role of ancillary or primary instructor as well. For example, during student presentations or student led discussions the instructor of record can play

the role of ancillary instructor. And with proper planning, students can serve in a predetermined ancillary role while the instructor of record serves as the primary instructor.

Agree-disagree Description: In the first method the ancillary instructor either agrees or disagrees with what the primary instructor is saying via the audio channel. The intention is to either affirm the content, and thus add weight to it, or to stimulate discussion and more critical thought by disagreeing with the primary instructor. Example and Discussion: We found that it is often startling for the students to see two instructors disagree with each other in front of the class. In our environment we have two authority figures who are disagreeing with each other, and this is a powerful statement in a class. The disagreement forces students to think more deeply about the content and to come to some resolution as to their own perspective. We began using this method after we noticed that students frequently view a communication from the instructor as the final word on a subject. We found that, particularly on discussion boards, one of the quickest ways to end a discussion is to have one of the instructors offer an opinion on the matter. In a single instructor classroom you can still provide for disagreement with some preparation and planning. It is possible to have a student play the disagreement role as well. While this often happens organically in classes, you can also prepare for it by “planting” a student. This technique requires that that student is well prepared to play their role convincingly, but it also opens the door for other students to disagree with the professor during a synchronous class meeting. We found in practice that we typically disagree little with each other. Therefore in order to use this technique it is necessary for one of us to play devil’s advocate, but do so in a manner that is convincing to the students.

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elaborate Description: In this technique the ancillary instructor elaborates on the primary instructor’s point. Providing further information in a chat window while a primary instructor speaks, the ancillary instructor is both adding to the depth of the discussion and at times adding details that may have been left out of the initial presentation. Example and Discussion: Consistent with Reigeluth’s elaboration theory of instruction (Reigeluth & Stein, 1983), we found it helpful to provide elaboration on both a macro and micro level. That is to say, the ancillary instructor offers comments that place the primary instructor’s point in a broad context. For example, in a discussion on the problems related to the perception of rigor and quality in online learning, the ancillary instructor may broaden the discussion by adding a discussion on pre-Internet distance education classes in order to provide context to online learning. Providing learners with greater detail in this manner is intended to provide macro level support for learners. Of course there are also times when it is important to zoom in for a more micro focus on a particular aspect of the primary instructor’s point. For example, in a discussion on the affordance of particular media types in online learning, an ancillary instructor may provide details on the advantages of a media type, such as digital audio files, in the chat window while the primary instructor is discussing how they work.

diverge Description: Discussions are presented by the ancillary instructor in a manner that has the initial appearance of being unrelated to the primary instructor’s main content object. Ultimately, the divergence is reconnected to the initial point, but the divergence creates a memorable, unique manifestation of the primary instructor’s main content object.

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Example and Discussion: This technique, drawn from work in creativity theory, consists of having the ancillary instructor offer comments that may initially not seem related to the primary instructor’s comments. We find this technique to be most helpful when we are trying to get students to think about unfamiliar concepts in a new way. For example, in our class there is a classic and long running joke about sardines causing chickenpox. The story goes that after eating sardines as a child, the instructor got the chickenpox. The instructor goes on to tell the class, in a long winded, often hilarious story, how he made the faulty causal relationship that eating sardines causes chicken pox and how the mention of sardines can still make him scratch at phantom pox. This seemingly unrelated story is told during a discussion of semantic network theory, illustrating how learners can make their own connections between seemingly disparate pieces of information. It has both the effect of providing a memorable example and providing an initial impression that the instructor may have lost the thread of the discussion in an almost embarrassing manner. But it works. It is a difficult technique to employ skillfully. With too much divergence the students may become confused and lose track of the main content object. However, we have achieved good results by having the ancillary instructor begin the divergence and, after some time for reflection, the primary instructor show the relevance of the divergence to the main content object. It is also a technique that can be employed in a single instructor classroom by having the instructor diverge intentionally, making sure, of course, that they make it back to the main point.

scaffolding Description: Scaffolding in SOLE is similar to scaffolding in traditional classrooms. A teacher may begin by providing support to the student by demonstrating a technique or modeling a process. The instructor then begins to shift the responsi-

Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

bility to the learner to do the entire procedure themselves. Example and Discussion: If an instructor can show up for class with five different, unique, and relevant examples of a difficult concept, then anyone in the class can learn the new concept. The key is providing examples that are relevant to a wide array of learners and learning styles. The problem is that most of us have only one really good example, and when the learners don’t understand it we simply repeat the same example again, only louder and slower. Scaffolding is an attempt to help provide support for learners who may be having problems understanding an example. In this technique while the primary instructor presents a difficult concept the ancillary instructor assists the class in comprehending the topic by providing both the subordinate skills necessary to comprehend the topic, and relevant examples and non examples that may assist in understanding. The ancillary instructor may also answer individual student’s questions either publicly or privately depending on how relevant they seem to the class as a whole.

reiterate Description: This brief technique occurs when the ancillary instructor reiterates a point the primary instructor is making. We use it mainly for emphasis and to increase focus on particularly important points. In reiteration, we typically try to use the exact language that was used by the primary instructor. Example and Discussion: One way to do this is to prepare a detailed outline of the presentation in a class. While the primary instructor talks about the topic, the ancillary instructor is literally copying from the outline and pasting into the chat window. This is particularly useful when dealing with definitions or complicated descriptions. It is a technique, when used judiciously, which can help people who may need to see and hear what is going on at the same time. It is also a technique that can

be used quite easily with a student assistant during class, or even by a single instructor. The addition of an ancillary instructor may mean that you can combine reiteration with scaffolding to meet many learning needs in a single class session.

emphasis Description: Another technique we use frequently is to either emphasize or occasionally de-emphasize points the primary instructor has made. In this technique an ancillary instructor may emphasize a point made by a primary instructor or a student in a discussion. By highlighting a useful comment or suggestion in the chat window the ancillary instructor can draw attention to salient points that may help the entire class. Example and Discussion: Unlike reiteration emphasis typically does not use the same language as the primary instructor. Additionally the emphasis may be applied to a student comment as easily as it may be applied to a primary instructor’s comment. It may take the form of approbation such as “Good point; that’s very important.” Deemphasis occurs less frequently but is used when students may have a tendency to place too much importance on a particular point.

relevance Description: The ancillary instructor makes explicit the reasons why the learners should know and be able to use the content under discussion. (Note that “because it’s on a test” is not a generally acceptable reason.) Example and Discussion: If you have ever been a student in a classroom you have at some point in your educational career been deeply involved in a lesson and found yourself wondering “what’s the point?” While hopefully there typically is a point, it is sometimes difficult for learners, particularly those in the beginning stages of learning a particular content, to understand the relevance of the topic under study. (Over three decades

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later, one of the authors is still struggling to find the relevance of some of his high school calculus classes.) We frequently find it helpful for the ancillary instructor to make explicit the relevance of the content. Even more helpful is for the ancillary instructor to guide the class in providing their own examples of the relevance of the content during the primary instruction. We have considered, but not yet attempted, having the ancillary instructor work through all phases of Keller’s (1987) ARCS model at appropriate points in a lesson.

social engineering Description: Social engineering involves modifying the emotional state of the class to best fit the instructional purposes of the lesson. It is not as Machiavellian as it sounds. Example and Discussion: In this category we include any attempt by the ancillary instructor to help set the tone or mood of the class. This might include adding humor to the content, building confidence in the learners (as in the manner of emphasis), or perhaps creating tension in the class (as in the manner of agree-disagree). In other words, social engineering involves modifying the emotional state of the class to best fit the instructional purposes of the lesson. One example of how we do this is when we are discussing rules for course interactions in an online class. We will send a private message to everyone in the class telling them that they are not participating enough. Everyone gets the same message at once, and it has the desired effect of creating mass confusion. The chat window will be scrolling by too quickly to read as people race to make sure they are participating enough. We intentionally try to overwhelm them in order to make the point that there probably should be some rules. We then engage them in the process of writing those rules for the class. The exercise provides a common experience for everyone to reference throughout the class.

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concLusIon We can expect new communications technologies and increases in bandwidth to be upon us quickly. While the time shifting capability of asynchronous instruction ensures that it will remain in use for the perceivable future, it also appears that the growing ubiquity of computing resources will increase the demand for more synchronous online learning opportunities. Rapid growth in real time or near real time communications technologies seems to indicate a preference among Internet users for immediate feedback and interaction. New and emerging technologies continue to make this interaction not only feasible, but also inexpensive and easy. If we are to take advantage of the affordances of this technology then we need to be experimenting with it, and applying what we already know about teaching and learning to its use for instruction. We propose that purposefully including Ancillary Communications as an instructional strategy in online courses may enhance retention and transfer of content, and increase student motivation and instructor feedback. Much has been written about teaching in asynchronous online classrooms (Schank, 2007; Denigris & Witchel, 2000). This paper seeks to add to the nascent but growing body of research on synchronous online learning tools and strategies (Foreman, 2003; Cheng-Chang, 2005). The need for strategies that deal specifically with synchronous online learning is great. Students in these classes may bring with them both online communication skills and needs that are foreign to many instructors. The tools are easy enough to learn, but strategies to use them effectively in SOLEs should be developed, analyzed and disseminated. Indeed, in a SOLE it is not only possible but quite simple to present one’s PowerPoints and lecture, allowing for the occasional student question, and thus perpetuate the much maligned lecture format through another generation of technology. While this approach would be easy, it misses the opportunity to take advantage

Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

of the truly significant affordances of synchronous online learning environments. And perhaps worse, it opens the door for critics of instructional technologies to point out how ineffective they can be. Ancillary Communication in SOLEs gives us one opportunity to avoid that fate.

Foreman, J. (2003). Distance learning and synchronous interaction. The Technology Source, (July/August). Retrieved from http://ts.mivu.org/ default.asp?show=article&id=1034

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Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine.

Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 32–44. Bransford, J. D., Sherwood, R. D., Hasselbring, T. S., Kinzer, C. K., & Williams, S. M. (Eds.). (1990). Anchored instruction: Why we need it and how technology can help. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), 16–32. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42. Cheng-Chang, S. P., & Sullivan, M. (2005). Promoting synchronous interaction in an elearning environment. T.H.E. Journal, (September). Retrieved from http://www.thejournal.com/ articles/17377 Clark, R. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21–29. doi:10.1007/ BF02299088 Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1990). Anchored instruction and its relationship to situated cognition. Educational Researcher, 19(6), 2–10. DeNigris, J., & Witchel, A. (2000). How to teach and train online. Needham Heights, MA: Pearson.

Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Greening, A. (1998). WWW support of student learning: A case study. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 14(1), 49–59. Harmon, S. W., & Jones, M. G. (1999). The five levels of Web use in education: Factors to consider in planning an online course. Educational Technology, 39(6), 28–32. Harmon, S. W., & Jones, M. G. (2001). An analysis of situated Web-based instruction. Educational Media International, 38(4), 271–280. doi:10.1080/09523980110105123 Jonassen, D. H. (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models: Their current state of the art (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Jones, M. G., & Harmon, S. W. (2002). What professors need to know about technology to assess online student learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Fall(91), 19-30. Jones, M. G., & Harmon, S. W. (2006). Ancillary communication as an intentional instructional strategy in online learning environments. In M. Simonson & M. Crawford (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2006 international conference of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (Vol. 2, pp. 194-199.

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Kawachi, P. (2003). Initiating intrinsic motivation in online education: Review of the current state of the art. Interactive Learning Environments, 11(1), 59–82. doi:10.1076/ilee.11.1.59.13685 Keller, J. M. (1987). The systematic process of motivational design. Performance and Instruction, 26(9/10), 1–8. Land, S., & Hannafin, M. (2001). Student-centered learning environments. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments (pp. 1-23). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mcklin, T., Harmon, S. W., Jones, M. G., & Evans, W. (2002). Cognitive engagement in Web-based learning: A content analysis of student’s online discussions. In. M. Crawford & M. Simonson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2001 international conference of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (Vol. 1, pp. 272-277). Miltiadou, M., & Savenye, W. C. (2003). Applying social cognitive constructs of motivation to enhance student success in online distance education. Educational Technology Review, 11(1), 78–95. Moore, D. M., Burton, J. K., & Myers, R. J. (2004). Multiple-channel communication: The theoretical and research foundations of multimedia. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed.) (pp. 981-1005). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Moran, J. (2007). Battling the upstream bottleneck of broadband connections: How fast does your data swim upstream? Retrieved August 29, 2008, from http://cws.internet.com/article/3541-.htm

Norman, D. (1988). The design of everyday things. New York: Doubleday. Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms. New York: Basic Books. Papert, S. A., & Harel, I. (1991). Constructionism. Norword, NJ: Ablex Publishing Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Reigeluth, C. M., & Stein, F. S. (1983). The elaboration theory of instruction In W. Schramm (Ed.), The process and effects of mass communication (pp. 5-6). Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press. Schank, R. C. (2007). The story-centered curriculum. eLearn, 4(April). Shannon, C. F., & Weaver, W. (1964). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press. Torrance, E. P. (1985). Creative motivation scale: Norms technical manual. Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Service. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, B., & Ryder, M. (1996). Dynamic learning communities: An alternative to designed instructional systems. In. M. Crawford & M. Simonson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1996 international conference of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology.

This work was previously published in Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking, edited by H. H. Yang; S. C. Chen, pp. 78-93, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.9

The Key Elements of Online Learning Communities Jianxia Du Mississippi State University, USA Yunyan Liu Southwest University, China Robert L. Brown Mississippi State University, USA

AbstrAct An online learning community can be a place for vibrant discussions and the sharing of new ideas in a medium where content constantly changes. This chapter will first examine the different definitions that researchers have provided for online learning communities. It will then illuminate several key elements that are integral to online learning communities: interactivity, in both its task-driven and socio-emotional forms; collaboration, which both builds and nurtures online communities; trusting relationships, which are developed primarily through social interaction and consist of shared goals and a sense of belonging or connectedness; and communication media choices, which impact DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-788-1.ch004

the other three elements. This chapter also provides suggestions for the practical application of these elements in the online classroom.

IntroductIon Since the turn of the century, the subject of the online learning community (OLC) has become a hot topic in the field of learning research. The most influential and developmental points and contributions are overviewed as follows. Why has the OLC become more and more attractive to policy makers and researchers? Rovai (2002) suggests that the physical separation of distance education students may be one of the contributors to high dropout rates in distance education. Hill, Raven, and Han (2002) imply that the existence of community

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may actually decrease dropout rates by increasing a student’s sense of belonging. Community may, therefore, directly impact a student’s successful completion of coursework (Brown, 2001). An OLC can maintain many of the supportive attributes of traditional instruction at a distance. Collaboration in an OLC can provide deeper understanding of content, increased overall achievement, improved self-esteem, and higher motivation to remain on task (Looi & Ang, 2000). For their flexibility and convenience, online courses appeal to both traditional and nontraditional students. However, many students are wary or skeptical of online courses due to factors such as isolation and lack of immediate attention. Technology in an online course is another reason community is important. Technology can cause opportunity for areas of new learning (Powers & Mitchell, 1997), and community can develop around the solving of problems or the seeking of other solutions. Additionally, quality is a concern for distance educators, and some argue that online courses do not offer the personal connections available in the regular classroom (Lowell & Persichitte, 2000). Enhanced community can provide that connection and interaction that inevitably increases quality. Essentially, the majority of the literature in the field of distance education provides support for the idea that an increased sense of community will enable meaningful learning. Educational institutions of varying levels have undergone rapid and massive transitions in the area of distance learning (Palloff & Pratt, 1999). What began as a response to the needs of non-traditional (as well as traditional) students has proven to be an extremely desirable alternative to the regular classroom for students and an exceptionally lucrative business venture for academic institutions (Palloff and Pratt, 1999). As the number of students and instructors involved with this method of teaching and learning increase, the number of online communities to support such learning will experience dramatic growth. Therefore, it is crucial that both the online instructor and the online

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student are aware of the characteristics associated with an OLC. The encouragement (or requirement) of interaction among the participants in an online community is based upon many of the tenets associated with the theory of Constructivism. This chapter reviews definitions for OLC and looks closely at the literature associated with several key elements that comprise the OLC as recognized by the authors. Key elements such as interactivity, collaboration, trusting relationships (shared goals and belonging), and communication media in the online learning community are discussed in detail.

deFInInG the onLIne LeArnInG coMMunIty The term community is used very broadly and partly also with more or less different meanings. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines community as “a unified body of individuals” (Merriam-Webster, 2004). However, Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton (1985) define community specifically as “a group of people who are socially interdependent, who participate together in discussion and decision making, and who share certain practices that both define the community and are nurtured by it” (p.4). Conversely, McMillan and Chavis (1986) offer this description of community: “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (p. 9). Still other aspects of community are addressed by Westheimer and Kahne’s (1993) explanation, which describes community as “a process marked by interaction and deliberation among individuals who share interests and commitment to common goals” (p.325). Tu and Corry (2002) address the academic and social-learning component of communities and define a learning community as “a common place where people learn using group activity to define

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problems affecting them, to decide upon solutions, and to act together to achieve these solutions” (p. 207). However, when examining online learning communities additional criteria must be considered. Fernback (1997) describes community as “a term which seems readily definable to the general public but is infinitely complex and amorphous in academic discourse” (p. 35). This explanation seems especially accurate when referring to the online learning community because of the many purposes for which these communities exist, the variance in the ages of the participants, and the frequency and type of communication that exists within these communities. Stepich and Ertmer (2003) consider the development of a supportive learning community crucial to the learning process in an online environment (p.35). Palloff and Pratt (1999) also report the critical nature of the online learning community and describe it as “one vehicle through which learning occurs online” (p. 29). Essentially, the authors maintain that the absence of an authentic community of learners will result in the absence of an online course (Palloff & Pratt, p. 29). For this literature review, an online learning community is defined as a group of diverse individuals united by communication media who develop a sense of trust and connectedness through online interaction and collaboration.

eLeMents oF onLIne LeArnInG coMMunItIes Compared to other learning communities, the OLC has some special characteristics in terms of interactivity, collaboration, trusting relationships, and communication media.

Interactivity Several factors play a role in the development and duration of online learning communities. Possibly the most notable factor is that of interaction

or interactivity. Interactivity is widely accepted as a vital element needed to foster a sense of community in an online learning environment (Bannan-Ritland, 2002). The idea that interactivity is key to creating a sense of community among online learners, begs the question what exactly is interactivity, and how can instructors secure its role in the development and duration of an online learning community? Research has provided an overwhelming number of interpretations for interactivity. This review encompasses a variety of research including definitions of interactivity, and methods for promoting interactivity for the purpose of establishing a sense of community among online learners.

Interactivity Defined Interactivity is defined numerous ways by many different researchers. As noted by Berge (2002), “Interaction is two-way communication among two or more persons with the purposes of completing the learning goals (tasks) and building the necessary social relationships” (p. 183). Berge’s comments regarding student-to-content interaction give way to the idea that through “engagement, reflection, or study by the student [aids] in the self-construction of competency of the learning goals” (Berge, 2002, p. 183). He later presents the notion that learners can mold and cultivate future interaction through the process of “reflection on learning,” a process in which students review interactions from a social stand-point (Berge, 2002). Bills defines interactivity as “...an instructional strategy that provides the student the means of being actively involved in the learning activity” (Bills, 1997, p. 4). Vrasidas & McIsaac (1999) cite their interpretation of interactivity as the “reciprocal actions of two or more actors within a given context” (p. 25). Through research on interactivity, BannanRitland provides an “explanatory synthesis of the literature related to the construct of interactivity” in the hope of promoting the use of a universal

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definition with regard to interactivity and distance education. Bannan-Ritland’s review revealed characteristics common among interactivity. “Interaction can be viewed as a function of; (a) learners’ participation or active involvement, (b) specific patterns and amounts of communication, (c) instructor activities and feedback, (d) social exchange or collaboration, or (e) instructional activities and affordances of the technology” (Bannan-Ritland, 2002, p.167). Rovai (2002) notes that Du & Sun, 2007) provide two categories of interaction, “task-driven,” which is “directed toward the completion of assigned tasks” and “socio-emotional” which is purely focused on “relationships among learners” (p. 5). For the purpose of this review the focus will be on the socio-emotional interaction interpretation of interactivity. Referring to the definition of community stated previously in this review, it should be noted that at the heart of a learning community is the social aspect which bonds learners together. Socio-emotional interactions are almost entirely “self-generated” (Rovai, 2002). It is this “selfgenerated” interaction that promotes relationships among learners. Cutler notes the impact selfdisclosure has on relationships and community formation stating “the more one discloses personal information, the more others will reciprocate, and the more individuals know about each other, the more likely they are to establish trust, seek support, and thus find satisfaction” (Cutler, 1995, p.17). Therefore, it can be inferred that as self-disclosure occurs among online learners the more likely it is that there will be a strong formation of an online community (Rovai, 2002).

Promoting Interactivity The research examined for this review reinforces the belief that interactivity helps foster a sense of community. Acceptance of the idea that interactivity intensifies and aids the creation of online learning communities leads to the examination of criteria for promoting a sense of community

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among online learners (Rovai, 2001). Many different aspects of interaction have been researched such as learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-content (Hirumi, 2002, Du, Durrington, & Mathews, 2007). Nonetheless, there has been little research concerning the practical applications of interactivity. The following section seeks to organize various works of research highlighting elements that are essential to promoting and creating interactivity in an online learning community. When considering interactivity incorporation methods in an online learning environment, small group activities and group facilitation should be addressed (Rovai, 2002). Rovai (2002) suggests dividing students into small groups, in order to provide an individual aspect to the course. Within each group, meaningful discussions and collaborative learning can take place without learners feeling as if they are getting lost in the crowd (Rovai, 2002). Rovai also emphasizes the importance of group facilitation through channels like dialogue. He states “dialogue is an essential component of an online course and facilitation efforts are meant to inspire learners to interact” (Rovai, 2002, p. 9). By facilitating an online discussion or chat, instructors can pique students’ interest in particular topics and in turn spark interaction among learners. Stepich and Ertmer also provide suggestions for fostering a sense of community through interactivity in online learning environments. Like Rovai, Stepich and Ertmer suggest the addition of “collaborative group activities that give students an active voice in the development and definition of the community” (Stepich & Ertmer, 2003, p.41). Another recommendation by Stepich and Ertmer is to monitor participation. Monitoring participation and providing individual feedback can give learners a feeling of belonging. Through feedback instructors can add a sense of value to student participation. Feedback can also illustrate the positive impact student participation can have on the entire class (Stepich & Ertmer, 2003). Not only is participation important in an

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online learning environment, but introductory activities carry weight as well. Ciardulli highlights the importance of using an “ice breaker” in a distance learning environment. Icebreakers can be used as a tool to introduce the instructor as well as the students. This also sustains and familiarizes students with the online learning community. Ciardulli provides three reasons in support of the use of icebreakers. First, icebreakers enable every student to become acquainted with one another. Secondly, these activities present an opportunity for students to become familiar with how chats or discussions work in an online environment. Lastly, implementing exercises such as these enable students to feel relaxed in a new setting (Ciardulli, 1998). Including icebreakers at the beginning of an online course can help to lay the groundwork for future interactivity as well as a sense of community. One common form of icebreaker is the student introduction, wherein each student composes a post that introduces that student to the other students. While this type of icebreaker allows the students in the OLC to become acquainted with each other, it doesn’t allow for much interaction between participants. Once read, the introductions often go ignored, with few or no follow-up remarks from other students. One alternative to the student introduction is for the instructor to create a short questionnaire directed to all students in the OLC. Since the primary goals of the icebreaker are to allow the students to both get to know each other and how discussions work, the items on the questionnaire should highlight student interests. Some possible questions that can be included are “What is your favorite television show?” and “What song gets the most play on your iPod?”. Student and instructor responses to the questionnaire should either be posted to a central location in the online environment to which all members of the OLC have access, or the responses can be emailed to all the members of the OLC. After the completed questionnaires have been posted, replies to students regarding their answers to

specific items should be encouraged among the entire OLC membership. Perhaps the most encompassing guide to incorporating interactivity into an online learning environment is that of Hirumi (2002). Hirumi sets forth a proposed framework which consists of three interrelated levels of interaction, and is followed by six steps for “designing and sequencing eLearning interactions” (p.148). Level I deals with “Learner-Self Interactions”, interactions that transpire within each learner (p.143). “Level II interactions occur between the learner and human and non-human resources” (Hirumi, 2002, p.143). Level II includes the following sublevels of interaction: learner-learner, learner-other human, learner-interface, learner content, and learner-environment. Level III involves “LearnerInstruction interactions” (Hirumi, 2002, p.143). Hirumi provides three applications designed to bring life to his proposed framework. Perhaps the single application instructors will find most useful is “Designing and Sequencing eLearning Interactions” (Hirumi, 2002, p.148). Hirumi (2002) supplies a six step process for “Designing and Sequencing eLearning Interactions” the six steps are as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Identify essential experiences that are necessary for learner to achieve specified goals and objectives (optional); Select a grounded instructional strategy (Level III interaction) based on specified objectives, learner characteristics, context and epistemological beliefs; Operationalize each event, embedding experiences identified in Step 1 and describing how the selected strategy will be applied during instruction; Define the type of Level II interaction(s) that will be used to facilitate each event and analyze the quantity and quality of planned interactions; Select the telecommunication tool(s) (e.g. chat, email, bulletin board system) that will

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6.

be used to facilitate each event based on the nature of the interaction Analyze materials to determine frequency and quality of planned eLearning interactions and revise as necessary (p. 151).

Hirumi’s proposed framework along with the six steps for “Designing and Sequencing eLearning Interactions” account for numerous levels of interaction (p.148). The four authors mentioned above (Stepich & Ertmer, Ciardulli, and Hirumi) all provide original approaches for promoting interactivity, but it should be noted that each of these three approaches overlaps another at least once. While this review of literature regarding interactivity is not exhaustive, it may prove useful to instructors who wish to enhance the sense of community in online learning environments.

collaboration Another element of the Online Learning Community is collaborative or cooperative learning. Collaborate means “to work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort” (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1992). “Collaborative and cooperative” mean working together jointly, intellectually, and socially to reach a common goal. Harasim, Calvert, and Groeneboer (1997) provide a simple definition of collaborative or group learning that refers to instructional methods whereby students are encouraged or required to work together on academic tasks. Note that in this section the words “collaborate” and “cooperate” will be used interchangeably. In this section, collaboration is defined within an online learning community as a collaborative group of people who have a common goal and desire to pursue and achieve that goal. These online learners could be students, educators, or any other individual in the community. Fisher & Coleman call this complex mixture “the community of practicing within the group” (Fisher

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& Coleman, 2001). It is considered a foundation to the successful learning community. Studies reveal how collaborative learning in the online environment provide success in the classroom or workplace. A useful strategy for learning communities in the virtual environment is a real-time dialogue or discussion (Fisher & Coleman, 2001; Du, Durrington, & Mathews, 2007). These authors believe that method of dialogue strategy can enable instructors to initiate and facilitate successful communication and collaboration between members of the learning community. The literature supports that discussion environments produce richness in collaboration, communication, and practical application. The substance and meaning of online activities is determined by the specific individuals who work together online. One of the tools that Wang, Poole, Harris, and Wangemann (2001) used to collaborate in problem-based learning was 27 teenagers in the Expeditions project on the Internet. The participants were children of Motorola employees who volunteered to participate in the project. This study revealed the value of collaborative problem solving in an online environment. The study further described that the participants grew significantly in their confidence in collaborating online and competence in using the online communication tools in problem solving (Wang et al., 2001). Collaborative learning encourages the community to develop by becoming more active and constructive in helping each other (Dolezalek, 2003), thus taking ownership of learning and improving their skills. Individuals united in the Internet virtual classroom are bound together by shared interests and background, and therefore, seek new areas of growth in this collaborative environment (Powers & Mitchell, 1997). Learning may best be achieved through the social constructions of knowledge in a community where teachers and students are members of both the learning community and are agents of the learning environment (Fisher & Coleman, 2001).

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Online collaboration seems to encourage the participants’ creativity and spontaneity in generating ideas (Wang et al., 2001). People come together to construct knowledge and negotiate meaning that is consistent with the goals of the learning community (Looi & Ang, 2000). Fisher and Coleman (2001) conducted a study of the structure and interactive design of learning communities in virtual discussions. When interaction among community members is encouraged, collaboration and mutual accountability will increase (Fisher & Coleman, 200; Du, Durrington, & Olinzock, 2006). Literature suggests that cooperative and collaborative learning brings positive results. Looi & Ang (2000) did a pilot study focusing on the collaboration of a small group of students in Singapore and Hong Kong secondary school using a multiUser Dimensions (MUD) and Object Oriented (MOO or WOO) called SpaceALIVE! Students from different schools formed a science project and published the findings as a virtual science exhibit. This finding evidenced that collaboration online was successful in meeting student needs. The research also shows that using the collaborative tool ScienceALIVE! facilitated cooperation among students. ScienceALIVE! tools supported student’s collaborative work by allowing them to share and compare their experiments. With proper facilitation, students in online communities, can have collaborative discussions, solve problems, and meet the needs the community. Another study by Riel & Fulton (2001), examined how technology can support learning communities. This report asserts that when students are given the necessary resources, they can engage in work that has personal and community value. Another study conveyed that using collaboration in an online environment created international coalitions of faculty and students, which produced communities of learners across boundaries (McIsaac, 2002). In addition, the study revealed that benefits of online collaboration have gradually developed an individual voice in the establishment of an academic community.

Collaborative learning nurtures the community. Romanoff (2003) examined a case study on how technology-based distance learning can foster a broader sense of community by using Multi Object Oriented Collaboratory Walden3 (MOO). What began as conversation in cyberspace between two teacher-administrators grew into a learning community that considered their distance collaborators as colleagues. Literature also shows that collaborative online learning is successful because people with the same goals benefit from each other rather than from competition with each other. Yu (2001) did a study on the effects and implications of embedding the elements of inter-group competition and non-inter-group competition with an online environment. His findings yielded that collaboration without competition engendered better attitudes with students.

trusting relationship This element is intrinsic including shared goals, a feeling of a sense of belonging or connectedness within the community, or just the general feeling of a sense of community among fellow learners. The literature suggests that this element is present within communities in differing degrees and is needed for a successful community of online learners (Wang, Sierra, & Folger, 2003).

The Importance of Trust Building Aubert & Kelsey (2003) define trust as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability or control that other party.” (p. 98). Trust must be the basic foundation for interaction and the relationship formed among an online collaborative team. Stanley (2005) states, “Trusting relationships stimulate innovative thinking and lead to organizational improvements.” Boehlje (1995) states,

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“Shared decision-making must be established as an evolutionary approach that fosters trust and confidence among all participants.” Aubert & Kelsey provide three antecedent conditions that are important in building trust. The antecedent conditions are “the trustee’s perceived ability, benevolence and integrity.” As time progresses and group members work together, the dynamics of the group evolve. Team members must “deal with project task allocation, decision making, conflict, team maintenance tasks (e.g. esprit de corps, cohesion)-all of which can have a positive or negative effect on trust.” Being able to effectively deal with these factors will help to foster a productive working environment for the entire group (Aubert & Kelsey, 2003). Du, Zhang, Olinzock, & Adams (2008) emphasize that trust is essential for online groups because of the lack of everyday interaction. They highlight the difficulties in developing trust without having everyday, face-to-face interaction. Rovai called “Spirit” the “feelings of friendship, cohesion, and bonding that develop among learners as they enjoy one another and look forward to time spent together” (2002, p.4). The notion that social discussions strengthen the development of community among learners is also supported by the literature (Maor, 2003). Community learning is a social process and in order to create familiarity and trust the social dimension has to be emphasized (Tu & Corry, 2002). Maor’s (2003) study shows that students posted messages that were a “blend” of the academic and the social and indicates that this facilitated the formation of an online community of learners. Wang, et al. (2003) went so far as to suggest that the “social network is the foundation for trust building among team members” (p. 57). There appears to be no doubt that the social aspect of online learning is almost always present and is important if an instructor wants to build community. Is trust just an insignificant “extra” that occurs within some communities? Preece (2000) states if “there is trust among people, relationships flour126

ish; without it, they wither” (p. 191). She also indicates that with most interactions among people or organizations there is some level of trust. Trust serves to channel the energy of the group to help community members reach goals and also motivates “group processes and performance” (Wang et al., 2003, p. 57). Poole (2000) puts much on the shoulders of trust by saying that the “development of online communities is based largely on trust” (p. 175). He believes that students need a safe environment where they are free to make mistakes and learn from them without feeling intimidated. Haythornthwaite, Kazmer, Robins, & Shoemaker (2000) concurred as one of their subjects commented that their online learning community was a safe environment to say something, where no one would ridicule. Further interviews with students revealed students’ “balanced reciprocity” (p. 7) of sharing ideas, providing moral support, and giving friendship throughout the course studied. The researchers state that this demonstrates the “trust present in communal relations” and that trust is a “key attribute of community” (p. 7). Powers and Mitchell (1997) collected data from a graduate course which revealed “a true community of learners who were committed to providing encouragement and support to each other throughout the course” (p. 10). Because of the perceived anonymity of electronic communication, students felt safe and were comfortable sharing information with their peers. Brown’s (2001) three levels of community mentioned previously included “camaraderie” as the last level. Brown considered this the highest level of community “generally” achieved after long-term and/or intense association with others and was “primarily found among students who had taken multiple classes together, e-mailed outside the class forum, spoken on the telephone, or even met face-to-face” (p. 13). This camaraderie was developed as they worked together for a common goal and could not have formed without an element of trust. This camaraderie among learners occurred virtually unnoticed (Brown, 2001).

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Shared Goals A goal is something that an individual or individuals strive to accomplish. In online learning communities common or shared goals are present. Learning communities provide a means for obtaining knowledge within an environment of shared goals, and respect for diversity (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1998). Learning communities are unified by a common cause of mutual support and learning, and by shared values and experiences (Lock, 2002). These goals are typically the desire to obtain more knowledge of the subject content, obtain academic success, and meet course requirements. Individuals in online learning communities often have common goals. Individuals strive toward a shared goal that carries a mutual investment (Misanchuk & Anderson, 2000). This mutual investment often includes time, finances, and other personal contributions. To sustain an online learning community, the vision, goals, and interests of the community must be articulated and accepted by the members (Lock, 2002). Students are likely to buy-in to the goals and visions, if they have input. Bonding among students can be facilitated by common interests, vision, and goals (Preece, 2003). Students in online learning communities can be united through building trust, understanding, and reciprocity. Instructors play an active role in creating an online learning environment that is conducive to learning and student academic growth. The instructor should assign group projects and other activities that require combined efforts to accomplish given tasks. Common goals are present in a learning community, and completing an instructional task is considered a mutual goal (Moller, 1998). According to Moller, in the design stage students are encouraged to work collaboratively toward a shared goal. These collaborative activities should be intertwined in order for members to find mutual interests. Collaborative activities encourage interdependence, networking, and ongoing communication among individuals to accomplish

a task. Brown (2001) identified three levels of community: making friends on-line, community conferment, and camaraderie. Making friends or acquaintances is necessary for collaborative efforts on group projects or assignments. Brown feels that camaraderie is accomplished after long-term involvement with classmates. This involvement is typically from email, chats, discussion boards, and telephone conversations. According to Tu and Corry (2002), “The community of collaborative learning, the grouping and pairing of learners for the purpose of achieving an academic goal has been widely examined and is advocated throughout the professional literature” (p. 213).

Sense of Belonging or Connectedness The literature reveals that it is not the quantity of student postings, e-mail, or other interactions that leads to a sense of connection, but rather the quality of those interactions (Lock, 2002). Students who spend time reading each other’s in-depth postings or e-mail and responding in kind are interacting at a deeper level and will form that sense of connection, thus building community (Lowell & Persichitte, 2000). Interviews with 17 students over a year period revealed that a sense of isolation was overcome by exchanges with other students (Haythornthwaite et al., 2000). Students felt that their classmates experienced the same challenges and obstacles and had similar questions. Speaking from personal experience, Conceicao (2002) said, “I felt I had a voice that was recognized and validated when others made comments reflecting on my postings” (p. 43). Common sense dictates that participation is paramount for feeling a sense of belonging in the online learning community. As previously mentioned, communication is crucial in an online learning community (Lock, 2002). Students must maintain ongoing bi-directional communication with peers, and the vast amount of technology now available allows students to communicate through a variety of means. Communication between students facilitates the

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formation of relationships and commonalities, thus “without effective communication, it is not possible to generate interaction, engagement, or alignment” (Lock, 2002, p. 397). Given the establishment of relationships, intimacy, and trust through effective pedagogical strategies, technology can be used to create an environment where people can engage in learning experiences that foster the development of community (Lock, 2002, p. 401). To foster an environment of trust, friendship, and respect, communication barriers associated with the academic, social, and technological elements need to be eliminated (Lock, 2002, p. 401). Some of the barriers to communication are infrequency of communication due to technological resources, response time for feedback, and lack of response to email or postings. Online instructors and/or mediators can help ensure better response rates to postings by OLC members by designing openended questions that emphasize student opinions and beliefs concerning the material being taught, rather than asking for the direct repetition of instructional material.

communication Media choices and Media behaviors Another important element of the online learning community is communication media choices and media behaviors. As online collaboration and interactivity proceeds, learners face many challenges due to the lack of face-to-face communications. The fading or blurry physical, temporal and psychological boundaries make it difficult for online learning. Appropriate selection and utilization of communication media may help learners better overcome some of the difficulties. It is very important, yet challenging to select and utilize appropriate media for collaborative, interactive learning and team development. Thus media research provides another lens to look into the dynamics of online learning community. Media richness and social presence theories are well-accepted rational theories that explain

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media choices and media behaviors. Media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1984) measures the richness of media in terms of the capacity for immediate feedback, multiple cues, natural language and personal focus on voice tone and inflection. Media have varied capacities to reduce ambiguity and thus facilitate mutual understanding (Daft & Lengel, 1984). Richer medium facilitates more accurate and meaningful transmission and exchange of ideas. However, tasks of different types and complexity have different requirements for information richness in order to achieve maximal group performance. Some tasks require more information and richer medium than others for the best team performance. Social presence theory (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976) measures media in terms of the degree to which they are perceived to convey the presence of an individual. The quantity of social presence is how much one believes another party is present. In communication, the psychological distance among communicating parties is referred to as immediacy (Wiener & Mehrabian, 1968). Thus there are two forms of immediacy: technological immediacy, and social immediacy. Technological immediacy is inherent while social immediacy can be changed (Heilbronn & Libby, 1973). Heilbronn and Libby (1973) write the maximum amount of exchanged information ensures technological immediacy, and social immediacy is conveyed through communications with verbal or non-verbal cues. Walther (1996, 1997) suggests that information and communications technology (ICT) is also able to convey social information, just as face-to-face communications, but with lower transfer rate. Walther (1995, 1996, 1997) has also found that ICT mediated groups have greater social discussion, depth, and intimacy than in face-to-face groups. In a review of social presence theory and studies on ICT-mediated communication, Gunawardena (1995) concludes that immediacy enhances social presence, which in turn enhances interactions. As related to online collaborative learning, it indicates that online teams, with assistance from

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the instructor or an external moderator, should promote the use of media that better convey the notion of social presence in order to increase interactions among the members. As an example, the authors have noted that Facebook, an online social networking site, is one of the media applications that online group members often use to facilitate social interaction. Instructors may wish to propose that online group members use this and/or other utilities with which most students are already familiar to further social interaction and enhance trusting relationships.

concLusIon A learning community is actually a special learning environment, and an online learning community is a community based on a network through which members’ learning can be enhanced successfully. Technology is rapidly changing, and online learning communities are evolving as well. Inarguably online learning communities should maintain some level of the elements discussed in this review. Interactivity can be introduced through icebreakers and cultivated through the use of small student groups. Collaboration can be encouraged among students through both small group projects and real-time, chat-based discussions. Trusting relationships need to be forged between students, and the literature strongly suggests that trust in an online learning community is developed through social interaction. The ability to promote social interaction is also a major factor when choosing which types of communication media should be used within the online learning community. Those types of media that have higher levels of social immediacy will provide more opportunities for interaction among learners, thus enabling students to form a more cohesive community. Based on the literature, online learning provides community members an opportunity to collaborate and cooperate towards the community’s goal.

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Key terMs And deFInItIons Collaboration: Cooperation among members of a learning community who have a desire to pursue and achieve a common goal. Communication Media: A collective term for all channels or systems through which information is conveyed. Interactivity: Reciprocal communication between two or more people, the goal of which is to foster active learning and strengthen social bonds. Learning Community: A group of diverse individuals who develop a sense of trust and connectedness through interaction and collaboration. Trusting Relationship: A feeling between two or more individuals of reciprocal confidence.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in E-Learning: Issues and Trends, edited by H. Yang; S. Yuen, pp. 61-75, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.10

Instructional Interactivity in a Web-Based Learning Community Adams Bodomo University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

It is demonstrated in this chapter that enhanced interactivity is the single most important reason why teachers should practice Web-based teaching and why students should be encouraged to construct Web-based learning communities. The notion of a conversational learning community (CLC) as a kind of constructivist learning environment is introduced. It is shown that instructional interactivity, defined as active communication in a conversational learning community between instructor(s), learners, course materials, and links to remote experts and resources, is a central aspect of the learning situation. A practical implementation of the CLC model is presented through describing the interactive features of a Web-based course using WebCT. It is concluded that Web-based learning and teaching actually enhances interactivity both within and beyond the classroom setting.

At the beginning of the 21st century, we are faced with an age of rapid technological development in information and communication. Issues of educational reform have never been more urgent than now. One of the major challenges is how to design our educational system in general, and our methods of instruction in particular, to produce graduates who are better prepared to take up jobs in a knowledgebased environment characterized by a pervasive use of information and communication technology (ICT). ICTs, especially modern digital ones, include various types of computers; digital cameras; local area networking; the Internet and the World Wide Web; CD-ROMs and DVDs; and applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, tutorials, simulations, e-mails, digital libraries, computer-mediated conferencing, videoconferencing, and virtual reality (Blurton, 1999). Four main features of these modern digital ICTs make them stand out as very useful educational tools. These are integration of multimedia, flexibility of use, connectivity, and interactivity (Blurton, 1999).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-525-2.ch007

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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The main focus of this chapter is an examination of just one of these features: interactivity. While interactivity has been a subject of considerable attention in the search for newer and more active methods of teaching and learning (Parker, 1999; Simms, 1999, 2000; Allen, 2003; Davies, 2005; Moreno & Valdez, 2005; Bodomo, 2006), there still remains a lot to be discussed as to how it can be enhanced in learning situations involving a mixture of Web-based course administration and face-to-face classroom instruction. It is quite clear that the introduction of ICTs into distance learning curricula is crucial in enhancing interactivity, given the situation where teacher and student are separated by distance. It is shown here, based on experiences with courses designed for both distance learners and traditional face-to-face classroom students where there is unity of time and unity of venue, that the use of the Web, one of the new digital ICTs enumerated above, along with other accessories and software that together give us what is termed Web-based teaching in a course, plays a crucial role in enhancing interactivity. The chapter is organized as follows. The section that follows defines interactivity and shows the important role it plays in constructive/active learning theories. In the third section, the main features of a course designed to achieve interactivity are described and it is shown how interaction was achieved. The fourth section of the chapter points to certain challenges that should be overcome to create more opportunities for enhancing interactivity in Web-based teaching in the future.

InterActIvIty And Its roLe In constructIve LeArnInG theorIes what is Interactivity? Studies that focus on interactivity include Daniel and Marquis (1983), Moore (1992), Wagner (1994), Markwood and Johnstone (1994),

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Laurillard (1993), Barnard (1995), Moore and Kearsley (1996), Parker (1999), Simms (1999, 2000), Bodomo, Luke, and Anttila (2003), Allen (2003), Davies (2005), Moreno and Valdez (2005), and Bodomo (2006). The key concepts that run through most of these studies include ‘active learning’, ‘two-way communication’, ‘critical conversation’, and ‘transactional distance learning’ (Moore, 1993). All these contrast sharply with what would take place in traditional passive/ digestive lecture-type instruction. Moore (1992) offers three types, while Markwood and Johnstone (1994) provide four types of interactivity. In Moore’s typology we have learner-content, learner-instructor, and learnerlearner interactivity. Learner-content interactivity is illustrated by a student reading a book or a printed study guide (Parker, 1999). The interactivity or otherwise of the content is very much a function of how the material is structured and accessed. This point is crucial in deciding how best to place course notes on the Web. Instructor-learner interaction is the core of the teaching process. The success of the course design will depend largely on whether the conversation between teacher and learner is such that the learner can increase self-direction and construct new knowledge or not. Learnerlearner interaction involves students working together to discuss, debate, and attempt to solve problems that arise in their study of the course materials. Moore (1992) provides practitioners with a very useful framework to discuss how interactivity is achieved in teaching. Indeed, his notion of transactional distance theory (Moore, 1992, 1993, 1996) has contributed immensely in defining relations between participants, not only in a distance learning situation, but also in traditional face-to-face classroom learning situations. Markwood and Johnstone (1994, p. 94) describe interaction as the “silent, critical, creative conversation within the learner’s mind that is spurred and supported by the learning environment.” The study outlines four different types of interaction that trigger what it calls critical

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conversation. The first is interaction with media where individual students scrutinize textbooks, videotapes, or any other course material. In the course to be discussed, this involves a major textbook supplemented by a number of other book sections and course notes. The second is interaction with resources. Here, individual students or groups may collaborate with tools such as those used by professionals, including word processors, electronic libraries, laboratories, and studios. The third type of interaction according to Markwood and Johnstone (1994) involves interaction with experts. This would mean students conversing with an instructor or other experts in real time. The last type of interaction is one of interaction through electronic exchange, with students electronically or digitally sharing the results of newly formed knowledge over a period of time (Markwood & Johnstone, 1994). Moore (1992) and Markwood and Johnstone (1994), along with more recent work such as Simms (2000), Allen (2003), and Davies (2005), provide a solid foundation on which to build an idea of interaction and draw up a typology of interaction within the larger framework of what we introduce here as a conversational learning community (CLC). In conceptualizing a CLC, we see the pedagogical process as taking place in an interactive conversational learning community. In this community, we have instructor(s), learners, course materials, and links to remote experts and resources. All these are the core components for the function of instructional interactivity in a CLC. Allen (2003) defines instructional interactivity as the interaction that actively stimulates the learner’s mind to do those things that improve ability and readiness to perform effectively. Interactivity is shown to be the single cementing factor that binds all the elements together in a CLC.

the role of Interaction in constructive/Active Learning theories Theories of learning within education and allied fields such as psychology and cognitive science have proliferated over the years. New pedagogical methods based on these theories are turning away from passive methods of teaching which require no action on the part of the student beyond listening and taking notes to interactive delivery methods which enable the student to control and manipulate the instructional environment. These active and interactive approaches to instruction may be situated within the framework of what may be called constructivist theories of learning. According to Blurton (1999, p. 9): “Modern constructivist education theory emphasizes critical thinking, problem solving, ‘authentic’ learning experiences, social negotiation of knowledge, and collaboration-pedagogical methods that change the role of the teacher from disseminator of information to learning facilitator.” Works like Piaget (1973), Duffy and Jonassen (1992), and Strauss (1994) illustrate such new pedagogical theories. So what is the role of interaction in these theories of learning? I will now briefly mention four of these theories which are considered to be the most relevant. They are the constructivist theory of Bruner, the conversation theory of Pask, Vygotsky’s social development theory, and of course, Moore’s transactional distance theory (Moore, 1993).

Bruner An exposition of the constructivist theory is contained in works of Bruner (1966, 1990). According to Keasley (1994-2003), a major theme in the theoretical framework of Bruner is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/

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past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and student should engage in an active dialog (i.e., Socratic learning). The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner’s current state of understanding. The curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what he or she has already learned. The role of interaction is fairly prominent in such a theoretical conceptualization. Once again, interactivist terms like ‘active process’ and ‘active dialogue’ come to the fore.

Vygotsky

Pask

Moore

The next theory that is of immediate relevance to an interactive approach to teaching is the Conversation Theory as contained in Pask (1975). The fundamental idea of the theory is that learning occurs through conversations about a subject matter which serve to make knowledge explicit. Conversations can be conducted at a number of different levels: natural language (general discussion), object languages (for discussing the subject matter), and meta-languages (for talking about learning/language). In order to facilitate learning, Pask argues that subject matter should be represented in the form of entailment structures that show what is to be learned. Entailment structures exist in a variety of different levels depending upon the extent of relationships displayed (e.g., super/subordinate concepts, analogies). The critical method of learning according to conversation theory is ‘teachback’ in which one person teaches another what they have learned. Pask identified two different types of learning strategies: serialists who progress through an entailment structure in a sequential fashion and holists who look for higher-order relations (Kearsley, 1994-2004).

The fourth theory is Moore’s notion of transactional distance theory (1992, 1993, 1996), which is very much relevant to distance education and attempts to explain the relations between participants in a distance learning situation. Transactional distance is defined to include the psychological and communicative space between learners and teachers. Moore (1993) highlights the issue of interaction, when he defines transactional distance within the context of interaction in a course as a function of dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy. Dialogue refers to teacher-student interaction, structure refers to how the program is designed, and according to Moore, as dialogue increases structure decreases—that is, as the interaction between learner(s) and teacher(s) increases, the teaching program’s structure of objectives, activities, and assessment decreases to accommodate learners’ need. In other words, learner autonomy leading to self-direction becomes a major fruit in interactive learning situations. With terms like ‘active dialogue’, ‘conversations about subject matter’, and ‘social interaction’ resonating across these theories, it is clear that

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The third theory of much relevance to interactive approaches to learning is the Social Development Theory as conceptualized by Vygotsky (1962, 1978). The major theme of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. Another aspect of Vygotsky’s theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development is limited to a certain time span which he calls the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD). Furthermore, full development during the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. The range of skills that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone (Kearsley, 1994-2004).

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interactivity has a central role to play in these theories of learning, which may all be grouped under the general framework/paradigm of constructivist methods of learning as described above. Indeed these four theories may be seen as forming a useful foundation for the idea of a conversational learning community that we evolve as a conceptual framework for designing Web-based courses. Terms like ‘active dialogue’, ‘conversations about subject matter’ and ‘social interaction’ do form the core of what we may term a conversation learning theory (Figure 1). The main idea of a conversation learning theory is that enhanced interactivity, whether face-to-face or from a distance, such as online instruction, would lead to an effective reciprocal, two-way communication within the learning situation. This enhanced communication is the backbone for the efficient exploitation of the resources, experts, and links by both instructor and learners within the learning community.

A descrIPtIon oF the desIGn oF A web-bAsed course In the last sections, a number of issues, including the need to use ICT in education, Web-based teaching, and interactivity and its role in constructivist learning and teaching methods, have been addressed. This section of the chapter constitutes a description of a specific course within my Webbased teaching program, and how interactivity was achieved in the course design.

choosing a web-based course tool In deciding to do Web-based teaching or facilitate Web-based learning, course designers have, at least, two options. They can choose to develop their own tools or they can choose from the repertoire of many course tools called asynchronous Web-based software suites (Jackson, 1999-2004) that are already available on the market.

As an illustration of interactivity, I now concentrate on describing just one course on the relationship between language and literacy. The course is titled “Language and Literacy in the Information Age” (Bodomo, 1999-2004).

webct design of a course on Language and Literacy The language and literacy course is a one–semester, six-credit course for second- and third-year students of linguistics and related disciplines. Class meetings are conducted in the form of lectures, complemented by a WebCT course platform and face-to-face tutorials. In terms of course content, it usually begins with an attempt to introduce the students (usually about 20-30 in number) to the concept of ‘literacy’. The course materials, lectures, and tutorials are designed in such a way that students are supposed to discover for themselves that the concept literacy is not limited to just the ability to read and write. Students are supposed to discover for themselves the various linguistic, cognitive, social, and educational issues surrounding the concept. Students are encouraged to gain an understanding of the role of language and literacy in the socio-economic development efforts of many societies through various activities such as discussions, debates, classroom presentation, tutorials, fieldtrips, interview of resource persons, and so forth.

how Interaction was Achieved in the course In this subsection, an attempt is made to explain how interaction was achieved in a class. This begins with the creation of a learning community. The course design, whether in the form of face-to-face classroom lectures or WebCT course page activities like discussion and presentations, is guided by the conceptual notion of a conversational learning community, comprising instructor(s), learners, current resources, and remote experts and resources.

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Figure 1. Conversation learning theory licenses a conversation learning community

The first task then in the course administration is often to get the group of about 20-30 students to communicate and interact with each other and create a sense of community. The first exercise towards this goal is often in the form of Internet search. The excerpt from the course displayed in Table 1 explains the exercise:

An exercise for building up a Learning community Students are asked to look up important concepts in the course like ‘literacy’ and ‘language’ on the Web and present their findings to the whole class in the lecture the following week. After hearing students’ reports on their findings, the course instructor and teaching assistant would pick up a number of issues from these student presentations and initiate both an in-class debate and later on some postings on the WebCT bulletin board to 138

encourage participation from students who are less active in lectures. This exercise is meant to encourage students to create both physical and electronic networking among each other, and it often succeeds to a large extent because it has been noticed that later groups to be formed in the class often reflect this earlier grouping. In addition, this exercise often leads to follow-up discussions in small groups during the first two weeks. Following this exercise, students are also encouraged to create a sense of community through sharing their research findings with their classmates by using the ‘student homepages’ tool. In addition to sharing their findings, many students actually made available information about themselves which enabled their fellows to get to know their study interests and specializations. This helped strengthen the community of partnerships in learning.

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Table 1. LING2011: Reading Assignment/Homework: 1. Literacy Information Mining on the Web: Students should form groups of 2-3 people. Each group should search the World Wide Web with key words ‘literacy’, ‘language’, (and combinations of these) and choose 10 sites. These sites should be analyzed with a view to finding out what literacy is and what common issues are discussed concerning language and literacy courses. Each group of students should spend five minutes in the next lecture explaining how their understanding of literacy has been affected by these 10 Web sites.

Once this sense of community is created, the rest of the instructional activities aim to consolidate and strengthen it, developing it into a real conversational learning community. This is done both through face-to-face classroom activities and WebCT design activities. Surprisingly, greater and more sustained aspects of the interaction between students often take place on the WebCT homepage for this course. In the next subsection, some of the main features and resources of this tool will be described, showing what kinds of interactivity take place and how.

some Interactive webct Features of the course WebCT interactive tools include modules such as ‘Contents’, ‘Glossary’, ‘Bulletin Board’, ‘Student Homepages’, and ‘Quiz’. We provide below brief descriptions of some of the interactive modules, showing what activities are deployed in each case.

contents with Glossary definitions The contents with glossary definitions module of WebCT serves as a kind of online dictionary for the students. Terminologies and other technical phrases on language and literacy easily pile up even at the very beginning of the course, and they are very crucial for a sustainable comprehension of the subject matter. This aspect of the course tool thus comes in handy, as the teacher can often use it to outline and define some of the most important terminologies for each topic. Students are asked

to regularly refer to this site as they read through the lecture notes. The reading then is more active than would otherwise be the case.

Links to useful references The links feature of WebCT allows a course developer to make useful pointers to various Web sites that are of relevance to the course, for instance, Literacy Online. This issue of making links implements the conceptual notion of having remote resources as part of the conversational learning community that we create, illustrating learner-resource interaction, one of the types of interactivity we noted earlier.

Student Access Statistics The Student Access Statistics feature is a very valuable aspect of WebCT in terms of helping the teacher to track and manage student progress. Each time new course material is posted on the Web, the teacher may demand that students read the material before the next scheduled class. Before the start of the class, the teacher may log on to assess how many students have already accessed and, presumably, read the material. This can be gauged by looking at the number of students logging on and also by what pages they visited. Indeed, one could even have an idea of which particular students accessed the material and their frequency of access. It turned out, however, that sometimes actually more students had accessed the pages than the access statistics indicated. Some students simply asked their friends to download

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copies of the material for them without they themselves accessing the material from their own accounts! One way to solve this problem, if it is thought of as such, is for the teacher to actively discourage this oblique access to the course material on the Web.

Discussion Forum WebCT’s Bulletin Board and Presentation features together provide a useful discussion forum for participants in the language and literacy course. This is indeed the most useful feature with respect to incorporating interactivity (both teacher-learner and learner-learner interactions) in the course. Through the bulletin board, one can readily send information to the class and to individual students about the course. These include reminders of deadlines for assignments, clarifications about specific points, and pointers to any errata in the course notes. Students, on the other hand, can use this forum to ask the teacher questions on aspects of the course and to post general messages to other students on the course. Groups of students can use the presentation forum to upload and discuss a topic, which they may subsequently write up and present to the whole class.

one think that, from an instructor’s point of view, interactivity has been achieved in the course. From an instructor’s point of view, certain features of communication and academic activity, if they are part and parcel of a course, would serve to indicate that the teaching endeavor is successful. Three of these features include critical thinking, initiative on the part of students, and academic rigor.

Critical Thinking

oPPortunItIes And chALLenGes For the Future

It was noticed that as time went on, not only were students more forthcoming in discussing and interacting with the teacher and with their fellow classmates, they were also becoming more critical in their thinking. At certain points during the course, students were beginning to question and argue some of the points from the teacher and from their fellow classmates. Sometimes, an issue is presented with regards to the definition and conceptualization of literacy, and how it relates to language and students are then asked to evaluate these views by applying them to the Hong Kong situation and, indeed, other situations that they know. We may consider critical thinking within the conversational learning community as a strong indicator of the success of interactivity in the learning situation. This may be compared with Markwood and Johnstone’s (1994) idea of critical conversation.

opportunities

Initiative

The foregoing has outlined how a course can be designed on WebCT so as to enhance interactivity, a crucial element in a conversational learning community and indeed in any other effective learning situation. A possible question to ask then is how successful the design was. Success, failure, and other issues of evaluation are difficult to measure accurately. They may be from the point of view of the instructor or the student. In the following, we briefly point to some qualitative features that make

Another indicator of success with regards to the learning situation is initiative on the part of students. Halfway through the course, students did often introduce their own topics of discussion and techniques of information gathering and processing. In our knowledge-based economy, innovation has become a crucial element of an efficient workforce. Initiative is an essential element of innovation, and the pedagogical process should aim at promoting it. This may be compared

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to Moore’s (1993) ideas of learner autonomy and self-direction, which are products of a successful interactive learning course.

Academic Rigor A third measure of the fact that the class achieved an enhanced constant interaction was the academic rigor noticed in the essays that many of the students wrote. Students were often generally very knowledgeable about the different shades of opinions regarding a particular technical issue. Indeed, some students even began to question some aspects of the textbooks against the realities of the Hong Kong situation that they know best. In the course evaluation at the end of the semester, comments and feedback generally point to a positive appraisal of the element of enhanced interactivity in the Web-based learning process.

challenges In the course of Web-based design of the course on Language and Literacy in the Information Age and indeed other courses, a number of issues such as low interactivity at the beginning of the course were experienced. Rather than perceiving them as debilitating problems and obstacles, one should consider them as challenges to be overcome towards an improvement of Web-based teaching.

Low Written Interaction at the Beginning Described above are some initial steps taken to ask students to form groups and begin interacting with each other. It is, however, often difficult to get them to start writing and sending messages of discussion on the bulletin board. Indeed some students never post a single message throughout the course, though they may keep reading every bit of discussion going on. Several posts were often made without any responses. In these posts, questions are asked, and students are exhorted to start making use of the

forum. The interesting aspect here is that it takes just a few students to begin and most come on board. In extreme situations of low participation, students are reminded that active participation counts towards the coursework mark.

suMMAry And concLusIon This chapter has attempted to demonstrate that instructional interactivity is an essential aspect of student-centered course design endeavors, whether in traditional face-to-face classrooms or by distance learning. Society seems to require universities and other learning institutions to produce graduates who are creative thinkers and problem solvers, graduates who are literate enough to function well in a knowledge-based economy where there is a pervasive use of ICTs. To achieve this educational goal, we need to reform our methods of instruction, moving away from more passive methods of teaching to more active and interactive methods. Based on many years of Web-based course design and delivery, this chapter has proposed some ways of designing more interactive courses. Basically, teachers ought to construe their learning environment as one of conversation between instructor and learner. Important components in this environment include instructor(s), learners, course materials, and links to remote experts and resources. All these components are glued together by instructional interactivity. Three types of instructional interactivity ought to be recognized. These are instructor-learner, learnerlearner, and learner-resource interactivity. While there still remain some challenges, it has been shown that by doing interactive Webbased teaching, many positive things such as critical thinking, initiative, and academic rigor may be achieved. We may conclude that instructional interactivity on the Web seems to enhance even traditional classroom and tutorial sessions. Interactive Web-based teaching allows teachers

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to achieve a better management of the course. This issue is relevant for both distance education, such as on cyberspace, and traditional classroom teaching. Interactivity thus has the potential of rendering the gap between traditional face-toface classroom education and distance education redundant. Distance would no more have to be defined in terms of just space, but in terms of the presence and absence of interactivity.

reFerences Allen, M. W. (2003). Michael Allen’s guide to elearning: Building interactive, fun, and effective learning programs for any company. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Barnard, R. (1995). Interactive learning: A key to successful distance delivery. American Journal of Multimedia, 12, 45–47. Blurton, C. (1999). New directions of ICT-use in education. UNESCO’s World Communication and Information Report 1999. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/lwf/ dl/edict.pdf

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Daniel, J., & Marquis, C. (1983). Independence and interaction: Getting the mix right. Teaching at a Distance, 15, 445–460. Davies, K. (2005). Relating instructional interactivity to adult learner satisfaction and subsequent retention/persistence in postsecondary online courses: A case study analysis. PhD Dissertation, Capella University, USA. Duffy, T., & Jonassen, D. H. (1992). Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Jackson, R. H. (1999-2004). Web-based learning resources library. Retrieved from http://www. knowledgeability.biz/weblearning/ Kearsley, G. (1994-2004). Explorations in learning & instruction: Theory in practice database. Retrieved from http://tip.psychology.org Laurillard, D. (1993). Rethinking university teaching: A framework for the effective use of educational technology. London: Routledge.

Bodomo, A. B. (2006). Interactivity in Web-based learning. International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, 1(2), 18–30.

Markwood, R., & Johnstone, S. (1994). New pathways to a degree: Technology opens the college. Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, USA.

Bodomo, A. B. (1999-2004). Language and Literacy in the Information Age, WebCT course homepage. Retrieved from http://ecourse.hku. hk:8900/public/LING2011

Moore, M. (1992). Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1–6.

Bodomo, A. B., Luke, K. K., & Anttila, A. (2003). Evaluating interactivity in Web-based learning. Global E-Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Education, III. Retrieved from http://www.ignou. ac.in/e-journal/ContentIII/Adamsbodomo.htm Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Moore, M. (1993). Theory of transactional distance. In D. Keegan (Ed.), Theoretical principles of distance education. London/New York: Routledge. Moore, M., & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance education: A systems view. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

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Moreno, R., & Valdez, A. (2005). Cognitive load and learning effects of having students organize pictures and words in multimedia environments: The role of interactivity and feedback. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(3), 35–45. doi:10.1007/BF02504796 Parker, A. (1999). Interaction in distance education: The critical conversation. Educational Technology Review, 13. Pask, G. (1975). Conversation, cognition, and learning. New York: Elsevier. Piaget, J. (1973). To understand is to invent. New York: Grossman. Simms, R. (1999). Interactivity on stage: Strategies for learner-design communication. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 15(3), 257–272.

Simms, R. (2000). An interactive conundrum: Constructs of interactivity and learning theory. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 16(1), 45–57. Strauss, M. J. (1994). A constructivist dialogue. The Journal of Humanistic Education and Development, 32(4), 183–187. Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wagner, J. (1994). Learning from a distance. International Journal of Multimedia, 19(2), 12–20.

This work was previously published in Web-Based Education and Pedagogical Technologies: Solutions for Learning Applications, edited by L. Esnault pp. 121-136, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.11

Teaching Adult Learners in Online Career and Technical Education Victor M. Hernández-Gantes University of South Florida, USA

AbstrAct Online education is becoming an important component of career and technical education (CTE) in teacher preparation and at the graduate level. In the midst of such growth, and in response to questions about quality compared with traditional learning, there is a consensus that online courses and programs should be designed based on the needs of adult learners. However, much of the literature in online CTE lacks implicit connections to emerging notions of adult development and learning. This article provides an overview of the status of online education in CTE at the postsecondary level, discusses related issues and current research focus, and highlights adult learning developments and the implications for curriculum design, instruction, and use of technology. The article concludes with an outline of emerging trends bridging adult learning and

online education relevant to career and technical education.

IntroductIon Online education enrollments in higher education over the past decade are revealing. The online instructional delivery system is no longer an afterthought for postsecondary institutions as students are enrolling in related programs at higher rates compared to enrollments in traditional education. Practically all institutions of higher education now offer online education opportunities to meet the demand from students seeking alternatives to traditional on campus instruction (Allen & Seaman, 2008). Career and technical education (CTE) is no exception to this trend as the field has experienced similar growth at the undergraduate and graduate education level including doctoral programs (Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b; Havice

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& Havice, 2005). However, as online education continues to grow, there are lingering concerns about the quality of curriculum and instruction, student experiences, and use of technology (Hernandez, Kirby, & McGee, 2004; Flowers, 2001; Kim & Bonk, 2006). Furthermore, although the adult population is the target audience for CTE in teacher preparation and graduate degree programs, there is limited literature examining the connections to adult development and learning principles. Much of the literature focuses on demand for online education, related curriculum and program development, and perceptions about quality and barriers and opportunities for adoption (Flowers, 2005; Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b; Schmidt & Gallegos, 2001). As such, there is a need for an examination of adult learning principles in the context of online education and the implications for curriculum development, teaching, and use of technology. To this end, the objectives of this article are to: First, review the status of online education with an emphasis in career and technical education and related issues for adoption; second, highlight adult learning developments with potential to inform curriculum design and instruction; third, outline implications on the use of instructional technology; and fourth, point out emerging trends bridging adult learning and online education relevant to CTE efforts in this area.

bAcKGround Online education is often used interchangeable with other terms such as distance education, virtual learning, Web-based learning, distributed learning and other variations associated with teaching and learning whereby instructors and students are not interacting in the same location in real time. In this context, distance education represents a larger umbrella including a wide array of formal and informal strategies bridging physical separation between instructors and students (King, 2008). In turn, online education

represents a formal asynchronous instructional system offered by educational institutions through courses and entire programs. Online education is characterized by the use of communication networks building upon varying combinations of online technology such as the Internet, electronic libraries, Web-based conferencing, virtual discussions, and e-mail communication. Typically, the delivery of online education is organized through a Web-based management system (e.g., Blackboard, WebCT) with many variations in delivery and support services depending on institutional resources and the nature of individual courses (e.g., size of student enrollment) (Aragon, 2003; Conrad, 2008; Paloff & Pratt, 2001). Formal online education opportunities for adults are offered in higher education, often referred to as post-secondary or tertiary education, and may be available in formal and informal settings after high school. Although the term “higher education” is often associated with universities and colleges, it is in fact a broader term including formal programs leading to credentialing at community colleges as well as baccalaureate and graduate degrees granted by private and public universities (Clark, 1983). Similarly, while career and technical education (CTE) is often associated with programs at the secondary education level, it is also a prominent component of higher education. At the post-secondary level, CTE contributes with programs and services designed to help adult students promote their career development and transition into specific occupations or further education. Informal programs are also available in community and corporate settings for technical training and re-training purposes. Teacher preparation programs and opportunities for professional advancement through master’s degrees and doctoral programs are available at universities, while technical preparation and entry-level occupational credentialing are offered at two-year colleges (Athanasou, 2008; Hernández-Gantes & Blank, 2009; Johnson & Benson, 2003). Thus, the focus of this article is on reviewing issues relevant to

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teaching adult learners in online CTE programs in higher education.

current Issues And reseArch Focus As online education continues to grow, it is important to review online learning trends and issues related to adoption in CTE, bridging adult learning developments with curriculum design and instruction, and implications for using instructional technology. online education Growth The formal beginnings of distance education date back to the late 1800s, born out of the necessity to overcome geographical distances and provide educational access to rural students (Banas & Emory, 1998). Initially rooted in programmed instruction through correspondence courses, distance education experienced a booming renewal with the advent of computers and the Internet. Today, while correspondence methods still remain in use, contemporary distance education has shifted to more extensive use of instructional technology to develop and deliver courses and programs in a variety of formats from text to virtual interactive activities (Johnson & Benson, 2003). In the past two decades, the development of related instructional technologies has been dramatic and the demand for distance learning has consistently increased during this period as people seek flexible learning opportunities (Allen & Seaman, 2008; Havice & Havice, 2005; National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). Under the umbrella of distance education, online learning emerged based on the prominent use of computer technologies and the Internet. As such, online education is also referred to electronic learning (or e-learning), Web-based instruction, and virtual learning. At the core of online education is the fact that students can have access to instructional resources anytime, anywhere, and engage with the material at their convenience (Conrad, 2008;

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Lorenzetti, 2003). These underlying features of “online” learning have appealed to young and older adults seeking professional advancement through flexible educational opportunities in higher education, CTE included (Flowers, 2005; National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). In general, compared to student enrollment in traditional programs, online student enrollments have continued to grow substantially in recent years. The sixth report of the Sloan Consortium on the status of online learning in higher education indicated that about 20% of all higher education students were enrolled in at least one online course in the fall of 2006. This figure represents over a 12% increase compared to 1.2% increase in the overall higher education student population (Allen & Seaman, 2008). This dramatic growth has been well documented also noting the increase in the number of programs offered by postsecondary institutions with growth as high as 70% in a single year reported in the 1990s (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). Although the growth in higher education, as a whole, has been steady, 2-year colleges have shown greater growth rates in online education compared to baccalaureate institutions. Overall, the demand for online education is expected to continue growing, though at a less dramatic pace, as current efforts are expanded and new institutions respond to related demand (Allen & Seaman, 2008). Although comprehensive data is not available to gauge the full extent of enrollments in CTE, there is emerging evidence of growth mirroring that of national trends (Flowers, 2005; Johnson & Benson, 2003). Community colleges have shown an increase in enrollments due to the expansion of distance learning programs in various occupational areas (Johnson & Benson, 2003). Similar growth has been reported in the broader field of career and technical education including teacher preparation programs and in graduate education including doctoral level programs (Baltzer, Lazaros, & Flowers, 2007; Flowers, 2005; Flowers & Baltzer, 2006a, 2006b). In general, it has been

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reported that at the master’s degree level, face-toface enrollments have tended to decrease as new online courses have begun to attract many more students (Blank & Hernandez, 2008; Flowers, 2005). In turn, at the doctoral level, online courses are available and entire programs may become available in the future. At this time about a third of doctoral programs in the field have indicated the possibility of evolving into online models or are already in their way to do so (Baltzer et al., 2007; Blank & Hernandez, 2008; Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b). The demand for online education has been fueled by individuals seeking professional advancement who are most likely to be married, have dependents, and are employed full-time. These students are also most likely to seek flexible programs on a part-time basis (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). For such students the flexibility of online education is the only way to earn a degree as they factor in issues of time, physical location, family, and work demands. These trends are also reported in graduate programs in CTE (see Blank & Hernandez, 2008; Flowers, 2005). Lingering Issues As online learning continues to grow at all levels in higher education, CTE included, there are still some lingering issues about overall quality, instructor-related factors, use of technology, and nature of online learning experiences compared to traditional education (Kim & Bonk, 2006). The first issue persistently cited in the literature is the perception that online education, compared to traditional instruction, is of inferior quality. This perception ranges from traditional views on education regarding classroom instruction as the only appropriate setting for teaching and learning, to legitimate questions about the quality of online instructional approaches (Baltzer et al., 2007; Bower, 2001). In CTE such perceptions have elicited a warning to program graduates

about how potential employers may perceive a degree earned primarily online (Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b). In some cases such concerns may be reinforced by the limited evidence of online student performance compared to counterparts in equivalent traditional courses (Ryan, 2000). To be sure, there is positive evidence of impact on higher engagement and motivation, increased collaboration, and extended access to students who may have not otherwise enrolled or completed a program of study. Some reports have indicated that student performance is relatively equivalent when comparing technology-mediated and classroom instruction, although the nature of related research has raised questions about the generalizations of the findings (Johnson & Benson, 2003; Kim & Bonk, 2006; Phipps & Merisotis, 1999; Ryan, 2000; Zirkle, 2002). Albeit the inconclusiveness of available data, emerging evidence appears to suggest that the general quality of online education is really a secondary issue. What matters is the quality of specific instructional strategies and materials, much like in traditional education, pointing to design and development issues (Stilborne & Williams, 1996). During the rush to join the bandwagon of online education, there has been widespread variability in the quality of courses and programs available online. The pressure to develop courses and programs in a short period of time regardless of the unique design and development requirements may contribute to the varying quality of online courses as well (Aragon, 2003; Zirkle, 2002). To ensure quality of online courses, participating instructors need sufficient time for design and development of online courses and programs, and sometimes such accommodations are not in place (Lorenzetti, 2003). This, in turn, brings instructor-related factors into the discussion as institutions ask faculty to convert courses online even though they may not be well prepared or—worse yet—may not believe in the value of online education to participate effectively in related efforts (Flowers & Baltzer, 2006a).

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Since every institution is bound to have instructors resisting participation in online education for related reasons, resentment and low morale are often the results of forced participation. This situation has prompted calls to rethink faculty supports and reassess how to consider participation in online instructional efforts for tenure and promotion evaluations given the unique demands of such work (Baltzer et al., 2007; Bower, 2001; Hernandez et al., 2004; Flowers, 2005). Another issue stemming perhaps from the push to put courses online, compounded by concerns about appropriate instructors’ preparation, is reliance on design and development strategies building upon sets of documents, lectures, and PowerPoint presentations void of interactive or meaningful connecting activities (Bower, 2001; Stilborne & Williams, 1996). At the other extreme are courses featuring all the “bells and whistles” of technology without regard to practical and pedagogical considerations. In both cases, the limited use of technology in the former case and the over-use in the latter case, the facilitation of learning may be hindered in the absence of explicit pedagogical connections and further complicated by technology compatibility issues or distracting technical glitches (Palloff & Pratt, 2001; Partlow & Gibbs, 2003). At the core of this issue is the tendency to focus more on the selection and management of resources and use of technology to teach online, rather than the actual design of instructional strategies appropriate for online delivery (Flowers, 2005). Thus, another lingering issue has been the challenge to facilitate productive interactions among students and between students and instructors. Traditional instructors have argued that such interactions, often taken for granted in the traditional classroom, are difficult to reproduce in an online environment. Critics are also quick to note that students may be left wandering in online courses under the so-called premises of self-paced learning (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006; Rovai, 2001; Schmidt & Gallegos, 2001).

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Research Focus in Online CTE In the midst of the steady growth of online education and the lingering issues noted above, available research in CTE has been limited in relation to the general body of knowledge in other fields (Zirkle, 2002). Much of the research focus in CTE contexts has been on descriptive studies of institutional efforts to promote and develop online programs. This includes studies on barriers for placing programs online, instructor-related research looking into issues of participation in design and implementation efforts, and assessments of student satisfaction in higher education programs at both undergraduate and graduate level (Flowers, 2005; Sloan-C, 2009; Zirkle, 2002). As such, some researchers have suggested it is time to shift from an emphasis on institutional factors and online course development and management to the study of pedagogical strategies and student experiences that maximize online learning. As online education continues to grow in CTE, the quality of online pedagogical strategies appropriate to adult learners in higher education is a critical issue that needs to be addressed. While, there is evidence dispelling the perceived lack of interactions in online education as well as questions about self-regulated learning (Kirschner et al., 2006; Rovai, 2001; Schmidt & Gallegos, 2001), researchers agreed that it is imperative to study new ways of designing learning experiences that are appropriate for online delivery (Aragon, 2003; Flowers, 2001; Hirumi, 2002). Another important component of the suggested shift in research focus is the apparent void in the literature bridging adult education principles and online learning. While there is research exploring the connections between adult learning principles and online pedagogical strategies stemming from adult education, related literature and focus has yet to be integrated into parallel lines of research in CTE contexts. The bulk of the literature in online CTE contexts does not make explicit connections to adult education principles, which appears to

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be taken for granted. For the most part, current literature reflects an emphasis on the management of learning experiences and mediation of delivery through technology (Flowers, 2001, 2005; Zirkle, 2002).

brIdGInG AduLt LeArnInG And onLIne cte Promising theoretical conceptions of how people learn including transformative learning, contextual teaching and learning principles and holistic views on adult development and learning have emerged over the past decade (Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2001b, 2008). The challenge for instructors is to bridge emerging theoretical conceptions of adult teaching and learning and online instructional environments. A brief description of recent developments in adult learning is presented in this section along with implications for curriculum design and development, instructional strategies, and use of technology with potential to inform online CTE. emerging developments in Adult Learning theory Historically, adult development and learning have coexisted as separate, albeit complementary, fields of study. The development dimension has been typically treated under the field of psychology, while learning has been usually addressed in educational research (Hoare, 2006). This artificial divide may stem from the traditional view of adult development as progressive age stages, which in turn is associated with the development of experience (i.e., ways of knowing). Under this worldview to understanding how adults develop and learn, andragogy has been a prominent learning theory used in adult education based on the premise of stages of development and noting the unique characteristics of adults compared to children (Knowles, 1980; Merriam, 2001a). Over the past two decades, however, emerging developments in related theoretical and practical

teaching and learning conceptions have noted the inclusive interface of adult development and learning (Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2008). Building upon notions of how people learn, it is becoming clear the relationship between adult development and learning must be understood and taken into consideration when designing teaching and learning strategies. To this end, contextual learning, self-directed learning, and transformational learning have been consistently highlighted in adult education as promising conceptions of teaching and learning with potential to inform online curriculum development and instruction (Partlow & Gibbs, 2003; Roschelle, 1999; Taylor, 2007). Andragogy as an Initial Frame of reference Andragogy is a theory of adult education advocating a learner-centered approach to teaching introduced in the 1970s underlined by five major premises. At the core of the andragogy is the idea of adult learners as mature individuals with a clear identity of who they are and capable of self-regulated learning (Knowles, 1980; Merriam, 2001a). The premise is that adults have moved from a younger stage of development where extrinsic motivation and guided learning were the norm. The challenge for instructors is to promote autonomous learning while recognizing individual differences and stages of development (Cercone, 2008; Cooper & Henschke, 2003; Knowles, 1980). Another important premise is the role of prior knowledge in adult learning suggesting that students learn best when they are provided the opportunity to build on what they know and can do (Fidishun, 2000). Andragogy also relies on the premise that adults are more likely to be goal oriented and will perform better when content relevancy is high and clearly aligned with personal goals. In this case, the instructor’s goal should be to ensure relevant meaning and connections between new concepts and students’ frame of reference (Cercone, 2008; Merriam, 2001a). Further, andragogy assumes that adult learners will respond better to instruction

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that is designed to provide practical applications as a means to reinforce the above premises (Fidishun, 2000; Knowles, 1980). Finally, intrinsic motivation to learn is recognized as the driving force in adults who will respond better when they feel their individual needs are met and it is safe to participate in group discourse and collaborate with others (Cercone, 2008; Taylor, King, PinsentJohnson, & Lothian, 2003). Although useful in many ways, some researchers argued that the premises underlying andragogy represent a model for teaching adults rather than a theory (Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2001a). A key limitation of andragogy is that it overlooks the role of the learning context and the interface with background variables such as culture, gender, and experience beyond the mere fact of being classified as an adult. Thus, it does not consider multiple ways of knowing and learning and the important role for critical reflection as part of the adult learning process (Taylor, 2007; Tsao, Takahasi, Olusesu, & Jain, 2006). With all its limitations, andragogy clearly defined what makes adult learners different and served as the root for useful concepts such as student-centered learning, prior learning, and content relevancy as factors that matter for adult learners (Cooper & Henschke, 2003; Fidishun, 2000; Merriam, 2001a). In this context, and building upon such concepts, emerging literature in adult development and learning suggests promising implications of constructivist strategies for teaching and learning in online environments. rethinking Adult development and Learning Recognizing the complexity of adult learning, everyone agrees that there is no such thing as a comprehensive adult learning theory that can be applied to all learning situations (Hoare, 2006, Merriam, 2008; Taylor, 2007). Thus, constructivist theoretical conceptions have received greater attention in recent years given their emphasis on both the learners’ characteristics and their worldviews

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facilitated through contextual and self-regulated instructional strategies. Experiential learning, contextual teaching and learning, self-regulated learning, and transformational learning appear to carry promising implications for online adult learning (Cercone, 2008; Merriam, 2008). For instance, experiential learning suggests that when teaching adults, learning is a product of meaningful connections between new concepts and what the learners already know (i.e., experience) (Itin, 1999). Thus, experiential learning emphasizes clear identification of new knowledge and information, connections to relevant prior knowledge, and critical analysis of learning experiences. In turn, contextual teaching and learning stems from the body of knowledge on the role of context as a meaning-making factor in the learning process. When learners engage in activities featuring realworld situations they can relate to by virtue of their prior knowledge and experience, culture, and other personal and professional variables, expertise is reinforced and further developed (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Itin, 1999; Kolb, 1984). Consequently, contextual teaching and learning emphasizes teaching for understanding through relevant tasks requiring active learning (Bransford et al., 2000, Hernández-Gantes & Blank, 2009; Perkins, 1993). Self-directed learning has also emerged as another important theoretical concept when teaching adult learners. At the root of this concept is the idea that learning should be intrinsically motivated and as such, adult learners should take responsibility for their own learning although some may require different levels of external assistance (Merriam, 2008; Taylor, 2006). Selfdirected learning is typically associated with goal-oriented strategies which in the past had been mostly relegated to informal learning. Today, the concept of self-regulated learning offers promising applications in online learning environments where independent learning is promoted and expected of adult learners. Self-directed learning is at the core of lifelong learning bridging ways of

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knowing, experience, and intrinsic motivation to learn in adult development (Taylor, 2006). In turn, transformational learning takes learning one step beyond and promotes change in ways of knowing and doing (Hoare, 2006; Tsao et al., 2006). In essence, transformational learning allows adult learners to develop deep understandings through critical analysis as the basis for the generation of their own knowledge (Palloff & Pratt, 2001). Critical reflection underlines transformational learning, especially when learners are confronted with learning experiences requiring unique meaning-making relevant only to them based on their individual frame of reference and goals. As such, transformation learning incorporates elements of constructivist conceptions noted above while reinforcing the notion of learning as personal change (Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2008). Based on the surmised highlights of emerging constructivist theoretical strands it is clear that, given their complementary nature and shared premises, it is not possible to identify a “grand theory” of adult learning. However, emerging theoretical concepts may contribute to our understanding of the adult learning process and can inform curriculum design and development, online learning, and related use of technology (Cercone, 2008; Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2008). Implications for curriculum design and development Considering theoretical conceptions of adult learning, it is clear that instructors should gauge the unique needs and goals of adult learners when designing curriculum and instruction. This is even more relevant for design and development efforts in online education (Ausburn, 2004; Cercone, 2008; Partlow & Gibbs, 2003). To this end, the use of andragogy and more recent developments in adult learning can be integrated when teaching with technology. Online education provides flexible access for adult learners and the opportunity to work on instructional materials in a self-directed mode. At issue is the adapta-

tion and organization of instructional content and resources through interactive designs that are learner-centered, contextually relevant, and most likely to promote independent learning. In this context, three approaches are highlighted to illustrate efforts to connect learning principles and online curriculum design and development including the use of Bloom’s taxonomy, the “backward design” concept, and online blended learning designs. revisiting the use of bloom’s taxonomy A model for online curriculum development commonly used in higher education uses Bloom’s Taxonomy as a frame of reference to guide the identification of objectives, content, and learning process. This approach focuses on stages of learning including knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The premise behind the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy is that students learn through the mastery of important content, opportunities to demonstrate what they know; allowances to apply concepts and skills through problem-based activities, and the use of reflective strategies to foster deep understandings. As such, this approach may use a blend of direct instruction to promote mastery learning complemented with constructivist strategies to engage students in active learning and critical thinking (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Some critics, however, argued that Bloom’s Taxonomy has become outdated and view its contemporary relevance and application as limited. However, recent adaptations have made the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy appealing for today’s applications to curriculum development (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Clark, 2002). Such adaptations are now being used at the college level as well, as a means to promote active learning. For example, Puzziferro & Shelton (2008) reported that all online courses at Colorado State University are developed following an adaptation of Bloom’s work featuring structures for students

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to check content knowledge, demonstrate what they know and can do through “mastery” activities as well as through application and analytical tasks including reflection components (e.g., discussion forums). Courses also include capstone projects designed to further reinforce individual relevance and reflection. Similar examples are reported at institutions such as Penn State University’s World Campus (Thompson & McGrath, 1999) and Georgia Southern University (Center for Online Learning, 2009) to name a few. The common denominator for using Bloom’s work for curriculum development is the desire to align objectives with teaching and learning, and with assessment outcomes. backward design: From outcomes to objectives The “backward design” for curriculum development follows an approach counter to Bloom’s suggested objectives-teaching strategies-outcomes sequence. In the backward design, instructors identify assessment outcomes first, think about teaching/learning activities second, and then decide on core objectives. This design approach to curriculum development focuses on three stages including the articulation of student competencies, identification of evidence that demonstrates mastery of competencies, and design of appropriate instructional activities (McTighe & Wiggins, 1999). Identifying expected student competencies sits at the core of the backward design process and aligns with theoretical principles of adult learning related to making learning relevant (Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2008). This notion predicates that learners will be more motivated to learn when they know what is expected of them up front. However, rather than emphasizing content coverage through a typical list of expected competencies, backward design requires the identification of essential understandings (or “big ideas”) underlying curriculum development. That is, it forces instructors to “chunk” important content into

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a few identifiable expectations serving as the guide for a course. Stemming from research in cognition and how memory works, the concept of “chunking” has been helpful in explaining how people with different levels of expertise process information (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989). Essentially, “chunking” represents a cognitive system comprised of a few “chunks”, each carrying a number of related informational items for easier retrieval and “big-picture” understandings when put together (Conlon, 2002; Gobet et al., 2001). Chunking has been at the core of information mapping approaches to help instructors organize large amounts of information into a reduced number of blocks (or chunks) to facilitate learning and quick retrieval of needed information In this regard, chunking has been used in a variety of contexts related to human learning and the underlying mechanism can be applied to online curriculum design and development (Ferry, Hedberg, & Harper, 1998; Hirumi, 2002; Janicki & Liegle, 2001). The implications are clear: appropriate curricular chunks need to be developed to promote expertise and understanding in a given domain. For instructional design purposes, the chunking of essential understandings allows for the alignment between assessment outcomes (i.e., goals), content, and instructional strategies. Using this idea as the point of departure, the backward design also builds upon the concept of cognitive apprenticeship for teaching and learning suggesting that novice learners can develop progressive expertise through experiential strategies, such as modeling, coaching, and scaffolding (Bransford et al., 2000; Collins et al., 1989), and through reflective activities designed to promote understanding and knowledge production (McTighe & Wiggins, 1999; Perkins, 1993). For online curriculum development these ideas can translate into a reduced but optimal number of units or modules, each addressing essential understandings appealing to adult learners. In turn, instructional strategies may emphasize tutorials to model target skills,

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feedback for scaffolding purposes, and structures for individual and collective analyses. The key emphasis in the backward design is the promotion of understanding through the use of strategies appropriate for the content and the learner (McTighe & Wiggins, 1999). blending the best of both worlds? Blended education, also referred to as hybrid education, has been used in distance learning for a number of years (Dziuban, Hartman, & Moskal, 2004). The use of the Internet for online delivery has reinforced the notion of blended learning as a viable instructional alternative integrating faceto-face and online activities. In this case, there is a general agreement that blended education typically features 30 to 70% of online delivery in single courses, while the rest is complemented with face-to-face instruction. Courses using online instruction at the lower end (less than 30%) are often referred to as Web-enhanced. Although instructors may opt for a blended design seeking the advantages of traditional and online instruction, such courses are still loosely defined and the optimal balance remains in question (Allen, Seaman, & Garrett, 2007; Dziuban et al., 2004). As a result, the implications for curriculum design and development are also fuzzy. To be sure, blended designs build upon the benefits of traditional instruction drawing from the socialization factors of face-to-face activities. In turn, this approach may also benefit from active learning, asynchronous collaboration, and independent learning made possible by online activities (Ausburn, 2004). Thus, instructors should think of related design development as opportunities to emphasize constructivist strategies (e.g., experiential, contextual, self-regulated, active learning) as part of the entire course independent of the mode of delivery (Aragon, 2003; Partlow & Gibbs, 2003). The design of blended courses should also allow instructors to maximize the opportunities for productive interactions among

students and between the students and the instructor. As the face-to-face component is retained, some instructors feel more comfortable embracing the online component and may use blended courses as the springboard for further involvement in online learning. In fact, some reports have indicated high levels of student and instructor satisfaction and student performance surpassing that of counterparts in traditional and fully online instruction (Allen et al., 2007; Ausburn, 2004). The advantages of blended designs may be attributed to the combined support and interactions shared through the two instructional channels. To this end, the design features of blended courses often emphasize learner-centered strategies featuring active learning and relevant content facilitated reinforce through discussion groups and other forms of electronic interactions (Aragon, 2003; Ausburn, 2004; Rovai, 2001). Blended instruction can be appealing for instructors and institutions given the perceived higher level of comfort for student and faculty participation. Thus, it is possible to expect the blended design to be a popular approach to online learning. A national survey of online learning reported a slightly higher percentage of blended designs compared to fully online programs across disciplines. In general, the survey also reported that students in higher education were more likely to experience a blended course than a fully online course (Allen et al., 2007). This trend suggests that online education may be undergoing a transformation whereby the divide between face-to-face and online instruction is becoming relatively unimportant. As blended learning continues to evolve, it is clear that, if anything, closer attention must be paid to the use of appropriate curriculum development approaches and delivery mode to ensure the needs of adult learners are met. Implications for online teaching and Learning The instructors’ capacity to teach online is critical for making curriculum design and development

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work as expected. The starting point is to recognize the unique differences of adult learners compared to traditional college students. For example, adult learners in CTE programs seeking certification or graduate degrees—like in many other higher education programs—have to balance family and full-time work while pursuing further education (Cercone, 2008; Blank & Hernandez, 2008; Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b). As such, this type of adult learners represents a goal-oriented group albeit one requiring special considerations to meet special needs processing information brought about by middle age (Clark, 1999). In this context, as suggested by adult learning principles, online instructors should make a shift from lecture-driven and teacher-centered strategies to constructivist approaches to facilitate, rather than manage learning (Fidishun, 2000; Reynolds, 1997). To be sure, pedagogical knowledge is considered the top requirement for effective participation in online education followed by technical expertise. Reports on online teaching and learning strategies have consistently suggested the ability to facilitate learning is emerging as one of the most important pedagogical skills for online learning (Hirumi, 2002; Kim & Bonk, 2006). Further, the shift to constructivist instructional strategies is requiring the capacity to promote online collaboration, independent learning, problembased learning and case-based learning to make instruction relevant, engaging, and meaningful for goal-oriented learners (Kim & Bonk, 2006; Partlow & Gibbs, 2003). This is in direct alignment with student-centered learning rooted in andragogy, experiential learning, contextual instruction, and self-regulated learning (Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2008). Project-based learning, problem-based learning, and inquiry-based are concepts often used interchangeable as they share principles rooted in information processing theory and aligned with contextual, experiential, and self-directed learning (Bransford et al., 2000; Kirschner et al., 2006; Roschelle, 1999). These instructional approaches

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have been found helpful in online environments designed to emphasize rich learning experiences. At the core of these strategies is the idea of posing a problem requiring students to produce their own learning (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). For example, problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach that has been used for several decades and stems from project-based learning advocated by Dewey in the early 1900s (Roschelle, 1999). The purpose of PBL is to allow learners to experience and apply knowledge and skills they are learning. Variations of PBL include task-based learning and project-based learning and are sometimes used interchangeable with PBL. What separates PBL from other approaches is the focus on authentic problem situations for which more than one solution can be justified (Ellis, 2003; Ertmer, Lehman, Park, Cramer, & Grove, 2003; HmeloSilver, Duncan, & Chinn, 2007). Thus, PBL can be designed as an independent or group activity that can be easily used as part of online learning. In turn, project-based learning is typically associated with cooperative investigations as a means to keep teams of students on task requiring them to follow their own procedures and produce their own knowledge (Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Miflin, 2004). On the other hand, inquiry-based learning is usually connected to individual work whereby students follow specific discipline-based methods requiring the application of reasoning skills in the completion of research activities (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007). Common to these strategies is the use of driving questions to guide the understanding of a problem and the design and completion of an investigation or a project. Further, a shared assumption is that these strategies can be implemented with limited assistance from the instructor based on selfdirected notions of learning. In this regard, some researchers argued that these strategies are bound to be ineffective if instructors do not account for the role of cognitive processing requiring timely feedback and scaffolding supports (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007; Kirschner et al., 2006; Taylor et al.,

Teaching Adult Learners in Online Career and Technical Education

2003). This is particularly relevant given the fact that even though there is a consensus on the importance of constructivist strategies, the extent of use of related pedagogical practices in online education remains limited and uneven in terms of quality (Kim & Bonk, 2006). Use of Technology Given the underlying use of technology in online education, instructors have to understand and consider the role of technology in adult learning. In this regard, instructors face the challenge of developing expertise in using instructional technology and striking the right balance when using it to facilitate online learning. Specifically, instructors have to consider the role and use of technology in curriculum development, delivery systems, and as instructional tools (Havice & Havice, 2005; Hirumi, 2002). Studies describing online curriculum development efforts have noted that instructors tend to focus initially on the technology tools for online teaching and realize in the process that the primary goal should be related to design factors (Flowers, 2001, 2005). Drawing from constructivist theory advocating the facilitation of active knowledge production, it is then crucial for instructors to think about identifying sets of knowledge structures following an appropriate approach (e.g., backward design). One way to accomplish this is to use technology that allows information mapping (e.g., Inspiration). Information mapping technology does not involve a steep learning curve for instructors and can be used in the selection and development of essential understandings for particular courses (Conlon, 2002; Ferry et al., 1998). Another consideration is the use of online lesson building technology such as SoftChalk, NTeQ, CAST Universal Design for Learning, and other commercially available programs and services. These online curriculum builders ease the learning curve for instructors as they typically rely on intuitive interfaces involving the use of

word-processing platforms and curriculum templates. The use of this technology should ease concerns from institutions and instructors about the time-consuming process for curriculum development and need for technology expertise as a requirement to participate effectively in online education (Hirumi, 2002; Janicki & Liegle, 2001; Thompso & McGrath, 1999). Instructors also need to understand the role and use of specific delivery systems used for online education such as Blackboard, Angel Learning, WebCT, and others. As institutions embrace online education, a course management and delivery system has to be adopted and instructors have to learn the system and work within its constraints and opportunities (Harrington, Staffo, & Wright, 2006; Kraemer, 2003). The most popular systems used in higher education today are WebCT or Blackboard (Carnevale, 2005). The use of a course management system represents an additional layer of technology that may hinder or facilitate faculty participation and, in turn, adult learning. In this regard, instructors are forced to assume additional roles when using course management systems including management, facilitation, and evaluation of learning. Not surprisingly, wide differences are observed between novice and experienced instructors in the way they interact and use course management technology (Harrington et al., 2006; Kraemer, 2003). Clearly, as online education continues to grow, the need to evaluate the effectiveness of course management systems from the instructors’ perspective will become more important. The basic premise and appeal of online education is the flexible access to the learners any time, anywhere, at their convenience. In the case of adult learners, it is assumed they are goal-oriented and motivated to learn on their own. Thus, there is false expectation that adult learners will be able to sort out online instructional materials and resources independently (Kirschner et al., 2006). However, despite the popularity of online education, participation in such courses or programs

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may be frustrating for some students leading to higher drop out rates compared to students in traditional courses. Common reasons for dropping out include limited instructor’s assistance, time demands, and difficulty handling the underlying technology (Paloff & Pratt, 2001; Zirkle, 2002). This finding is a reminder that technology should be used as the means to facilitate learning rather than a distraction for learning. This is consistent with reports indicating that in online programs, the way in which technology is used is more important than whether the technology is “cutting edge” or not (Johnson & Benson, 2003; Phipps & Merisotis, 1999). To ensure that adult learners succeed in online programs, instructors should provide opportunities to acquire relevant technological skills, mediate technical support, and recognize differences in self-directed learning (Fidishun, 2000). Used as an instructional tool, technology should facilitate online spaces for collaborative learning, provide access to resources, allow for information processing, and include multiple representations of ideas to address different learning styles. Given the emerging range of choices made possible by the Internet, instructors can tap into videoconferencing, electronic messaging, real-time conferencing, and other communication tools for online learning (Stilborne & Williams, 1996). Obviously, this is quite a challenge for instructors who may be limited by their own capacity and commitment to using technology and, in many ways, this is a transformational process for instructors as well (Imel, 1998; Tsao et al., 2006). Recognizing that instructors are by default asked to bear the responsibility of curriculum design, development, online management and delivery, and selection and use of instructional technology, some institutions are promoting a team approach to ensure the quality of online curriculum and instruction. In such cases, instructors are required to partner with librarians and instructional designers for participation in online education to ensure appropriate support

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(Aragon, 2003; Flowers, 2005; Hernandez et al., 2004). These emerging efforts underscore the need for faculty training and holistic support to help them make a successful shift to online teaching and learning and meet the needs of adult learners effectively (Cercone, 2008; Kim & Bonk, 2006).

eMerGInG trends And needs Based on the review of enrollment trends in online education and issues related to adult teaching and learning in the context of career and technical education, the following trends and needs are emerging. First, online education should continue to grow at the community college and university level as CTE programs respond to the demand for flexible teacher re-certification and professional development programs, and for advanced degrees including doctoral preparation (Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b; Johnson & Benson, 2003). At the community college level, online CTE education growth is expected to continue with primary focus on course offerings (Aragon, 2003; Johnson & Benson, 2003). In teacher preparation and graduate programs at the university level, similar growth should be expected to address the demand for alternative delivery systems At the graduate level, in particular, the growth may be in the conversion of existing programs catering to the increasing number of part-time professionals seeking to continue working full-time while pursuing advanced degrees (Blank & Hernandez, 2008; Flowers & Baltzer, 2006b). Second, as online CTE continues to grow, the issue of quality should become more critical as prospective students empowered by the online premise of “anytime-anywhere” learning become more discerning when choosing a program without regard to geographical location (Flowers, 2001, 2005). The relative advantage of pioneering programs should be leveraged as others join the market, unless program quality is ensured. Third, blended learning should continue to grow in popularity compared to fully online

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courses and programs. There appears to be a consistent trickle of evidence noting an increased preference for this format by both students and instructors (Allen et al., 2007; Aragon, 2003). In this context, the issue of faculty participation in online education and related supports will become more prominent given the complex demands embodied in related work compared to traditional teaching assignments (Flowers, 2005; Kim & Bonk, 2006). In turn, the need to rethink the value of participation in online education for tenure and promotion will be more openly discussed as a strategic measure to ensure the quality of future participation (Bower, 2001; Hernandez et al., 2004). Fourth, given the growth of online learning, understanding teaching and learning in online environments should become a top research priority in higher education, CTE included. Considering the narrow focus of current research, it will be imperative to explore the connections between adult learning developments in online CTE contexts from teaching and learning perspectives (Aragon, 2003; Hoare, 2006; Merriam, 2008; Reynolds, 1997). For example, what constructivist instructional strategies work best with adult learners in CTE and under what conditions? What approaches and technologies facilitate social networking and critical reflection? What are the long-term strategies and supports needed for successful participation in graduate programs? Are there interactions between certain groups of adult learners and particular types of online instructional strategies? These are but a hint of questions that need to be addressed as online education becomes more prominent in CTE in the future. Finally, the continuous evolution of instructional technology will demand closer study of discrete technologies used to facilitate online curriculum development, course management systems, and delivery issues. The use of technology

to facilitate social interactions, virtual meetings, and collaborative activities appropriate for adult learning and consistent with adult learning theory should also emerge as an important issue to be researched in online CTE in the future (Kim & Bonk, 2006; Partlow & Gibbs, 2003; Schmidt & Gallegos, 2001).

concLusIon Trends in online enrollments suggest a growing share of the education market at the postsecondary level. Similar trends have been reported in CTE in response to demands for alternative delivery formats and to maximize dwindling faculty capacity in the field. At the graduate level, CTE programs appear to be embracing online education, especially in teacher preparation programs and at the master’s degree level, while doctoral programs are more cautiously joining the online movement. As online education becomes more prominent in the field, issues related to quality, impact, and connections to adult learning principles have emerged. However, a review of research in CTE revealed that much of the contemporary focus is on institutional and faculty efforts to put courses and programs online. Thus, it is imperative that we bridge emerging developments in adult learning in the context of online teaching and learning in CTE contexts. Recent contributions to the literature on adult learning highlighted in this article provide a promising framework for informing online CTE. At the same time, they underscore the need to rethink online curriculum development, delivery systems, instruction, and use of instructional technology. Further, it is clear that online education is not a fad and will continue to grow in the future, perhaps in some form of blended modes, thus requiring a focus on teaching and learning in online contexts placing the needs of adult learners at the center of the research agenda.

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Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2008). Staying the course: Online education in the United States, 2008. Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium.

Bower, B. (2001). Distance education: Facing the faculty challenge. Journal of Distance Learning Administration, IV(II). Retrieved February 25, 2009, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ ojdla/summer42/bower42.html

Allen, I. E., Seaman, J., & Garrett, R. (2007). Blending in: The extent and promise of blended education in the United States. Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy of learning, teaching, and assessment: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.

Carnevale, D. (2005). Government’s request for data may delay Blackboard’s purchase

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This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 4, edited by E. M. W. Nq; N. Karacapilidis; M. S. Raisinghani, pp. 1-28, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.12

Collaborative Learning: Using Group Work Concepts for Online Teaching Lesley Cooper Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Sally Burford University of Canberra, Australia

AbstrAct This chapter examines the concept of collaborative learning and its theoretical and practical foundations. Collaborative learning takes place in a structured social situation where a group of students work as a team to assist each other with learning tasks. The instructional strategies encourage student to student interactions. Drawing on group work skills, collaborative learning has been demonstrated to be effective in a variety of learning situations. Development of a variety of Internet technologies such as communication tools, emails, discussion forums, video and audio tools together with webcasting allow collaborative teaching strategies to be used creatively in online learning. The authors

have trialed the use of various technologies in the human services and several case examples of online collaborative learning are provided. These case studies cover activities such as supervision and controversial issues in social work ethics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the future directions and the challenges this poses for traditional classroom teaching. 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... 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

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-735-5.ch003

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Collaborative Learning

IntroductIon Collaborative learning occurs when a group of students work as a team assisting each other with learning tasks. This form of learning began in classrooms and its effectiveness is that setting has been demonstrated. More recently, it is being used in the online environment. Education in social work and more generally in the human services requires an understanding of human relationships and a capacity to work successfully with other people. Collaborative learning, based on group work concepts is widely and successfully used in all social work education to enable student to student interaction to facilitate further learning. Some academics, however question whether online learning is a valuable framework for teaching the fundamental practice skills in the human services. The aim of this chapter is to explore the teaching of social work using the tools and technologies and the application of collaborative learning in an online environment. This chapter will encompass theoretical foundations, application of group work skills to teaching and ways in which collaborative learning is used for online learning. Case studies of collaborative online learning for tertiary social work students will be provided.

constructIvIsM: the theoretIcAL FoundAtIon Collaborative learning is based on the tradition of constructivist epistemology. Simply, constructivism means that we learn through a process of experiencing and then reflecting on those experiences, a process which is often and best done with others. Through this process we create a different understanding of the world. As we encounter new experiences, we use our past experiences to understand and make sense of new information thus making new connections which are then organized into new forms of knowledge

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With this new information, we can then discard knowledge that is no longer relevant. Many educators have contributed to our understanding of the importance of constructivism in learning including Vygotsky (1978), Rogoff (1990), Lave and Wenger (1991), and Schon (1983, 1987). According to Vygotsky (1978), higher mental functions are enhanced when the more experienced or capable work with the less experienced or capable in social situations. This is referred to as the zone of proximal development. In a similar way, Rogoff (1990) talked about the value of a cognitive apprenticeship in thinking and guided learning. The less experienced are guided by the more experienced in their thinking about complex problem solving. A parallel in human services is the responsibility taken by supervisors in the work place when they share their thinking about solving difficult cases with students and fellow workers. Lave and Wenger (1991) contributed to our understanding of learning by stressing the importance of context in the learning process. They referred to the concept of situated learning with Wenger (1998) elaborating the value of a community of practice (experienced workers) in the construction of new knowledge. They were particularly concerned with how workers developed their professional skills. In the area of professional teaching and learning, Schon (1983, 1987) also acknowledged the importance of social context. In our professional life, much learning whilst tacit does take place in a social context and through dialogue with others. We know though doing activities and we learn through a process of reflection on, and in action. The ramifications of constructivism are the importance of learning in a social context; the significance of more experienced others and peers in the learning process; and the value of real world issues as the focus for learning. In summary, constructivism has been extensively researched as an educational principle that is well accepted as an approach to facilitating learning in today’s educational institutions (Pap-

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ert, 1991; Boudourides 1999; Grabe and Grabe, 2001). This constructivist philosophy is particularly suited to social work education and has been widely used in the human services (Hanson and Sinclair, 2008).

deFInInG oF coLLAborAtIve LeArnInG Collaborative learning is not new. The Socratic Method, a process of questioning, inquiring and probing the views of others in a dialectical manner was an early form of collaborative learning used to explore ideas, positions and rational thinking. Dewey, a prominent educational philosopher writing in Experience and Education (1938) was critical of didactic, structured and traditional methods of education because they took little account of the human experience. He argued that learning should be part of everyday actions and everyday relationships. Within our community, many rural children who attended one teacher schools used collaborative processes for learning. Whilst the sole teacher worked with one small group of students other groups were given group activities as part of the classroom learning. The resurgence of collaborative learning emerged during the 1980s in the USA although Bruffee (1992, p.23) believed the idea was first developed in London together with movements towards democratization of education. In this chapter, we have chosen the term collaborative learning as we prefer this to cooperative learning. Whilst there is debate in the literature about the differences between these two types of learning (Barkley, Cross & Major 2005) both terms are often used interchangeably. Writers from both traditions draw on research from the other area. It appears that, in general, cooperative learning is regarded as learning that takes place in the classrooms of younger children whilst collaborative learning is more apparent in colleges and universities (Barkley, Cross & Major, 2005,

p.7). In our mind, with our focus on higher education and the human services this distinction is artificial and, we prefer the term collaborative to cooperative learning. Despite the preference for a particular term, we will draw on the cooperative learning literature given the similarities, parallels and overlaps between the two terminologies. Collaborative learning takes place in a structured social situation where a group of students work as a team to assist each other with learning tasks. The learning process is facilitated by a teacher using a range of instructional strategies derived from various theoretical perspectives. These instructional strategies encourage student to student interaction and allow the teacher to act as a guide for learning rather than as a sage who knows all answers. In these structured groups, learning becomes a process in which all participants collaborate to maximize their own learning and that of other students. When students work together, they create new knowledge by sharing ideas and experiences, evaluating ideas and concepts, and building or creating new ideas and ways of working from a professional area or discipline. Groups are able to achieve outcomes which an individual cannot achieve alone. Collaborative learning does not always occur in traditional academic classrooms which may be both competitive and individualistic. In a traditional university classroom, the mode of teaching is through transmission of information from teacher to students. The teacher conducts the lecture and requires that students complete assignments independently. This is what Paulo Friere (1993) called the banking approach. In this model, students are passive and have little social interaction with the teacher. Not every classroom uses this approach but it is widely used for large lectures. Johnson, Johnson and Smith (1991, p.3) compared the traditional teaching model with that of collaborative groups. Traditional teaching groups are characterized by a lack of interdependence and individual accountability, with homogeneous membership and one leader

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who is the teacher and direct specific classroom tasks. Traditional teaching groups ignore social skills and relationships, groups of students or group processing. In the collaborative classroom, there is positive interdependence between students but also individual accountability for group effort, deliberately encouraged heterogeneous membership and shared leadership between group members. The value of this to students is that individual strengths are valued and utilized and students can learn in a place where they feel safe. This is important for students who feel vulnerable in a more traditional classroom. The emphasis is on tasks to be completed but also on relationships between group members with learning of social skills and group processing being an important part of learning arrangements. The role of the teacher is to monitor and intervene in the groups as needed. The relevance of group learning is immediately apparent to the human service workplace. With funding changes, many workplaces have flat organizational structures so that teams are self managing taking responsibility for a range of functions. For many years, government and industry have argued that group skills and the capacity to work in teams are fundamental skills for employment. This collaboration is necessary in areas such as social planning and community work, case management involving arranging services with other agencies, multidisciplinary teams in health care, and management of project work and research for policy. Students who come to the human services workplaces with group work and group processing skills and individual accountability for the group tasks are valued workers. They are able to talk, listen, take their turns as leader, problem solve and reflect on their activities.

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evIdence oF eFFectIveness oF coLLAborAtIve LeArnInG Since these early beginnings, research into learning has shifted from a teacher centred transmission and acquisition model to one based on the co-construction of knowledge in a community of learners where learning is regarded as a social activity. In 2003, there were over 6000 references in ERIC to collaborative learning (Barkley, Cross & Major 2005). A great deal of research into the effectiveness of collaborative learning has been done by David Johnson and Roger Johnson at the Centre for Cooperative Learning at the University of Minnesota. The Cooperative Learning Center is a Research and Training Center focusing on how students should interact with each other as they learn and the skills needed to interact effectively. Research on collaborative learning is extensive and the findings demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy for learning. Johnson, Johnson and Smith (1991) summarized research that compared the effects of cooperative, competitive and individualistic efforts on instructional outcomes. On the basis of their meta-analysis, they concluded that collaboration helps students to learn and that collaborative learning enables more positive interpersonal relationships and higher self esteem. Johnson, Johnson and Stanne (2000) did a further meta-analysis on the effectiveness of methods of collaborative learning used in schools. They found 164 separate studies and eight methods for enabling collaboration. All methods for developing collaborative learning were effective but the most successful of these was learning together, this being followed by academic controversy. Slavin, (1990) using a different methodological approach, compared cooperative learning groups with controls. He concluded that achievements with cooperative groups were significantly positive. They are most effective when they incorporate group goals and individual accountability.

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coLLAborAtIve LeArnInG And GrouPworK sKILLs Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills (Johnson and Johnson 2009) is a standard text book for students in the group work and is written by one of the authors who pioneered collaborative learning. In their work, a group is regarded as a meeting where there is interpersonal interaction structured by roles, norms and stages of development, interdependence between participants, specific achievable goals, and more than two members. Group members are motivated to be part of that group to meet personal needs. These concepts form part of group work practice in human services, team work in organizations and teaching in higher education. Teachers in higher education have a choice about how they structure student learning. It can be individualistic where students work alone and strive for personal success or competitive situation where they battle against each other for good grades. The other possibility is to work collaboratively so students can achieve common goals (Johnson, Johnson, Holubec and Roy 1984). Given the practice orientation of social work education, this collaborative goal is preferred. Collaborative learning groups are based on fundamental group work concepts. These concepts have been developed by Johnson Johnson and Smith (1991) and include: • • • • •

positive interdependence face to face promotive interaction individual accountability social skills group processing

At the time these concepts were elaborated, the Internet was not widely used for teaching and face to face teaching was the norm. With the development of online learning face to face interactions in one physical location were not possible. With further development of the technology, webcasting

became available so that students can see each other when communicating synchronistically. Johnson et al expanded and qualified the concept of face to face interaction with that of “promotive interaction.” Accordingly group members provide each other with help and assistance and the exchange of resources within the group. Participants’ process information quickly, providing feedback to improve performance and challenge the conclusions reached by group members. Within the group advocacy for group goals will occur with all members influencing others to achieve these. Above all, the group will act in trustworthy ways (Johnson, Johnson and Smith, 1991, p.7). It is these characteristics which are essential in the design of online learning. Groups go through stages of development. In the 1960s, Tuckman outlined four group stages: forming, storming, norming and performing. Later he added adjourning (Smith, 2005). Although these stages are described in a linear manner, they are less clear cut in practice. In each of these stages, group members and leaders have particular tasks. This also applies to teachers running collaborative groups. Tuckman was writing about face to face interaction, but these stages also appear in online groups. In the forming stage, participants are inclined to behave independently, get to know others in the group and test relationships. At the outset, teachers must be clear about the learning tasks and instructions and provide clear directions. In the storming stage, the real work of the group has begun. Students begin to polarize around issues. Conflict is apparent and the group interactions are often emotionally laden. Some members often resist the group dynamics. In this stage, the teacher notices that everyone has a different idea of the task or some may evade the work. Clarity about tasks remains important. By the time norming is reached the group members have developed trust and are acquainted with the learning requirements. Students participate and take responsibility for the activities. New standards for working together

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Figure 1. Roles in the online learning environment

are likely to develop and new roles adopted. At this stage the teacher can stand back and watch carefully from the sidelines. The development of netiquette (see case study) is an important part of group formation and norming with netiquette standards assisting in managing difficult interactions. In the final stage the group works collaboratively with structural and procedural issue being resolved. The group makes the decisions. In any group, there is differentiation in the roles people play. In formal groups, some members have designated roles and assigned tasks. In other groups, individuals take on roles because of a particular interest or skills. Associated with the role are expectations that a person will behave in a particular way. For example a teacher and a student both have particular complementary roles and there are expectations of how both will behave. In learning groups, roles can develop informally or alternatively, roles can be assigned to group members. This has the advantage of creating positive interdependence and ensures that there are no “free riders” i.e. a situation where one person carries responsibility for the work. Some of the online roles are outlined in Figure 1. These group work concepts were used in the design of the case examples. A group facilitator keeps the group on task and time ensuring that all the work is complete. A recorder, acts like a secretary who keeps the records and prepare the material completed by the group. 168

A summarizer condenses the main points in a discussion and encapsulates it in a clear statement. An elaborator uses their understanding of theory and practice and makes links between these ideas. A researcher/ investigator finds any resource or library material necessary to complete the task; and A wildcard is the member who can slot into any of the above positions to enable the group to continue functioning (Millis and Cottell, 1998, p.53).

Internet technoLoGIes For coLLAborAtIve LeArnInG Internet technologies provide a global and accessible platform for knowledge creation and sharing as well as communication. Many of these technologies are generic communication tools such as email, weblogs, discussion forums and webcasts whilst others have been specially developed or customized for a particular collaborative learning activity. Some technologies to support online collaborative learning require a funded project approach. A team effort, significant funding, the support of technical expertise and project management are all essential components of these endeavors. Gay et al. (1999) describe a technology that has

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been specifically crafted for online collaborative learning. The CoNote system is a web based document annotation system in which a document becomes the object of discussion. The document is drafted by an individual student and the shared annotations of group members provide ongoing feedback and improvement of the work. In this learning tool, the individually owned document provides a relatively fixed reference for discussion and co-creation of knowledge as opposed to shared authoring tools. Naidu et al (2000) report on the development and application in the realm of political science of a collaborative role-play simulation technology using Internet protocols. A student assumes a particular role in the “world” that has a particular goal or mission associated with it. Learning takes place as the student acquires the skill and knowledge necessary to achieve their goal. Their scenario or simulated real life has all the complexity and richness of the real world. Web based conferencing takes place between the participants in the scenario. The simulation continues in the conference areas designated as news agencies such as BBC or CNN and students interact via different document types such as memos, draft articles and news, which vary depending on their roles. This impressive collaborative framework for learning immerses the student in a scenario where they must learn in consultation with others in their “world.” Students are at the centre of the learning process and the emphasis is on an interdependent collective. This rich and purposeful compilation of Internet technologies for collaborative learning is not the norm however. More often generic Internet technologies are involved in group learning and a learning strategy is built around them. Generic technologies such as email, discussion forums, chat rooms, weblogs, wikis, webcasting and podcasting systems are readily available to tertiary teachers and are often incorporated in online learning management systems - that may be either of a proprietary nature e.g. WebCT, Blackboard or open source systems e.g. Moodle or Sakai.

Email and discussion forums need no introduction to readers in the 21st century. These extensively used communication tools have the advantages of asynchronicity and provide a permanent record of “conversation.” A chat room provides the benefits and chat of synchronous communication and must be carefully incorporated into a learning environment to overcome the chaotic communication of too many textual “voices” at once. The discussion forum or bulletin board is the most widely adopted and successful Internet communication tool in collaborative learning to date. The literature provides a plethora of examples of collaborative learning strategies using the discussion forum (McLoughin 2000; Cooper 2001; Curtis & Lawson 2001; Treleaven 2003). Its success is based on openness and ease of use. Any number of discussion “spaces” can be created to cater for full class interaction or smaller group activities. The discussion forum does not require learners to participate at a particular time or place making it a very adaptable and flexible tool in the lives of learners and their teachers. Textual Internet technologies complemented by audio and video and learning are often enriched by varied forms of presentation. Webcasting technology enables audio or video files to be hosted and accessed by multiple Internet users. Streaming technology allows large amounts of data to be continuously downloaded whilst being viewed. Viewing the video or audio file begins before the whole multimedia file has been transmitted. Podcasting now provides the added benefit that audio/video files can be downloaded to an individual’s own media storage and playing device for future replay. The term Web 2.0 is used to describe significant and recent shifts in using the web. O’Reilly (2005) describes Web 2.0 as having an “architecture of participation.” Web 2.0 is based on social software where users generate content rather than simply consume it; in so doing they give spontaneous shape to the organisation of information. The web takes more of a peer-to-peer shape than its previous top-down, authorised presentation of information. 169

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A participatory mode of informing and communicating using the web has evolved – users not only read what is on the web but are also given a chance to be co-creators of web information. It might therefore be said that the focus of the web is changing, from an informing to a conversational platform. Some of the particular web-based tools that enable this to occur are blogs, wikis and social categorisation sites. We will now investigate these particular tools. Weblogs are a more recent online communication tool and are defined as much by the way the tool is used as by the technology itself. Weblog entries are characterised by natural and spontaneous voice, frequent updates and a lack of formality; entries are made in the web-based log in chronological order. Weblog technology is a simple browser-based authoring tool that removes any technical barrier to participation. A weblog is, traditionally, a “log” on the web – a diary-style site in which the author - a weblogger, or “blogger”- links to other web pages he/she finds interesting. It is traditional for old entries to fall to the bottom as newer ones are added. Comments on each weblog posting provide the collaborative aspect of this tool. A wiki is a web page/site that can be viewed and changed by visitors to the site using only their browser technology. ‘A wiki, from the Hawaiian term for “quick”, is an ongoing, ever-evolving, organised compilation of information’ (Lee 2006). A site maintains a history of all the changes made to it, and an older version can be restored if need be. The community of interest surrounding a wiki tends to keep the content of a site valid and respectable. Wikis differ from weblogs in that: • • •

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they have a collective rather than an individual voice they are structured by topic rather than chronologically changes to content take place organically – it is open to editing and evolution

•

there is an element trust in wiki use – while abuse is quite possible, the value and use of wikis is created by a watchful collective.

It is important to note that the use of wikis is different to traditional publishing, for example Wikipedia is a successful knowledge sharing phenomena but is not an authoritative traditional encyclopaedia and should not be viewed as such. The uses of wikis continue to emerge, but they clearly offer a collaborative potential and a new way of constructing and sharing knowledge repositories on the web. Social tagging (also called social bookmarking) sites have an initial role in the organisation of webbased information and resources for an individual – they provide a tool for personal management of resources and knowledge. Because of their emphasis on openness (users names are public and any user can view the information organisation of another) they are an excellent tool for sharing resources. Likeminded people or communities of interest will collect resources that can be easily accessed by others. With a significant number of users focusing on a sphere of interest, a pattern will emerge – a folksonomy. This becomes a means of discovering new information using the organisation systems of others whose interests are similar. Resources can be discovered by tags or by individuals. Key features of social tagging include the following: •

•

•

special web software/sites exist that enable a specific web resource, identified by its URL, to be tagged or labelled by the person who values it individual tagging of resources. The user of the resource assigns a keyword(s) to the resource in order to create categories of information. The users’ concepts and words are used rather than a formal, authorative vocabulary information is organised in a social

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•

environment; the outcomes are open and shared as the tagging of an object reaches a critical mass, common language and tags enable findability and sharing of resources.

The opportunities for using web 2.0 for collaborative learning are manifold and will be discussed later in the chapter. In this chapter, we used WebCT with its associated emails and discussion boards to design the collaborative learning examples that follow. Students used this platform to write about their practice, to do role plays of various kinds, to debate and defend ideas and to construct new understandings. With webcasting and the opportunity for students to work face to face, the examples in the section below can be expanded and learning deepened.

cAse exAMPLes The case examples that follow illustrate concepts of constructivism, collaborative learning principles and knowledge of online technology. These programs have been used in the education of social workers for practice in the human services.

netiquette Students in the human services practice and learn in groups. The ability to form and operate within a group context has become an essential skill in our “networked” world. Forming a group is never easy requiring effort, thought and clear communication from all members to be effective. In on line classes that entail online discussion, it is helpful to discuss netiquette, to provide parameters for social behavior in electronic communication. Students are asked to discuss in their groups ways in which they would like to be treated and to identify things they find intimidating or upsetting. Students’ views can be expressed on the bulletin board with the instructor responsible for collating

the information and using these guidelines as the basis for online communication. This exercise can be done online or in class.

online Group supervision with Assigned and rotating roles Supervision is an important learning strategy for students and workers in the human services. Supervision courses are generally part of graduate education programs and are provided to practitioners with professional experience who want to extend their theoretical understandings and practical experiences. There are two broad approaches to supervision. One is an individualistic approach where the supervisor and the student work in a dyad. The other is a group approach where students or peers work with a more experienced practitioner to provide the learning experience. These group approaches are most frequently based on collaborative relationships and use the expertise, strengths and capacities of group members to achieve learning outcomes. In the example that follows, the supervision course was taught as part of a MSW course called “social work practice education,” a topic for experienced students. It was a face to face intensive but the assessment was done as an online group supervision exercise over several following weeks. The aim of the course was to provide students with an opportunity to learn about group supervision with a focus on peer to peer collaboration and shared leadership and offering the opportunity to develop their personal practice theories of supervision. Many of these graduate students had already been supervisors using a dyadic approach. The technology used for this program was WebCT with the discussion forum and email being the main features utilized by students. Students were in small groups of no more than seven. Each student was asked to provide a small vignette of 50 words which could be discussed in an online environment. It was suggested that 171

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students use an example that a worker or beginning student may bring to a supervision session. One vignette was discussed every two weeks with the discussion being lead by the graduate student who had presented the vignette. Graduate students were asked not to bring material that was overly complex as the focus was on learning about collaborative supervisory skills. All material brought to class contained no identifying information to respect the privacy of clients or individuals within their example. Students were then assigned to roles that group members take in supervision, including coordinator/facilitator, presenter, integrator of theory and practice, critic, compromiser, summarizer, and wild card, On the discussion board, students were then asked to describe their allocated role, the characteristics of this role and examples of questions a person in this role might take. As students were rotating through various roles, the role descriptions were made available for the next students to see. In preparing this material, students were encouraged to use and make reference to group work literature. When a student completed discussing a practice example using a particular role, they provided their reflection on this role and added additional comments to assist the next student allocated that role. In this way, students reflected on their experience and developed practice theory about using particular roles developed. This provided the basis of formative assessment with the lecturer providing comments and questions.

Preparation for online Learning The importance of respectful relationships in the online environment was discussed in the intensive class prior to beginning the first online session with a set of agreed conventions developed by consensus. Whilst respectful relationships are always important in learning, they are more important when the focus is on supervision. Supervision is a process where professional competencies and performance are the focus of discussion. Students

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whose professional performance is the subject of discussions, are sensitive to the supervisory relationship and the way information is communicated. Students used the concepts discussed in face to face classes on the supervisory relationship to build agreed goals and specify desired and undesirable behaviors. When consensus was reached, this information was posted. Students also attended a preliminary face to face teaching session in a teaching laboratory to familiarize themselves with WebCT including use of the bulletin boards, online chats and emails. The lecturer wanted to ensure that no time was lost due to trial and error learning creating disruptions to the group processes. Students used this meeting to make their general online introductions to each other and establish working relationships. Although students occupied the same classroom when completing this task there was little face to face discussion.

outcomes There was no formal evaluation of this course although students did provide comments on their learning and the process. The lecturer also provided comments to students throughout the program. Students were very positive about their learning experience. As one vignette was discussed every two weeks, students found they needed to connect to WebCT and discuss the vignette on a day to day basis. During the course, one student was unable to access WebCT because of a computer virus which meant an absence of many days from the class. The failure of one member to participate in group activities had a big impact on group functioning particularly given the allocation of roles. Here the member holding the wild card could step in and take over the missing member’s role to ensure maintenance of cohesion. The most important role was that of coordinator. The importance of this role in maintaining group functioning was initially underestimated by both students and the lecturer. All students took

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a turn in this role. Throughout the functioning of the group, the skills of the coordinator improved with active learning from the prior experiences of students who proceeded them in this role. In the initial session, the student with the role of facilitator was reminded to take the initiative. Checking the web and being on time became an important student learning task. Although there was no formal evaluation, the lecturer was pleased with the learning experience. There was a high degree of trust between the students within the online environment and it is assumed that this developed in the intensive that preceded the online work. Students were provided with an opportunity to make the transition from the safety and security of the face to face environment to online work by having the first session in a computer laboratory. Anxieties were eased allowing students to focus on their tasks. The students participated in a collaborative learning group and demonstrated the features of positive interdependence, individual accountability, shared leadership, and responsibility for each other. Throughout the group supervision, students stayed on task and learnt the importance of social skills. If this course was to be repeated, the lecturer would have fewer vignettes with discussion taking place over several weeks. This would allow for more thoughtful conceptualization of roles, greater reflection on the process and the elaboration of practice theory for group supervision.

debates, students were expected to take account of their responsibility to clients, their employing agency, self and profession. Students in groups of six to ten were allocated a controversial issue on social work ethics for discussion. They were required to research their allocated topic using on-line electronic library resources and in 500 words post a commentary to the bulletin board. The first bulletin board had particular requirements. Students were required to:

controversial Issues

3.

The aim of this course was to introduce students to the ethics and values underpinning professional practice and to enable students to reflect on the way in which their personal beliefs and values constrain and influence practice decisions. Collaborative learning was achieved through an online assessment where students discussed controversial ethical issues. These controversial issues were written as “ought statements” that indicated how social workers should behave in their professional practice. In reflecting on these

4.

•

• •

•

Justify the controversial issue as stated (even if they disagreed with the statement - many so doing) Examine practice implications of the controversial issue Identify a claimant (or stakeholder) and then determine what the person would want you, as a professional, to do about that issue and Specify the social worker’s professional obligations to that person. The discussion topics included whether:

1.

2.

5. 6.

Clients who express racist attitudes about other people in counseling sessions should be challenged by social workers. Social workers should report all ethical infringements by colleagues to their professional ethics committee. Touching clients should always be avoided in social work practice Sexual intimacies with current and former clients should be prohibited. Religious issues should not be discussed in work with clients Social workers should not disclose identifying information when discussing clients with supervisors unless the client has consented to the disclosure of confidential information or there is a compelling need for such disclosure.

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As part of this process students were asked to use collaborative concepts and complete several activities:Research the allocated topic using reading material and electronic journals Post the commentary to the discussion group and give your posting a title. In this commentary include: 1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

A justification of the ought statement Examination of the practice implications of the ought statements Identification of one claimant in the ought statement (e.g. client, agency, supervisor, professional association, family member) Determination of what that claimant would prefer you to do in this situation Your professional obligations to that claimant.

After reading the original comments posted by other students in your group, provide at least two questions, and comments on, and responses to student postings presented on the bulletin board. Take into account the netiquette exercise and ways to assist other students. Reflect on the online discussion including the comments of your peers and submit your written paper. Students were required to justify the “ought statement” irrespective of their personal or professional views. This was very difficult for some students as they did not agree with either a part or the whole of the statement. It was here that the collaborative efforts of all students with their questions, responses and postings enabled co-learners to see the statement from different viewpoints. In a class prior to the online discussions, students were given a series of questions to challenge themselves and support others as part of assistance with the learning task. For example, when thinking about the “ought statement,” students could question whether the “ought statement” applied to every practice situation as a matter of principle

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or only to particular groups. They were asked to think of any exceptions to their statement and consider occasions when the statement would be always justified or never justified. Finally, students were asked if and how the statement might be qualified. As students had diverse experiences prior to attending university and during their placement experiences, they were able to see these statements in a variety of different contexts and use this to explore the validity of the contention. Students used these diverse experiences to talk about stakeholders and claimants thus adding to the richness of the learning. The final part of this process was a reflection paper. In this first posting students were asked to justify a stated position. In this reflection paper students were able to outline their personal position on the paper including where and how they developed these views. They were asked if and how their views had changed over the course of the assignment and whether other students challenged and changed their views. It was in and through this process that the benefits of students working together on the one task became evident. The perspective of each student and their representation of different stakeholders enabled perspective taking and the differentiation of the views of others (Johnson, Johnson, Holubec and Roy 1984). Students clearly indicated that they started the discussion with uncompromising attitudes toward the topic but through the process of reading and responding to the views of other students, their views changed significantly. These changed views were more sophisticated and noted exceptions and qualifications to the statement. The benefits of the online learning examining controversial issues came through student feedback (Cooper 2001).

Collaborative Learning

the Future The impact of the Internet on our working lives is significant and we must develop competencies in the use of the online environment for communication, knowledge sharing and teamwork. The 21st century also brings the challenge of continual learning and workplace change. Providing tertiary human services students the experience of learning collaboratively using communication technologies is preparing them for a lifetime in a workplace where ability to learn, adaptation to change and effective participation in global communication technologies are a critical set of skills. An ability to learn throughout life is now of greater benefit than any body of domain knowledge that we may possess at any one time. Changes in careers and the nature of work are now commonplace throughout a person’s life. It is increasingly likely that people will work longer and in a variety of guises than at any time in the past. Some of the most desirable skills in the workplace are interpersonal. The ability to communicate and maintain productive relationships with colleagues and to work in teams and across communities is central to an effective learning organization. Imbuing students with the ability to learn in collaborative situations is central to lifelong learning. We work and live in a society that increasingly demands an ability to learn, communicate and relate to others in an online environment. This requires an ability to find and synthesize digital information, integrate it into decision making processes and to effectively connect and work with people within and across organizational boundaries. Teamwork in virtual communities using online tools is a valued skill. The Internet is ubiquitous and competencies and discernment in using it effectively are essential. Collaborative learning online has, to date, been largely enabled by the communication tools that are encompassed in enterprise learning management systems (LMS). Educational institutions invest significantly in these online course systems

and individual teachers have been restricted in their choice of online communication tool to those that are offered within the LMS. Over the last fifteen years, LMS technology has provided a platform for significant innovation in teaching online, especially in the use of the discussion forum. But being sizeable and tightly integrated “whole of organization” systems, LMS lack the agility to quickly integrate the new and innovative tools of the Internet. The increasing uptake, availability and prominence of Web 2.0 technologies is now offering collaborative learning new tools with great promise. There is a new agility, open access and choice in the lightweight suite of tools of Web 2.0. Many Web 2.0 technologies are freeware and are easy to establish and use. With increasing frequency, a collaborative learning exercise takes place outside the enterprise systems of the educational institution and utilizes the Web 2.0 tools of the open web. We have trialed the use of wikis for knowledge building and sharing class activities with Masters’ students studying in fully online mode. Students were required to collectively build a repository of knowledge in a specific knowledge domain by co-authoring the web pages of a wiki. All students had full access to shape the content and structure of the web space – they were required for assessment purposes to write a reflective article on their experience of this social media and to identify any problems or prejudices that this activity presented to them. Social tagging activities have also been explored by the authors where the class selected and tagged web resources in a particular domain. The class resources were “aggregated” by predetermining one tag for all members of the class. We predict that the future of collaborative learning in an online environment will be rich in the use of the agile tools of Web 2.0. With the introduction of new technologies, there will be increasing use of participatory pedagogical approaches. Fountain (2005) points out that as Web 2.0 tools such as wikis are used for

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collaborative learning activities in universities; they will in turn unsettle and challenge traditional pedagogical practices and norms. Wikis are spaces of shared, unfinished and unacknowledged authorship and ‘are based on a principle of non-exclusive authority’ (Fountain, 2005). Contrast this to the traditional power structures around knowledge and strongly owned authorship that is found in universities. The future will reveal the interplay of these issues.

concLusIon Collaborative online learning is a successful strategy for teaching social work. It draws on constructivist learning principles and findings from educational researchers at the Centre for Cooperative Learning at the University of Minnesota. These researchers found that collaborative learning provides an effective learning and teaching strategies that can be used is many different educational environments. Collaborative learning draws on group work principles especially concepts of group formation, stages of group development, and communication within groups. This form of learning is particularly beneficial for social work education in the online environment. The introduction of web based technologies has allowed this effective educational strategy to be used in the online environment with effective results. This chapter provides examples of how collaborative learning has been used in social work education at the undergraduate and graduate level. With the introduction of newer technologies, it is expected that participatory strategies will increase and unsettle the traditional teaching practices in professional education.

reFerences Arbaugh, J. (2000). Virtual classroom characteristics and student satisfaction with Internet-based MBA courses. Journal of Management Education, 24(1), 32–54. doi:10.1177/105256290002400104 Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2005). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Brahler, J., Peterson, N., & Johnson, E. (1999). Developing online learning materials for higher education: An overview of current issues. Educational Technology and Society, 2(2), 1–8. Brook, C., & Oliver, R. (2003). Online learning communities: Investigating a design framework. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 19(2), 139–160. Bruffee, K. A. (1992). Collaborative learning and the “Conversation of Mankind.” In A. S. Goodsell, M. R. Maher, & V. Tinto (Eds.), Collaborative learning: A sourcebook for higher education. University Park, PA: National Centre on Postsecondary Teaching. Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., & Webb, C. (2000). Towards a communicative model of collaborative Web-mediated learning. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 16(1), 73–85. Clark, J. (2000). Collaboration tools in online learning environments. Asynchronous Learning Networks Magazine, 4(1). Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.aln.org/publications/ magazine/v4n1/clark.asp Cooper, L. (2001). Teaching controversial issues on-line. New Technology in the Human Services, 13(3-4), 11–21. Curtis, D., & Lawson, M. (2001). Exploring collaborative online learning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(1), 22–34.

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Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier. Fountain, R. (2005). Wiki pedagogy. Dossiers pratiques, profetic. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.profetic.org/dossiers/dossier_ imprimer.php3?id_rubrique=110 Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gay, G., Sturgill, A., & Martin, W. (1999). Document-centered peer collaborations: An exploration of the educational uses of networked communication technologies. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4(3). Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol4/issue3/ gay.html Goldenberg, J. (1999). Virtual learning communities: A student’s perspective. Journal of Instruction Delivery Systems, 13(2), 16–20. Grabe, M., & Grabe, C. (Eds.). (2001). Integrating technology for meaningful learning (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Hanson, J. M., & Sinclair, K. E. (2008). Social constructivist teaching methods in Australian universities - reported uptake and perceived learning effects: A survey of lecturers. Higher Education Research & Development, 27(3), 169–186. doi:10.1080/07294360802183754 Hiltz, S. R. (1994). The virtual classroom: Learning without limits via computer networks. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, F. P. (2009). Joining together: Group theory and group skills. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. J., & Stanne, M. B. (2000). Cooperative learning methods: A metaanalysis. Retrieved October 13, 2008 from http:// www.co-operation.org/pages/cl-methods.html

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., Holubec, E., & Roy, P. (1984). Circles of learning: Cooperation in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., Holubec, E. D., & Roy, P. (1984). Circles of learning: Cooperation in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4). Washington, DC: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Active learning: Cooperation in the classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company. Johnson, R., & Johnson, D. (1994). An overview of cooperative learning. In J. Thousand, A. Villa, & A. Nevin (Eds.), Creativity and collaborative learning: A practical guide to empowering students and teachers (pp. 31-43). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lee, E. (2005). The wonderful world of Wikis. Contra Costa Times. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/ summary_0286-31685346_ITM McLoughlin, C., & Luca, J. (2000). Cognitive engagement and higher order thinking through computer conferencing: We know why but do we know how? In A. Herrmann & M. M. Kulski (Eds.), Flexible futures in tertiary teaching, Proceedings of the 9th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, Perth, Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://lsn.curtin. edu.au/tlf/tlf2000/mcloughlin.html

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O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228 Panitz, T. (1997). Collaborative versus cooperative learning – a comparison of the two concepts which will help us understand the underlying nature of interactive learning. Cooperative Learning and College Teaching, 8(2), 5–14. Papert, S., & Harel, I. (1991). Constructionism. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Resnick, M. (1996). Distributed constructionism. In D. Edelson & E. A. Domeshek (Eds.), ICLS ‘96: Proceedings of the 1996 international conference on learning sciences (pp. 280-284). Evanston, IL: International Society of the Learning Sciences. Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York: Oxford University Press.

Smith, M. K. (2005). Bruce W. Tuckman - forming, storming, norming and performing in groups. The encyclopaedia of informal education. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.infed.org/ thinkers/tuckman.htm Treleaven, L. (2003). Evaluating a communicative model for Web mediated collaborative learning and design. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 19(1), 100–117. Turoff, M. (1999). An end to student segregation: No more separation between distance learning and regular courses. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/canadapresent/ segregation.htm Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

This work was previously published in Information Communication Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery: Concepts and Cases, edited by J. Martin; L. Hawkins, pp. 37-52, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.13

Dispatches from the Graduate Classroom:

Bringing Theory and Practice to E-Learning F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren Des Moines University, USA Ann M. York Des Moines University, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

This chapter is a practical overview of both the theoretical, evidence-based research in pedagogy and the anecdotal, experience-based practices of faculty who work daily in online and blended learning communities. This approach combines best practices with theoretical aspects of delivering and facilitating education with diverse adult learners. Issues and trends in E-learning are presented with specific examples for implementation and suggestions for future research. Using an evidence-based approach, the authors will explore and summarize recent research with a concurrent analysis of the anecdotal popular literature. The authors explore the concept of information literacy and other skills necessary to succeed in the Web 2.0 world. Their discussion takes us away from the traditional “sage on stage” versus “guide on side” dichotomy towards both a new understanding of Web 2.0’s role in education as well as a preface to what may become Web 3.0 and beyond.

This chapter is intended to lay a foundation for Elearning and Web 2.0 for readers from a wide range of experiences. It will provide both a theoretical overview of evidence-based research in pedagogy, and experience-based practices of faculty who work in online and blended learning communities. It is important to blend both theory and practice to fully appreciate the power, influence, and potential of Web 2.0. Experienced educators may gain a fresh appreciation of how familiar theories may apply in an E-learning environment. New educators may gain insight and ideas on how to implement E-learning in an effective way. Whether experienced or novice, one thing is certain: we are all pioneers in on the digital path of E-learning. As pioneers on this trail, we are beginning to leave a traditional classroom setting where lectures dominate, and move toward an educational environment where technology-enhanced instruction is becoming the norm. In this new environment, learning may take place completely online in a synchronous or asynchronous format. Or, it may take place in a combination of face-to-face and

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-788-1.ch021

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Dispatches from the Graduate Classroom

online learning, commonly known as blended learning. Even in courses where lecture is still the primary mode of delivery, technology is playing an increasing prominent role. When faced with the broad landscape of E-learning technology, many educators may feel unprepared, and perhaps even a bit lost. The term “pioneer” often conjures up images of American pioneers pushing across the Great Plains to reach the promise of a new life in the West. Like them, today’s E-learning pioneers are balancing the known with the unknown; balancing the tried and proven with the tried but not yet proven. And, like a pioneer exploring new territory, today’s E-learning pioneers are seeking landmarks or milestones by which to gauge progress. In this chapter, there are several landmarks to guide the way: • • •

Landmark One: How Does Educational Theory Apply to E-learning? Landmark Two: Technology: Web 2.0 and Beyond? Landmark Three: Practical Implementation: Issues, Controversies, Strategies and Tactics

While these landmarks cover a lot of territory, here is a caveat: there is simply no way to capture the full panaoramic view. In fact, at the current rate of change, by the time this book is published, new tools will have emerged and early adopters may be charting Web 3.0. Educators will constantly need to be adding new landmarks and charting experiences as discoveries are made. To assist in navigation, for the purpose of this chapter, the phrase E-learning means education delivered entirely online. The phrase blended learning means online tools mixed with classroom or other face-to-face learning experiences. Web 2.0 refers to the increased online collaboration and interaction made possible by tools such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites. With this in mind, the chapter objectives are to:

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1.

2.

3.

Understand key theoretical concepts for blended and E-learning applied to adult learners. Analyze current research and anecdotal evidence on blended and E-learning strategies. Evaluate and create best practices in blended and E-learning using Web 2.0 tools.

The focus of this chapter is on higher education, although much of the material also applies to K-12. The emphasis is on adult learners as they are increasingly turning to online education for earning degrees, updating knowledge, and the sheer pleasure of life-long learning. This population of adult learners is highly diverse, spanning not only generations, but continents and cultures. This diversity brings tremendous richness to the learning experience, and significant challenges to the educator. Combine this student diversity with new models of delivery, the everincreasing choices of technology, expectations for 24/7 access, and the pressure to demonstrate learning outcomes, and the result is a changing landscape that can easily overwhelm educators and administrators. While it is daunting to keep up with the pace of change, immobility is not an option. To help clear the path forward, this chapter is designed to stimulate careful reflection of not only the “how” but the “why” of using Web 2.0 tools. Ultimately, the goal is to facilitate bringing Web 2.0 to Learning 2.0 and beyond.

bAcKGround Landmark one: how does educational theory Apply to e-learning? Analyzing Web 2.0 tools within a theoretical context can assist educators to understand the efficacy of their use and to guide future research. Many of these Web 2.0 digital tools can be viewed as a

Dispatches from the Graduate Classroom

serious E-learning utility; others as a fun novelty shared between friends. However, it is easy to blur the lines between novelty and utility. The outcome might result in the development of a brilliant Elearning application; other times it can result in failure. Second Life®, an Internet-based virtual world, is a good example of a tool that has been both an educational success and a failure, depending on the application (Beguja, 2007). While there is research evidence to support the educational use of some Web 2.0 tools, other tools are too new or have not yet been subjected to research, so have only anecdotal support. In this section, the discussion of Web 2.0 tools opens by touching briefly on some of the key concepts in educational discourse. Some are theories; others are concepts or terms that are often used in E-learning/blended learning environments. This is not intended to be a definitive review on this subject, but rather to provide a way to view Web 2.0 through a pedagogical lens. Pedagogy typically refers to the type or style of instructional method a teacher employs. Originally stemming from the Greek for child, in recent years the term pedagogy has often been expanded to include all levels of instruction. Essentially, pedagogy tends to be more teacher-focused, and looks at the art and science of instruction. In 1950, Malcolm Knowles introduced the concept that instruction of adults was unique and coined the term andragogy. He proposed that adults were more self-directed and, therefore, required more learner-focused educational activities. As anyone who has taught adults can attest, not every adult is self-directed. An adult-learner’s self-directed abilities may be situational, or based on prior experience in a specific area. Another way to view this pedagogy/andragogy dichotomy is not in an age-related way, but rather to look at education on a continuum from teacher-centered to learner-centered. Depending on the topic and the experience of the student, the teacher can make a decision where along the

continuum to present the material. For example, a teacher can design a course to move from being teacher-centered (lectures, didactic materials) at the beginning to more learner-centered (individual and collaborative projects) as the course progresses and the topic builds in complexity. A related topic is the dichotomy of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants.” Prensky (2001) posited that younger learners think and use technology differently than older learners. Prensky defined digital natives as “Today’s students – K through college,” and digital immigrants as “the rest of us.” This distinction is open to debate and, while often used as convenient nomenclature, it appears to lack a significant body of evidence to support it (Bennett, Matron & Kervin, 2008). Many of the differences between the two groups that Prensky described in 2001 seem to have disappeared as many digital immigrants have adopted a digital lifestyle and become very adept at using new media. Also, it has become apparent that many of the digital natives, while heavy users of digital media, are not adept at using it for learning or work. In other words, heavy use does not equal uniform competence. Furthermore, many of the descriptors attributed to digital natives are similar to traits attributed to adult learners by Knowles (1950). He began with four traits and later added a fifth trait to learning styles as a person matures: self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and motivation to learn (Knowles, Holton & Swanson, 2005). The idea that digital natives (younger learners) may share traits with digital immigrants (older learners) creates a riddle for the E-learning pioneer to solve. The solution may be to avoid distinct lines along generations, and to look more closely at the skill sets needed to be successful with Web 2.0 learning. Regardless of the label or the generation, it is the opportunity for active learning that makes many of the Web 2.0 tools attractive to both the learner and the faculty member.

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Learning Theories and Their Relationship to Web 2.0 The concept of active learning is at the heart of the theory of constructivism. While there are many variations of this theory, constructivism is fundamentally based on the principle that students construct knowledge individually rather than receiving it passively from others; they learn best when engaged in active learning rather than being “spoon-fed” the information. Learning occurs by engaging in authentic, relevant tasks, hands-on learning, exploration and critical thinking rather than memorizing and reciting facts (Fosnot, 2005). The foundation of constructivism is grounded in the work of Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and others. An example of constructivism in a blended or E-learning classroom would be students who engage in constructing knowledge through realistic, problem-based learning scenarios, gradually scaffolding their knowledge by taking on more complex scenarios. Social constructivism goes a step further to view each student as capable of constructing his or her own version of knowledge based on their unique background, culture, experience, and worldview. While the instructor should take into account each person’s unique background (cultural competency), the responsibility for learning increasingly falls upon the learner. Tactics such as reflection, problem-based learning, group projects, and peer-reviews support constructivism. While widely viewed as fundamental to online teaching and learning, constructivism has critics. Lack of evidence, lack of effectiveness with novice learners who have not yet developed a strong foundation of mental models, groupthink, and busy work without true learning are cited as weaknesses (Mayer, 2004; Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006). Another prominent theory to emerge in recent years is connectivism, which espouses that that learning can occur through networks of people

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sharing pieces of information to create integrated knowledge (Siemens, 2004). In connectivism, learning is not completely under the control of the individual. Rather, knowledge is created and acquired in a rapidly changing network of people. Connections between ideas and the ability to continually acquire new information are vital. As we have moved from information scarcity to information abundance, knowledge management and information flow is essential, from the individual to the network, then back again. In connectivism, this process of flow may be even more important than the content itself. From this perspective, the new technology tools of Web 2.0 have enhanced the ability to network, so the Internet leverages the small efforts of many with the large efforts of few (Brown, 2000). Incorporating elements of both constructivism and connectivism is the model of Community of Inquiry (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). At the core of this theory are three interconnected elements: cognitive presence (the ability of participants to construct meaning through sustained communication), social presence (the ability of learners to connect on a meaningful level with other learners and teachers), and teaching presence (the creation and facilitation of cognitive and social processes that lead to meaningful educational outcomes). This approach is more holistic and attempts to capture not only the content, but also the context in which we learn and work in today’s world. Therefore, learning is dynamic, ongoing, and dependent on internal cognitive processes as well context and social interaction, whether face-to-face or online. This approach to education brings up a very important concept: learning how to learn is as important as the learning the content matter itself. As the shelf life of knowledge decreases, and the flow of information from multiple sources increases, concepts such as metacognition and life-long learning become essential.

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Overarching Concepts in Pedagogy Metacognition is considered to be the awareness of one’s own cognitive processes. In essence, it allows a student to metaphorically step outside of her own brain and take an objective view of her thought processes; to think about thinking. An educator can stimulate metacognition in students by guiding them to engage in reflective processes, asking questions like: “What do I already know about this topic? How can I best approach this? What is my best learning style? Where do I struggle?” Some Web 2.0 tools can be used to facilitate metacognitive processes individually (e.g., blogs, mindmaps) or as groups (e.g., discussion boards, wikis, peer reviews). There is an iterative cycle to metacognition; a plan, do, study, act cycle by which learners can bootstrap themselves along the path of lifelong learning (Worral & Bell, 2007). The metacognitive process is a key element of self-directed learners (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000), and plays a role in the development of information literacy. These topics have potential for further theoretical development, and more implementation strategies are suggested in the application section, Landmark Three. While the focus of Web 2.0 is on collaboration, every group is still made up of individuals, each with his or her own unique learning style and educational goals. Hence, some educators and psychologists have postulated that a student’s learning style has an impact on E-learning or classroom success. A number of tools exist to provide a summary of a student’s learning style such as Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI), the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI), Kiersey Temperament Sorter. These tools provide the learner with some insight into how others with similar preferences achieve positive outcomes from learning situations. An area of opportunity in educational research is to examine these learning styles within the context of Web 2.0 tools. For example, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter®-II (KTS®-II) divides learners into four tempera-

ments: Artisans™, Guardians™, Rationals™ and Idealists™ and then further assigns each of those into four subgroups. The 16 total groups mirror the MBTI® type, but look more closely at implications for learning. For example, Keirsey-defined Guardians represent a plurality of the American population, and one of the traits of this group is the desire for belonging and working within a group setting. Previous to Web 2.0 social networking tools, computer-assisted instruction was primarily a solo activity. Web 2.0 opens a new realm of connectivity and, therefore, potential for new research. For example, today’s teens use social network sites as their primary communication, rather than e-mail (Lenhart, Madden, Macgill & Smith, 2007). As these teens move into higher education, E-learning has the potential to become less of a solo experience and more of a social experience, bringing new study opportunities to education researchers who wish to reach out to all kinds of learners. Current research in brain science about how people learn (Jenson, 2000; Sousa, 2006) can be incorporated into pedagogy, and will impact our educational theories. Perhaps the most popular of the recent books is Brain Rules (Medina, 2008). Summarizing peer-reviewed research in brain research, Medina has distilled the evidence into twelve rules of how the brain works, many of which are applicable to the E-learning/blended educator. Four are summarized here, and the others can be easily accessed in the book and related website. One finding is that vision is the dominant sense, but it is still important to stimulate all the senses. To the educator, this means to use not only more pictures, but consider other visual clues to guiding learning and content. Graphic design may include subtle or bold colors, organic or geometric shapes, and other visual clues to help establish context and organize content. Text designed for the printed page (traditionally vertical or portrait in orientation) should be laid out differently when designed for the screen (traditionally horizontal or

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landscape in orientation). With the increasing use of digital devices such as the iPhone and Kindle, (Amazon’s wireless reading device), more human interface research will lead to best practices for visual presentation. Other research summarized in Brain Rules debunks the idea that multi-tasking during learning is good, while confirming our suspicion that boring content is bad. Educators can address these issues by grouping information into smaller chunks presented in a compelling manner to keep students interested and focused (Ruhl, Hughes, & Schloss, 1987). Furthermore, every brain is wired differently (see learning styles above), but we tend to see things in patterns, and memory is reinforced with repetition. Educators can facilitate student learning by helping them to “connect the dots,” and to build repetition into concept scaffolding. Finally, Medina (2007) reports good news for lifelong learners. Brains are malleable enough to develop new connections as long as people are willing to exercise curiosity. Many of these concepts certainly ring true and mesh with our anecdotal experiences, but it is immensely satisfying to have supportive evidence. Just as health care is increasingly embracing evidence-based medicine, we in education must be open to new ideas, new research, new tools, and especially new evidence. Before moving onto the next Landmark, stop for a moment to reflect on this brief overview of educational theory and research. What philosophy of education do you bring to your classes? What approach would you like to know more about? What is your personal learning style? What metacognitive tools do you use during/after your classes to incorporate new learning into your pedagogy? What aspect of brain research can you integrate into your current teaching repertoire?

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Landmark two: technology: web 2.0 and beyond To discuss technology and Web 2.0, it is both ironic and befitting to quote Wikipedia® on the topic: ”Web 2.0 is a term which describes the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term became notable after the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004” (2008). The nature of websites like Wikipeida is both collaborative and mercurial. It is likely that by the time this book reaches the bookshelf, the above definition may have been revised numerous times. Grasping the full array of technological tools of Web 2.0 is much like assembling a list of supplies for the great trip West taken by early pioneers. The challenge with so many ever-changing choices is to decide where to begin and what is essential? What is the best way to prepare for the uncertain path ahead? To study the application of Web 2.0 to education is also to study of the diffusion of innovation. Rogers’ (2003) seminal work in this area illustrated that adoption of a new technology typically progresses through the stages of awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. The process begins slowly as early adopters focus on the technology, followed by rapid adoption as the majority get on board, then levels off as the laggards who took a “wait and see” approach slowly adapt. Attend any educational technology conference and it will be clear that Web 2.0 and technology

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innovation is not being adopted at the same rate across campuses, and this is to be expected. No matter if one has just begun learning the basic set up of an online discussion board, and another has launched a series of podcasts supplemented by RSS feeds, updated via Twitter, all aggregated within a Pageflakes page; all of us are on the same path to discover the connection between Web 2.0 and Learning 2.0. As a beginning, once an educator has a fundamental understanding of what some of the tools do, it is easy to see the counterparts in a traditional pedagogy. A written assignment is, more or less, the same whether it is handed in, written in a blue exam book, posted to a discussion board, or e-mailed. Likewise, a learning circle or face-toface discussion group is similar in both outcome and participation to a threaded discussion board, or a real time chat. However, to understand the potential beyond these similarities is to harness the true potential of Web 2.0 tools. What drives the success of the Web 2.0 tools is that not only do they bridge distance and time; they rely on collaboration for the tool to work at all. A social network site does not have any of its core usability without the social network. As a contrast, a traditional Web page functions as it is intended, whether one person or one million read it. But without the connections inherent in Web 2.0 tools, the tools do not work. To illustrate this concept, consider a colleague who was an early pioneer in web media and online journalism. Despite his online experience that dates back to the early 1990’s, he didn’t join Facebook until recently. When he finally created a profile in the popular social networking site, he sent a puzzled e-mail saying, “What’s the big deal? You post your profile and photo, your friend posts their profile and photo. Then what?” Within a few days, however, he had several hundred “friends”, as his colleagues who were already on Facebook discovered his new profile. His point is well taken, however. Without the social network, what is the big deal?

To understand and use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom is to understand that educators are creating a space that they do not control (although they may guide) and the learning space is one that will grow, evolve, and develop. This lack of control can be threatening to some educators who are more comfortable with a traditional command and control lecture situation. However, transferring a lecture to the small flat screen does not typically work well--not only is it flat, it is boring (see Brain Rules above). This is where putting some thought into who, what, where, and why can help the educator to design the best way to present content in an online or blended format. Furthermore, as the volume of curricular content has grown, it is simply not possible to personally experience or actively learn all necessary knowledge. Hence, decisions must be made about what to include and what to leave out. In a popular YouTube video presentation “Did You Know?” viewers read, “The amount of technical information is doubling every two years By 2010, it’s predicted to double . . . every 72 hours” (Fisch & McLeod, 2007). While the specific rate of information growth may be open to debate, the fact remains that we are increasingly overloaded with new information, and we are increasingly accessing it through the Internet and social networks rather by individual students sitting in a library carrel or in a lecture hall. In step with the growth of information is the growth of information creators. The Pew Internet and American Life Project identified that 64 percent of teenagers ages 12 - 17 engage in “at least one type of content creation” (Lenhart, Madden, Macgill & Smith, 2007). As more Internet users shift from being strictly information consumers to information creators, learners need strategies in information literacy and information management. Web 2.0 tools both contribute to information overload, and offer options for information filtering and management. To illustrate these information literacy challenges, the “Did you know” video provides a

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good example. The creators of the video (Fisch & McLeod, 2007) note that they represented the overall trend in information growth in the video while acknowledging that they used some sources that were not “hard” or “scholarly.” Nevertheless, the video reached “viral” status which means it was downloaded and shared widely. This exemplifies a paradox for the legitimacy of non-traditional resources. On the one hand, the lack of “hard” or “scholarly” sources does leave the data suspect in the terms of traditional peer review. However, after being seen by 5 million online viewers, the data has become a virtual “fact” in conversations among educators and Web 2.0 enthusiasts, repeated in promotional materials for recent conferences and other speakers. This example creates opportunity for educators not only to teach the process of peer review, but also, to teach the debate about what is information literacy in these new times. Another related concept is the half-life of information. This is a borrowed phrase from nuclear physics and was used initially in the late 1950’s to describe literature obsolesce. The concept was based on the idea that just as materials decay in quantity, so too, literature decays in its value. The study of information decay has often been linked to the frequency of literature citations. A reference may be cited 100 times a year, then 90, then 80 and so on. The challenge with this concept is that unlike a direct measurement, the usefulness of literature also has a context. For example, a map drawn 10 years ago may have little utility today as new streets have been built and housing developments arise. It may, on the other hand, have high utility in the future for historians. These concepts of information doubling and information half-life are often linked, but are not always directly related. There is a note of caution and intrigue that accompanies these discussions of Web 2.0 tools, and to get to it requires another short side journey. Bowling Alone (Putnam, 2000) brought the discussion of social capital to the national best-seller list. Its subtitle, “The Collapse and Revival of Ameri-

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can Community,” implies that we have dissolved many of the units that created and fostered social capital in the United States. The title stems from the fact that the number of Americans who bowl is growing, but the number who bowl in leagues is diminishing. In one chapter on education, Putnam shares the impact of social capital on educations and learners, “In other words, at Harvard as well as Harlem, social connectedness boosts educational attainment” (Putnam, 2000). The irony of this statement, written prior to the development of most Web 2.0 tools, is that these new Web 2.0 tools are intrinsically driven by social capital. The currency of a social network is the number of friends in your network. However, the current debate of both K-12 and higher education administrations is whether or not to ban the use of these tools in the classroom (Simon, 2008). This is one of the controversies and decisions that will impact what educators will adopt for use in the classroom. Before moving on to the final landmark, this is a good time for the reader to pause and reflect on what place Web 2.0 tools have in education. What tools are you currently using? Where are you on the technology adoption curve? Should social network sites such as Second Life and Facebook be used in the classroom? Do you have any restrictions, either due to technology availability or administrative access, in your educational institution? How are you managing information overload/half-life issues? What are the next steps you can take to learn about Web 2.0 tools for educational use?

Landmark three: Practical Implementation: Issues, controversies, strategies and tactics On this final leg of the journey, the focus is on anecdotal, experienced-based implementation Web 2.0 in the classroom. The approach is necessary, as many of the concepts, tools, and usages

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are too new to be fully supported by evidencetested theory. This does not limit their potential or efficacy, but does leave room for missteps, discovery, and innovation. One of the first things to consider within blended and E-learning is that there is an abundance of duplicative tools in the space called Web 2.0. The inherent challenge is to avoid the dreaded “cute kitten syndrome.” Just like many of us cannot resist something as fun, attractive, entertaining as a cute kitten, many of the Web 2.0 tools are equally fun, attractive and entertaining. However, just as a cute kitten can’t take the place of a work animal on a pioneer trail, new web tools must be carefully evaluated. There are multiple tools for doing many of the same things in Web 2.0. An original blog post, which has since been copied and modified, is the “50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story” (Levine, 2007). This wiki identifies 50 different Web 2.0 tools that can be used to build a slide show with recorded audio. The 50 tools produce essentially the same outcome, and while Levine’s wikispace does not evaluate or rate the tools, it is reasonable to assume there are a few cute kittens in the collection. There is an appeal to using each cute new tool, but successful practitioners need to find an effective way to evaluate prospective tools, or run the risk of trying so many tools and accomplishing nothing within the new Web 2.0 space. By the time a new pioneer Twitters, e-mails, and updates Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn®, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Flickr each day, there is no time left for non-Web 2.0 based work or play. A second consideration in the implementation of Web 2.0 in education may also be one of the factors slowing the adoption of Web 2.0. Educators teaching traditional courses may fear the move to blended learning because they suspect students won’t come to class anymore if much of the content is online. The question instructors should ask: are they (the instructor or the learners) adding value to the class by being together face-to-face? If they

are just reading PowerPoints, there is probably little value generated by face time. If faculty are truly engaging students, and learners are engaging each other, then yes, they will come. Colleagues who have successfully adopted Web 2.0 in blended learning have shared some untested but intriguing suggestions for encouraging participation in both in class and online. For example, if a lecture is being taped as an MP3, the professor can use a few minutes before the recording is turned on to tell related stories or share case studies, then turn off the recording before the question and answer session at the end of class. Students will miss valuable information and social capital unless they come to class. To encourage use of online materials, some instructors incorporate a post-lecture podcast discussion of key points with faculty and students. They may also upload supplemental materials that address some of the more challenging aspects covered in lecture. Others have successfully incorporate short quizzes over online material into face-to-face lectures, or vice-versa. Alternatively, another question to ask is do students really need to come to class anymore? Perhaps as solely an academic discussion, what if the physical classroom was inaccessible due to damage, infrastructure failure, or pandemic ? Can learning take place without the classroom? The promise of Web 2.0 is that, yes, it is possible. By critically examining the course objectives, employing Web 2.0 tools as primary or adjunct media may make the course more engaging for both learner and faculty. Once the decision to teach online/blended courses is made, choosing the right tool to match the content can be challenging, especially for those new to digital media. As discussed earlier, students who are successful in learning, especially with online learning, have developed the ability to be self-directed. Grow (1991) developed a simple four-stage model of self-directed learning that can be easily adapted to Web 2.0 tools which may

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be helpful to instructors in developing courses and student abilities. First, consider course level and the student body, then, see what stage is the best fit.

Stage 1: Dependent Learners Students have little prior knowledge or experience in the topic area, and may lack motivation or self-confidence to tackle material independently. These learners will need explicit instructions and timelines, smaller steps, more frequent feedback, and limited choices. This falls into the classic “sage on the stage” mold. In E-learning, this translates to a didactic approach with text, slides, recorded lectures, and multiple-choice quizzes more typical of Web 1.0. Educators are still trying to “sell” students on the course; so giving a lot of feedback individually and to the group may help. This is more a “supply-push” style of education, with the teacher doing the pushing (Brown and Adler, 2008).

Stage 2: Interested Learners Students have little knowledge or previous experience in the topic, but are open to the instructor’s motivational tactics to engage them in active learning. The goal is gradually to move from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. At this level, the instructor is transitioning to the “guide on the side,” guiding discussions and assisting learners to set their own goals. Online, this may involve adding moderated discussion boards, assigning short research/ writing assignments, and introducing students to problem-based learning and collaborative work with small-scale projects. Podcasts/videocasts of guest speakers connecting content to the “real world” may be motivating and engage students into the subject matter.

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Stage 3: Involved Learners Students whose knowledge and skill level is such that they feel confident and can navigate the learning process. These learners have moved beyond the novice level, and have built a foundation of both content knowledge and metacognitive strategies. The instructor becomes a “facilitator” and is much more collaborative in the learning partnership. Group projects, virtual teams, and in-depth discussions work well here. Students can become peer-reviewers, discussion moderators, and collaborate on wikis.

Stage 4: Self-directed Learners Students at this level can take responsibility for their own learning, and collaboration can be quite in depth. The instructor can set up the learning tools, then step aside and let the students take over, learning independently and from each other. The instructor serves more as a consultant or “catalyst” to the learning process. Learning contracts, wikis, independent and team projects all work well here. This becomes more a “demand-pull” (Brown and Adler, 2008) type of learning, with the student driving the demand. Notice that learning strategies at this stage are generally more work and require higher-order thinking for both student and instructor. Keeping a mental model of this four-stage process provides a fairly simple structure, yet offers faculty the appreciation for the power and impact of Web 2.0 tools. In general, stages 1-2 are more appropriate for beginner level coursework, while stages 3-4 would be appropriate for intermediate to advanced level courses. Furthermore, a course could be designed to move through stages, starting at the lower level and progressing to more selfdirection as the course proceeds. The challenge comes when there is a wide mix of self-directed

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learning levels in a class, as often happens. As a result, educators may need to flex or adapt their style to meet individual student needs. This is a challenge for even the most experienced educator, but Web 2.0 can be a true asset if the right tool is used in the right way to benefit both learner and faculty. Another well-known approach to structuring learning is Bloom’s taxonomy. This elegant approach has been updated (Anderson, 2006) and its strength is the structure it provides to the educator for writing educational objectives to address increasing higher-level cognitive process. In turn, it can lead to the development of assessment tools that align with the learning activity. If combined with the four stages of self-directed learning cited (Grow, 1991), it can provide a quick and useful grid for educators. Place the cognitive process of Bloom’s taxonomy across the top of a chart (Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create) and the stages of self-directed learning down the left side (Dependent, Interested, Involved, Self-directed) to create a grid that can be filled in with objectives and appropriate activities as described above (Cruz, 2003). This will allow any faculty to create a “snapshot” of the learning tools for each class. This can also guide the educator to see what gaps exist that might be filled with the right Web 2.0 tool. Another challenge faced by educators as a result of the expansion of Web 2.0 technology is the importance of promoting good digital citizenship. One specific ethical issue that often troubles faculty is plagiarism. In our digital point-and-click, copy-and-paste culture, it is increasingly easy for both students (and faculty) to use material developed by others without proper attribution. Oftentimes this is unintentional; sometimes it is intentional. Conversations with colleagues reveal that many students are genuinely not aware of the extent and impact of plagiarism. For example, just switching around a few words does not absolve the writer from proper citation. There are many reasons why students plagiarize (Park, 2003). In

addition to a lack of understanding, students often lack critical thinking and information management skills. Educators are turning to technology to catch plagiarism, such as using Turnitin® software, or searching chunks of text on Google, but prevention of plagiarism can only occur by addressing information literacy both in and out of the classroom. One of the challenges of digital citizenship within the rapidly changing Web 2.0 landscape is the understanding of intellectual property laws, rules, and practices. Concurrently, two new ideas of intellectual property rights have emerged: Open Source and Creative Commons. Open Source is “a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.” (Open Source Initiative, n.d.). Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. Content creators can use CC to change copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”” (Creative Commons, n.d). Learners and faculty alike, especially those not studying law or intellectual property, find the subtleties and distinctions between these constructs and traditional copyright confusing. Further complicating the issue is wide spread abuse of intellectual property rules and wide spread misunderstandings of what is and is not infringement. This is a continuing process of learning by all parties involved, but proceeding with good faith and reasonable caution will still allow faculty and students to reap the rich rewards of Web 2.0. This is also part of the larger concept of information literacy. Information literacy is defined as a set of abilities requiring individuals to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed informa-

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tion” (ACRL, 2000). In the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education the ACRL (2000) stated an information literate individual should be able to: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Determine the extent of the information needed Access needed information effectively and efficiently Evaluate information and its sources critically Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base. Uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally.

These literacy standards become increasingly important as we have moved from an era of relative information scarcity where scouring stacks and journals was necessary to uncover facts, to an era of information abundance. In other words, now the focus is not on finding information but filtering, appraising and applying it. In fact, due to the abundance of information, literacy is important even before the search step begins. Since so much information is now available online, students with limited library experience lack mental models about how the information is created or stored. As suggested by Swanson (2004), “Before we train students to use search tools, before we send them to books, periodicals, or websites, we need to teach them about information. What is it? How is it created? Where is it stored?” To do this, the E-learning educator could partner with librarians to weave concepts of increasingly higher literacy into courses. Rather than librarians being an information gatekeeper, in this new model, they take on a more active role as information managers. Instead of operating primarily in lower level “how-to” mode, librar-

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ians could transition to a guide, facilitator and catalyst as student literacy skills improve. This initiative would require a broader and deeper use of librarians across curricula and courses, rather than having their involvement limited to just one class/tutorial. This opportunity is a paradigm shift for many, but as one librarian observes, this opportunity would be welcome. “We can’t provide information literacy in a “microwave ready” format. It takes time, it takes a village to integrate new media literacy into our teaching.” (Hines, 2008).

Future reseArch dIrectIons The evolution of Web 2.0 and its use in education suggests a trend in E-learning tools that began with Web 1.0 and will likely carry us into Web 3.0. Web 1.0 launched the idea of a Web site or home page as a traditional publishing model. It was essentially, the “teacher’s space” to provide content to learners. While there were feedback mechanisms (e-mail forms, discussion and comment areas), these were limited and crude in comparison to what we use today. Web 2.0 has evolved from the “teacher’s space” to “my space”. MySpace® is a social networking site, and its name suggests the essence of Web 2.0 technologies. Rather than content and context strictly defined by the publisher (teacher), Web 2.0 tools allow the individual to arrange, contextualize, limit, augment, and refine the content in a manner that suits them. This is not only the option of the teacher-publisher, but also the option of the learner. It is these collaborative possibilities that educators seek to leverage into better learning environments. If there is to be a Web 3.0, and current developments in social operating systems suggest this may be the next landmark we see, it may come to be known as “Our Space.” Our space will be a Web learning environment that is shared by all learning partners in the classroom (classroom is a

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figurative term here). What may evolve is a new education Web space as a metaphoric one-room schoolhouse—but one the spans the globe. This new environment may include learning situations where, at times, many are working together. At other times, there might one-on-one tutelage, or small groups working at a variety of competence and grade levels using a variety of technological advances we have not yet discovered. As new digital landscape emerges, here are questions that educators can ask themselves to sort through the many tools and opportunities that will arise.

does a tool have Merit? will it stick? Not every tool is appropriate for every class. Also consider the cost (proprietary or open-source) and tech support availability. If it’s not practical, it’s a deal breaker.

Is My Level of Involvement Appropriate for the Level of the course?

gives learners different methods of expression, and gives all learners a variety of experiences. To have a single assignment that includes emailing an attachment, submitting a blog, twittering a note, and editing a Wiki creates confusion and disengagement on the part of the student.

have I created a social Presence? Beyond your level of involvement as an educator, does it also create a sense of social presence to benefit the learner? Does the Web 2.0 tool offer a chance to share who you are as a whole person with the learners? This is not to say your entire biography, nor does it imply significant detail about your non-professional life. Rather, the nature of many of these tools provides options for you to put more depth of your personality in front of the learner. This may inspire and motivate the students, as well as model professional behavior.

do My tools take Into consideration what we Know About brain-based Learning?

Explore how the technology works and what role you have its use or application. Does it meet the needs of teaching presence in the class? Does it match the students’ level of self-direction?

Have you used a variety of media, employing adequate visual stimulation and decreasing the blocks of text? Have you chunked the work into manageable blocks with adequate feedback points based on the student’s level of self-direction?

do I have a combination of tools to hit a variety of Learning styles?

how do I Assess Learning Going beyond a Multiple-choice exam?

Web 2.0 tools afford a multitude of ways students can demonstrate their understanding of course material and their personal engagement with the subject matter. To that end, the faculty may offer the learner the options of submitting traditional papers, contributing to a personal or group blog, or a class-based Wiki. However, options should add choice to benefit the student, and not create confusion. To have one assignment include a wiki, and a second assignment include a blog,

Are you using authentic assessments versus teaching to the test? As the acquisition of knowledge has become more subjective and dynamic as opposed to objective and static, the challenge is to parse the origin and quality of information. If we could banish one phrase from higher education, it would be: “Will this be on the test?” The tools you choose should give you additional opportunities for assessment of learning, albeit in non-traditional ways. Relating each tool to a learning objective,

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and then basing objectives on taxonomy, provides a focused learner evaluative opportunity.

concLusIon In the end, the focus should not be on tools but on the use and context of tools (Jenkins, 2006). Technology doesn’t fail because of technology, but because of the culture. There will always be early adopter, laggards, and those that are curious but want to wait and see. That is understandable. As pioneers, we truly don’t know what lies ahead. We can be prepared and do our best but there might be disasters as well as successful discoveries. Those who chose to be pioneers will need to forge ahead. A final discussion about the diffusion of innovation returns us to the idea of pioneering E-learning in the classroom. Rogers defined the stages of adoption as the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards (Rogers, 2003). We’ve chosen the idea of pioneers, which parallels Roger’s innovators and early adopters, rather than other terms like settlers, colonists or nomads. As a pioneer, there is an element of risk, even within the current state of the art. At one time, software products like WordStar, VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase were standards, as were online services such as CompuServe, GEnie and The Source. To have exclusively focused on any one of these tools could have resulted in the end of E-learning with the end of the product life. Wikipedia and Second Life, for example, have their critics and while successful in terms of our view today, there is no certain way to predict what these services will look like in 2010, or 2020, or beyond. The settlers, the equivalent of the early majority, usually move in and develop the area once the pioneers have determined the best initial practices and routes for success. Colonists, similar to the late majority, often bring with them the kind of structure, rules, and protocol that limits

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the free spirited risk taking of the pioneer spirit. Pioneers then often seek out new uncharted ways and tools to expand, grow and develop knowledge and learning.

reFerences Anderson, L. W. (2006). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman. Association of College and Research Libraries. (2000). Information literacy competency standards for higher education. Chicago: ACRL. Bennett, S., Matron, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The “digital natives” debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39, 775–786. doi:10.1111/j.14678535.2007.00793.x Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Brown, J. S. (2000). Growing Up Digital: How the web changes work, education, and the ways people learn. Change, Growing Up Digital, March/ April, 10-20. Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43, 16–32. Bugeja, M. J. (2007, September). Second thoughts about second life. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved February 1, 2009, from http:// chronicle.com/article/Second-Thoughts-AboutSecon/46636/. Creative Commons (n.d.). Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://creativecommons.org/.

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Cruz, E. (2003). Bloom’s revised taxonomy. In B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology. Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/bloomrev/start. htm Fisch, K., & McLeod, S. (2007). Did you know? Retrieved August 30, 2008, from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/Sources Fosnot, C. T. (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 87–105. doi:10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00016-6 Grow, G. (1991). Teaching Learners to be SelfDirected. Originally published in Adult Education Quarterly. Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http:// www.longleaf.net/ggrow Hines, R. (2008, August). The screen in flat: Reinventing libraries for information literacy. Symposium conducted at the annual Multimedia Educational Resource and Learning Tools (MERLOT) conference in Minneapolis, MN. Open Source Initiative, (n.d.). Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://www.opensource.org/ Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Jensen, E. P. (2000). Brain-based learning: The new science of teaching and training (Rev. ed.). San Diego: The Brain Store. Kirschner, P., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75–86. doi:10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1

Knowles, M. S. (1950). Informal Adult Education: A guide for administrators, lenders, and teachers. New York: Association Press. Knowles, M. S., Holton, E., & Swanson, R. A. (2005). The Adult Learner: The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Macgill, A., & Smith, A. (2007). Pew Internet: Teens and Social Media. Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://www. pewinternet.org/PPF/r/230/report_display.asp Levine, A. (2007). 50 Web 2.0 ways to tell a story. Retrieved August 24, 2008, from http://cogdogroo. wikispaces.com/StoryTools Mayer, R. (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? The case for guided methods of instruction. The American Psychologist, 59, 14–19. doi:10.1037/0003066X.59.1.14 Medina, J. (2008). Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Seattle, WA: Pear Press. Park, C. (2003). In Other (People’s) Words: plagiarism by university students--literature and lessons. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 28, 471–488. doi:10.1080/02602930301677 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Horizon, 9(5). Putnam, R. D. (2001). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press. Ruhl, K., Hughes, C., & Schloss, P. (1987). Using the pause procedure to enhance lecture recall. Teacher Education and Special Education, 10, 14–18.

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Siemens, G. (2004, December 12). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. elearnspace. Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://www. elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm Simon, M. (2008, August). Online student-teacher friendships can be tricky. CNN.com. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.cnn.com/2008/ TECH/08/12/studentsteachers.online/ Sousa, D. A. (2006). How the brain learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Swanson, T. (2004). A radical step: Implementing a critical information literacy model. Portal (Baltimore, Md.), 4, 259–273. Web 2.0. (2008). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:15, August 30, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_2 .0&oldid=269135746 Worrall, L., & Bell, F. (2007). Metacognition and lifelong E-learning: a contextual and cyclical process. E-learning, 4, 161–171. doi:10.2304/ elea.2007.4.2.161

Key terMs And deFInItIons: Andragogy: The label of an instructional method, coined by Knowles, that is designed to meet the learning style and motivations of adult, self-directed learners Blended learning: A learning format that includes elements of both E-learning with faceto-face learning.

Blooms taxonomy: Cognitive objectives developed by Bloom in 1956 include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. A similar spectrum includes remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create Community of Inquiry: A learning theory consisting of three interconnected elements: cognitive presence social presence, and teaching presence Connectivism: A learning theory that proposes that that learning occurs through networks of people sharing pieces of information to create integrated knowledge. Constructivism: A learning theory based on the principle that students construct knowledge individually rather than receiving it passively from others Digital citizenship: An adaptation of traditional ethics and citizenship rules and conforms to work within the context of online work and Web 2.0 tools. Half-life (of information): A concept borrowed from nuclear physics that implies the length of time information is useful. Information literacy: A set of abilities requiring individuals to know when information is needed and then have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use the appropriate information Metacognition: The awareness of one’s own cognitive processes. Pedagogy: Refers to the type or style of instructional method a teacher employs

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in E-Learning: Issues and Trends, edited by H. Yang; S. Yuen, pp. 351-366, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Classroom-in-a-Box:

Rethinking Learning Community Classroom Environment Needs within Three-Dimensional Virtual Learning Environments Caroline M. Crawford University of Houston – Clear Lake, USA Virginia Dickenson eLumenata, USA Marion S. Smith Texas Southern University, USA

AbstrAct This discussion focuses upon a theoretical understanding of the instructional architecture that supports learning communities within three-dimensional virtual world environments; specifically, within the Second Life world environment. This theoretical understanding provides the essential link between instructional imperatives, performance improvement and a community of learning within an instructional technology framework. Motivated by the shift from the Information Age known for the availability of information towards the Cognitive Age which emphasizes the ability to access, evaluate, organize, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize and innovatively represent information into an enhanced understanding and novel use, this DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch003

discussion offers the opportunity to directly address the learner’s needs within the three-dimensional virtual learning environment, such as Second Life, through the design of a virtual learning environment classroom-in-a-box.

IntroductIon The publication of The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds (Association of Virtual Worlds, 2008a, 2008b) suggests that virtual worlds are a growing phenomenon. Another indication of this trend is the use of Second Life by several businesses as a viable environment through which to interview technology-minded professionals (Athavaley, 2007). It is not a significant leap to expect the three-dimensional virtual world environment to become a more viable instructional environment that

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may further engage learners. As quoted by Martin and Crawford (2008), “Universities have also been testing the three-dimensional virtual learning environments as potentially successful learning communities that directly address the concerns related to the silo effect” (p. 546). Further indication of the acceptance of virtual worlds in education is The Activeworlds.com, Incorporated, description of their product The Active Worlds Educational Universe, which states, “The Educational Universe is an entire Active Worlds Universe dedicated to exploring the educational applications of the Active Worlds Technology” (The Activeworlds. com, Incorporated, 2008, paragraph 1). Distance education and online learning has grown and shifted over the previous fifteen years. It is only recently that researchers and developers have focused upon instructional potentials related to three-dimensional virtual learning environments. In this environment the active engagement of the learner may offer significant potential towards the success of learning communities. Before the introduction of three-dimensional learning environments, the primary course environment was textual in nature, with opportunities for the integration of supportive audio, video and interactive multimedia components for exhibition. Shifting from this text-based environment to a primarily virtual environment that more closely reflects the opportunities inherent within a more traditional community learning environment offers the learners the opportunity for a more autonomous, dynamic community of learning. Therefore, the engagement of the learner within a three-dimensional virtual learning environment, such as Second Life (Linden Research, Inc., 2008c), is imperative. This engagement occurs through the design of a virtual learning environment classroom that the instructor can easily manipulate so as to meet the instructional needs of the learners. The design of a three-dimensional virtual learning environment classroom that supports the needs of the learners while emphasizing the instructor’s focus upon

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learning objectives is difficult, at best. Thus, the ability to design and develop a manageable, transportable environment that offers the instructor an opportunity to designate different surroundings “on the fly” through the push of a button so as to meet the necessary instructional needs is a priority. The concept of a transportable learning environment architecture that can be obtained as a boxed product, opened within the previously designated building environment and then effortlessly set up by incorporating appropriate instructional elements is a timely and necessary product. This classroom-in-a-box articulation offers the instructor the ability to easily shift between different instructional tasks, such as classroom lecture, group work, research and study area, faculty office hours, casual discussions and advising. Further, the classroom-in-a-box allows for a more appropriate articulation of the different underlying philosophies of learning that most appropriately meet the subject matter’s learning objectives.

bAcKGround To appropriately perceive the significance of a three-dimensional virtual environment classroomin-a-box product, it is integral to discuss the shift from primarily textual information with bits and pieces of multimedia sparkle for exhibition towards a more autonomous, dynamic community of learning. The opportunity to directly address the learner’s needs is integral towards the enhancement of learning environments. Embracing the structural architecture within the three-dimensional virtual world environments supports the Web 2.0 phenomenon that engages the learners within social engagement opportunities. Further, the natural progression towards designing appropriate and successful holistic virtual classroom-focused instructional environments is related to learning communities that enhance and structurally arrange the available knowledge

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into comprehensible, conceptual frameworks of understanding (Vygotsky, 1935, 1962, 1978, 1981; Wertsch, 1985). As well, semiotic components are now growing in significance within learning environment communities due to the significant influence on long-overlooked underlying messages and conceptual knowledge that is transmitted through communicative technologies (Chomsky, 2004; Cook, 1985; Cobley, Jansz, 2003; Gannon-Cook & Crawford, 2006; Hamilton, 1969; McLuhan, 1964 a, b; McLuhan & Fiore, 1967; Rothstein, 1995; Schlain, 1998). As society shifted from the Information Age to the Cognitive Age (Brooks, 1999; Pink, 2005) the design of learning environments changed from a focus upon knowledge availability for the masses towards the realized importance of the aptitude and talent associated with the ability to access, evaluate, organize, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate (Bloom, 1984; Bloom, Englhart, Furst, Hill & Krathwohl, 1956) the knowledge, as well as the ability of the learner to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, as quoted by Churches, 2008, paragraph 3) information that is understood and innovatively reorganized and represented so as to enhance the understanding of the information in novel ways. This is imperative within the three-dimensional virtual learning environment has not yet been realized. Herein is cultivated the concept of a classroomin-a-box. The idea behind a classroom-in-a-box is the ability of the instructor to set up a classroom environment that meets instructional needs. As an example, if the authors developed a textbook for course use, and the authors sought to teach the course in a virtual environment, the authors could purchase the already developed classroom with all the slideshows, movies, unit information, whiteboard, podcasts, and other elements already integrated. Essentially, the classroom-in-a-box is a prefabricated environment that can be set up and work anywhere within a virtual world. The

classroom-in-a-box may be made available as a shell environment or may include the subject information for a course. The concept of a two room environment is the classroom-in-a-box architectural setup. The first room is available as a consistent interface through which the learners access the course information; rather like a course-specific library environment. The second room has the ability to shift its setup, to meet the appropriate instructional needs, such as a lecture hall, small group tables, lounge area, faulty office, or other instructional environments determined by the course instructor. Additionally, the course instructor can decide to allow password access to instructional assistants, or even have the possibility of allowing the learners to shift the room’s setup. When discussing any virtual world, one is dealing with a “grid” – a series of virtual environments and the server or servers that make up the virtual environment(s). The richer and more interactive the 3-D virtual environment, the more likely it is that the grid is going to require an entire server or multiple servers. Grids may be hosted at a specific location or locations, and tied together. Such is the case with Second Life and Active Worlds. It is also possible that a grid may be an independent, stand-alone environment, that is not tied to other environments. Second Life is an massive example of a hosted grid. More than 6000 servers make up the entire grid, and Linden Labs, Inc. owns and controls all servers. Some virtual environments may be isolated in some regard, however, all of the Second Life environments are hosted and administered to by Linden Labs, Inc. It would be possible to have a virtual environment or series of virtual environments that reside on a server or series of servers that are kept in a proprietary environment, strictly for the use of the institution. This would be considered an un-hosted solution, or rather, the solution is hosted internally. In this case, the institution would own, control, and administer the virtual environment(s).

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It is important to keep in mind, in the exploration of the classroom-in-a-box concept as an application within Second Life, there is a larger scope classroom-in-a-box concept as separate from any “hosted” grid such as Second Life. In this regard, the classroom-in-a-box could be an internally hosted virtual grid, or even a USB drive with a grid, as the virtual world technology is driven forward. For instance, in the not-to-distantfuture, a 3rd grader may take home a universal serial bus (USB) drive, a “plug and play” drive, that contains an entire virtual environment that allows him or her to learn about space travel by having an avatar or virtual personal representation build a rocket ship and travel around the Milky Way galaxy.

shift in theoretical and Philosophical Frameworks of Learning An understanding of learning has changed as the culture has shifted its focus, or emphasis, as the centuries have passed. As a society, we are familiar with primarily four ages which had not only dawned, but indeed have flowed over society and changed the social community forever: • • • •

Agrarian Age Industrial Age Information Age Conceptual Age (Pink, 2005)

Initially, the agricultural focus of the culture was based upon sustainability of the race, many times referred to as the Agrarian Age. The need for social understanding, storytelling skills that would pass down the important lessons and histories of the culture, and the sharing of skill sets was vital towards the communal good of the society. However, a shift occurred when larger industries brought together numerous people who needed to be able to focus upon their specific task that would fulfill a portion of a larger project.

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The Industrial Age consisted of both the written and unwritten curriculum; the written curriculum was based upon reading, writing, arithmetic and some history, while the unwritten curriculum was based upon the need for Industrial Age workers to follow orders, focus for periods of time upon a specific skill or task, understand the needs related to scheduling, and similar related skills. Yet when the Information Age dawned in the late 20th Century, there was the realization that knowledge should be freely available to everyone and the tool through which this would occur was named the Internet or the World Wide Web. The Information Age degraded the prior power structure, wherein controlling information was power, and fostered discussions related to the digital divide. An interesting aspect of the Information Age is that there is a perceived heightened velocity and momentum associated with the societal issues. Pink (2005) suggested that the appropriate next age would be the Conceptual Age in which the power would shift to those within our society who were able to gather and reframe the information into useful knowledge. In light of the shifts in society and its impact on learning, there is a shift in the World Wide Web. Recently, there has been a discussion of “Web 2.0” which is characterized by web-based communities and hosted services that include social-networking sites, wikis and blogs designed to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. “Web 2.0” is a term that helps support and frame an understanding of what is going on today. We may ask, what will be the next age, but more so, how will the elusive and ethereal World Wide Web continue to impact social learning communities?

underLyInG PhILosoPhy oF LeArnInG The design of a learning environment is influenced by the human experience within it. It is suggested

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by Neil (2005) that Dewey “believed that learning was active and schooling unnecessarily long and restrictive. His idea was that children came to school to do things and live in a community which gave them real, guided experiences which fostered their capacity to contribute to society” (paragraph 1, http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ JohnDeweyPhilosophyEducation.html). Further, Neil (2005) states that: Dewey’s theory is that experience arises from the interaction of two principles -- continuity and interaction. Continuity is that each experience a person has will influence his/her future, for better or for worse. Interaction refers to the situational influence on one’s experience. In other words, one’s present experience is a function of the interaction between one’s past experiences and the present situation. For example, my experience of a lesson, will depend on how the teacher arranges and facilitates the lesson, as well my past experience of similar lessons and teachers. (Neill, 2005, paragraph 8) From this delineation of Dewey’s work, the next step is to reflect upon the underlying philosophy of learning that organizes and establishes not only the instructional design process, but also an understanding and realization that the instructor’s underlying philosophy of learning will directly impact the learning environment. It does occur on a regular basis that the lead instructional designer and course instructor are one in the same person, but many times the instructional designer may be different than the course instructor. As a result, the potential for conflicting of learning philosophies between the designer and the instructor may occur. There is the potential that the instructor will experience impediments or limitations associated with the implementation of a distance learning environment designed by persons with different underlying philosophies of learning and understanding. There is the potential for future research associated with this focus, as well as opportunities for professional development. However, to support and engage

the learner in the distance learning environment, a consideration towards the learner’s hierarchy of needs is appropriate. According to Wikipedia (2008a), an MMO or MMOG is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, which is simply “a video game that is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously” (paragraph 1). MMOs are, by their nature, played over the Internet. While “MUVE (plural MUVEs) refers to online, multi-user virtual environments, sometimes called virtual worlds (Wikipedia, 2008b, paragraph 1). Typically, a MUVE refers to an environment that is “not necessarily game-specific” (Wikipedia, 2008b, paragraph 1). Often, these terms are used interchangeably. It is every bit as critical to consider learner motivation in the 3-dimensional virtual world, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) learning environment with regard to learning and virtual life. There are phenomena that occur within the virtual world, particularly in a social networking environment, that can affect motivation for which an instructor or instructional designer may not be prepared. The virtual world allows for a freedom that is often unavailable in the real world. For instance, in many MMOs, learner avatars can fly, teleport (instantly move from one area to another, regardless of distance or location), shape shift, change minor appearances at will, create objects that are impossible to create in real life. Additionally, if the learner is allowed to personalize the avatar, the avatar becomes an expression of the learner’s personality. Consider another factor – if the leaner’s real life is not optimum for a variety of reasons that exist on Maslow’s hierarchy, the learner may actually prefer to spend time in the virtual environment, where he or she can be anything or anyone they desire. This may begin to affect the learning in a variety of ways – including the potential for incidental, unintended learning. This may manifest in the learner acquiring skills outside of the original goals and objectives set by the instructional designer.

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Incidental learning presents many opportunities. Instructional designers within a technology driven environment are able to examine the common unintended learning outcomes and capture those outcomes with deliberation, forming them into secondary learning outcomes instead of incidental outcomes. This can result in driving the learning objectives into higher levels of learning. Another aspect of a learner finding higher motivation levels within the MMO can be an escalation of dysfunctional behavior. As the learner disconnects from their real life, avoiding the undesirable or uncontrollable areas of the real world, it seems to potentially retard the ability to grow and cope within that environment of reality. The very behaviors that may be contributing to the real life issues become exaggerated in the MMO, as the learner never has to develop coping behaviors, and may even avoid negative consequences due to anonymity. This retardation of growth does not have to be an outcome; the MMO can create an environment for learning coping skills, if the acquisition of those skills is made deliberate through learning objectives and the learner is capable of acquiring said skills. It is important to consider the inherent learner characteristics as well. For instance, a particular type of person seems to be drawn to the MMO environment. While there is a great deal of diversity in the MMO, there does appear to be a plethora of common characteristics in the population at large, and those characteristics seem include a propensity for personal drama or a definitive emotional immaturity within relationships. Additionally, there is a tremendous move within MMO environments (whether they be gaming, social networking, or learning) to create ego/ social status hierarchies. This can definitely be an impediment to moving learners into the realm of self-actualization, particularly if the MMO society is “retarded” at the ego / social status level. Instructional designers and instructors may find that they are no longer only shaping and designing a learning environment. They may have to design a learning “society.” 200

deveLoPInG the underLyInG FrAMeworK: LeArnInG hIerArchy oF needs Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943, 1954, 1970, 1978; Maslow & Lowery, 1998) frames an integral structure that supports the underlying framework within any distance learning environment, including the three-dimensional virtual learning environment, as well as the hierarchical enhancements (Alderfer, 1972, 1977, 1980a, 1980b, 1987; Huitt, 2004; Norwood, 2004). These hierarchical enhancements lead to a reflective consideration towards the distance learner’s needs. A framework that supports the underlying needs of the learners within this basic distance learning environment is Crawford’s Distance Delivery Hierarchy of Needs (2005), within a primarily textual knowledge structuring environment that is supported by video, audio and interactive media products such as multimedia animation element. Crawford (2006) stated that “It is imperative to maintain a focus upon the appropriate and successful enhancement of the learning environment through technological means, in a suitably ubiquitous manner” (p. 11) yet still remain focused upon the learner’s success. Furthermore, “Crawford’s focus upon the learner’s needs within the online learning environment is necessary to represent the technological and instructional needs of the learner” (Crawford & Freeman, 2007, p. 6). With the focus on three-dimensional virtual learning environment Crawford (2007) elaborated upon and enhanced the Distance Delivery Hierarchy of Needs (Crawford, 2005) to offer Crawford’s 3D Virtual World Hierarchy of Needs. The MMO / 3-D learning environment has the potential to allow the learner a rich spectrum of realization, similar to that which Norwood (2004) describes, including the following factors: • • •

Be authentic. Transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens. Find their vocation and right mate.

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• • • • • • • • • •

Know that life is precious. Be good and joyous in all kinds of situations. Learn from their inner nature. See that basic needs are satisfied. Refreshen their consciousness, appreciate beauty and other good things in life. Understand that controls are good, and complete abandon is bad. Transcend trifling problems Grapple with serious problems such as injustice, pain suffering and death Be good choosers Be given practice in making choices of goodies, then making choices in their religious beliefs. (Norwood, 2004, paragraph 10)

The dependent variable is the learning environment. A restrictive environment that is instructor- or content-centered will limit the learner’s level of growth. This may result in the learner being focused on their own lower need levels. In order to promote higher levels of learning and the ascendance beyond lower needs, the learning environment must be designed appropriately. A learner-centered environment promoting abstract thinking, problem solving, and learner creativity will work better to this end, as framed through Crawford’s 3D Virtual World Hierarchy of Needs (Crawford, 2007). The virtual three-dimensional learning environments engage audio, video and interactive animation components, but also engage the integrally interactive and participatory threedimensional animatory world. The significance of the virtual worlds within the learning environment is that, “Theorists differ over whether the system precedes and determines usage (structural determinism) or whether usage precedes and determines the system (social determinism) (although note that most structuralists argue that the system constrains rather than completely determines usage)” (Chandler, 2001, paragraph 20). It is of primary importance to focus the three-dimensional virtual

environment’s opportunities and emphasis upon the learner; meaning, the instructional architecture that is a classroom-in-a-box. As the 3-D virtual environment evolves, it becomes clear that some of the needs originally identified in Social Interactive Needs will be distributed into the lower needs areas. For example, the need to feel “sheltered” in the virtual world can be a very real one. Some people do not function well or productively in a virtual world if their avatar does not have a “home.” Having a “virtual home” may become more important than in real life. The same is true of the concept of “safety” in the 3-D world. It is amazing and amusing to hear people exhibiting fear of being “assaulted” in the 3-D world. Yet, it is a common issue in Second Life. It can be as though people forget there is an Exit function in the client software. Avatars cannot be tracked by others, unless the avatar gives permission to do so, and permission can be removed at any time. Understanding how to protect one’s avatar can be every bit as important as understanding basic movement and communication. In light of the considerations of Crawford’s distance Delivery Hierarchy of needs some standards emerged for 3-D virtual learning and a true standard has yet to emerge. One question that is already being explored is: To what extent does a learner’s real life situation and dysfunctions affect their virtual world situations and dysfunctions? Is it possible that learners can actually be empowered by working through affective issues in the virtual world, or are they crippled by those issues as they are in real life?

classroom-in-a-box When discussing a “classroom-in-a-box,” it is critical to remember that there are no limitations in the virtual world. If one can imagine it, one can find a way to build it. Therefore, there are infinite ways to create a learning environment within the

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MUVE. Imagine a place, where one can touch a series of buttons and literally change the setting, the furniture, the media, even the location to accommodate the next level of learning. This is the concept of a virtual classroom-in-a-box. The concept of a classroom-in-a-box revolves around the integral importance of a viable learning environment that ensures that the primary elements of a learning environment are easily available for utilization, and the space allocation is easily conceptualized and structured so as to ensure the most appropriate environment towards meeting learning goals and objectives. Much as with a real-world face-to-face learning environment, there are times when a lecture setting is most appropriate towards meeting learning objectives, yet there is also the necessity for small group environments or a lounge for office hour discussions and guidance. At the same time, it is important to ensure that the learners consistently have access to all viable subject matter resources so that they can work and study in an anytime, anywhere manner. Within a bricks-and-mortar face-to-face world, one must schedule classroom space for each type of environment that is needed (allocating classroom space) which usually takes on a sense of chaotic turbulence due to the space allocation issues within busy or growing organizations (universities, business/industry, K-12, etc.). With these issues, how might a three-dimensional virtual learning environment meet the needs of the learners and instructor within a compartmentalized classroom area? The classroom-in-a-box idea is a better response to this problem because the mere click of a button allows the classroom architecture to shift “as needed” in order to meet instructionally appropriate tasks.

Issues, controversies, Problems The reality within the more traditional, textintensive distance learning environments is a structured tutorial style learning situation. Just as correspondence courses, instructional radio

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and television courses are not common today so too will there be a shift away from the distance education as we know it towards more innovative real-world learning. A timely consideration is the cost of attending a face-to-face environment. As quoted in a New York Times newspaper article: Enrollments in online classes expanded rapidly early in this decade, but growth slowed in 2006 to less than 10 percent, according to statistics compiled last year by researchers at Babson College in Massachusetts. Some recent increases reported by college officials in interviews were much larger, which they attributed to the rising cost of gasoline. Pricing policies for online courses vary by campus, but most classes cost as much as, or more than, traditional ones. (Dillon, 2008, paragraph 7) The reality of the situation is that, “Once an incidental expense, fuel for commuting to campus now costs some students half of what they pay for tuition, in some cases more” (Dillon, 2008, paragraph 11). As noted by Dillon (2008): At Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Fla., online enrollment rose to 2,726 this summer from 2,190 last year, a 24.5 percent increase. “That is a dramatic increase we can only attribute to gas prices,” said Jim Drake, Brevard’s president. Dr. Drake and officials at several other colleges expressed concern that mounting fuel costs could force some students to drop out of college altogether, especially since only a fraction of courses at most colleges are offered online. Dr. Drake has put Brevard on a four-day week to help employees and students save gas. (paragraphs 8-9) For many students there is no other option available within today’s market. Dillon (2008) offers one case that may reflect the decisions of innumerable students: One student taking online coursework for the first time is Kameron Miller, a 30-year-old working mother who lives in Buffalo, Mo., 40 miles north of Springfield. Her commute to classes in her 1998 Chevy Venture during the spring semester

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cost her at least $200 a month for gas, Ms. Miller said. This summer, she is taking courses in health, humanities and world music — all online. “I don’t feel I get as much out of an online class as a campus course,” Ms. Miller said. “But I couldn’t afford any other decision.” (paragraphs 13-14) This suggests that a shift in distance education course environments is not only timely, but necessary so as to meet the fundamental academic needs of the learners. Of course, a serious issue revolves around Internet access speeds. Although urban environments and bricks-and-mortar institutions of higher education have high-speed Internet access, the rural communities have been much slower to obtain higher levels of Internet access speed. For this reason, there continue to be issues related to distance learning accessibility, as articulated: Distance education is no silver bullet that can alone solve the challenges posed for higher education by rising gasoline prices, officials warned. For one thing, many students, especially in rural areas, lack the high-speed Internet connections on which online courses depend. “The infrastructure doesn’t exist to give all rural students clear online access,” said Stephen G. Katsinas, a professor at the University of Alabama. “Rural America is where the digital divide is most dramatic.” (Dillon, 2008, paragraphs 24-26) Yet these issues shall pass, and there will be viable options that will ensure the opportunity for high-speed Internet access within the rural communities. However, once these issues pass, the desire for viable options will remain. As such, it is a judicious opportunity to advance the three-dimensional virtual learning environment as a viable alternative to face-to-face learning environments and text-driven learning environments. This is a timely endeavor to undertake, especially with the recent shift in student needs, but innovations must be solidly developed and engineered to ensure stability of the learning environment and viability of the product.

classroom-in-a-box solution and recommendations The classroom-in-a-box solution offers several integral elements that are viable alternatives to the more constant architectural considerations within both a bricks-and-mortar learning environment and an unchanging virtual learning environment. Therefore, it is important to articulate the important elements and innovative considerations related to the classroom-in-a-box solution. The following solutions are relevant to hosted or non-hosted grids.

Asynchronous Learning Area An asynchronous learning area, wherein the instructional support tools are consistently available for the learner’s use, is imperative towards the success of a learning environment, no matter whether focused upon textually driven environments or three-dimensional virtual learning environments. There must be locations within the asynchronous learning area that are for specific instructional materials, as well as the potential instructional elements. The design of this area must ensure that distinct units of instruction are clearly articulated for the learner’s use, as well as media-specific storage facilities through which the instructor can easily upload and compartmentalize instructional elements for the learner’s use. Several elements that may be articulated as integral within the asynchronous learning area are: • • • • • •

movie clips for the course podcasts Microsoft PowerPoint files (or comparable slideshow components) Adobe Flash files (or comparable interactive components) text downloads (like textually-driven units of instruction or forms) scripted objects that simulate real life objects, with both basic information

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• •

components and problem solving components educational environments with scripted objects and space for ad hoc team learning other areas of instructional import

Another element that may be of use within this asynchronous learning area is a whiteboard for either synchronous instructional opportunities or archived notes, for use “on the fly” by the instructor or the learners. In Second Life, there is a great example of an asynchronous learning environment designed by Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Medicine (The Ohio State University Medical Center, n.d.a), called the Testis Tour, located within the Second Life virtual world environment (The Ohio State University Medical Center, n.d.b). One can teleport an avatar to this Ohio State University virtual environment (also referred as a sim) and take an automated tour with up to three other avatars on a giant flying sperm. The tour has both voice recording and text chat that explains the inner workings of the testis. The avatars are flown into giant 3-D cut aways of a testicle that has a variety of graphics and media, including directional animation. Instructions are also given about how to change the avatar view and the environment lighting to get the best effects for learning. While this tour is part of a specific curriculum, OSU allows anyone to take the tour and experience the learning opportunity.

team Learning or Learner collaborative environments Team learning is a critical synchronous opportunity presented in the virtual world. If teams are given assignments to be completed in-world, they must have spaces and tools dedicated to the development of those assignments. These areas and tools are not the standard classroom necessities. An instructor must have the resources for the development of tools that promote the ease

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of use by the learners. One popular tool used for learning in the virtual environment is a Heads Up Display (HUD) (Wikipedia, 2008c), and “In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game’s user interface” (paragraph 1). For instance, an instructor might need to have a blank HUD developed for learners to create a tour of relevant sites. However, the HUD would ideally be designed so that learners would not have to input any specific scripting or programming – they would simply input into boxes. This may cost time and money to have designed, but will save learners from having to learn rudimentary scripting skills. A great example of using HUDs for learning occurs when a user first enters Second Life with a newly created avatar. The new user will initially show up in an orientation area, and will have a HUD on the screen that gives instructions and assignments as the avatar moves throughout the orientation area. In this way, the user learns fundamental locomotion and functional behaviors relative to the virtual environment.

Push Button Switch Panel A second room environment within the classroomin-a-box solution is a flexible, adaptable environment through the use of a push button switch panel. The course instructor can designate the person(s) who may access the push button switch panel, in order to adapt the room’s environmental architecture through password protected access, to most appropriately meet the instructional needs. The course instructor may maintain total control of the push button switch panel, allow access by instructional assistants, or allow all learners to access the push button switch panel. Of importance is the instructor’s control over this decision, so as to ensure the security and viability of the room’s architectural articulation. Therefore, the environmental instructional task designation area is a location wherein there is a push button switch

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panel, where the course instructor could change the environment with the flip of a switch; this change in the room environmental structure would be dependent upon the day’s (or hour’s) expectations and activities, between appropriate instructional needs. These instructional needs would shift between specifically structured alternate virtual environments, including the following sets: •

• • • •

real work settings (industrial processing units, hospital examination and surgical rooms, etc.) lecture hall classroom smaller classroom group work area lounge to office

Of course, other learning environment needs of import may arise due to subject-specific needs articulated, such as a laboratory environment or artist gallery. In Second Life, there are many alternatives for the utilization of panels for environments. These are commonly referred to as “holodecks,” and there are a variety available for purchase. One must become familiar with the “rules” that accompany the use of such environments. For instance, it is recommended that all objects used in holodecks are full-permission and copiable. For this reason, it is often preferred to have those objects developed for specific use, with full-permission licensing.

Interactive Instructional Components Integral considerations relate to the opportunity for asynchronous interactive instructional components that are readily available within text-driven distance learning environments, such as: • • • • •

blog area assignment submission area emails subject-specific discussion lists group work tasks

The need for asynchronous tools that support the sharing of thoughts and ideas and submission of instructionally driven assignments is integral to the success of a distance learning environment that supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities. The environment must integrate all instructionally relevant tools, including the ability for the learners to submit their assignments through this environment, as well as the vital ability for the instructor to view assignment submissions, evaluate the submissions and offer both viable feedback and grade point articulation for the learner’s review. This would be a desirable element within any learning environment, but it is an imperative component within a distance learning environment. Of course, group work tasks are also important for the success of the learners. No matter whether the learners focus upon study groups or have designated group work assignments, there is a need for the environment wherein there can be synchronous and offline manipulation of documents within a group environment, such as a GoogleDocs or Zoho.com interface. Other areas of instructional import may arise, as subject-specific needs are articulated.

Heads Up Displays (HUDS) Also vital within a three-dimensional virtual learning environment are the heads up displays (HUDS) that are scripted to help people do what would be appropriate within the instructional environment. This may suggest posing animations or gesturing animations, such as to ensure the following animated elements: • • •

communicating teaching working

that would appropriately reflect the nonverbal cues that are second-nature within face-to-face learning environments. Scripted voice comments are also integral considerations, to ensure the appropriate

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enhancement of instructional needs. As well, the effortless distribution of different instructionally relevant elements such as: • • • • •

scripted objects note cards location pointers, URLs and more

are vital to the enhancement of the learning environment. Each of the HUDS would be appropriately developed and implemented within the designated environmental room architecture, to allow the avatars to act and react as instructionally appropriate and desired. It is critical to ensure that HUDS are designed for the learner that is new to the concept. Detailed instructions for HUD must be built into the HUD itself, or the learner will become stuck in the exercise or environment. These classroom-in-a-box solutions support the ability of virtual learning environments to more appropriately reflect the traditional instructional needs within a three-dimensional virtual learning environment, while enhancing the environment to ensure the availability of all instructional tools and information, as well as the socially relevant asynchronous elements that have become standard within text-driven learning course management systems.

sample Lesson: classroom-in-a-box A specific example of a Classroom-in-Box might occur as follows: Lesson for Learning Basic Distillation Operations in a Chemical Processing Unit. I. Learning Basic Distillation – the learner avatar approaches an empty area that has a panel switch with labels on different buttons. The first button is labeled “Basic Principles of Distillation.” When this button is pushed, a full-scale distillation column pops out of the box. The avatar is dressed in appropriate industrial safety clothing,

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and approaches the column by walking up a ramp to a designated area. A panel next to column allows the avatar to make the column transparent and learn the specifics of the distillation process, various types of sieves and trays, and relevant safety data by clicking on different parts of the process areas. II. Integrating Safety Operations – After the learner avatar has reviewed the basics of distillation, instructions are given to go back to the panel and push the button labeled “Integrating Operating Principles and Safe Work Practices.” When this button is pushed, the distillation column disappears and is replaced by a complete processing unit. The avatar is given a HUD that must be worn. The avatar is given an assignment via the HUD that requires moving through the unit, and identifying a specific area that must be properly prepared for repair according to a specific procedure. Part of the procedure includes identifying appropriate personnel that must sign papers and schedule work. As the avatar prepares the work area, appropriate forms must be identified and signatures must be acquired from “robot” avatars. As the appropriate forms are selected and filled out properly, the learner can move to the next step. The robot or pre-scripted avatars will respond correctly to appropriate prompts. III. Teamwork and Trouble Shooting – When the second part of the exercise has been completed, the learner is instructed to contact designated team members for a synchronous learning exercise. The learning team schedules their time together and returns to the panel switch. One person then selects the button labeled “Troubleshooting Industrial Processes.” The unit then appears to change slightly, while remaining essentially the same process unit. However, there are now some alarms that can be heard, and a different HUD is given to each learner. The learners are given an assignment that there is a serious problem within the unit, and they must work together to find the problem, following safety and process guidelines. As the learners work their way through the unit,

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addressing the issues, the situation may escalate if too much time passes, or they miss critical indicators. If the issues are not addressed, the unit will explode.

Future trends The impact of these elements upon the virtual learning environment have more fully affected online learning environments, particularly with respect to the social community of learning and profoundly impacted the discipline of instructional systems design. Yet framing the discussion within three-dimensional virtual learning environments is imperative, so as to more fully develop an understanding of necessary entities and innovations within this potentially ground-breaking learning environment. All of these elements, the shifting hierarchies of needs and interactivities, content knowledge; instructional design elements and semiotic influences, and social interactions, all are crucial elements in the cumulative engagement of learners. However, interesting components are trends and issues that must be considered and may positively affect the three-dimensional virtual learning environment.

Avatars travel around the virtual worlds An interesting article in Information Week’s magazine (United Business Media Limited, 2008) notes that “the color is off the rose” for many companies who desired to jump on the three-dimensional world of Second Life (Linden Research, Inc., 2008c), yet IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, n.d.) is working with Linden Lab (Linden Research, Incorporated, 2008) and have … recently demonstrated “virtual world interoperability,” which would let avatars move between Second Life and other online worlds.

They herald it as a milestone that could turn online virtual worlds into more open environments where avatars cross virtual worlds the way people browse from one Web site to another today. That’s key for uses such as collaboration and education, says IBM. (United Business Media Limited, 2008, paragraph 2) This realization, which avatars may easily move between three-dimensional virtual worlds, opens the opportunity for persons to maintain their personal avatars and engage in communities throughout innumerable virtual worlds. Further, this style of open movement further embraces the instructional focus upon social communities of learning.

social software: community building tools The previous focus upon social communities of learning, especially within online learning environments, leads to the questions that face professionals within today’s world: what types of social software are available, that would engage the learner, enhance the social community experience, and act as a building mechanism rather than a deterrent? What social software, with a short learning curve, will be easy to use and that will quickly become ubiquitous towards the further engagement of the learner within the social community of learning within the three-dimensional virtual learning environment? This question is still in its infancy, but at least we’ve begun to think in this direction. Even more intriguing is that we have tools available that would support the opportunities towards more appropriately framing and understanding social communities of learning. On the other hand, where should the discussion begin? As quoted from Martin and Crawford (2008), pertaining to the topic at hand: The educational community is already comfortable with the idea of audio file integration

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(podcasts, audio files implemented as forms of evaluative feedback, or audio overviews and additional discussion of subject matter) and video file integration (case studies, assignment project deliverable component, instructional video overview and additional discussion of subject matter, video lecture archive), synchronous online chats (virtual office hours, focused discussions upon subject matter, project group planning sessions), bulletin boards (posting questions, asking for support, carrying on asynchronous group discussions) and emails, but what are other opportunities? (p. 546) One additional opportunity is the realm of video conferencing. Video conferencing may be described as not the large room that has traditionally been allocated to the behemoth idea of video conferencing, but the speedy ability to videoconference over a small computer screen, that would be more appropriate within the threedimensional learning environment. Although the idea of video conferencing does not align with the emphasis upon avatars in this virtual world, the necessary emphasis upon learner support suggests the need for a synchronous opportunity for virtual face-to-face realities. Not only do we have the ability to video conference on a one-to-one basis, but there is also the ability to engage with larger groups of people in a synchronous manner. This is a growing area of focus, due to the accessibility to fast Internet speeds and the free, open source, and relatively inexpensive software opportunities that are making video conferencing a viable opportunity that has become a reality within today’s world. There are so many options available today, such as: • • • • • •

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Skype (Skype Limited, 2008) Qnext (Qnext Corporation, 2008) ooVoo (ooVoo LLC, n.d.) Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional (Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2008) JAJAH (JAJAH, Inc., 2008) SightSpeed (Logitech, Inc., 2008)

• • • •

iVideoChat (Govo LLC, 2008) Camfrog (Camshare LLC, 2008a) Camfrog Web (Camshare LLC, 2008b) Ustream.TV (Ustream.tv, Inc., n.d.)

Due to the obvious need to connect with the learners within the three-dimensional virtual learning environment, there may be times during which synchronous web conferencing opportunities must be made available. As such, the ability to implement a synchronous web conference is of vital importance within any learning environment. No matter whether this synchronous “real world” opportunity is mandated for special lecture series, “real world” office hour opportunities, or even “real world” group work needs, the ability to delve into the first life “real world” must be made available to ensure that it is available when and if the need should arise. The opportunities available within this realm are ever-expanding, and viable social communities of learning engagement may become more focused upon synchronous opportunities. Of course, there is the possibility to engage in video conferencing opportunities as optional opportunities for the learner to engage with the instructor and learner colleagues when desired. At the moment, the video conferencing component is not a reality within three-dimensional virtual worlds, but the opportunity to develop and speak to the need for this element will become a viable reality as these worlds advance. Along with the other social software environments are the established and engaging social communities that support a friend’s framework, such as Facebook (Facebook, 2008) and MySpace (MySpace.com, 2008). Yet there are several issues related to disturbing behaviors within these realms and, as such, would be inappropriate for consideration within an academic venue. However, what if there were open source options available, that could be enhanced and secured through security measures and controlled by academic institutions and other interested instructional venues? Elgg (Curverider, 2008) is an open source option that

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is available for use. Not only can a full social networking site be developed within this environment, but this can even be set up as an iPhone widget (Elgg, 2008, paragraph 2). Even more interesting, Elgg may be a social community environment that will frame the next generation of portfolios; from paper-based portfolios to electronic portfolios (efolios), the next generation may well be framed through a social community environment that rivals Facebook and MySpace in usability and interest, yet through a professional focus. Also a fun extra consideration that’s strengths remain to be seen, is Flock (Flock, Inc., 2008b), which is a social web browser that can be implemented through a “Flock-supported social network: Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, or Twitter” (Flock, Inc., 2008a, paragraph 1). The simplicity of use and viability of the instructional environment towards engaging in a social community of learners is of utmost importance towards the instructional viability and engagement of learners. Yet one cannot disengage from the growing interest in open source software, including portable applications, shareware and freeware software. Of significant interest are the open source software environments that have become available over the previous few years, that focus upon the social community construction opportunities available within today’s realm. As such, several of significant interest are: • • • •

Open Simulator (OpenSimulator, 2008) Elgg (Curverider, 2008) Drupal (Buytaert, 2008) Flock (Flock, Inc., 2008b)

The growing interest in portable applications, or “on a stick” apps, have piqued educator’s thoughts concerning portability of instruction due to the ability to run open source applications off of a portable flash drive without dealing with or worrying about the professionalism and on-task behavior of the information technology staff at different locations. A developing list of portable

applications (Rare Ideas, LLC et al. (2008) is worthy of consideration if interested in parlaying open source opportunities and the viability of travel without the hardware and software issues that were previously a serious constraint.

concLusIon The traditional instructional architecture of distance learning environments is shifting, with the growing interest in distance learning and virtual learning environments, and the advancements related to social communities of learning within the Web 2.0 environment. As the real world concerns escalate, the interest in distance learning options will continue to explode; however, the reconsideration of distance learning environments and subsequent redesign of distance learning architecture is underway. The primary consideration that is holding back the distance learning community from fully embracing three-dimensional virtual learning environments is the lack of a viable learning course management system. With Sloodle (Sloodle, 2008) introduced as the first viable open source three-dimensional multi-user learning system for virtual environments, it is touted as “an Open Source project which aims to develop and share useful, usable, desireable tools for supporting education in virtual worlds, making teaching easier” (Sloodle, 2008, paragraph 1) that “integrates the Second Life® multi-user virtual environment and the Moodle learningmanagement system” (Sloodle, 2008, paragraph 1). However, advancements in the architecture must continue. The classroom-in-a-box solution is merely the initial concept towards realizing the viability of a three-dimensional virtual learning environment system.

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Schlain, L. (1998). The alphabet versus the goddess: The conflict between word and image. New York: Penguin Books.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Skype Limited. (2008). Skype: Start making free video and voice calls to other people on Skype. Retrieved on November 20, 2008, from http:// www.skype.com/ Sloodle. (2008). Sloodle – Virtual Environment Learning System. Retrieved on November 20, 2008, from http://www.sloodle.org/ The Activeworlds.com, Incorporated. (2008). The Active Worlds Educational Universe. Retrieved on November 20, 2008, from http://edu.activeworlds.com/ The Ohio State University Medical Center. (n.d.a). College of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine. Retrieved on December 30, 2008, from http://www.internalmedicine.osu.edu/ The Ohio State University Medical Center. (n.d.b). Testis Tour. Retrieved on December 30, 2008, from http://slurl.com/secondlife/OSU Medicine/73/90/301 United Business Media Limited. (14 July 2008). Long live the avatars. Information Week Via Acquire Media NewsEdge via TMCnet.com, retrieved on July 21, 2008, from http://ivr.tmcnet. com/news/2008/07/14/3545375.htm

Vygotsky, L. S. (1981). The genesis of higher mental functions. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet Psychology. Armonk, NY: Sharpe. Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Cultural, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wikipedia. (2008a). Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Retrieved ON December 30, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game Wikipedia. (2008b). MUVE. Retrieved on December 30, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Muve Wikipedia. (2008c). HUD (video gaming). Retrieved on December 30, 2008, from http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HUD_(computer_gaming)

Key terM And deFInItIons Active Learning: May be described as a theoretically based instructional environment emphasis, wherein the learner is actively engaged in a hands-on, active manner. Classroom-in-a-Box: A compressed, or zipped, architectural environment (which may

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or may not include the subject information for a course, as it may just be a shell environment) that can be set up anywhere within a virtual world. Cognitive Load Theory: A theoretical term that is focused upon ensuring that information loss does not occur while the information is maintained in the learner’s short-term memory. Distance Learning: May be defined as instructional environments that offer learning opportunities to students who are not physically within the same location. Learning Community: An assemblage of people who are focused upon the same learning objectives and are actively occupied and engaged within the same learning environment, either virtually or within a face-to-face environment. Learning Environment: May be described as the architectural location through which learners have the opportunity to conceptualize informa-

tion and focus upon higher order thinking skills (Bloom, 1984; Bloom, Englhart, Furst, Hill & Krathwohl, 1956) towards creating information that is useful within the real world. Online Learning: Also referred to as e-learning, is focused upon meeting instructional objectives through digitally-based managed learning environments, whether this mean Internet-based or computer-based. Second Life: A three-dimensional virtual world environment that is inhabited by avatars, and the virtual world is created by the inhabitants of the world. Three-Dimensional Virtual Environment: Also referred to as a virtual world, is a simulated virtual world that is inhabited by graphic avatar representations of real-world persons.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by J. Wang, pp. 885-890, copyright 2005 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Supporting the Implementation of Online Learning Daniel W. Surry University of South Alabama, USA David C. Ensminger Loyola University Chicago, USA

IntroductIon Technology plays an important role in modern society. It is hard to imagine living in a world without such essential technologies as wireless communication, the Internet, laser surgery, polymers, and jet aircrafts, among countless other examples. Technology has had a profound effect on almost all aspects of our lives including banking, communications, medicine, transportation, energy, and the military. As in these other areas, technology is now playing an increasingly important role in education. A variety of technologies have been introduced into the schools over the last few decades. Among the most common of these are computer assisted instruction, multimedia presentations, classroom management software, and various assistive and adaptive technologies. In more recent years, distance and online learning technologies have advanced to the point where online learning is now a viable option for the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch294

delivery of high quality educational and training programs. The potential for technology, especially distance and online learning, to revolutionize education and training is beyond question. Despite technology’s obvious impact on modern society and its potential to fundamentally alter our lives, fostering the effective use of any new technology within an organization is often a difficult process. Trying to foster the innovative use of technology in educational and training settings can be especially frustrating. In this chapter we will describe a framework that administrators can put in place to facilitate the adoption and effective utilization of new technologies in their organizations. Specific emphasis will be placed on how the framework relates to distance and online learning technologies.

bAcKGround There is a tremendous volume of literature on the topic of educational change. Much of the educational

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Supporting the Implementation of Online Learning

change literature is based on the theories of seminal change research conducted in fields such as rural sociology, business, and psychology. Ellsworth (2000) writes that educational change research can trace its ancestry to two broad traditions. The first is diffusion of innovations research, most notably the work of E. M. Rogers (2003). The second is general systems theory, most notably the work of Bela Banathy (1973). Diffusion of innovations research studies the factors that affect the speed by which an innovation is spread throughout a social system. The goal of such research is to develop strategies for increasing the use of innovations. Among the earliest studies in this field, for example, was a study into the diffusion of hybrid seed corn by Iowa farmers (Ryan & Gross, 1943). General systems theory is the study of how a complex set of factors interact to produce a given result. The holistic, systemic perspective provided by general systems theory is an essential tool for change researchers given the extremely complex set of interactions which influence the diffusion process. In spite of the large and diverse volume of literature related to fostering educational change, many innovative technologies have failed to be fully utilized in educational settings (Burkman, 1987; Surry & Ely, 2007). The reasons for this are not fully understood, but are probably based in a fundamental misunderstanding of the diffusion process on the part of administrators and technology promoters. This misunderstanding is that newer, better, more powerful, and more efficient tools will be readily adopted and effectively used by end users. However, research tells us that, in reality, the adoption and effective use of an innovation are the result of a complicated and highly contextualized mix of technological, social, personal, and organizational factors. In order to foster the adoption and use of an innovation, administrators must develop a coherent and logical strategy.

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MAIn Focus: suPPortInG IMPLeMentAtIon The RIPPLES Model (Surry, 2002; Surry, Ensminger, & Haab, 2005) describes a framework for supporting the implementation of innovations. The framework draws from prior theories of diffusion and implementation including Rogers (2003), Ely (1999), and Stockdill and Morehouse (1992). There are seven components of the model: Resources, Infrastructure, People, Policies, Learning, Evaluation, and Support. Each of the seven components is discussed briefly in this section.

components of the Model Resources refers to the financial resources needed to adopt, implement, utilize, and maintain an innovation. Distance and online learning programs generally require a significant commitment of “up front” resources. Most administrators are aware of the start up costs of online learning, but often fail to account for the large continuing costs. Continuing costs can include the ongoing modification and updating needed to keep courses current with both content and technology, instructor salaries and benefits, administrative and clerical costs, costs associated with support for both faculty and learners, advertising and recruiting costs, and money for hardware and software upgrades. Resource allocation is a key consideration given the competing costs associated with maintaining an online learning program and the often limited and sporadic funding for educational and training organizations. Infrastructure refers to the hardware and software required to effectively utilize an innovation. The success of any distance and online learning program depends in large part on its infrastructure. Much of the literature related to educational change (e.g., Stockdill & Morehouse, 1992; Farquhar & Surry, 1994; Ensminger, 2005) focuses on the critical role of hardware, software, and supporting technologies to the innovation process. In addi-

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tion to the delivery infrastructure, it is necessary to have a development infrastructure that can be used to create high quality audio, video, and graphic elements for the online courses. People refers to the impact an innovation has on the personal, social, and cultural aspects of an organization. The importance of a variety of personal factors is a common theme in implementation models (Robertson, 2007). Change, even highly technical change, is not a technological process but an inherently human process. Even a relatively minor change can be extremely stressful to the members of an organization (Surry, 2005). Large scale changes, such as moving from traditional forms of instruction to online learning, often have a profound impact on people’s productivity, motivation, career plans, and even such personal things as one’s physical health or sense of self worth. The leaders of an organization should try to identify and account for the impact online learning will have on their faculty, staff, learners, and other stakeholders. Shared decision making, communication, feedback, and other forms of participation (Ely, 1999) are critical to understanding the human impact of online learning not only at the initial stage but throughout the process. Policies refers to the impact an innovation has on the rules, regulations, traditions, and practices of an organization. Any innovation requires at least some accompanying changes to policies and practice to be successfully implemented. The effective implementation of a large, complex innovation such as distance and online learning usually requires organizational policies to be substantially updated, revised, or even totally rewritten. For example, in higher education settings, faculty may be reluctant to devote the time needed to develop online instruction unless policies related to tenure and promotion are modified (Surry & Land, 2000). In business settings, workers who have been given paid work time to attend traditional training sessions should not be expected to participate in online training on their own time. An organization experiencing problems

with the implementation of online learning should closely examine its policies to determine if old, out of date, or inflexible practices are serving as a barrier to effective utilization. Learning refers to the need to maintain a focus on instructional and pedagogical considerations during the innovation process. Most educational innovations begin as a sincere attempt to improve student learning. It is common, however, for issues related to technological, organizational, and administrative problems to result in a loss of focus on learning outcomes. The profoundly important and complex technological considerations needed to create and administer an online learning program can easily divert time, resources, and attention away from the learners and their success. Without an ongoing organizational commitment to maintain the highest instructional standards, an online learning program will quickly come to be viewed as irrelevant or impractical to the learners and could result in serious damage to both the organization’s productivity and reputation. Evaluation refers to an ongoing assessment of the innovation and on its organizational impact. Administrators of online learning programs should consider four types of evaluation. First, administrators should continually seek out data about the learning outcomes of the online program. It is imperative to know if the instruction is resulting in improved learning and transfer and, if not, to determine how to improve the instruction. Second, administrators should evaluate the technical aspects of the online learning system. This includes assessing both the capabilities of the current system as well as any competing or emerging systems which may prove to be better solutions. Third, administrators should evaluate the implementation of the online program. Information about the extent to which online learning is used, barriers to utilization, and suggestions for fostering expanded use is extremely important to decision makers. Fourth, a benefit/ cost analysis should be conducted to determine if the online learning program is a net value to the

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organization. Three of the four evaluation areas discussed here - learning outcomes, technology alternatives, and benefit/cost analysis - were incorporated into Buchan and Swann’s (2007) useful and interesting Bridge Support Framework for Online Learning. Support refers to the need to continually provide assistance, guidance, encouragement, and direction to those affected by the innovation. We propose that there are four crucial types of support: Administrative, Pedagogical, Technical, and Training. The need for technical support and training for both faculty and students is a common theme in the online learning literature (e.g., DeNigris & Witchel, 2000). Administrative and pedagogical support, however, receive less discussion. Administrative support refers to active efforts on the part of line managers and upper management to provide overall vision for online learning and to deal with day-to-day issues which may arise (Ely, 1999). Pedagogical support focuses on providing online teachers and trainers with the tools and information they will need to create effective, instructionally sound, and motivational online environments for learners. Online learners, especially those unfamiliar with the online environment, should also receive meaningful pedagogical support.

related research Several studies have used the RIPPLES model as a framework to study the implementation of technology innovations. Jasinski (2006) used the model as part of a study into the adoption of innovative teaching practices by online vocational and technical educators (N=260). Respondents reported that all seven RIPPLES components were important to the successful use of innovative online practices. The component of Support was viewed as the most important with 87.5% of respondents rating it as extremely important or important. An interesting finding is that six of the seven components were seen as net barriers to

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implementation in this case. Only the component of Learning, an organizational commitment to providing quality educational experiences, was seen as a net enabler to implementation in their organization by the online vocational and technical educators. Benson and Palaskas (2006) used the RIPPLES framework to study the adoption of an online learning management system (LMS) at a large international university. They found that the components of people, policies, learning, and evaluation were the most important for guiding the ongoing implementation of the LMS. Interestingly, they also found that infrastructure was seen as less important than the other components. The authors concluded that while there are areas where the RIPPLES model could be expanded, it “appears to be a useful tool for analyzing institutional innovations” (p. 554). Murray and Moen (2003) used four components of the model, resources, infrastructure, learning and support, to investigate the technology adoption of 147 academic and 552 public libraries in Texas. They developed operational definitions of the four components and used extant data from the libraries to place each library in a category from Innovators to Laggards (Rogers, 2003). They concluded that using the four components resulted in a distribution of adopter categories that “tracked very closely with Rogers’ expected distribution” (p. 15). Tan and Tien (2004) studied the diffusion of technological innovations in kindergartens in Singapore. They wrote that the RIPPLES model was “particularly useful” (p. 2) to the theoretical and practical background of their study. They found that their population was almost evenly divided between supporters and non-supporters of innovation. They used the RIPPLES model to structure their discussion of the unique aspects of the kindergarten setting that affect implementation. For example, they describe the significant role that parents and guardians play in the innovation process at the kindergarten level. They

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conclude by correctly pointing out the importance of a region’s overall economic condition to the innovation process and suggest Economy should be added as a component to the model. Several themes can be developed based on a review of recent research related to the RIPPLES model. First, there is general agreement that the RIPPLES model is a valid and useful tool for fostering the implementation of innovations. The components of the model seem to be broadly applicable to a varied set of implementation cases. Second, each of the studies found a complex interaction between the model components. No one component emerged as the single most important factor in any of the cases. This provides further support for the hypothesis that implementation is an extremely context specific process. Finally, the studies all highlight different elements of the RIPPLES model that can be modified or extended. Further research is needed to test and refine the various elements of the model.

Future trends There are a number of important trends which will impact organizations’ capacity to support the implementation of distance and online learning in the future. The most important trend is the increasingly rapid expansion of the power and availability of hardware and software technology (DeNigris & Witchel, 2000). Online educators will have to balance the need for a stable and consistent platform with the desire to remain current with advances in technology. A second trend is the development of more sophisticated theories about how to teach online. As we discover more about the most effective ways to create online learning environments and how to better accommodate individual learner preferences, our online courses will have to continually evolve and expand. The effective shelf life on online courses in the future will become increasingly short. Future online courses will have to look, feel, sound, and respond

very differently, and change much more rapidly, than online courses today. A third trend is the growing number of for profit online educational and training providers. Increased competition in the for profit educational sector will mean more, more powerful, and less expensive educational and training options. More research will have to be conducted to determine the affect that the use of third party vendors will have on the adoption, utilization, and diffusion of online learning. A final trend is the move to a performance support philosophy. Traditional notions of training are slowly being replaced by the idea that information, guidance, and task specific assistance can be delivered to the workers at the performance site. Online performance support may offer a number of advantages to businesses, but researchers will likely need to develop new implementation and utilization models to foster its effective utilization. Implementation models, such as the RIPPLES model, which seem to be effective for fostering the use of online learning, may not be applicable to online performance support.

concLusIon Technology is changing the way we teach and learn. Distance and online learning has the potential to revolutionize education and training. In order to maximize the potential impact of technology, educational and training organizations must understand that implementation is a difficult process. The history of education is filled with examples of powerful, innovative, and potentially revolutionary technologies that failed to have a major impact on learning. Administrators must plan carefully to foster and support the effective use of technology by teachers and students. Using the RIPPLES model as a framework to guide implementation can result in wider utilization, reduced project timelines, lower stress and, ultimately, improved learning.

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reFerences Banathy, B. (1973). Developing a systems view of education. Belmont, CA: Lear Siegler, Inc. / Fearon Publishers. Benson, R., & Palaskas, T. (2006). Introducing a new learning management system: An institutional case study. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(4), 548–567. Buchan, J. F., & Swann, M. (2007). A bridge too far or a bridge to the future? A case study in online assessment at Charles Stuart University. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(3), 408–434. Burkman, E. (1987). Factors affecting utilization. In R. Gagné (Ed.), Instructional Technology: Foundations, (pp. 429-455). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Incorporated. DeNigris, J., & Witchel, A. (2000). How to teach and train online. Needham Heights, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing. Ellsworth, J. B. (2000). Surviving change: A survey of educational change models. Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology. (ED 443 417) Ely, D. P. (1999). Conditions that facilitate the implementation of educational technology innovations. Educational Technology, 34(6), 23–27. Ensminger, D. C. (2005). Implementation profile inventory: Comparing K-12, higher education and business. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(6), 1059–1061. doi:10.1111/j.14678535.2005.00575.x Farquhar, J. D., & Surry, D. W. (1994). Adoption analysis: An additional tool for instructional developers. Education and Training Technology International, 1(31), 19–25.

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Jasinski, M. (2006). Innovate and integrate: Embedding innovative practices. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government, Department of Education, Science and Training. Murray, K. R., & Moen, W. E. (2003). Technology adoption categories of Texas academic and public libraries. Denton, TX: University of North Texas, Texas Center for Digital Knowledge. Robertson, I. (2007). Factors influencing vocational teacher’s use of online functionalities in Australia. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(3), 371–389. Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press. Ryan, B., & Gross, N. C. (1943). The diffusion of hybrid seed corn in two Iowa communities. Rural Sociology, (8): 15–24. Stockdill, S. H., & Morehouse, D. L. (1992). Critical factors in successful adoption of technology: A checklist of TDC findings. Educational Technology, (1): 57–58. Surry, D. W. (2002, April). A model for integrating instructional technology into higher education. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), New Orleans, LA. Surry, D. W. (2005). Editorial. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(6), 933. doi:10.1111/ j.1467-8535.2005.00565.x Surry, D. W., & Ely, D. P. (2007). Adoption, diffusion, implementation, and institutionalization of educational innovations. In R. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends & issues in instructional design and technology (2nd ed.) (pp. 104-111). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Surry, D. W., Ensminger, D. C., & Haab, M. (2005). A model for integrating instructional technology into higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(2), 327–329. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2005.00461.x Surry, D. W., & Land, S. M. (2000). Strategies for motivating higher education faculty to use technology. Innovations in Education and Training International, 37(2), 1–9. Tan, H. P., & Tien, Y. (2004). Diffusion of IT in childhood pedagogy - extending the RIPPLES model to kindergartens. Proceedings of the Tenth Americas Conference on Information Systems (pp. 2895-2902). New York: Association for Information Systems.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Adoption: The initial decision to employ an innovative tool or practice. Barrier: Anything that tends to impede the adoption, implementation, or utilization of an innovation. Innovation: Any tool or practice which is new, novel, or unique to the members of an organization or social system.

Diffusion Research: The study of how innovations spread throughout a social system and the development of strategies to increase the rate of spread. Implementation: The process, following an initial adoption decision, by which an innovative tool or practice is introduced into an organization. Implementation is a purposeful activity designed to facilitate the timely and effective utilization of an innovation by members of the organization. Technology: Technology can be defined narrowly or broadly. Narrowly defined, technology is seen as a tool, such as a computer. More broadly defined, technology includes not only tools, but the skills and knowledge needed to effectively use the tool. The broadest definition of technology includes tools, skills and knowledge, and the larger systems needed to conceptualize, develop, use, and refine the tools. Utilization: The extent to which an innovation is effectively employed by members of an organization as part of routine practice.

This work was previously published in Encyclopedia of Distance Learning, Second Edition, edited by P. Rogers; G. Berg; J. Boettcher; C. Howard; L. Justice; K. Schenk, pp. 1994-1999, copyright 2009 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Measuring Effectiveness in Online Instruction Louis B. Swartz Robert Morris University, USA Michele T. Cole Robert Morris University, USA Daniel J. Shelley Robert Morris University, USA

IntroductIon To remain competitive, expand access to education, and meet the needs of students, institutions of higher education are offering larger numbers of online courses. As online instruction increases, educational institutions, students and society need to make sure that online courses and programs are as effective as traditional classroom courses and educational programs. To address this need, this paper focuses on the question, “Are online courses and programs as effective as those taught in the classroom?” Numerous authors have addressed the question of the effectiveness of online classes (Keegan, D., 1996; Russell, T., 1999; Schulman, A.H. and Sims, R.L., 1999; Harasim, L. 2000; Ryan, R.C. 2000; Rivera, J.C. and Rice, M.L., 2002; Bernard, R.M., et al, 2004; Frantz, P.L. and Wilson, A.H., 2004; Suanpang, P., Petocz, P. and Kalceff, W., 2004; DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch200

Fjermestad, Hiltz, S. and Zhang, Y. 2005; WeaverKaulis, A. and Crutsinger, C., 2006). Most studies center on student satisfaction and/or student learning. The studies have produced mixed results. This paper provides a summary of a number of important studies on the effectiveness of online courses and educational programs. It synthesizes the results from the studies and presents possible reasons for the differences in findings. It concludes with a discussion of future trends and suggestions for areas of further study.

bAcKGround Several studies of effectiveness of online learning appear in the literature. Thomas Russell’s The No Significant Difference Phenomenon, published in 1999 summarized 355 research reports, papers and summaries on the subject of online versus traditional learning. He found no significant difference in grades, satisfaction or effectiveness when “e-

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Measuring Effectiveness in Online Instruction

learning” was compared to traditional teaching. Other studies have supported Russell’s findings. Taking additional factors into consideration, Navarro & Shoemaker (2000) found little or no difference between online and classroom learning when such issues as race, gender, technological and academic backgrounds, and socioeconomic status were taken into account. Rivera and Rice (2002) reported that while several studies (including Russell’s 1999 work) have demonstrated that online and traditional courses were comparable with regard to the cognitive factors (learning, performance and achievement), the same could not be demonstrated consistently with online learning with regard to student and instructor perceptions and satisfaction. Rivera and Rice did a comparative evaluation of one course offered in three formats, online, traditional classroom and web-enhanced classroom. Using questionnaires to evaluate student satisfaction, grades to evaluate student performance, and discussion and anecdotal references to evaluate instructor satisfaction with teaching online, Rivera and Rice compared the efficacy of the three class formats. They found that the exam score averages were close in all three formats, thus supporting the finding by others that online and traditional classroom courses are comparable with regard to a particular cognitive factor, student performance. However, their results showed significant differences in levels of satisfaction among all three formats, including the hybrid (onland with an online component). The 100% online web-based instruction was the least satisfactory to students. As the authors point out in their discussion of instructors experiences with the different formats, there are a number of factors that might be influencing results, such as the students’ comfort level with technology, varying level of instructional support and instructors’ familiarity with the course material delivery platform. Rivera and Rice’s results illustrate the need to improve the technology and course delivery aspects of online instruction in order to improve

student satisfaction. Their study also points out the need for research methodology that can uncover the answer to the question of effectiveness of online education. Fjermestad, Hiltz and Zhang (2005) reviewed thirty in a data base of over 100 published empirical studies of asynchronous learning networks (ALN) which compared the process and outcomes of online and classroom course delivery. The authors looked at access, faculty and student satisfaction, student learning and cost effectiveness. With regard to student learning, their results were consistent with other studies that found online instruction to be equal to or better than face-to-face instruction. With regard to student satisfaction, the results were mixed, with the “no significant difference” being the overall conclusion (p.48). They conclude with the observation that more methodologically rigorous studies need to be done before the “Which is better” question can be answered. (p. 49) Arbaugh and Hiltz (2005) discussed the difficulty in reaching definitive conclusions when measuring learning because of variations in measurement tools and methodologies. The majority of the published work to date has found that either there were no significant differences between the two delivery vehicles or that if there were significant differences between the two, learning was greater in the online format. Arbaugh and Hilz examined the variety of tools used to measure learning, including grades, collaborative exams, projects and portfolios, course outcomes, as well as attitudinal surveys to measure satisfaction with the learning process. From their review of quantitative methodologies used to measure learning and satisfaction, the authors conclude that for such studies to be useful they need to be more rigorous investigations of learning effectiveness, employing more “valid and pedagogically sound” methodologies (p. 97). Clearly, there are obvious, basic differences between courses which are taught entirely in an online format and those which are taught entirely

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onland. Traditional classroom courses can utilize components of online instruction, but for the most part, traditional courses are taught in a classroom with both students and instructor present. In this environment, instruction is in real time. In the online format, the class is taught in a “cybernetic” environment, where often instruction is not in real time, and the students and instructor are not present in one place. With online instruction, the professor usually conducts the class remotely without live interaction with the students. However, this may be changing as technological advances such as video conferencing and webcam capability become more available to online instructors. Rudestam and Schoenholtz-Read (2002) suggest that access to the internet and its use for knowledge transfer present challenges and opportunities for creating new paradigms for learning and arguably, for creating new philosophies and theories of learning. To go further with online instruction, they state, requires a reexamination of core beliefs about teaching and about learning (p.4). This being true, fundamental differences between online and traditional instruction pose major challenges and concerns for course instructors and educational institutions. Measuring effectiveness of teaching platforms and learning models using student outcome measures is one of those challenges/opportunities. Fjermestad, et al (2005) analyzed the results of thirty empirical studies comparing online and traditional course delivery. Of the twelve studies on student satisfaction, 41.6% were positive with regard to student satisfaction with online delivery; twenty-five percent were negative. In a third of the studies, student satisfaction with online delivery was about the same as it was for traditional course delivery. With regard to objective measures of learning, 61.7% of the studies found “no difference” between the two types of delivery. Thirty-four percent were positive for online learning mode. Only four percent of the studies had negative results for online learning. The sample size was 47 (pp 45-46).

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Shelley, Swartz and Cole (2007, 2008) studied student satisfaction and student learning in one undergraduate business law course over a period of four years. The course was offered both entirely online and entirely in a traditional classroom environment. In the first three years, there were no statistically significant differences between the two formats with regard to student satisfaction and student learning. However, in the fourth year, there were statistically significant differences between the students in the online course and those in the traditional setting with regard to two elements of student satisfaction: (a) student satisfaction with the instructor and, (b) student satisfaction with the course structure (Shelley, et. al., 2008). The student populations were similar in all four years. The instructor made no changes in the curricula, course structure or content. In the first study, comparative data was drawn from four online sections of the course and two classroom sections. In the second, comparative data was drawn from two online sections of the course and from one classroom section. There were 46 students in the first study and 67 in the second. The survey instrument was made up of twenty-four questions evaluated on a five-point Likert Scale. The results from the first study fell into the “no significant difference” category and were consistent with the findings of the majority of the earlier studies. As noted above, the second study presented mixed results. While findings on student satisfaction with the course overall and student learning were not significantly different in either study, findings on student satisfaction with the instructor and with the course structure were significantly different in the second study, but not in the first. Despite the variations in student satisfaction, in both studies, student learning as assessed by final course grades was higher for the online course students.

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Future trends

concLusIon

Roblyer and Wiencke (2003) have suggested that an essential characteristic of successful online education is interaction, interaction between the instructor and the students and among the students. How do we evaluate or measure this? Roblyer and Wiencke’s response is the development of a rubric for evaluating interactive elements in online course delivery. Here, the instructor’s role becomes more prominent. If interaction is important for learning in an online environment then how well he or she designs the course to facilitate interaction is important. Measuring student learning by assessing instructor effectiveness is expected to assume a more prominent role in the evaluation of distance learning, as is instructional design. Instructor effectiveness refers to the ability to present course material in such a way as to facilitate learning. Since students learn in different ways, the instructional design needs to be responsive and adaptable. Technology will continue to improve, allowing for easier movement of high-quality audio and video onto online platforms. This gives the instructor additional tools to present course material to reach different students and to adapt material to different learning styles. The argument is made that to remain competitive, institutions of higher education particularly will need to become more broadly accessible to students – all students – people with disabilities, those in the military, students in rural areas and abroad, and older students. Distance education is seen as one key to becoming accessible to all. If, and as that happens, how the institution can ensure quality of instruction and effectiveness of learning paradigms becomes critical. How soundly outcomes are measured will be important to how well instructors design and institutions support online instruction.

Student satisfaction and student learning are two measures of the effectiveness of online instruction. Most of the research reviewed has supported the early findings of “no significant difference” with regard to learning outcomes in online education as compared with classroom instruction. But, as Arbaugh and Hiltz (2005) argue, researchers need to be both more rigorous and creative in their approaches to measurement to be able to explain the variations in results in comparisons of online learning with classroom learning. Research has shown that students learn effectively in an online course. What has not been shown conclusively is that students are as satisfied with online courses as they might be. This is relevant to educational institutions because the assumption can be made that if the student is satisfied with the online experience, the student will continue to take online courses. Personal circumstances may dictate whether a student selects online education over the classroom experience, but do not dictate at which institution a student takes those courses. Since students can select from among a growing number of institutions for their online courses, it matters that their experiences with online instruction result in satisfaction as well as learning. Hence, it is crucial that the issue of student satisfaction be addressed by universities and by the instructors at the course level. As technology continues to expand the ability of students to access education, educators must meet the needs of students who cannot attend traditional classes by providing them with quality education. Measuring the effectiveness of online instruction through research tools will enable educators to focus on the development of methods to accomplish this goal. Fowler (2005) suggests that experience with online instruction now leads to a different question, one that reverses “how effective is online instruction”, instead asking, “Are on-site courses as effective as online?” (p.1). It may be premature

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to ask that question based on the studies published to date. Research methodologies employed to evaluate the effectiveness of online education leave unanswered a number of questions. Perhaps one of the most critical questions not yet answered is why student learning is often better online than it is in the classroom while student satisfaction in the same courses is not consistent with learning outcomes. Ease of interaction is proving to be one factor worth further study as is the creative use of adaptable technology.

Harasim, L. (2000). Shift happens:Online education as a new paradigm in learning. The Internet and Higher Education, 3, 41–61. doi:10.1016/ S1096-7516(00)00032-4

reFerences

Rivera, J. C., & Rice, M. L. (2002). A comparison of student outcomes and satisfaction between traditional & web based course offerings. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, V(III).

Arbaugh, J. B., & Hiltz, S. (2005). Improving quantitative research on ALN effectiveness. In S. Hiltz & R. Goldman (Eds.), Learning together online: Research on asynchronous learning networks (pp. 81-102). London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bernard, R.M., Abrami, Lou, Borokhovski, Wade, Wozney, Wallet, Fiset, & Huang. (2004). How does distance education compare to classroom instruction? A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Review of Educational Research, 74(3), 379–439. doi:10.3102/00346543074003379 Fjermestad, H. S. & Zhang, Y. (2005). Effectiveness for students: Comparisons of “in-seat” and ALN courses. In S. Hiltz & R. Goldman (Eds.), Learning together online: Research on asynchronous learning networks (pp. 39-79). London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Fowler, D. (March 2005). Are on-site courses as effective as online? Online Cl@ssroom, March, 2005. Frantz, P. L., & Wilson, A. H. (2004). Student performance in the legal environment course: Determinants and comparisons. Journal of Legal Studies Education, 21(2), 225. doi:10.1111/j.1744-1722.2004.tb00318.x

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Keegan, D. 1996. Foundations of distance education. (3rd ed). London: Routledge. Navarro, P., & Shoemaker, J. (2000). Policy issues in the teaching of economics in cyberspace: Research design, course design, and research results. Contemporary Economic Policy, 18(3), 359–366. doi:10.1093/cep/18.3.359

Roblyer, M. D., & Wiencke, W. (2003). Design and use of a rubric to assess and encourage interactive qualities in distance courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 17(2), 77–98. doi:10.1207/ S15389286AJDE1702_2 Rudestam, K. E., & Schoenholtz-Read, J. (2002). The coming of age of adult online education. In K.E. Rudestam & J. Schoenholtz-Read (Eds.), Handbook of online learning: Innovations in higher education and corporate training (pp. 3-28). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. Russell, T. (1999). The no significant difference phenomenon. Office of Instructional Telecommunications, North Carolina State University Chapel Hill, N.C. Ryan, R. C. (2000). Student assessment comparison of lecture and online construction equipment and methods classes. T.H.E. Journal, 6(27). Schulman, A. H., & Sims, R. L. (1999). Learning in an online format versus an in-class format: An experimental study. T.H.E. Journal, 26(11), 54–56.

Measuring Effectiveness in Online Instruction

Shelley, D. J., Swartz, L. B., & Cole, M. T. (2007). A comparative analysis of online and traditional undergraduate business law classes. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 3(1), 10–21. Shelley, D. J., Swartz, L. B., & Cole, M. T. (2008). Learning business law online vs. onland: A mixed method analysis. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 4(2), 54–66. Suanpang, P., Petocz, P., & Kalceff, W. (2004). Student attitudes to learning business statistics: comparison of online and traditional methods. Educational Technology & Society, 7(3), 9–20. Weaver-Kaulis, A., & Crutsinger, C. (2006). Assessment of student learning outcomes in FCS programs. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 98(1), 74–81.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Effectiveness: Having the desired result E-learning: Distance learning using a computer platform E-pedagogy: The study of teaching via the Internet, or the study of online instruction Measurement: Quantitative evaluation of results or outcomes Onland/traditional format: Classroom instruction with teacher and students present in the same location Online format: Distance education where student and teacher are not present in the same location Platform: A learning management system, such as e-College or Blackboardy

This work was previously published in Encyclopedia of Distance Learning, Second Edition, edited by P. Rogers; G. Berg; J. Boettcher; C. Howard; L. Justice; K. Schenk, pp. 1399-1403, copyright 2009 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 1.17

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses Yungwei Hao National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan Gary Borich University of Texas at Austin, USA

AbstrAct This chapter introduces a graphic approach to define quality in online courses. The Decomposition Model (Borich & Jemelka, 1982) is used to illustrate course structure and the salient characteristics of an effective online course. The constraints that influence the success of online courses are discussed. Salient transactions (activities) that occur in online courses are described. And the means-end continuum in the process of online learning is illustrated graphically. The chapter is expected to provide readers with a whole picture of a quality online course through an architectural framework.

IntroductIon During the last decade, the number of online courses has increased rapidly, and online learning has become trendy for all levels of education. Online courses prepare learners to transition successfully DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch020

through high school, improving high school graduation rates (Southern Regional Education Board [SREB], 2007). In addition to their significance for K-12 education, online courses create diverse learning experiences for learners in higher education and improve their chances of academic success (Phipps, Merisotis, & Harvey, 2000). Well-designed online courses can ensure that students get quality learning and teaching. Thanks to the emergence of online courses, people have a more equal opportunity to gain education, compared to the process involved in gaining education from traditional brick-andmortar schools (SREB, 2007). In the report of Virtual Schools and 21st Century Skills, published by North American Council for Online Learning [NACOL] (2007a), the 21st skills are defined as follows: global awareness, self-directed learning, information and communications technology (ICT) literacy, problem-solving skills, time management and personal responsibility. There is a growing understanding that online courses can meet academic requirements and provide learners with the 21st century skills for future career (NACOL, 2007a).

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Course management systems are often a popular alternative for instructors to create online courses. Typically, a school or institute purchases a course management system (such as Blackboard) and then invites instructors to attend an overview class. The trainers explain how the software works and how to navigate or access the various features. It is relatively easy for anyone who is familiar with email and word processing to import text into the boxes provided by the course management shell. Course management systems provide a way to avoid building a course site from scratch, but they do not provide a complete foundation for building a high quality online course (Brett, 1999). Instructors need to learn what constitutes a quality online course in order to create an effective online course (Hao & McGee, 2003). The roles of learner and instructor are being revolutionized in online courses. In online learning environments, online learners and instructors have little physical contact; most interactions take place through text-based communication in synchronous and/or asynchronous ways. Online learners are expected to have the motivation to learn and be self-directed (Palloff & Pratt, 2003; SREB, 2007). People who take online courses need to adjust their expectations and attitudes for learning. Possessing adequate communication skills through text, being able to manage their time wisely, and being willing and able to take responsibility for their own learning, are required to succeed in online learning. Instructors also must adapt their classroom teaching styles to become successful online teachers. Online instructors play the role of activity facilitators and discussion moderators; they provide guidance and direction but they do not instill knowledge into learners. There obviously needs to be a transition for instructors from teacher-centered traditional classroom teaching to student-centered online instruction. Not all instructors are able to make this transition. Although online instruction shares many features of face-to-face teaching, if instruc-

tors are to teach well online, they will require a unique set of skills (Salmon, 2000; NEA, 2006) and a new mindset (Barker, 2002). The Decomposition Model (also called Program Modeling), is a heuristic technique originally developed for program evaluation in the social and behavioral sciences by Borich and Jemelka (1982). The Model was derived from general systems theory, values and decision oriented evaluation, and computer software program design. It can identify and prioritize the needs of students, take into account social and political constraints (environmental factors), and demonstrate how the parts in a mechanism (i.e., a program or a course) are related to each other and contribute to the functioning of the whole mechanism. Thanks to its systematic approach, the Decomposition Model can provide a useful way to analyze online course structures. This chapter uses the Decomposition Model to illustrate course structure and the salient characteristics of an effective online course. According to a report (Allen & Seaman, 2006) published by the Sloan Consortium, a recognized institution for improving online education, an online course is one where at least 80 percent of the course content is delivered online. The chapter adopts the SloanConsortium definition of an online course: where most of or all of the course content is delivered online and there are rare or no face-to-face meetings. The chapter considers the quality standards or benchmarks in the reports published by American Federation of Teachers [AFT] (2000), Institute for Higher Education Policy [IHEP] (Phipps, et al., 2000), North American Council for Online Learning [NACOL] (2007a, 2007b), National Education Association [NEA] (2006) and Southern Regional Education Board [SREB] (2007, 2006a, 2006b), reorganizes and fits them into the Decomposition Model. The purpose of this modeling is to ensure that the outcome of a course is met, by providing a graphical structure to both evaluate and oversee the structure of an online course.

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A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

bAcKGround To date, there have been quite a few research studies, organizations and institutions examining the quality issues of online courses. In 2000, the IHEP published Quality on the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-Based Distance Education (Phipps, et al., 2000). This report was commissioned by the NEA, the U.S. largest professional association of higher education faculty, and Blackboard Inc., a widely used platform provider for online education. The report concludes with 24 benchmarks for success in Internet-based distance education. The benchmarks refer to the categories of institutional support, course development, teaching/learning, course structure, student support, faculty support, and assessment/evaluation. Studies on effectiveness of online courses continue to be published based around those criteria. For example, Collins (2004) created e-Learning frameworks for No Child Left Behind and indicated factors related to the quality of online courses. They are factors for evaluating curriculum and assessment materials in online courses, for creating online instruction, and for the implementation of online courses. Recently, in 2006, the NEA published Guide to Teaching Online Courses. The guide reviews online education, indicates opportunities and challenges for students and educators, explains the development of an effective online education system, and makes a few suggestions on preparing and supporting online teachers. The guide was produced as an effort to ensure secondary students with online teachers who are of the highest quality: well equipped, trained and supported in the process of online teaching. The SREB published Standards for Quality Online Courses (2006a) as a comprehensive set of criteria in 2006. These standards include criteria to evaluate course content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, evaluation and management. In the same year, the SREB published Standards for Quality

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Online Teaching (2006b). These standards include criteria to evaluate teachers’ academic preparation, content knowledge, skills and temperament for instructional technology, online teaching and learning methodology, management, knowledge, skills and delivery. Based on the SREB Standards for Quality Online Courses (2006a), the NEA Guide to Teaching Online Courses (2006), and the NACOL Virtual schools and 21st century skills (2007), in 2007 the NACOL, an institution for increasing educational opportunities and enhancing learning by providing collegial expertise and leadership in K-12 online teaching and learning, created a report, National Standards of Quality for Online Courses (2007b). The report indicates the dimensions for the evaluation of standards are content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, course evaluation and management, and 21st century skills (one dimension newly added). In the same year, the NACOL conducted a comprehensive review of online teaching standards and created National Standards for Quality Online Teaching (2007c). The dimensions of these evaluation standards include teachers’ meeting the professional teaching standards, teachers’ technology skills, instructional design skills, online leadership, modeling of online behavior, having experience with online learning, providing student support, and the ability to collaborate with colleagues. The past evaluation studies and reports of online learning mostly utilized literature reviews, surveys, interviews, or the Delphi techniques to collect perspectives from the stakeholders. The contribution of the studies and reports to the field is significant. This chapter is based on the findings of these studies and reports, in an attempt to construct a whole picture of a quality online course. In the following paragraphs, the chapter considers the quality standards or benchmarks mainly in the reports of AFT, IHEP, NACOL, NEA, and SREB, reorganizes and fits them into the Decomposition Model.

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Figure 1. Basic components of a modeling diagram

overvIew oF the decoMPosItIon ModeL The Decomposition Model creates a picture of an online course through a series of diagrams, each accompanied by a section highlighting key points. The result is a conceptual representation of the course that moves from the most general level down to the level of specificity needed for implementation. The Model should be recognized as different from such activities as flow charting. It does not result in an outline of the steps to be followed in implementing a course. Instead, it illustrates course components relative to desired outcomes. All diagrams include four basic components: inputs, constraints, outcomes, and activities (transactions) as shown in Figure 1, Basic components of a modeling diagram. As illustrated in Figure 1, a box is used to represent any course activity. Activities, also called transactions, are planned events for which there is a measurable outcome (i.e., number of postings in an online discussion). The box means nothing in and of itself, but is brought to life or “activated” by inputs (which always enter from the left), constraints (which always press down from the top), and outputs (which always exit the box from the right). Inputs stimulate the transaction into action and are used to produce the outcome. Inputs are the elements required for the functioning and creation of the course, such as potential learner descriptors, information sources and necessary facilities. These elements (or factors) are measured in an on/

off, present/absent (binary) manner. Constraints are characteristics of the stakeholders (including learners, course instructors, technicians, and administrators) and the contextual factors of the course which can modify the implementation of a transaction or an outcome. (i.e., learning style) and can be measured in degrees, i.e., on a continuum (e.g., 1-10). Outcomes are what the stakeholders are expected to exhibit at the completion of all transactions. Outcomes are the desired results from the activity - for instance, improving learner performance, developing a particular skill, etc. First outcomes, which are closer to the course result, should be used to indicate course quality or effectiveness. Second or third outcomes are to indicate the overall course direction. The input, constraint, and outcome designations reveal how transactions within a course are tied together. The transactions need to proceed in a reasonable way in order to derive a realistic means-end continuum. The four components (transactions, constraints, inputs, and outcomes) can be described at any level of generality depending on the level at which the course is being conceptualized. Transactions can be implemented and outcomes are operationalized at the most specific levels. When a box (transaction) is broken down into its component parts, the broad course components are translated into increasingly detailed parts. The successive process, a process originally for program decomposition (Borich & Jemelka, 1982), is illustrated in Figure 2.

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A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Figure 2. The successive process (Borich & Jemelka, 1982)

decoMPosItIon oF eFFectIve onLIne courses As yet, there may be no model which can fully capture the complexities of online courses. As Thomas Reeves (1997) indicated, a simplified model still can help us understand the complex structure of online learning. This chapter uses the Decomposition Model to illustrate course structure and the salient characteristics of an effective online course. In the following paragraphs, the basic components of the Decomposition Model (inputs, constraints, outcomes, and transactions) applied in the context of online learning environment

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are described. The inputs of an effective online course are indicated. The constraints that influence the success of online courses are discussed. And the transactions occurring in online course are described. Regarding transactions, first of all, the first level diagram of an online course is demonstrated. Then, the primary transactions of an online course are indicated. Afterwards, other sub-transactions weaving the primary transaction are demonstrated respectively. The purpose of this course modeling is to ensure that the outcome of a course is met, by providing a graphical structure to both evaluate and oversee the structure of an online course.

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

InPuts In the transactions of an online course, the inputs or requirements of an online course, are measured in an on/off, present/absent (binary), according to the Decomposition Model. If an online course is to operate, the inputs for the course operation are learners, instructors, and all technology tools.

constrAInts In an online course, constraints are the characteristics of the stakeholders (including learners, course instructors, technicians, and administrators) and the contextual factors of the course (i.e., funding). Constraints are measured in degrees (i.e., on a continuum), and they can modify the implementation of a transaction or an outcome. In addition to motivation and realistic learning objectives, the constraints of online courses include learner readiness for online learning, instructor preparedness for online teaching, institutional support, technical support, and pedagogical support.

1. Learner Readiness for Online Learning To have a successful online learning experience, learners must possess adequate technical and communication skills, be able to manage their time wisely, and be willing and able to meet the academic demands of courses that rely on selfdirected learning (Palloff & Pratt, 2003; SREB, 2007). There have been a few studies investigating learner readiness for online learning: Smith (2005) used a sample of 314 Australian university students and factor-analyzed the Readiness for Online Learning Questionnaire (McVay, 2001). Two factors were confirmed in the study. One was self-directed learning. The other was comfort with e-learning. Pillay, Irving, & Tones (2007) validated their diagnostic instrument to assess post-secondary education students’ readiness for

online learning which had four factors: technical skills, computer self-efficacy, learner preferences, and attitudes towards computers. It is strongly recommended that learners are assessed to measure if they are ready for online learning. Some of the readiness issues modified from the report of AFT (2000) and the study of Pillay, Irving, & Tones (2007) are derived from four topics, technical issues, computer self-efficacy, learning preferences, and attitudes towards computers. 1).

2).

3).

4).

For technical issues learners must: ◦ Possess the proper equipment and know how to make it work. ◦ Have the skills to perform in a writingbased, online learning environment. ◦ Have motivation and realistic learning objectives for the course. For computer self-efficacy learners should: ◦ Know how to send and receive e-mail messages. ◦ Feel confident in using computers to connect to the Internet. ◦ Be able to use various search engines to research materials. For learning preferences, learners are able to: ◦ Read the material from a computer screen but not listening to a lecture. ◦ Find out information using a computer but not from an instructor. ◦ Communicate with the instructor online. ◦ Communicate with other learners online. For attitudes towards computers: ◦ Use computers for research learners are able to: ▪ Communicate with others using e-mails to support learning. ▪ Spend time on the Internet.

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▪

Work on tasks on a computer that they can do by following directions.

It is necessary to make sure learners are provided with sufficient learning resources and materials to increase their success before the online course begins. If learners lack technical skills, a face-to-face orientation is necessary. In the orientation, the instructor should go through each step, provide hands-on sessions and make sure learners can work independently in the online learning environment. Logging in and logging out of the course management system (or course web site), posting or replying messages in the discussion board, meeting their class in the online café, etc. are all required steps learners should be able to perform independently.

2. Instructor Preparedness for Online Teaching Drop-out rates in online courses are high, online course satisfaction is so unpredictable, and online learners are often reported in great distress (Essex & Cagiltay, 2001). These disturbing phenomena made people recognize that online teaching may not be suitable for all instructors and online instructors must be prepared before launching an online course. Even when the course design is sound, the course content is excellent, and there is sufficient support for teachers from the institution, a well prepared online instructor is a key factor for course success. The instructor is a facilitator for learners to learn constructively, and is a moderator for learners to interact effectively. Instructors must adapt their own teaching styles to become successful online instructors but, unfortunately, not all instructors are able to make this transition (SREB, 2006b). Several institutions have published guides for instructors to help make the transition to online teaching. For example, the Higher Education Program and Policy Council of the AFT published Distance Education: Guide-

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lines for Good Practice (AFT, 2000). The NEA published Guide to Online High School Courses (NEA, 2002-2006), and Guide to Teaching Online Courses (NEA, 2006). The SREB published Standards for Quality Online Teaching (2006b). The NACOL published National Standards for Quality Online Teaching (2007c). With the above guides as a basis, and Spector and de la Teja’s (2001) analyses as a reference, the chapter modifies and lists essential qualities a qualified online instructor should embody and exhibit: 1).

2).

3).

Academic preparation: ◦ As in traditional teaching, instructors must have the appropriate academic credentials. ◦ Instructors should have experience teaching the same content in traditional classrooms. Content knowledge, skills, and temperament for instructional technology: ◦ Instructors demonstrate the ability to use computers and Internet: wordprocessing, presentation software, Internet browsers, e-mail applications, course management system, basic skills of material production (i.e., scanning documents and exporting the files) and Internet etiquette. ◦ Instructors must continue to update academic knowledge and technology skills. Online teaching and learning methodology, management, knowledge, skills and delivery: ◦ Instructors will plan, design and incorporate strategies to encourage all types of interaction (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, manyto-many, synchronous, and asynchronous) in the online learning environment. ◦ Instructors will moderate learning in a way that encourages learner success

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

through regular feedback and timely response. Instructors will set up realistic learning objectives. Instructors will construct a learnercentered learning community. Instructors will facilitate individual and collaborative activities. Instructors will model online behavior and Internet etiquette. Instructors will have experienced online learning as a learner.

3).

3. Institutional Supports Institutional support ensures that online courses will have a high quality learning environment, and administrative support helps operationalize policies which encourage high quality design and development of online teaching and learning. The issues for consideration listed below include technological infrastructure issues, a technology plan, and professional incentives for instructors (AFT, 2000; Phipps, et al., 2000). 1).

2).

Professional incentives for instructors should provide: ◦ Innovative practices to encourage development of online courses. ◦ Institutional rewards for the effective teaching of distance learning courses. ◦ Economic compensation for meeting the extensive time commitment of online teaching. A technology plan should address and include: ◦ A document available to ensure quality standards. ◦ Electronic security measures to ensure the integrity and validity of information. ◦ Information to learners on how to communicate with the online

instructor and the technical staff, including information on the process for these communications. ◦ Recommendations for optimum and minimum class size. ◦ Learners with individualized guidance from academic professionals experienced in online learning. Technological infrastructure should include: ◦ A centralized system to address issues and support the creation and maintenance of the distance education infrastructure. ◦ A timely, responsive system to address learner complaints and instructor needs. ◦ Written information available to learners regarding the required equipment and computer skills in an online course. ◦ Sufficient, available library resources.

4. Technical Support One of the issues that cause online learners the most distress is how to solve technical problems. If an online course is equipped with sufficient technical support, there is a greater probability that learners will feel satisfied with learning. Technical support, modified from the report of the AFT (AFT, 2000), includes the following: 1).

For learners: ◦ Provide hands-on training and information to aid them in securing material through electronic databases, interlibrary loans, government archives, news services, etc. ◦ Provide easily accessible technical assistance throughout the duration of the online course. A telephone contact number for technical support,

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A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

2).

with as many hours of availability as possible. For instructors: ◦ Provide adequate training and technical support in the process of course operation, in terms of hardware, software, and troubleshooting, ◦ Provide learners and instructors with written resources to deal with issues arising from everyday use of online systems and materials.

5. Pedagogical Support Relatively speaking, online teaching is a new field for most educators. Most educators finished their teaching certificates and professional training before online learning emerged and became popular in education. They never experienced this new type of learning, so it is a big challenge for them to design and teach such a course. Therefore, pedagogical support is essential before the course is open, during the course, and after the course is complete. In general, pedagogical support provides: •

• •

Assistance to transition from teacher-centered classroom teaching to student-centered online instruction. Peer mentoring resources. Continuous training related to online teaching and moderation of online discussions.

outcoMes Most research studies on evaluation of online education can be categorized into three types: 1). student outcomes, such as grades and test scores, 2). student attitudes about learning through distance education, and 3). overall student satisfaction toward distance learning (Phipps & Merisotis, 1999). The online learning environment is complex, and achieving effective teaching is a

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challenge. Reeves (1997) suggested a model of the effective dimensions of interactive learning on the Internet. The outcomes of the model are knowledge and skills, robust mental models, and higher-order outcomes. This chapter considers the outcomes in the model and expands them. The acquisition of knowledge and skills on aspects of online learning represented by grades, leads to the development of a mental model to interpret information, which leads to higher order thinking and problem-solving. The acquisition of knowledge and skills and mental models are known as 1st order outcomes. The higher-order thinking related to 21st century skills is the 2nd order outcome. Still further along the means-end continuum is the ability to transfer this learning to new and different contexts, in other words, to contribute to life-long learning. Course management tools are a popular way to design online courses. As Benigno and Trentin (2000) indicate, online courses have a few common characteristics with face-to-face courses, but there are different elements to evaluate when referring to the quality of an online course (Phipps, et al., 2000). The use of modeling explains the elements by illustration. The first level diagram of an online course is shown in Figure 3, First Level Diagram of an Online Course.

trAnsActIons Primary Transactions of an Effective Online Course If an online course is wholesome, based on the past studies and research reports, there are four primary transactions to must take place successfully: course content, instructional design, teaching, and course evaluation. One needs to notice that there is no clear cut division between the transactions; they are interrelated and intertwined with each other.

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Figure 3. First-level diagram of an online course

Although online courses have different characteristics from face-to-face course designs, there are still a few bottom-line issues they have in common. In an online learning environment, because of the physical absence of the instructor and other learners, support and creating a learning community are essential (Paloff & Pratt, 1999; Preece, 2000; Rovai, 2002). The priority of course design for online courses is to construct a learner-centered learning environment, form a learning community in which the instructor can provide learner support and help develop social presence (Aragon, 2003; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Gunawardena, 1995) and demonstrate the accountability of learner assessment (NACOL, 2007). Regarding course development, the use of technology in online courses, including the presentation of course materials and the communications tools for course participants to use should be developed with pedagogy as support. In the primary transactions, course evaluation is easily ignored but is important. Most of the online learning research studies like to study instructor and course satisfaction, since the two types of satisfaction are direct and observable

outcomes. To retain low attrition and drop-out rates, the two types of satisfaction must not be ignored, and it is considered in the chapter. The second level diagram of an effective online course is illustrated in Figure 4. Second Level Diagram of an Online Course. 1. Transactions within Course Content Course content “serves as the foundation for quality because it addresses the interest and the needs of learners” (Chao, Saj, & Tessier, 2006, p. 34). Based on research reports, a few indicators for evaluating the quality of content are as follows (AFT, 2000; SREB, 2006a; NACOL, 2007b). The transactions within course content of third level diagram of an online course are illustrated in Figure 5. 1).

Course content: ◦ Provide learners with a clear statement about the course. The statement includes course overview, syllabus (with course goals and objectives), course requirements, the weekly time commitment and specific computer

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A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Figure 4. Second-level diagram of an online course

Figure 5. Transaction 1 of third-level diagram of an online course

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A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Figure 6. Transaction 2 of third-level diagram of an online course

skills required by the course, and a presentation of the practical difficulties of working at a distance and what is needed to manage those challenges successfully. ◦◦ Summarize learning outcomes for each course module in a clearly written, straightforward statement. 2). Course standards: ◦◦ Are aligned with official standards. ◦◦ Have sufficient rigor, depth, and breadth to reach official standards. ◦◦ Are accurate, current, and free of bias. 3). Integrating other knowledge or skills: ◦◦ Information literacy and communication skills are incorporated as an integral part of the curriculum. ◦◦ Issues associated with the use of copyrighted materials are addressed and monitored. ◦◦ Academic integrity and netiquette (Internet etiquette) expectations

◦◦

regarding lesson activities, discussions, e-mail communications and plagiarism are stated clearly and monitored. Privacy policies are stated clearly and monitored.

2. Transactions within Instructional Design The quality of online courses lies at the heart of instructional design, which includes designing a learner-centered online course structure, selecting appropriate technologies, and embedding student assessments into the process of online learning. The transactions within instructional design of third level diagram of an online course are illustrated in Figure 6. The details are as follows. 2.1. Course structure: There have been numerous researchers emphasizing the importance of online learning environments (Cohen & Ellis, 2003; McLoughlin & Oliver, 2002; Vrasidas, 2000). However, the potential of online learning is not in its use of state-of-

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the-art technologies, but rather in creating a course structure in which learners are allowed more possibilities for various types of interaction among all the learners and the instructor, and being learner-centered. Owing to the importance of course structure, the chapter places it as the first issue to consider in the transactions within instructional design. 1). Maximizing interaction: ▪ Incorporate both synchronous communication (i.e., online chat rooms or instant messaging) and asynchronous communication (i.e., e-mails, discussion boards) in the course. ▪ If possible, provide learners with opportunities of face-to-face meetings with the instructor and other learners in the duration of the course. ▪ Provide opportunities for appropriate instructor-student interaction, including timely and frequent feedback about student progress. ▪ Provide opportunities for appropriate instructor-student and student-student interaction to foster mastery and application of the material and a plan for monitoring that interaction. ▪ Provide opportunities for appropriate student interaction with the content to foster mastery and application of the material. 2). Considering individual differences: ▪ Course design reflects a clear understanding of student needs, and incorporates varied ways to learn and multiple levels of mastery of the curriculum.

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▪

3).

4).

Provide learners with multiple learning paths to master the content, based on student needs. ▪ Engage learners in learning activities that address a variety of learning styles and preferences. ▪ Adapt learning activities to accommodate learners’ needs. Organizing course content: ▪ Organize a course into units and lessons. ▪ The course unit overview describes the objectives, activities and resources that frame the unit. It includes a description of the activities and assignments that are central to the unit. ▪ Each lesson includes a lesson overview, content and activities, assignments, and assessments to provide multiple learning opportunities for students to master the content. ▪ Readability levels, written language assignments and mathematical requirements are appropriate for the course content and the students. ▪ Provide learners with access to resources that enrich the course content. ▪ Provide assessment and assignment answers and explanations. Advancing learning levels to be more diverse and higher-order: ▪ Design the course to teach concepts and skills that learners will retain over time. ▪ Include instructional activities that engage learners in active learning. ▪ Provide learners with opportunities to engage in higher-order thinking, critical-reasoning

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activities and thinking in increasingly complex ways. 2.2. Use of Technologies: Use of modern communication technologies does not guarantee learning effectiveness. Whether the course is delivered through a course management system, the instructional designer and the instructor need to ensure course design (including content planning, class projects, visual aids, course materials and teacher-tostudent and student-to-student interaction) maximize the potential of the available technologies (AFT, 2000). A few issues indicated as below need attention. 1) Accessibility: ▪ The course website is easy to navigate. ▪ Hardware, Web browser and software requirements are specified. ▪ Prerequisite skills in the use of technology are identified. 2). Usability: ▪ The architecture permits the instructor to add content, activities and assessments to extend learning opportunities. ▪ The course makes maximum use of the capabilities of the online medium and makes resources available by alternative means; e.g., video, CDs and podcasts. ▪ The course utilizes appropriate content-specific tools and software. 3). Universality: ▪ The course meets universal design standards ensuring access for all learners. ▪ Interoperability allows sharing content among different learning management systems.

▪

Interoperability ensures sharing of questions, assessments and results with others. ▪ Course materials meet SCORM standards regarding sharability. 2.3 Learner assessment: Learner assessment is part of instructional design. Embedding learning assessment in the process of instruction, the instructor ensures that learners meet instructional objectives. A few assessment issues for reflection are as follows. 1). Assessment as a part of the course: ▪ Make grading policy and practices easy to understand. ▪ Have learner evaluation activities consistent with course goals and objectives. 2). Regular feedback: ▪ Assessment strategies and tools make the learner continuously aware of his/her progress in class and mastery of the course content more than letter grades. ▪ Conduct ongoing and frequent assessments to verify each learner’s readiness for the next lesson. 3). Facilitate instructors to assess learners: ▪ Assessment materials provide the instructor with the flexibility to assess learners in a variety of ways. ▪ Provide the instructor with grading rubrics and models of partially to fully completed assignments. ▪ The course structure includes adequate and appropriate methods and procedures to assess students’ mastery of content. 4). Multiple assessment strategies ▪ Consider individual differences and apply multiple strategies,

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Figure 7. Transaction 3 of third-level diagram of an online course

▪

for example, portfolios, assignments, to assess learners. Provide learners with opportunities of peer reviews and selfevaluation.

3. Transactions within Online Teaching: Technology cannot make poorly designed instruction become good. An effective online course, like any traditional course, still depends on effective teaching and learning skills and design. Effective teaching transforms the results of learner analysis and instructional design into components of teaching and learning. Research studies have shown that the activities of effective teaching are important quality indicators of online courses. For example, Cashion and Palmieri (2002) specify the critical features of effective online learning, some of which are flexible learning, responsive teaching, and quality of course design. This section focuses

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on the aspects of teaching. The transactions within teaching of third level diagram of an online course are illustrated in Figure 7. A few important issues, based on the framework of Hao and McGee (2003), are indicated as follows. 3.1. In order to help learners transfer knowledge and skills: ◦ The instructor separates the online course into self-contained units/modules that can be used to assess learner mastery before moving forward in the course. ◦ The instructor makes units/modules varying lengths determined by the complexity of learning outcomes. ◦ Each module requires learners to engage themselves in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation as part of their course assignments.

A Practical Guide to Evaluate Quality of Online Courses

Figure 8. Transaction 4 of third-level diagram of an online course

3.2. In order to provide learners with task ownership and learner-centered environment: ◦ Learners identify an area of inquiry in their field in which technology is used to train specific populations. 3.3. Promoting interaction and interactivity in the learning environment: ◦ Learners work in teams, participate in structured and unstructured discussions, engage in peer critiques, and join regular synchronous chats. ◦ The instructor facilitates learner interaction with him/her through a variety of ways. ◦ The instructor facilitates learner interaction with other learners through a variety of ways. ◦ The instructor provides feedback to learner assignments and questions in a timely manner.

◦

The instructor provides feedback to learners in a manner that is constructive and non-threatening. ◦ The instructor makes sure class voice-mail and/or e-mail systems are provided responsively to encourage learners to work with each other and their instructor. 3.4. In order to enhance social presence: ◦ Allows learners to share information about themselves as a precursor to learning teams. ◦ Discussions, chats, learning teams and bi-monthly streaming video messages from instructor enhance social presence. 3.5. In order to provide metacognitive support: ◦ The instructor designs the online course requiring learners to work in groups utilizing problem-solving activities in order to reflect thinking and develop topic understanding.

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◦

Learning teams provide peer support while review and re-writes of course assignments provide opportunities for reflection

4. Transactions within Online Course Evaluation The drop-out rates are usually higher for online courses (Cohen & Ellis, 2002). If learners are satisfied with their online course, they tend to continue to take subsequent online courses from the same education provider (McGorry, 2003). Therefore, course satisfaction is essential to consider in course evaluation (Bolliger & Martindale, 2004; Boverie, Nagel, McGee, & Garcia, 1998). The transactions within course evaluation of third level diagram of an online course are illustrated in Figure 8. The following section indicates a few issues to keep in mind when examining course evaluation. 4.1. Conduct formative evaluation: ◦ Update courses periodically to ensure timeliness. ◦ Evaluate intended learning outcomes regularly to ensure course clarity, utility, appropriateness, and effectiveness. 4.2. Conduct summative evaluation: ◦ The evaluation findings and processes are used to improve the teaching/ learning process. ◦ Have specific standards to compare and improve learning outcomes. ◦ Uses multiple methods to evaluate course effectiveness. For example, drop-out rates, course satisfaction, instructor satisfaction, successful/ innovative uses of technology. 4.3. Student satisfaction with the instructor is determined by how the instructor: ◦ Responds to learners’ questions, grades and returns all assignments in a timely manner.

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Is supportive with regard to learners’ learning throughout the course ◦ Provides constructive feedback to learners’ questions and assignments. ◦ Effectively facilitates interaction in the discussion forums. ◦ Provides a learning environment that encourages learners to participate in online discussions. ◦ Is encouraging. ◦ Shows personal interest in learners’ graded work. ◦ Used the features of (some) technology tool well. ◦ Overall, meets learners’ expectations. 4.4. Course satisfaction: ◦ Learners think what they learned will be useful to them in the future. ◦ The workload for the course is manageable. ◦ The course progresses at a reasonable pace. ◦ Learners are satisfied with the quality of interaction with classmates. ◦ Learners are satisfied with the rubrics by which they are being graded. ◦ Overall, the online course effectively presents the subject matter. ◦ Overall, the course meets learners’ learning expectations. ◦ Learners would recommend the online course to others. ◦ Learners would like to take an online course again in the future. ◦ Learners have a positive attitude toward online learning at the end of the course.

concLusIon The Decomposition Model serves as a blueprint for addressing the issues of online course evaluation using a graphically structured approach. It is used

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as a heuristic for course quality monitoring and self-evaluation of online teaching. The illustration in the chapter delineates the activities in an online course. This will assist instructors in determining what type of activity is lacking for their expected learning outcomes and help define quality for online courses. As indicated earlier, at the most specific level, activities can be implemented and outcomes operationalized. The significance of this approach may be that a well-structured approach to documenting what instructors think about an online course can materially aid both our thinking and ability to convey the understanding of a quality online course to others. By considering and understanding a course’s conceptual structure, a common understanding of course objectives can be achieved. An understanding of the nature and structure of courses and knowledge of the process of course implementation may all be essential components for making effective online courses. The model provides pivotal guidelines for practitioners in the field of online learning and for administrators who would like to have a whole picture of quality for online courses. With the model, making effective online courses is no longer a mystery.

Barker, P. (2002). On being an online tutor. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 39, 3–13. doi:10.1080/13558000110097082

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Cashion, J., & Palmieri, P. (2002). The secret is the teacher: The learner’s view of online teaching. Leabrook, SA: NCVER.

Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2006). Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006. Needham, MA: Sloan-C. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/making_the_grade.pdf American Federation of Teachers. (2000). Distance education: Guidelines for good practice. Higher Education Department. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.aft. org/pubs-reports/higher_ed/distance.pdf Aragon, S. (2003). Creating social presence in online learning environments. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 100, 57–68. doi:10.1002/ace.119

Benigno, V., & Trentin, G. (2000). The evaluation of online courses. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 16, 259–270. doi:10.1046/j.13652729.2000.00137.x Bolliger, D. U., & Martindale, T. (2004). Key factors for determining student satisfaction in online courses. International Journal on E-Learning, 3(1), 61–67. Borich, G., & Jemelka, R. (1982). A modeling approach to program evaluation. In G. Borich & R. Jemelka (Eds.), Programs and systems: An evaluation perspective (pp. 173-197). New York: Academic Press. Boverie, P., Nagel, L., McGee, M., & Garcia, S. (1998). Predictors of satisfaction for distance learners: A study of variable conditions. ACM, 26(2), 2–7. Brett, S. T. (1999). Beyond-buttonology types of distance education. Retrieved June 2, 2004, from http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/ dist-ed/buttonology.html

Chao, T., Saj, T., & Tessier, F. (2006). Establishing a quality review for online courses. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 3, 32–39. Cohen, M. S., & Ellis, T. J. (2003). Developing a criteria set for an online learning environment. Paper presented at the meeting of the ED- MEDIA 2003—World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Honolulu, HI.

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Collins, S. R. (2004). E-Learning frameworks for NCLB. White paper for U.S. Department of Education Secretary’s No Child Left Behind Leadership Summit. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http:// www.nclbtechsummits.org/summit2/presentations/Collins-e-LearningFramework.pdf Essex, C., & Cagiltay, K. (2001). Evaluating an online course: Feedback from “distressed” students. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 2(3), 233–239. Gunawardena, C. N. (1995). Social presence theory and implications for interaction and collaborative learning in computer conferences. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 1(2/3), 147–166. Gunawardena, C. N., & Zittle, F. J. (1997). Social presence as a predictor of satisfaction within a computer mediated conferencing environment. American Journal of Distance Education, 11(3), 8–26. Hao, Y., & McGee, P. (2003). Demystifying the structures of online teaching through decomposition model: Exploration of online teaching effectiveness. Paper presented at the meeting of the ED- MEDIA 2003—World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Honolulu, HI. McGorry, S. (2003). Measuring quality in online programs. The Internet and Higher Education, 6(2), 159–177. doi:10.1016/S10967516(03)00022-8 McLoughlin, C., & Oliver, R. (2000). Designing learning environments for cultural inclusivity: A case study of indigenous online learning at tertiary level. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 16(1), 58–72. McVay, M. (2001). How to be a successful distance learning student: Learning on the Internet. New York: Prentice Hall.

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National Education Association. (2006). Guide to teaching online courses. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.nea. org/technology/images/onlineteachguide.pdf National Education Association. (2002-2006). Guide to online high school courses. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.nea.org/technology/onlinecourseguide.html North American Council for Online Learning. (2007a). Virtual schools and 21st century skills. Vienna, VA: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.nacol.org/docs/ NACOL_21CenturySkills.pdf North American Council for Online Learning. (2007b). National standards of quality for online courses. Vienna, VA: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http:// www.nacol.org/nationalstandards/NACOL%20Standards%20Quality%20 Online%20Courses%202007.pdf North American Council for Online Learning. (2007c). National standards of quality online teaching. Vienna, VA: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.nacol.org/nationalstandards/NACOL%20Standards%20Quality%20 Online%20Teaching.pdf Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2003). The virtual student: A profile and guide to working with online learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Paloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Phipps, R., & Merisotis, J. (1999). What’s the difference?: A review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education. Washington, DC: The Institute for Higher Education Policy.

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Phipps, R., Merisotis, J., & Harvey, M. (2000). Quality On the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-based Distance Learning. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Higher Education Policy. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www2.nea. org/he/abouthe/images/Quality.pdf Pillay, H., Irving, K., & Tones, M. (2007). Validation of the diagnostic tool for assessing tertiary students’ readiness for online learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 26(2), 217–234. doi:10.1080/07294360701310821 Preece, J. (2000). Online communities: Designing usability, supporting sociability. New York: Wiley & Sons. Reeves, T. C. (1997). A model of the effective dimensions of interactive learning on the World Wide Web. Retrieved September 17, 2002, from http://it.coe.uga.edu/~treeves/WebPaper.pdf Rovai, A. (2002). Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(4), 319–332. doi:10.1016/S10967516(02)00130-6 Salmon, G. (2000). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. London: Kogan Page. Smith, P. J. (2005). Learning preferences and readiness for online learning. Educational Psychology, 25(1), 3–12. doi:10.1080/0144341042000294868 Southern Regional Education Board. (2006a). Standards for quality online courses. Atlanta, GA: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://ww.sreb.org/programs/edtech/ pubs/2006Pubs/06T05_Standards_quality_online_courses.pdf

Southern Regional Education Board. (2006b). Standards for quality online teaching. Atlanta, GA: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.sreb.org/programs/EdTech/pubs/ PDF/06T02_Standards_Online_Teaching.pdf Southern Regional Education Board. (2007). Five academic reasons: Why state virtual schools are important to your state. Atlanta, GA: Author. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.sreb. org/programs/EdTech/pubs/2007pubs/07T07_ Five_acad_reas.pdf Spector, J. M., & de la Teja, I. (2001). Competencies for online teaching. ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED456841). Retrieved August 20, 2008, from: http://www.ericdigests. org/2002-2/teaching.htm Vrasidas, C. (2000). Constructivism versus objectivism: Implications for interaction, course design, and evaluation in distance education. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 6(4), 339–362.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Online Course: A course that is delivered through the Internet. Online Course Evaluation: A determination of the value, quality or significance of an online course Course Modeling: A technique for identifying and demonstrating how the components of a course relate to each other and how these components help course functionalities Quality of Online Courses: A determination of the value of online courses Evaluation Criteria: The standards used to determine value, quality and significance.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by H. Song; T. Kidd, pp. 324-343, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Section II

Development and Design Methodologies This section provides in-depth coverage of conceptual architectures, frameworks and methodologies related to the design and implementation of Web-based educational systems. Throughout these contributions, research fundamentals in the discipline are presented and discussed. From broad examinations to specific discussions on particular frameworks and infrastructures, the research found within this section spans the discipline while also offering detailed, specific discussions. Basic designs, as well as abstract developments, are explained within these chapters, and frameworks for educating and preparing online instructors, designing virtual classrooms, and creating effective user interfaces are provided.

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Chapter 2.1

Spiraling into Transformative Learning Patricia Cranton The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, USA

AbstrAct This article explores how technical and vocational learning may spiral into transformative learning. Transformative learning theory is reviewed and the learning tasks of critical theory are used to integrate various approaches to transformative learning. With this as a foundation, the article explores how transformative learning can be fostered in adult vocational education

IntroductIon In the adult education literature, we tend to separate different kinds of learning into categories, with transformative learning falling into a separate category—one which seems to be more important than the others. Mezirow (2000) describes four types of learning: the acquisition of new

knowledge and skills, the elaboration on existing knowledge and skills, the revision of a meaning scheme, and the revision of a perspective. Only the latter two, he states, are transformative. This has the unfortunate tendency to disconnect vocational education, training, workplace learning, and the like from mainstream adult education and thereby to overlook the possibility of transformative learning occurring in educational forums that we consider to be more technical. Let us consider some ordinary examples from everyday life. Even though my mother died many years ago, I still sometimes think of the constraints in her life from not acquiring the common skill of driving a car. She immigrated to Canada from Amsterdam following Word War II as one of many “war brides” (those young women who married the soldiers whom they met during the war) and she settled with my father in a rural, isolated area of Western Canada. Going from a

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Spiraling into Transformative Learning

large family in Amsterdam to a rather desolate area of the prairies was difficult enough, but my mother could not drive a car. The nearest neighbors were at least two miles away from our farm, and long walks on dusty roads were not something that appealed to my mother. She could not go to town, 25 miles away, nor could she visit anyone in the community unless they came to her. She insisted that it was impossible for her to learn to drive a car. The process frightened her; she didn’t understand or like machinery. And that was that for the next thirty or so years that she lived. No one challenged her or tried to provide the support that might have led her to acquire this skill. My father worked long hours on the farm. The other women in the community worked alongside their husbands on the farms (my mother did not). Is it not possible, or even likely, that learning to drive a car, a technical skill, would have spiraled into transformative learning for her? I grew up in a time and place where gender roles were fairly rigidly defined. Although the farm women helped with the farm work, the men took care of finances, fixed things, and were responsible for the machinery and the “heavy work.” Women took care of things inside the house, including canning and preserving food for the winter. I uncritically absorbed these gender roles. When I first lived alone, I had no idea of how to do the “male jobs” in life. I was frightened and embarrassed to admit that I did not have the basic skills that everyone around me took for granted. Opening a bank account, getting a credit card, using a lawn mower, hammering a nail into something—these were all challenging experiences. When I began to acquire these basic technical skills for everyday life, I came to see myself in a new light and to feel a profound sense of accomplishment that went far beyond the actual task. To go back to an education context, for many years I taught a course called “Methods and Strategies in Adult Education” to primarily tradespeople who were preparing to become teachers of their trades in a community college. They tended to

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be anxious about returning to school, concerned about their ability to engage in learning, and worried about appearing to be foolish in front of their peers. I have told many stories about working with the people in this program, but in this context, one particular anecdote comes to mind. The group had decided that they wanted to learn how to prepare PowerPoint presentations. We booked a computer lab, I invited a technical person to attend the session to help out, and two of the participants in the group who already knew how to use PowerPoint offered to lead the class. Most people were nervous, but one man (I will call him Jim) was especially resistant. He would never need or use this skill, he said. He thought he would skip the session and do something else. I suggested he come to the lab for a little while, and if it really appeared to be irrelevant, he could leave. I did not witness the moment when things changed for Jim, but at one point I noticed that he had moved from looking over someone’s shoulder to sitting at a computer. Apparently, he had asked the technical assistant to show him how to turn on the computer, and he was following the instructions for creating a slide. Later that day, when we were back in our classroom, Jim announced to the group, “Now, I’m a real teacher! I can make slides!” Again, although this appears to be a simple technical skill, it spiraled into a potentially transformative experience for Jim; this was the first time he thought of himself as a teacher. It is my intent in this article to demonstrate how technical and vocational learning has the possibility of spiraling into transformative learning. First, I provide a brief overview of transformative learning theory. I discuss the fragmentation of transformative learning theory. I then go on to use the learning tasks of critical theory as a framework to integrate the fragments of transformative learning theory. With this in mind, I return to adult vocational education and technology to see how we can engage in the learning tasks of

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critical theory and consequently transformative learning.

overvIew oF trAnsForMAtIve LeArnInG theory Transformative learning is a deep shift in perspective during which habits of mind become more open, more permeable, and better justified (Cranton, 2006; Mezirow, 2000). According to Mezirow, the process centers on critical reflection and critical self-reflection, but other theorists (for example, Dirkx, 2001) place imagination, intuition, and emotion at the heart of transformation. Generally, transformative learning occurs when a person, group, or larger social unit encounters a perspective that is at odds with the prevailing perspective. This may be anything from a personal traumatic event to a social movement. The discrepant perspective can be ignored or it can lead to an examination of previously held beliefs, values, and assumptions. When the latter is the case, the potential for transformative learning exists, though it does not occur until an individual, group, or social unit changes in noticeable ways. This definition is deliberately general so as to incorporate the wide variety of definitions and perspectives now existing in the literature. Mezirow’s (1978) original theory was based on a study of women who, in returning to college, found that the experience led them to question and revise their personal beliefs and values in a fairly linear ten-step process. By 1991, Mezirow produced his comprehensive theory of transformative learning in Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. In this book, he drew on Habermas’s (1971) three kinds of human interests and the resulting three kinds of knowledge—instrumental, practical (or communicative), and emancipatory. In this view, transformative learning (the acquisition of emancipatory knowledge) occurs when people critically reflect on instrumental and communicative knowledge. At that time, Mezirow (1991)

described three types of meaning perspectives— epistemic (about knowledge and how we obtain knowledge), sociolinguistic (understanding ourselves and social world through language), and psychological (concerned with our perception of ourselves largely based on childhood experiences). He argued that we uncritically assimilate perspectives in each of these domains and do not realize that such perspectives are distorted until we encounter a dilemma that brings this to our attention. The process of bringing distortions to light and revising them was described by Mezirow as a completely cognitive and rational process. Among the first critiques of Mezirow’s work was just that—that it was too cognitive. Since that time, and especially in the last ten years, many other theorists have entered the scene, and interpretations of transformative learning abound. Transformative learning theory is, as Mezirow (2000) suggests, a “theory in progress.” But as is often the case with a theory that is evolving, things get confusing. We make meaning out of the world around us by categorizing ideas and distinguishing this from that. The unfortunate tendency is that this desire to find clear answers can lead to fragmentation in our thinking. We want transformative learning to be either rational or extrarational, cognitive or affective, individual or social. Next, I discuss some of the fragmentation of the theory that has taken place.

FrAGMentAtIon oF trAnsForMAtIve LeArnInG theory Some theorists, including Mezirow, focus on the individual, and others are interested in the social context of transformative learning, social change as a goal, or the transformation undergone by groups and organizations. Although this appears to be a great divide in theoretical positions, there is no reason that both the individual and the social perspectives cannot peacefully coexist; one does not deny the existence of the other, but rather they

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share common characteristics and can inform each other. Within the focus on individual transformation, further splinters are immediately visible. As I have mentioned, Mezirow’s work is described as cognitive and rational. Set up in contrast to this is the extrarational approach, or as labeled by others (for example, Taylor, 2005), the depth psychology approach. Extrarational perspectives substitute imagination, intuition, and emotion for critical reflection (Dirkx, 2001). Depth psychology theorists (Boyd & Myers, 1988; Dirkx, 2001) define transformation in relation to the Jungian concept of individuation, in which individuals bring the unconscious to consciousness as they differentiate Self from Other and simultaneously integrate Self with the collective. My work (for example, Cranton, 2006) is sometimes listed as cognitive and rational and other times as depth psychology. Also within the individual focus is a developmental perspective. As is the case in developmental psychology in general, transformative learning in this framework describes shifts in the way we make meaning—moving from a simplistic reliance on authority through to more complex ways of knowing or higher orders or consciousness (for example, Kegan, 2000). Belenky and Stanton (2000) fall within this perspective in that they report on a similar change in epistemology, but they emphasize connected knowing (through collaboration and acceptance of others’ views) rather than autonomous, independent knowing. Social change has long been a goal of adult education (as can be seen in the historical Antigonish movement in Canada in the 1920s and the Highland Folk School in the United States, founded in 1932). Mezirow (2000) distinguishes between educational tasks—helping people become aware of oppressive structures and learn how to change them—and political tasks, which challenge economic, government, and social structures directly. However, several transformative learning theorists see ideology critique as central to transformation.

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Brookfield (2000) goes so far as to say that critical reflection without social action is “self-indulgent” and “makes no real difference to anything” (p. 143). Taylor (2005) and Fisher-Yoshida, Geller, and Schapiro (2009) call this the social-emancipatory approach to transformation and connect it with Freire’s (1970) work. Some theorists writing in this tradition see race and power structures as pivotal to ideology critique (Johnson-Bailey & Alfred, 2006), and this has been labeled as a racecentric approach to transformation. Tisdell (2003) adds spirituality, symbolism, and narrative to the social-emancipatory approach; this is sometimes called the cultural-spiritual approach. Still in the realm of social structures, but taking a quite different approach are those writers who are interested in how groups and organizations transform. Yorks and Marsick (2000) focus their research on action learning and collaborative inquiry, strategies with a goal of promoting organizational transformation. Kasl and Elias (2000) base their work on the premise that individuals, groups, and organizations have a “group mind” that engages in both critical reflection and discernment. Transformative learning becomes a collective expansion of consciousness. Another example of this view can be found in Triscari’s (2009) dissertation, where she documented the organizational transformation of a non-profit organization that followed a deliberate shift in power structures within the organization. O’Sullivan’s (2003) broad vision of transformative learning integrates several of the preceding approaches, spanning individual, relational, group, institutional, societal, and global perspectives. He sees transformative learning as a shift of consciousness that dramatically changes our way of being in the world, including our relationships with each other and with the natural world. His work is sometimes called a planetary approach, as he advocates striving for a planetary community that embraces diversity; it is also sometimes called an ecological view of transformation.

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the seven LeArnInG tAsKs oF crItIcAL theory Brookfield (2005) set out to illustrate how critical theory can be used as a perspective to understand adult education practice. Here, I follow Brookfield’s lead, but I focus solely on transformative learning theory and use the seven learning tasks of critical theory as a framework for integrating, or at least establishing the connections between, the profusion of approaches to transformation. In general, critical theory involves identifying, challenging, and changing the way in which dominant ideologies manipulate people into not seeing oppression or accepting oppression. Critical theory is based on three core assumptions: that Western democracies are unequal societies, that the inequities are reproduced in such a way as to seem normal and inevitable, and that this state of affairs can be understood and changed (Brookfield, 2005, p. viii). Although there are many and varied understandings of critical theory, there are common characteristics across theorists: critical theory is primarily concerned with challenging an economy based on the exchange of commodities (including the commodification of our labor and our abilities); it is concerned with freedom from oppression; it critically questions the separation of subject and object (for example, the researcher and the researched); it strives for a more democratic, more connected way of being in the world; and it cannot be verified until a new social system is realized. Creating a just society involves a series of interrelated learning tasks, and it is in this way that Brookfield (2005) uses critical theory as a way of focusing on the goals and practices in adult education. The first of these learning tasks is challenging ideologies—the ideologies embedded in language, social habits, and cultural forms. Ideology is a “broadly accepted set of values, beliefs, myths, explanations, and justifications that appears self-evidently true, empirically ac-

curate, personally relevant, and morally desirable to a majority of the populace” (p. 41). As such, ideologies are hard to detect (they appear to serve the interests of everyone), but they are what prevents us from realizing our true interests. In transformative learning theory, the perspective that has been called social-emancipatory falls in with the task of challenging ideologies. Ideologies are more or less congruent with sociolinguistic or socio-cultural habits of mind. The second learning task Brookfield extracted from critical theory is that of contesting hegemony. Hegemony occurs when people embrace conditions (and see them as normal) that serve those in power but work against their own best interests. With the help of the media, for example, we come to accept corporate takeovers and government bailouts as normal. Or, people genuinely believe that the possessing the products and using the services provided by corporations lead them to a happy and fulfilled life. Large scale inequities are not mentioned and seemingly do not exist. Again, this learning task, in transformative learning theory would be described as social-emancipatory and the conditions that are uncritically embraced are similar to sociolinguistic habits of mind or meaning perspectives. The third learning task is unmasking power (Brookfield, 2005), based primarily on Foucault’s ideas about individual interpersonal relationships (such as between teacher and learner or among learners) and in broader social structures. Power is not something we can avoid or “give away” or “give to” another person, as has been advocated in some adult education literature. Power structures are deeply embedded in our culture and are often seen as a given or a natural way in which people interact. Unmasking power involves recognizing how power is exercised in our own lives in everyday actions. At the core of transformative learning theory is empowerment; revising perspectives in a meaningful way is empowering, and critical reflection is one of the means of unmasking power.

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Given the centrality of critical reflection, this critical theory task is congruent with the cognitive rational perspective on transformative learning. It also overlaps with a developmental perspective in that it involves moving away from a reliance on authority toward more complex understandings of human relations. Overcoming alienation is the fourth learning task of critical theory. We are alienated when we are unable to be ourselves, unable to be authentic in the way in which we live and work. For example, a work context that is repetitive, structured, and bound tightly by policies and procedures that go against our values is alienating. A relationship (including a relationship between teacher and learner) in which we need to hide our beliefs and assumptions in order to maintain the relationship is alienating. The adult learning task is to develop a sense of free agency and to realize how our lives are shaped by our social contexts. Overcoming alienation is related to several transformative learning perspectives. The psychoanalytic (or depth psychology) perspective, with its focus on individuation, is about differentiating the Self from the collective and consciously reintegrating with the collective. This is also a central process in the extrarational perspective. Kegan’s (2000) developmental perspective on transformative learning is about moving from the “socialized mind” to the “self-authoring mind” and to the “self-transforming mind,” in other words, finding out and understanding ourselves in increasingly complex ways. The cultural-spiritual perspective involves culture, spirituality, and non-rational and symbolic ways of knowing; it could be described as a way of overcoming alienation. Brookfield (2005) lists learning liberation as the fifth adult learning task. Marcuse (1964), in One Dimensional Man, argues that people can escape one-dimensional thought and ideological domination through imagination and the arts. One-dimensional thought focuses on improving current social systems rather than breaking away

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from them or replacing them with new ways of thinking about social issues. To do this, Marcuse suggests, individuals need to separate themselves from the collective of humanity so as to be able to see that collectivity in a detached and new manner. Engagement with art and aesthetics allows this separation to happen. In the depth psychology approach to transformative learning, individuation is a process by which individuals differentiate themselves from the collective as they grow and develop. The psycho-developmental perspective on transformative learning uses different language but involves a similar progression. And the cultural-spiritual point of view involves imagination and the arts in transformation. Reclaiming reason is the sixth task in a critical theory approach to adult learning. Habermas (1987) argues that reason has become “instrumentalized;” that is, we consider reason to be appropriate for making technical decisions and working with instrumental knowledge but not, for example, moral issues, values, and interpersonal relations. Habermas’s concept of the lifeworld encompasses the perspectives, values, and assumptions that inform our actions and reasoning without our being aware of them. The perspectives and values are reified; that is, they are accepted as true and unquestionable. For example, we may believe that a person who has more gadgets or a bigger house or a higher income is happier than a person without those things. “Quality of life” indices are based on the possession of dishwashers and microwaves. Or, we may assume that working class people want to “improve themselves” by moving into a middle class lifestyle. Reclaiming reason involves applying reason to examining how our lives have been shaped by the lifeworld. This task is congruent with Mezirow’s (2000) cognitive rational perspective on transformative learning. Mezirow (1991) drew on Habermas’s writing in his first comprehensive description of the theory.

Spiraling into Transformative Learning

Finally, practicing democracy is the seventh learning task that Brookfield (2005) lists. Brookfield argues that the ideal of democracy has become reified and actually supports capitalist hegemony. There is enough dissent in the media and political discussions that people believe democracy is working independently of their own lives, and they do not engage in critical questioning of the functions of democracy. Brookfield claims that the word itself, “democracy” is used in so many ways and with so many agendas that it has no real meaning. What we need to do is to practice democracy through rational discourse, paying attention to ideal speech conditions, increasing our awareness of the contradictions inherent in the ideal of democracy, and pay attention to power structures related to diversity (for example, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation). The cognitive rational perspective on transformative learning emphasizes rational discourse, ideal speech conditions, and many other facets of practicing democracy (including participatory planning of curricula, learner self-evaluation, and the like). The social emancipatory perspective, with its focus on critical consciousness, examines the diversity encountered in democracy. In spite of the emphasis in the United States on humanism and self-directed learning in the 1960s and 1970s, adult education has a long history of social reform (for example, Coady, 1939; Lindemann, 1926). Transformative learning theory has its base in critical theory through Mezirow’s drawing on Habermas’s work. Following his early research on women returning to college (Mezirow, 1978), Mezirow (1981) introduced his critical theory of adult learning using Habermas’s concept of democracy as grounded in a theory of communicative action. Now, we can see how critical theory provides a framework that embraces the proliferation of varying perspectives on transformative learning theory. What appears to be a fragmentation of transformative learning theory into widely disparate splinters actually fits comfortably together under this umbrella.

vocAtIonAL educAtIon And technoLoGy: towArd trAnsForMAtIve LeArnInG Vocational education and technology education have long been marginalized in the world of adult and higher education. “Training” became separated from “education” generally, with education enjoying a superior status to training. Though we speak of vocational education and technology education, we think of both as the preparation for specific jobs that are instrumental and technical in nature. In our social structure, professions are valued over trades, and a general liberal arts education is often valued over one that prepares a person for a job. In part, this is because we think that acquiring skills is not as important as more intellectual activities. This is an ideology in Western culture, one that appears to be self-evidently true, empirically accurate, and desirable. We assume that an unskilled worker would rather be a skilled worker, that a skilled worker would rather be a professional, and that a professional would rather be an intellectual. In order to challenge this ideology, I turn to an exploration of how vocational education and technology engage learners in the tasks of critical theory and consequently spiral into transformative learning. Doing a good job and knowing you have done a good job, taking pride in workmanship, and building self-confidence through practice is empowering and, in this way challenges ideology. Vocational and technology educators can deliberately and consciously work toward these goals in all programs. When a carpenter is a good carpenter and knows that he or she is, this is one chip at the marginalization of tradespeople and an opportunity for individual transformation in the way the person sees himself or herself. Ideology critique and contesting hegemony has roots in the labor movement, union education, the workplace, and social movements such as the Antigonish Movement in Canada and the Highlander Center in the United States. If educa-

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tors in vocational and technical programs exposed learners to these roots, it would serve to provide a new perspective on their choice of career; excellent historical video documentaries are available on these and other social movements. Engagement in service learning projects and community development projects would also contribute to contesting hegemony. For example, learners could practice their skills by working in low-income communities to provide car repairs, develop building projects, do renovations and repairs, help people access computer technology, or create organic vegetable gardens. This has the potential of changing the way people see their work, but it also could contribute to transformative learning in relation to cultural diversity and economic issues. Unmasking power involves developing a sense of agency, coming together in collective action, learning about power structures in the workplace, and resisting capitalism. Educators could include environmental issues in their programs and help learners engage in environmental projects related to their vocation (for example, forestry, agriculture, refrigeration and heating). Social sustainability projects would be relevant to some programs. This could be a part of a service learning or community development project as well. Again, the potential exists for students to transform their perspective on themselves, their work, and their social world. Learning about the role of unions and becoming involved in union activities also could serve to unmask power and bring alternative perspectives on their work to students. Union representatives could speak to participants; students could attend union meetings; students could engage in or follow union negotiations as a program project. Any of the projects suggested so far would be best conducted as a collaborative project. Collaborative experiences help to overcome alienation and move the learning out of the strictly technical domain. There is camaraderie in apprenticeship programs and in the working environment of

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shops and other practical settings which brings with it the freedom and joy in building, creating, and repairing. In many of the trades, the work is open-ended in terms of time and space. Tradespeople travel to the worksite, work with diverse clients, work on and solve unique problems, and make responsible decisions. Building communication skills into programs or holding workshops on communication can further enhance the value of collaborative work and foster transformative learning. Arts-based projects are not usually associated with the trades but can provide a unique experience and a new perspective on the work. I have witnessed stunning sculptures made by welding students, for example, and innovative arts-based carpentry projects. Learning liberation can come through the artistry inherent in the work and can lead students to see their craft through a different lens. Reason, problem solving, diagnosis, autonomy, and independence are at heart of vocational and technology education. Reclaiming reason is the process of bringing reason beyond technical skill and applying it to all facets of life. Educators can enhance this learning task by helping students engage in, for example, problem-based learning, where groups of students are given a fairly large problem to solve (one that does not only require technical skills, but also has communicative and social elements). The group gathers the resources and information needed for the project, makes decisions about how to implement the project, and calls on the educator when needed. The service learning and social sustainability projects I mention earlier could be treated as problem-based learning, but any open-ended project that is central to the discipline would have the potential to lead to transformative learning. Educators can practice democracy in their classrooms by engaging participants in participatory planning and learner self-evaluation. Although the constraints of mandatory curriculum and meeting industry needs may prevent full

Spiraling into Transformative Learning

learner involvement, there are always some places in the program where learners can be a part of the process of planning and assessing their learning. Participation in decisions related to the process of learning rather than the content can be just as empowering, but educators can usually find some means of bringing learner choice into the curriculum as well. The suggestions I give here are only a few examples of things that can be done in vocational and technological education if we see our work as extending beyond technical skills and having the potential to spiral into communicative and emancipatory learning. Learning to drive a car, operate a lawn mower, or create a PowerPoint slide show may be the acquisition of a technical skill for one person, but could be contesting hegemony for another person or overcoming alienation for a third person. Depending on the individual and his or her background and experiences and the assumptions and values uncritically absorbed from that background, any technical skill has the potential to lead to transformative learning. As educators, we need to be aware of these possibilities, recognize the moment when they exist, and do our best to challenge and support learners as they move into a different realm of learning.

Coady, M. M. (1939). Masters of their own destiny. New York: Harper and Brothers. Cranton, P. (2006). Understanding and promoting transformative learning (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Dirkx, J. (2001). Images, transformative learning and the work of soul. Adult Learning, 12(3), 15–16. Fisher-Yoshida, B., Geller, K. D., & Schapiro, S. A. (2009). Innovations in transformative learning: Space, culture, and the arts. New York: Peter Lang. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action: Lifeworld and system—a critique of functionalist reason. Boston: Beacon Press.

reFerences

Johnson-Bailey, L., & Alfred, M. (2006). Transformative teaching and the practices of black women adult educators. In E. W. Taylor (Ed.), Teaching for change: Fostering transformative learning in the classroom. New directions for adult and continuing education (No. 109, pp. 49-58). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Belenky, M., & Stanton, A. (2000). Inequality, development, and connected knowing. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 71-102). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kasl, E., & Elias, D. (2000). Creating new habits of mind in small groups. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 229-252). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Boyd, R. D., & Myers, J. B. (1988). Transformative education. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 7, 261–284. doi:10.1080/0260137880070403

Kegan, R. (2000). What ‘form’ transforms? A constructivist-developmental approach to transformative learning. In J. Mezirow et al. (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 35-70). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brookfield, S. D. (2005). The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lindemann, E. (1926). The meaning of adult education. New York: New Republic.

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Marcuse, H. (1964). One dimensional man. Boston: Beacon Press. Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education, 28, 100 –110. doi:10.1177/074171367802800202 Mezirow, J. (1981). A critical theory of adult learning and education. Adult Education, 32(1), 3–27. doi:10.1177/074171368103200101 Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 3-34). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. O’Sullivan, E. (2003). The ecological terrain of transformative learning: A vision statement. In C. A. Wiessner, S. R. Myer, N. Pfhal, & P. Neaman (Eds.), Transformative learning in action: Building bridges across contexts and disciplines. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Transformative Learning, New York (pp. 256262). Teachers College, Columbia University.

Taylor, E. W. (2005). Making meaning of the varied and contested perspectives of transformative learning theory. In D. Vlosak, G. Kilebaso, & J. Radford (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Transformative Learning (pp. 448-457). Michigan State University and Grand Rapids Community College. Tisdell, E. (2003). Exploring spirituality and culture in adult and higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Triscari, J. S. (2009). Power shifts during an organizational transformation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Penn State University at Harrisburg. Yorks, L., & Marsick, V. J. (2000). Organizational learning and transformation. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 253-281). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology, Vol. 1, Issue 1, edited by V. C. X. Wang, pp. 1-13, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.2

Transitioning to E-Learning: Teaching the Teachers Bethany Bovard New Mexico State University, USA Susan Bussmann New Mexico State University, USA Julia Parra New Mexico State University, USA Carmen Gonzales New Mexico State University, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

This case study explores the ongoing development of an online instructor training program, initiated in spring 2002. Involvement of the learner-instructors (professional development instructors learning to teach online) in the design and development of this online instructor training program was key to its overall success. Significant outcomes of the program include a core group of experienced and highly dedicated online instructors, a new model for continuous professional development and support, and the formation of an active and dynamic learning community.

RETA (Regional Educational Technology Assistance program) at New Mexico State University (NMSU) is a professional development program funded by agency partnerships, Technology Literacy Challenge funds, a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant through the U.S. Department of Education, other grants, and the New Mexico Legislature. Its primary mission is to expand the number of educators skilled in effective use of technology to support educational goals (Gonzales, 1998; Gonzales, Pickett, Hupert, & Martin, 2002). RETA has been very effective in reaching New Mexico educators. Between the 1998-1999 and 2001-2002 school years, RETA

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Transitioning to E-Learning

delivered over 1,400 workshops to almost 8,600 educators. In 2002, RETA extended face-to-face professional development workshops for K-12 teachers to include an online component. This change was motivated by the scope of work for RETA’s Technology Innovation Challenge Grant (Gonzales, 1998) and was facilitated by institutional and national events. Since 2001, NMSU has emphasized distance education as a way to better serve student needs. This focus began with the appointment of RETA’s founder as NMSU’s first vice provost for distance education. Since that time, NMSU rapidly expanded online course offerings and invested in distance education tools, including WebCT, a course management system, and Centra, an online classroom. These events coincided with a national increase in Internet access. In 2001, 77% of instructional rooms in public schools had Internet access (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2001), and more than 50% of Americans were online with 2 million new users connecting every month (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002). This growth in Internet access helped insure that our audience of K-12 educators could participate in online workshops. RETA’s expansion to online professional development also aligned with the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s (ESEA) No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its emphasis on quality professional development and technology. The act emphasizes teacher professional development, requiring “ongoing professional development for teachers, principals, and administrators by providing constant access to training and updated research in teaching and learning through electronic means” (20 U.S. Code 6301, available at http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg34. html). Because of this emphasis, we anticipated a need for online professional development.

e-LeArnInG ProGrAM The RETA online instructor training program is a blended program designed to transition RETA instructors from face-to-face to online teaching and learning. The primary goal of the program was to train the learner-instructors in technology skills, pedagogic challenges, and administrative issues related to online teaching and learning. Ideally, instructors in the program would have experience in online teaching and learning as well as strong written communication skills due to the primarily asynchronous nature of our program. This was unrealistic, and in the end instructors who made a commitment to the training had limited online teaching and learning experience. However, they did have strong written communication skills, and most importantly, attitudes conducive to risktaking and self-advocacy related to individual and community needs. The process we envisioned for training online instructors was designed to: •

•

We only met the first goal, however, because our expectations about involving the learnerinstructors in online instructional design were unrealistic. Our final process focused on training the learner-instructor and evaluating the training program (Figure 1) as follows. 1.

2. 3.

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Use the expertise of the learner-instructors in training to give us feedback on their training, and Enlist learner-instructor help as co-developers of the workshops they would lead.

Train learner-instructors, via Centra, in online technologies, pedagogy, and workshop content. Mentor and support learner-instructors as they teach online workshops. Develop and revise RETA Online Certification Competencies (see Appendix A

Transitioning to E-Learning

Figure 1. Our online training process

4.

5. 6.

and B) based on feedback of the learnerinstructors. Provide additional face-to-face training based on the RETA Online Certification Competencies. Repeat process as needed. In training the learner-instructors, we went through this process twice and continue to use this process to introduce online workshops.

AcAdeMIc Issues Philosophical and Pedagogic Foundations RETA professional development is learnercentered and based on constructivist learning theory as well as theories of brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligences, and learning communities (Gonzales et al., 2002). The RETA professional development model is based on the teachers-teaching-teachers model and for instructors, a one-year apprenticeship.

Most RETA instructors begin as participants, apply to become instructors through a competitive process, and apprentice with a team of two instructors before they form a team with another instructor. RETA online learner-instructors were recruited and trained from this pool of instructors to undergo further training and apprenticeship. Collaboration and learning communities play a vital role in instructional improvement and empowerment of teachers as leaders and professionals (Dufour & Eaker, 1998; Riel & Fulton, 1998). RETA has used these techniques to develop an extended learning community with a supportive, familial atmosphere. The RETA extended learning community is supported by the RETA Web site (http://reta.nmsu.edu), two listservs, and two annual face-to-face events for professional development for instructors. During these events, the smaller group of RETA online learner-instructors attended regular sessions as well as workshops specifically developed for them to enhance skills in WebCT and online technology and teaching. Via Centra, they synchronously received training and communicated on topics, including summative assessment.

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Since RETA’s transition to online professional development is ongoing, RETA staff and instructors are encouraged to collaborate and improve their online teaching knowledge and skills by using the technology tools and learning communities available. Due to the challenges of online teaching and learning, RETA online learner-instructors formed a tight-knit learning community. Both personally and professionally, the larger and smaller RETA learning communities continue to serve as valuable resources for RETA members to take risks, to grow, to change, and to achieve.

course and Program development Our goal in training instructors in online facilitation was to ensure they had the technology and facilitation skills to be effective online instructors. Because this skill set needed to meet their needs, we engaged learner-instructors as co-developers of their online training program. They provided continuous feedback to us (RETA office staff) via e-mail, surveys, and meetings (face-to-face and online). Although seemingly chaotic at times, the development of the online instructor training program was iterative, which helped stakeholders understand goals (Schwen & Hara, 2004) (Table 1). In addition, involving online instructors in their training promoted ownership, allowed us to address individual and group concerns, and let learner-instructors control the learning pace (Elbaum, McIntyre, & Smith, 2002). Our collaboration and community building was also essential to developing relevant content and quality interactive materials (Collison, Elbaum, Haavind, & Tinker, 2002). Early in the program, we oriented the learner-instructors to Web delivery tools and basic online pedagogy (Table 1). Then the learner-instructors apprenticed with us, teaching colleagues online the skills and

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information they had learned. For many of them, this was their first experience teaching online. These experiences gave us a common framework from which to collaborate further on the design. From there, training combined direct instruction (Table 1) and application of new skills as they continued teaching RETA Online workshops under our guidance.

teaching and Learning Processes We collaborated with online learner-instructors to create a community of learners. As per learnerinstructor requests and with their guidance, a list of online instructor competencies (see Appendix A) was developed, in fall 2002, based on examples from organizations such as the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (http://www.ibstpi. org) and Western Governors University (http:// www.wgu.edu). Learner-instructors used these competencies to assess and pursue their own learning paths (Brockett & Hiemstra, 1991). The competencies also provided us with direction in delivering continuous and relevant training. Directly engaging learner-instructors increased their self-awareness and their attainment of new skills (http://www.arl.org/training/ilcso/adultlearn. html). Once learner-instructors became familiar with the online instructor competencies, it became evident that further development of advanced online instructor skills was needed. Thus, in spring 2003, we incorporated RETA Best Practices in Online Teaching (see Appendix B) into training that delineated specific practices for the learnerinstructors to advance skills in online instruction and further their growth as online educators.

Learner support The learner-instructors accessed RETA office staff members and resources via e-mail, postal

mail, and phone. Instructor-only discussion boards were established in WebCT-based workshops for learner-instructors and office staff to communicate. Centra events were provided as needed. Online Instructor Certification Competencies (Appendix A)

Asynchronous

f2f: interface and basics

f2f: facilitating & moderating

Best Practices in Online Teaching Checklist

f2f: moderating chats

Best Practices in Online Teaching Checklist (Appendix B)

f2f: discussion board, chat tool

f2f: interface and basics

Synchronous

f2f: orientation

f2f: registration, security, record keeping; e-mail follow up

f2f: registration, security, record keeping; e-mail follow up

e-mail: registration, security, record keeping

f2f & WebCT: facilitating & moderating

Centra: interactivity, games, WebCT & Centra: competencies

Centra: troubleshooting markup tools

f2f: new version

f2f: revised program policy dissemination; e-mail follow up

f2f: program policy dissemination w/ e-mail follow up

e-mail: program policy negotiations including instructor benefits and training requirements

Centra: orientation

Fall 03

Fall 02

spring 03

summer 02

Online Instructor Certification Competencies (Appendix A)

Centra

WebCT

Workshop management

Program policies

spring 02

training delivery method e-mail: training and information delivered via e-mail f2f: training and information delivered via face-to-face professional development workshops Centra: training and information delivered via Centra, an online synchronous conferencing system WebCT: training and information delivered via WebCT, an online course management system

Pedagogy

tech tools

Admin

online Instructor training

f2f: participation challenges

f2f: grade book

e-mail: registration, security, record keeping

spring 04

spring 05

summer 05

f2f: RETA database

f2f: mentoring & testing

f2f: mentoring

f2f: quick start tutorial handout

f2f: calendar & quiz tools

Centra: workshop specific

Centra: instructor contract negotiations; e-mail follow up

Fall 04

Transitioning to E-Learning

Table 1. E-learning program overview

virtual Learning environment

We were fortunate to have both WebCT and Centra as e-learning tools. WebCT (http://webct.com) is an online classroom environment with both class-

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room management (course administration, content management, and a grade book) and learning management features, including synchronous and asynchronous communication and collaboration tools. Centra (http://www.centra.com) is an online, synchronous conferencing system that allows students to communicate in real-time using voice and text chat. It also includes a whiteboard with real-time mark-up tools. Centra delivers virtual or “live” classroom presentations and other events through the Web. The powerful combination of these two tools in conjunction with face-to-face training provided rich opportunities for building the learning communities that were vital to this program.

Assessment and evaluation The primary assessment tool for this program was the online instructor competency checklist. It was developed by RETA staff to assess learning progress and feedback for program evaluation. After each training session, learner-instructors completed a section of the checklist to assess their progress in that area. They also used the checklist as a tool to reflect on their learning over time and assess their learning goals for the program. Finally, RETA staff also assessed the learner-instructors using the same tool to provide them with feedback.

AdMInIstrAtIve Issues technical Infrastructure Through NMSU, we have access to a welldeveloped technical infrastructure for distance learning. Additionally, because our organization is committed to technology integration, we have a strong technology infrastructure of our own that includes servers, computers, digital audio and video equipment, and Web development tools and software.

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Our learner-instructors have access to most of the technical infrastructure that we do; however, stable Internet access is a challenge. Additionally, frustrating limitations in public school infrastructures prevented them from using some synchronous tools we provide such as Centra and WebCT chat.

human resources RETA staff has extensive experience in distance education, online teaching, and learning. Additionally, several learner-instructors had limited online teaching and learning experience. Using a collaborative approach and the combined knowledge, skills, and experience of stakeholders (Figure 2) was imperative for successful program development. However, we had never managed such a program, and we developed these skills during the program. Skills and knowledge that we developed included project management, online instructional development, course development, quality control issues, WebCT and Centra technical skills, and online program development and delivery.

budget Costs for this program were covered under RETA’s funding. Costs unique to this effort included learner-instructors stipends for training, assisting in the purchase of Centra for the university, and upgrading staff skills through conferences and workshops.

Intellectual Property and copyright This program had no intellectual property issues. RETA staff members and instructors routinely develop curriculum and workshop materials that are copyrighted by the Regents of New Mexico State University. Most are free and available at the RETA Web site (http://reta.nmsu.edu). These materials may not be used for monetary gain.

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Figure 2. Organization chart

Quality Assurance and standards Quality assurance and standards for the RETA online instructor training program were based on RETA standards. Based on our needs and competency lists from other e-learning organizations, we developed the RETA Online Instructor Certification Competencies (see Appendix A) and the RETA Best Practices in Online Teaching (see Appendix B) to guide our teaching and learning efforts. Additionally, the online learner-instructors provided continual feedback as part of the process model to formatively assess, revise, and assure program quality.

Program evaluation Since we developed the program as we implemented it, we evaluated the program informally using online interviews and questionnaires. This ongoing process kept the program and us on track. Our primary instrument for program goal evaluations was the online instructor competency checklist. The checklist was developed to provide

us with learning and teaching paths for the program. As our group refined their knowledge, we used the checklist to help us stay on track with our training program: if a learner-instructor improved in the targeted area, we knew our training environment was sound. Finally, the instructorlearners also used the checklist to evaluate their progress as online instructors so they could set their learning goals. Additionally, the RETA Best Practices in Teaching Online was created and similarly applied for progress evaluation.

networking and collaboration Most networking and collaboration for RETA’s e-learning training program happened in-house among staff members. However, to run the technical part of the online program, we collaborated with Scholarly Technology, the NMSU unit that managed WebCT and NMSU’s Centra Consortium to set up WebCT and Centra for online workshops and sessions. We also used the library and computer labs at Desert Ridge Middle School in Albuquerque for face-to-face training sessions.

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Policy Implications The RETA Online Instructor Training program used and incorporated RETA policies and procedures. The greatest effect of our RETA online training experience is that we now provide ongoing and continuous training and support as recommended by the National Staff Development Council (National Staff Development Council, n.d.). Previously, training and support was only provided at spring and fall instructor development sessions. Training and support is now ongoing, continuous, and provided online via Centra and WebCT instructor-only areas. All resources, rubrics, and materials are online. Our online training capabilities are now an integral part of our planning process when developing resources, training, and support. This blended approach to training, where we meet face to face and continue online, has strengthened the RETA online learnerinstructors’ learning community as well as the rest of RETA professional development.

sustAInAbILIty And concLusIon Cost effectiveness and sustainability of RETA’s online workshops are issues that we struggle to address, especially since we are operating with reduced funding. Financial constraints and No Child Left Behind, which emphasizes test scores and proven, research-based programs, has created a dilemma for technology-oriented professional development programs, where there is little hard evidence that student technology use raises test scores. Although teachers are interested in online workshops for technology integration, the educational climate is not supportive. Other training opportunities take priority and consume the limited time teachers have for professional development. New Mexico’s inadequate technology infrastructure also challenges the sustainability of

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RETA Online. Even though the technology infrastructure of New Mexico’s schools has benefited tremendously from E-rate funding, seamless, robust online access is still an issue for many schools. In October 2003, New Mexico ranked 47th in the nation in Internet use, with just over 50% of New Mexicans reporting Internet use from any location (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004). The selection of New Mexico as an early beneficiary of funding from initiatives like Intel’s Teach to the Future and the Gates Foundation underscores the high-need status of our state’s education system. Our online instructor training program requires online learners. These are not easily found in New Mexico: even free online workshops failed to generate sustainable enrollments. However, we are not giving up. Our survival strategies include targeting our limited resources to the development of highly marketable online workshops, cultivating partnerships, adding online components to our face-to-face workshops, and diversifying the format of our online workshops.

Lessons LeArned No matter how good the content, how well executed the plan, or how much expertise is available, significant challenges and discoveries exist in transitioning from face-to-face to online teaching and learning. These challenges present opportunities for learning the following lessons. Lesson 1. Involve learners in course and program development Program implementation would have been slower if we had not involved the learners. Their participation helped us create a customized program suited to our needs. More important, their involvement increased their buy-in and improved their overall comprehension of teaching and learning online:

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The unknown is always scary ... Now, it would be really scary if RETA set off to conduct online sessions w/o instruction and practice! We will all get to the other shore together ... (Learner–instructor, RETA chat log, October 2002) Lesson 2. The learning curve is steep The learner-instructors in this program are among our most experienced RETA instructors. They have been teaching teachers how to integrate technology into curriculum for years and are technologically proficient in many areas. However, teaching online requires an entirely new set of skills; even with their background, many learner-instructors found the new teaching environment intimidating: My initial response was pure fear. Fear that I might not figure out how to use [the technology] well, fear that I might be left behind, etc. (Instructor, RETA chat log, October 2002) Gulp!!! I have not taken an online class previous to this one. As usual, the challenges RETA present to instructors takes us to territory I’ve not visited before. I find it exciting! I also get insecure that I don’t quite know what I am doing (even right now are you receiving this?). But I do know that if I don’t delve in I will become stagnant… (Learnerinstructor, RETA chat log, October 2002) Lesson 3. Plan for ongoing technical training and support There is no point at which all learners are completely familiar with online technologies. They will learn key aspects of individual tools and spend time figuring out how to use them in pedagogically sound ways before adding to their technology repertoire. Then, just as they are becoming proficient, new versions of the technology will be launched requiring more learning. This never-ending process will have significant impacts on training and budget concerns.

els

Lesson 4. Capitalize on established mod-

Because we provided face-to-face professional development for many years, we had workable policies and procedures for communication, instructor training, and course development. Some policies were adequate for the new program, and others needed modification. Only a few policies were changed completely. We could not have implemented the RETA Online Instructor Training program as quickly as we did if we had needed a new organizational model. Lesson 5. Be willing to change models when necessary One reason for RETA’s success is that we involve our instructors in design, development, and delivery of our professional development workshops. However, this model was not initially effective for RETA-Online. The online learnerinstructors’ lack of experience, ascertained after the program was already underway, frustrated our attempts at collaborative online course design and development. As a result, we had to employ a different model and wait until our learnerinstructors had enough experience with online teaching and learning to once again attempt the previous ideal model. Lesson 6. Teachers need time to adjust to their new roles in the online environment Experienced classroom teachers often become frustrated when moving to an online environment. The roles they fulfill as an online teacher are, in many ways, very different from the roles they have in the classroom, and they are frequently uncertain how to react to their learners. Programs aimed at teaching teachers to teach online must recognize this frustration and allow learners to adjust to the new environment. When asked to provide advice to a hypothetical learner new to online teaching, the following RETA online instructor (with 2 years of experience) had this to say:

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You will be asked to walk a fine line between sharing … personal experience and expertise enough that you are human and accessible and not enough that it becomes about you and not your participants…You will play cheerleader, counselor, evaluator, advisor, devil’s advocate, and slave driver, all in the course of a session—and all without ever seeing your students’ faces… You will be in charge, from the back seat, without ever raising your voice. (Learner-instructor, Evaluation, Fall 2003) Lesson 7. Allow new programs to influence other programs in organization It can be easier to implement new ideas with new programs than it is to change existing models. Beginning a new program is the perfect opportunity to try new methods and models and then let those influence older programs. For example, the first time we implemented a blended training approach was for the RETA Online Instructor Training program. Initially, we used a blended approach out of necessity; however, the strengths of the model became evident through positive comments from our instructors. As we gained more experience with this method of training, we realized that other programs might benefit from the approach. Two years later, we implemented blended learning across our programs. Lesson 8. Centralized program communications are more efficient At the onset of the program, project leaders spent hours responding to e-mail regarding program policies, administration, training materials development, teaching and learning issues, and technical support. Often, we answered the same questions several times a day. We quickly realized that we needed more centralized communication. First, we established a listserv to discuss policy. Second, we set up a learning community in WebCT to discuss technical and pedagogic questions as well as to practice with the primary e-learning tool. Additionally, we created an area in the RETA

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Web site to post relevant program information. Finally, when program policies were fully established, we began to use formalized contracts rather than informal e-mail communications as our preferred method of communicating teaching and learning expectations. Lesson 9. Be prepared with “Plan B” Because our learner-instructors lived all over the state, we had many opportunities to learn about the technology infrastructure around New Mexico. Sometimes that infrastructure supported our learning plans; other times it thwarted them. At first, we were not prepared for this. We designed our program around WebCT and Centra, but many locations could not support Centra’s technical requirements, resulting in canceled training. Later, we developed technology back-up plans. These were critical to our success because they allowed us to proceed with scheduled training even if we had technical problems. Lesson 10. Learners support each other We were all committed to the idea of designing this program with the participants, but it was initially difficult to change teacher-learner relationships from previous programs. Creating an area in WebCT for learners to support each other helped revise that relationship and put us on similar terms. The area provided learner-instructors with opportunities to act as online teachers early in the program and gave them space to try new things without asking for help. This was an essential component of our overall program goals.

best PrActIces Best Practice 1. Establishing a training program for online instructors should be a collaborative process between trainers and learners Using both trainers and learner-instructors in a collaborative process ensures that (a) learning is

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appropriately scaffolded to meet learners’ needs (Elbaum et al., 2002); (b) learners have buy-in and ownership over their learning activities and content (Senge, Roberts, Ross, Smith, Both, & Kleiner, 1999); and (c) we were more likely to include all necessary elements of the program. Best Practice 2. The blended approach is essential Using the blended approach for the RETA online instructor training program provided the venue for RETA to provide ongoing, continuous training and support with reduced costs and improved learning outcomes while supporting and sustaining learning communities and aiding in transforming RETA face-to-face instructors into RETA online instructors (Dziuban, Hartman, & Moskal, 2004). Best Practice 3. Nurture a learning community The learning community established by RETA trainers and learner-instructors provided a supportive environment for the development and social construction of new knowledge, understanding, and skills. Its development is appropriate according to the National Standards for Staff Development (National Staff Development Council, 2001) and is critical for the perpetuation of RETA’s online ventures. Its value is recognized as RETA online instructors continue to take full advantage of the learning community fostered by the RETA Online Instructor Training program.

reFerences Brockett, R., & Hiemstra, R. (1991). Self-direction in adult learning: Perspectives on theory, research, and practice. New York: Routledge.

Collison, G., Elbaum, B., Haavind, S., & Tinker, R. (2000). Facilitating online learning: Effective strategies for moderators. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing. Dufour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN: National Education Service. Dziuban, C., Harman, J., & Moskal, P. (2004). Blended learning. EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. Research Bulletin, 7. Retrieved August 12, 2004, from http://www.educause.edu/ LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=ERB0407 Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential questions: Prepare, design, and teach your online course. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing. Gonzales, C. (1998). RETA Technology innovation challenge grant: (RETA) Regional Educational Technology Assistance. Las Cruces, NM: New Mexico State University. Gonzales, C., Pickett. L., Hupert, N., & Martin, W. (2002). The Regional Educational Technology Assistance Program: Its effects on teaching practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 35(1), 1-18. National Center for Education Statistics. (2001). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994-2001. Retrieved August 2, 2005, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/internet/ and http:// nces.ed.gov/quicktables/Detail.asp?Key=535 National Staff Development Council. (2001). NSDC standards for staff development. Retrieved August 15, 2005, from http://www.nsdc.org/standards/index.cfm National Staff Development Council. (n.d.). NSDC resolutions. Retrieved August 15, 2005, from http://www.nsdc.org/connect/about/resolutions. cfm

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Riel, M., & Fulton, K. (1998). Technology in the classroom: Tools for doing things differently or for doing different things. Accessed August 15, 2005, from http://www.gse.uci.edu/vkiosk/faculty/riel/ riel-fulton.html Schwen, T., & Hara, N. (2004). Community of practice: A metaphor for online design? In S. Barab, R. Kling, & J. Gray (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 154-180). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Senge, P., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Smith, B., Both, G., & Kleiner, A. (1999). The dance of change: The challenges to sustaining momentum in learning organizations. New York: Doubleday.

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U.S. Department of Commerce. (2002, February). A nation online: How Americans are expanding their use of the Internet. Retrieved August 2, 2005, from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/ dn/html/anationonline2.htm and http://www.esa. doc.gov/508/esa/nationonline.htm U.S. Department of Commerce. (2004, September). A nation online: Entering the broadband age. Retrieved August 15, 2005, from http://www.ntia. doc.gov/reports/anol/NationOnlineBroadband04. htm#_Toc78020942

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APPendIx A RETA-Online Instructor Certification Competencies Why have instructor competencies for online learning instructors? The instructor’s role in the success of the course, the program, and student retention and achievement is clearly documented. In online learning, the instructor’s role is even more critical because the instructor has to overcome potential barriers caused by technology, time, and place and help create an optimal environment for achieving educational goals. For the RETA program, the actions of a good online learning instructor fall into four areas: technical proficiency, course preparation, facilitation, and evaluation. Additionally, we will be asking for some anecdotal and reflective feedback. Technical proficiency General • E-mail (sends & receives e-mail with and without attachments) • Word (create, comment, save, save as) • Internet browser (navigation, cache, bookmarks)

• • • • •

WebCT Discussions (manages topics, messages) Mail (send & receive) Content Module (add, edit, organize content) Chat (send & receive messages and URL, retrieve chat logs) Quiz (add, edit & delete questions or quizzes, force grade)

• • • • • • • • •

Centra Promoting co-presenters Presenting Recording presentation Publishing presentation Passing microphone Survey tool Text chat Breakout rooms White board

Course preparation Reviews course materials for accuracy, consistency, and viable resource links. Sends welcome e-mail to learners informing them how to access course, when to access course, and who to contact in case of technical or other issues. • Prepares WebCT environment: adds students to course, sets up grade book, posts welcome info, and sets up discussion topics. • •

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APPendIx A contInued • • • •

Requests Centra session(s). Prepares Centra agenda for session(s). Posts Centra access information and link in WebCT Discussions. Establishes and guides participants in the use of synchronous (real-time) office hours.

• • • • •

Course facilitation General Helps establish course rules and decision-making norms. Posts timely bulletins about changes and updates to course. During first week, assures that all learners are “on board” and responding (contacts privately by phone or e-mail if not). Returns learner calls/e-mails within 24 hours. Engages learners, fosters sharing of knowledge and experience. Contributes outside resources (online, print-based, others). Contributes advanced content knowledge and insights, weaves together discussion threads. Fosters learning and self-regulated learning.

• • • •

WebCT Manages discussion and learner interactions and assists learners to do the same. Moderates discussion, models desired methods of communication. Minimum of 10% of discussion postings are from the instructor. Helps maintain an active learning community in WebCT (asynchronous and synchronous).

• • •

• • • •

Centra Establishes event goals and objectives. Manages discussion and student interactions. Poses thoughtful questions related to the topic and appropriate to the desired cognitive outcomes (Bloom’s Taxonomy). Fosters group learning in a synchronous environment.

Assessment and Evaluation Develops, utilizes, and revises an assessment plan. Provides students with clear grading criteria including examples as needed. Utilizes WebCT gradebook tool. Acknowledges receipt of assignments within 24 hours. Returns students assignments, with detailed notes and grade, within 96 hours. Encourages students to evaluate course content and instructor via anonymous feedback area, RETA course evaluation tool, and so forth. • Uses assessment data to revise instruction and learning activities.

• • • • • •

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APPendIx A contInued • • • • •

•

How will we ascertain that you are meeting these competencies? Instructor training Instructor evaluations Course evaluations Learner assessment data Communications with students For Reflective/Metacognitive Consideration Consider your strengths and weaknesses and use that information to guide you in developing your own personal growth program. How can we help address your needs? What discussions, workshops, and so forth do we need to continue or add?

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APPendIx b Providing Learner Support Welcome e-mail with Workshop Materials Packet will be sent out by instructors. Workshop Materials Packet will include PDF of Syllabus, Schedule, Resources, WebCT/Centra login instructions, Discussion & Participation rubric, and so forth. Syllabus, Schedule, Resources will be available on RETA site. Resources document will include specific instructions for downloading and installing any necessary software and plug-ins. Backup methods of communication will be stated upfront by instructors. Expectations of learner to learner, learner to instructor, learner to content communications (frequency, quality, etc.) will be provided. A workshop orientation lesson covering help menus, attaching files, using WebCT discussions/email, and so forth, communicating in discussions, and so forth will be in the first week of every workshop. Syllabus will identify technical skills needed to successfully complete workshop (EX: “Participant must have access to and be able to use a scanner to complete this workshop”). Instructors will hold weekly office hours to address specific participant issues and to provide feedback. Participants will have access to the student progress tool in WebCT in order to determine what they have completed/need to complete. Self-quizzes at the end of every lesson of the workshop will be provided for the participant so that they can gage their understanding of the material. A discussion area for participants to help each other with technical issues will be created. A discussion area for participants to talk about non-course related topics will be created. Discussion areas for participants to talk about specific themes related to the workshop topic will be created so that they might engage in dialogues of specific interest to them. Workshop FAQs and Glossary will be available to participants. Facilitating Learning Environment Establish Communications Obtain your participant list and participant contact info from RETA Web site. Send welcoming e-mail: • welcome • introductions (yourself and the workshop) • expectations and requirements (type/amount of participation, etc.) • links to syllabus, schedule, and resources on RETA site • links and login instructions for WebCT/Centra • backup plan information (what to do if you can’t login, etc.) • request response from participants so you can verify their e-mails, and so forth • attach workshop materials packet (.pdf of syllabus, schedule, resources, participation rubric, detailed login instructions for WebCT/Centra, etc.) Remember, your workshop communication plans need to compensate for the loss of face-to-face communications. It takes time, planning, and effort to communicate online, but it can be just as effective as face-to-face. • Most online communications are asynchronous. Expect it to take more time to plan events, distribute information, and hold discussions. • Plan ahead. Try to anticipate your participant’s information and support needs. • Agree on a communication plan with your participants. • Maintain frequent, meaningful communication throughout workshop. If you do not have time to respond right away, let them know when you will get back to them.

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APPendIx b contInued Build Community Remember: You are part of the community. In true constructivist fashion, you and the participants will be working together toward a deeper understanding of the learning topic. Allow learners to dominate the discussion. Remove yourself from the center of each communication, but do not withdraw from the conversation either. The workshops are not self-running. They require a “guide on the side” to keep things running smoothly and moving toward deeper understanding of the topic(s). Agree upon deadlines, requirements, and expectations. Your participants need to understand both the big and small picture. Your participants need a clear picture of where they are going, what they need to do to get there, and when it needs to be finished. Without this information, participants may feel like they are lost and floundering. Model high expectations and good practices. Your participants will follow. Send deadline and meeting reminders. Encourage participants to share. They should be sharing with each other and with you. Their insights and experience are meaningful and critical to the group learning experience. Remind them of that. Provide and encourage timely, meaningful feedback. Participants need to be acknowledged for their efforts, and insightful comments will help participants to learn and improve. Participants also need to feel free to share their workshop comments, questions, and concerns. Insist on a positive, respectful learning environment. Demeaning, threatening, coarse, vulgar language is not only disrespectful and damaging to learners; it is, in many instances, against NMSU digital communications policy. See http://ict.nmsu.edu/Guidelines/general.use.html for NMSU guidelines. Hold office hours—WebCT chat is perfect for this. You can specify an hour each week in which you will be online to provide content assistance, clear up problems with assignments, and so forth. You could even build weekly chats into the course as an assignment. Provide Basic Technical Support Hold office hours—WebCT chat is perfect for this. You can specify an hour each week in which you will be online to provide technical assistance, clear up problems, and so forth. Provide technical assistance—how to attach files in mail, how to navigate the course, and so forth. Decide on a “backup plan” to deal with technical problems such as server down, and so forth. Moderating discussions Strive for three goals—community building, supporting a culture of respect, cultivating reasoned discourse of the topic. Recognize three forms of dialogue—social, argumentative, pragmatic—so that you can plan interventions that will effectively promote active, collaborative, focused reflection. • Social dialogue—general, non-course related chitchat. Important for bonding and trust building, but have separate area set up for this. • Argumentative dialogue—strongly advocating a particular view, or distancing self from discourse (“This is too hard.” “This is too new.”). While people need to feel comfortable saying what/how they feel, the emphasis should be on critical thinking and opening up to new ideas and possibilities. • Pragmatic dialogue—process-oriented dialogue that serves ends beyond the dialogue itself. This type of dialogue engages, promotes enquiry, exposes assumptions, welcomes confirmation as well as challenges to data and interpretation of “facts.”

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APPendIx b contInued Fulfill three roles—guide on the side, instructor, and group process facilitator. • Guide on the side—carefully crafts interventions in the dialogue, does not play a central role in dialogue, tries to move participants to a new conceptual level. • Instructor—sets course expectations, requirements, an so forth. • Group process facilitator—helps form and maintain group collaborative spirit through community building, nurturing, organizing posts, acknowledging diversity, and so forth. Remember: Your job as guide on the side is to extend the thinking of your participants. To do this, you can use a variety of voices to help participants see their own thinking and facilitate their reflections of their own ideas with the purpose of moving the learning forward. Adopt various “voices” as you guide your group through the learning process by crafting those dialogue interventions mentioned previously: • Generative Guide—lay out spectrum of possible positions on a topic to indicate avenues of questioning that need to be explored. • Conceptual Facilitator—identify conceptual areas that need attention. • Reflective Guide—restate a message or series of messages for the purpose of highlighting fruitful lines of discourse or insights from participants that have extended key points in the discussion or to highlight tensions between competing thoughts. • Personal Muse—craft a post that shows your internal dialogue about central issues in order to hold your own opinions/beliefs up for questioning. • Mediator—maintain open spirit of dialogue. • Role Play—adopt a character to “voice” concerns, issues, and so forth, from a new/different perspective. Remember: You are communicating in a primarily text-based medium. Messages can, and frequently are, misconstrued if you do not pay attention to the tone you use. Adopt various “tones” to support and encourage reflection and pragmatic dialogue. You might choose to be nurturing, curious, analytical, humorous, informal, and so forth, or a combination of them throughout your posts. Used in conjunction with the voices mentioned previously, your messages will serve to deepen critical thinking, understanding, and learning. Remember: As guide on the side, your job is to deepen the understanding of a topic. Voices and tones are only two parts of a triad of advanced moderating skills you can use to do this. The third is critical thinking strategies. In combination with voice and tone, these strategies sharpen the focus of the dialogue and help participants dig deeper into the dialogue. Adopt various critical thinking strategies: • Identify direction of dialogue—help participants recognize goals and expectations of the current dialogue. • Sort ideas for relevance—help participants decide on the relative importance of active lines of thought based on stated goals of dialogue to be pursued. • Focus on key points—highlight essential concepts and connections made by the participants to date. • Full-spectrum questions—help participants examine their own hypotheses, thoughts, and beliefs, both as individuals and as a group. • Make connections—help participants explore inferences, tensions, and rationales in statements made to date in order to help them shift to deeper layers of meaning. • Honor multiple perspectives—help participants understand and appreciate varying points of view. Promote Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation in each of your participants (Bloom’s Cognitive Domains). Promote Receiving, Responding, Valuing, Organizing, and Internalizing in each of your participants (Bloom’s Affective Domains).

Note: For a list of references used in creating this checklist e-mail the authors at reta@nmsu. edu.

This work was previously published in Cases on Global E-Learning Practices: Successes and Pitfalls, edited by R. Sharma and S. Mishra, pp. 52-72, copyright 2007 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.3

Preparing Online Instructors: Beyond Using the Technology Evelyn S. Johnson Boise State Univesity, USA Jane Pitcock Walden University, USA

AbstrAct This chapter discusses methods for supporting the instructor in the development of strong learnerlearner interactions. In this chapter, we present a brief overview of the importance of social learning theories and existing research that support learner-learner interaction as an important aspect of learning. Next, we discuss the multiple factors, and their complex interaction on the instructor’s ability to support learner-learner interaction. Additionally, we report and discuss findings from a qualitative study examining the use of an ecological assessment tool to evaluate an online course’s ability to support learner-learner interaction. The chapter concludes with suggestions for improved approaches to faculty development to support learner-learner interaction.

IntroductIon As the number of learners engaging in online education increases, a growing body of literature is DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-753-9.ch005

developing to recommend best practices for instructors. As online education was developing, the focus for instructors was on how to use the technology to transition traditional courses to the online format. Increasingly, best practices for instructors of online courses focus on sets of recommendations to enhance learner outcomes. Typically, these recommendations are oriented to a particular aspect of interaction based on Moore’s (1989) extended framework to include learner-instructor, learner-learner, learner-content, and learner-interface interactions. Any educational experience, to include online learning, seeks to achieve defined learning outcomes, and does so largely through adopting instructional models based on theories of learning integrated with the unique demands of the content and intended audience. However, online instructors and learners operate within a complex environment in which many aspects can have a direct impact on the instructor’s ability to facilitate learner-learner interactions. Although specific recommendations are important, in that they provide guidance to direct the actions of an instructor based on research, we know that distance education programs vary a great deal in content, delivery methods, and learner characteristics (Zhao, Lei, Yan, Lai, & Tan, 2005).

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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By examining these variables in context, we may incorporate an integrated approach to evaluating the learning context as a fundamental part of faculty development, so that the instructor can make appropriate decisions about how to increase learner-learner interaction (Roblyer & Wiencke, 2003; Zhao et al., 2005).

objectives of the chapter •

•

•

•

Provide a brief overview of the importance of social learning theories and existing research that support learner-learner interaction as an important aspect of learning. Discuss the multiple factors and their complex interaction on the instructor’s ability to support learner-learner interaction. Report and discuss findings from a qualitative study examining the use of an ecological assessment tool to evaluate an online course’s ability to support learner-learner interaction. Suggest improved approaches to faculty development to support learner-learner interaction.

bAcKGround Many current theories of adult learning maintain that knowledge is actively constructed through interactions with other learners. Such theories contend that an important element in the learning process is the level and quality of interaction that occurs within a learning community (Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Moore, 1989). Through discourse, learners create meanings and understandings, critically reflect on stated assumptions, and negotiate new learning through consensus (Mezirow, 1998). These concepts of learning are grounded in social learning theory, which contends that cognitive processes experienced and observed in social settings are then internalized by individuals (Bandura, 1977; Glaser, 1990). Social

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learning occurs when a group exposes a learner to new understandings that challenge, extend, and complement their current conceptualizations (Glaser, 1990). Examples of instructional models based on social learning theories include collaborative learning (Slavin, 1991) and reciprocal teaching (Brown & Palinscar, 1989). A key requirement to support learning, according to such models, is a high level of learner-learner interaction within the instructional environment. At the same time, an increasing number of adult learners are turning to online institutions of higher education (IHE) for advanced degrees and continued professional development. Over 2.5 million people engaged in some form of online learning in the last few years (U.S. Distance Learning Association, 2004). Recent meta-analyses on the effectiveness of distance, as compared with face-to-face education, have confirmed what has been called the “no significant difference” finding (Zhao et al., 2005). This finding implies that when other variables—such as the quality of instructor, content materials, and course design—are held constant, online learning can be as effective as face-to-face education. Despite this finding, there has long been recognition that online learning is subject to one significant, potential shortcoming: the lack of face-to-face interaction, “real-time” dialogue, and opportunities for discussion, which may limit the development of true learning communities. To that end, significant effort has been invested in researching the role of interaction in the online environment. Consistent with social theories of learning and research on interactive learning, research in online learning yields evidence that increased interaction is associated with improved learner outcomes and overall satisfaction (Fulford & Zhang, 1993; Hillman, Willis, & Gunawardena, 1994). Students express concern and dissatisfaction when there is a lack of interaction with the instructor and other online students (LaRose & Whitten, 2000; Russo & Campbell, 2004). However, while many educators believe that the

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advent of online learning can actually promote and increase opportunities for interaction, instructors and course developers often operate under the mistaken assumption that interaction will occur if the technology supports it (Orvis & Lassiter, 2006), while ignoring the critical role the instructor plays in supporting this process. The focus of many instructor training programs for online learning IHEs reflects this mistaken assumption, in that most concentrate on how to use the technology, as opposed to developing the pedagogical skills to operate effectively in an online environment (Johnson, in press). Despite the need to promote and sustain quality learner-learner interactions, and an increasingly substantial literature reflecting best practices by which to do so, instructors new to online learning require training in pedagogical aspects of technology (Johnson, in press; McCauley, Jugovich, & Reeves, 2006). Online learning programs differ a great deal in content, learner characteristics, and delivery design structure (Zhao et al., 2005). The growth of such a myriad of offerings reflects not only advances in technology, but also the increased need for adults to have more flexibility over the learning process. Online universities are generally populated by non-traditional learners who balance professional, family, and social obligations with the requirements of their continuing education. A growing body of literature suggests that some learners highly value the independent and self-directed nature of online learning, and place less value on learner-learner interactions such as collaborative group work (Reisetter & Boris, 2004; Sharp & Huett, 2005). Such findings suggest that a blanket approach to improving online education—such as increasing learner-learner interactions—may not be warranted, and that a more comprehensive, individualized understanding of the factors that contribute to positive online learning experiences is needed. In summary, both theory and research support the importance of collaborative learning and learner-learner interactions. An increased number

of learners are turning to online education for personal and professional development, and the nature of the online environment poses significant challenges to the development of learning communities. Instructors of online courses typically receive little-to-no training in how to engage in practices that promote the development of online learning communities, and for some learners, collaboration with other learners may actually detract from the elements of online education that they most highly value. These conclusions led us to ask and investigate two questions: 1.

2.

How can an ecological assessment allow an instructor to examine the online learning environment to determine how to create opportunities for learner-learner interaction? What are the important elements to include in online instructor training programs to support their ability to develop effective learning communities?

Issues, controversIes, ProbLeMs Identifying and understanding problems in education, and developing solutions based on research have typically been the work of researchers. When promising solutions are discovered, the hope is that these practices will find their way to educational institutions through a variety of models for replicating these innovations (Robinson, 1998). However, practices are formed and maintained within the context of constraints, and these constraints must be understood to propose relevant solutions (Robinson, 1998). Emerging literature identifies some promising practices for instructors to improve the way in which they support learner-learner interaction (see for example, Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Ko & Rossen, 2004; Orvis & Lassiter, 2006). Essentially, these practices focus on the instructor’s role in providing feedback, responding to

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student inquiries, and providing clear expectations for participating in group work. While these practices certainly can help improve the level of learner-learner interaction, and address specific actions that the instructor can take in facilitating this process, instructors work within a broader set of constraints that warrant a more in-depth examination of the environment to develop solutions that more accurately address the unique issues that instructors face. An instructor may improve the level of facilitation by incorporating a more global review of the context in which they operate, so they can tailor their actions in ways that address their unique situations. This implies that instructors need to be more reflective about the environment in which they teach, if their attempts to facilitate increased learner-learner interactions are to be successful. The constraints that influence an instructor’s ability to effectively facilitate learner-learner interactions may be viewed as a two-tiered system that includes the initial and ongoing faculty development and training the instructor receives, followed by the subsequent course delivery and online environment in which the instructor works.

tier one: Faculty training/ Professional development Online universities have grown significantly in recent years at all degree and program levels. This growth is seen at all levels across many institutions of higher education (IHE) and professional training, from the community college to doctoral level. The theory that technology changes the role of the instructor to that of facilitator has been generally accepted (Orvis & Lassiter, 2006). However, training for faculty who deliver online courses typically includes training in the software platform used, but rarely does it include systematic guidance on pedagogical issues and challenges. There are several guides for teaching online that detail the basic principles for effective communication (see for example, Ko & Rossen, 2004). These principles tend to focus on specific behaviors, 280

such as posting information in more than one place and providing clarity about administrative tasks, such as how often the instructor will log on to the course, how soon she will respond to email, and when students can expect to receive a graded assignment. While these “how to” specifics are essential in online teaching, they do not necessarily focus on pedagogical approaches to facilitate learner-learner interactions, such as designing opportunities for meaningful collaboration, learner-learner discussions, and other opportunities for group work. In a review of faculty development programs for a variety of online IHEs, Johnson (in press) found that none of the initial instructor development programs presented types and levels of interaction, and none discussed or provided opportunities for instructors to consider how to promote learner-learner interaction. Since the publication of Boyer’s (1991)Scholarship of Teaching, which emphasized teaching at the college level as a scholarly activity, IHEs have begun to develop resources that improve the teaching abilities of their faculties. The movement to online education presents new challenges to teaching, and given the increased reliance on distance education to provide professional development and higher education opportunities, it is critical that faculty receive training in both the technology and the educational processes used. If online IHEs hope to reflect current theories and research that support increased learner-learner interactions and the development of learning communities, they need to provide instructors with the professional development opportunities with which to do so. While instructors are typically content area experts, few have backgrounds in theories and practices of effective adult education. New instructors, however, have little control over the initial faculty development provided by an institution. We offer the problem here for programmatic and systemic consideration, as institutions of higher education (IHEs) continue to expand and develop the opportunities for engaging in professional development.

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tier two: evaluating the online Learning environment As stated previously in this chapter, instructors operate within complex systems that place different types of constraints on their actions, and require a broad lens through which they can thoroughly represent the particular constraints under which they operate. When instructors engage in reflective activities that include critical assessments of the learning environment, they can improve their teaching practices in ways that respond to the specific constraints of each course, program, and learning community. These constraints include the following: 1.

2.

Content/objectives/purpose of interaction: In Moore’s seminal writing (1989), the focus on learner-learner interaction was related to a course where the objective was to teach learners how to interact effectively with one another. Similarly, many programs require students to begin with an introductory course that not only teaches them the basics of navigating online courses, but also devotes energy towards promoting collegial relationships. These courses will likely lend themselves well to support learner-learner interaction, and given these objectives, the instructor will come to the course with this orientation. Courses that are focused heavily on content or acquiring a skill, such as a statistics/research methods course, may have less focus on learner-learner interaction, and the instructor may focus more on presenting the content in ways that support learner understanding. For example, in a research methods course, learner-content and learnerinstructor interactions may take precedence over learner-learner interactions. Course structure: In general, instructors operate under two different course structures: those with predetermined content, applications, and requirements, and those in which

3.

4.

the instructor is responsible for meeting objectives, but is free to design the course as they consider appropriate. An instructor with more latitude over course structure can use the principles for effective learnerlearner interaction, and implement these procedures at their discretion. Instructors who operate under existing requirements and procedures will need to evaluate the tools at their disposal, and consider how they might help develop/promote learner-learner interactions. Program structure: Learners in an online environment tend to require more time to develop trust, cohesion, and shared cognition than those in face-to-face courses (Orvis & Lassiter, 2006), which can determine both the amount and quality of learner-learner interactions. Programs that are degree-oriented, and assign and maintain cohorts throughout the life of the program will likely have stronger avenues through which learner-learner interactions can be sustained. When online courses occur outside the realm of a program structure (e.g. single professional development courses; students in a degree program not progressing as a cohort), students will not have the benefit of long-term interactions, and the instructor will have to devote more energy to develop trust and cohesion early on for learners. Technology: Technological enhancements in online learning delivery systems have greatly increased the potential for promoting strong communications, and specifically, connecting learners with other learners (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). Nevertheless, many distance education programs still rely on few or a single medium (generally text based) for course delivery, thus limiting these potentials (Moore, 1989). An instructor rarely has control over the technology available, although she may have control over the elements of a platform (e.g. discussion

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5.

board, group chat, audio streaming, video/ Web conferencing) if designing her own course. Recognizing that face-to-face components are often not feasible, tools such as video-conferencing and other synchronous communication tools can effectively create social organizations (Levin, Levin, & Chandler, 2001). A recent survey on actual use and preference for technology found that high percentages of instructors do not always use technological tools that can support stronger social networks (Zhao, Alexander, Perreault, & Waldman, 2003). Even when the technology is present and used, however, this is no guarantee that the instructor uses it effectively (Loeding & Wynn, 1999). Learner characteristics and needs: Demographics of online universities typically show that the student population consists of non-traditional learners who balance full-time careers, families, and social obligations with the requirements of their continuing education. The flexibility that an asynchronous and self-directed approach to learning provides is highly regarded, and these learners may not understand the value that increased learner-learner interactions can provide (Reisetter & Boris, 2004).

Other factors that bear on the desire and efficacy of learner-learner interactions include the age, expertise, and motivation of the learner (Moore, 1989). Achievement outcomes in distance learning, compared to face-to-face learning, have been shown to vary depending upon the education level of the learner (Zhao et al, 2005). Learners may not feel confident to express their views and/or to challenge one another’s ideas. Because writing is the medium of choice in conveying thoughts in an online environment, a learner with poor writing skills may also be reluctant to contribute to group discussions. Learners with less expertise may feel they have less to contribute than those with more expertise. Finally, research on cooperative

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learning has consistently demonstrated the need for learners to have clear understandings of the roles they play within the larger group, and what the expectations for fulfilling those roles are. Learners with experience in collaborative learning may be more ready to continue this type of interaction, whereas novice learners may require more support. 6.

Instructor engagement and feedback: Arguably, the instructor’s most direct role in facilitating learner-learner interaction comes from the quantity and quality of feedback they provide. In a recent meta-analysis examining factors that account for effective online course delivery, instructor involvement was the most significant moderator among all the identified factors (Zhao et al., 2005). Interactions between the teacher and students have been found to affect the quality of student experiences and learning outcomes in online education (Institute for Higher Education Policy, 2000).

While issues of timeliness, tone, and medium (e.g., response on discussion board, e-mails, announcements) are generally discussed and modeled as issues in faculty training, increasingly, there is an understanding that the quality of the feedback provided has significant impact on developing strong learning communities, in which learnerlearner interactions are valued and encouraged. To achieve these desired learning outcomes, the instructor must assume a role that is both structured and systematic, so that the level of communication promotes a community of inquiry (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005). Instructors establish presence through their feedback in ways that support both the social and cognitive development of individual learners and the course as a whole. When instructors can provide timely, substantive, and individualized feedback, they help support the development of a community of inquiry (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005).

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Figure 1. Two-tiered solution to promote learner-learner interaction

soLutIons And recoMMendAtIons tier one: expanding Initial Faculty training to emphasize Learner-Learner Interactions The problem of increasing the instructor’s ability to effectively foster learner-learner interactions in an online environment calls for a two-tier solution (see Figure 1). The first tier solution is to provide initial and ongoing faculty development that explains the model of interaction, articulates the theory of learning, the goals of the program/ course, and general characteristics of the learners who participate that are unique to the IHE. Faculty development programs need to be more proactive in their inclusion of effective learning principles and strategies. An orientation to prevailing theories and practices of interaction, followed by explicit declaration and discussion on the IHE’s particular focus, may help instructors refine their teaching practices to support the philosophy of the IHE and enhance learner outcomes. Levels of interaction in online courses would be an important construct to discuss, as well as explanations of how the instructor can assess their context and respond appropriately. The expanded model of types of interaction (Hillman et al, 1994; Moore, 1989) can provide an overarching framework for consideration. Moving

beyond training in the technological aspect, and towards training that focuses on the nature and quality of feedback—perhaps through the use of case studies, model courses, and/or metacognitive strategies embedded within training models—may help instructors begin their approach to teaching online in ways that support the development of learner-learner interaction.

tier two: ecological Assessment of the online environment A second tier solution is geared towards instructors, and includes understanding the complex dynamics that comprise the online learning environment. The representation of the problem of increasing learner-learner interaction is presented in Table 1. Essentially, the model outlines the constraints under which an instructor operates and demonstrates the need for a complete representation of these constraints to develop effective solutions. Table 2 presents an ecological assessment tool that is based on this model. The ecological assessment provides instructors with a structured means of evaluating the specific constraints that either support or detract from opportunities for learnerlearner interactions. As instructors use this tool to develop and evaluate their own courses, they should be guided by the question of priorities.

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Table 1. Problem demand: Increase learner-learner interaction in an on-line education environment Constraints on Solution: Technology

Program Structure

Does the course platform support/include opportunities to engage in learner to learner interactions Group arrangements, discussion boards, chat rooms, document sharing areas

Is the Program structured by cohort, to support sustained relationships among students? Are students in a series of classes or a single, isolated course for professional development

Course Structure Courses with predetermined curriculum vs instructor developed What are the requirements of the course (what is graded)

Learner Characteristics Need for flexibility (demographics of students) Learning needs Purposes of enrolling/ participating in the course Various student abilities

Content Nature of content may impact the opportunities for learner-learner interaction

Instructor feedback: 1. What avenues for providing feedback are available to the instructor? 2. Am I promoting social/cognitive/teaching presence through a variety of feedback styles? 3. Is the feedback timely? Substantive (addressing content, specific issues with an application, making connections to course and program content)? Individualized? (relevant and targeted to a specific learner)?

Solutions: Depending upon the outcome of the analysis, different solutions may be warranted Consequences: Is learner-learner interaction always the ultimate goal? To what end do we sacrifice other needs/elements? Our application of this tool is limited to a qualitative study to refine and consider how it might be applied to faculty development training opportunities and ongoing faculty/program evaluations. In this review, we found that the ecological assessment provided a more comprehensive review of the potential for increasing learner-learner interactions in an online setting, and specifically tailored the particular constraints under which each instructor operated (for a full report of that study, see Johnson, in press). For the purpose of this chapter, we briefly highlight some of the significant findings through the use of two specific examples that are relevant to the focus of the instructor’s role in supporting learnerlearner interactions. We began our review of online courses by using the ecological assessment tool. This tool includes the six categories described above (see Table 2), along with guiding questions, a rating scale, and a comment section. In a more

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extensive application of this tool (see Johnson, in press), we examined courses provided by four institutes of higher education (IHE), including a large, online university offering graduate-level degrees, a smaller college offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in online-only programs, a community college that offered a combination of live and online courses and serves typically underrepresented populations in higher education, and an online program designed to provide professional development opportunities for practicing teachers. Within these IHEs, we asked faculty development chairs to identify instructors who met two criteria: (1) they had more than one year of experience teaching online, and (2) they received positive student evaluations, particularly in the area of facilitating learner-learner interactions. We then asked these instructors for access to their courses, so that we could determine how our tool might be useful to analyze how instructors could improve the quality of learner-learner interactions. In this chapter, examples of reviews of two courses are included. We first present the reviews, followed by a summary that highlights how this assessment tool might be used to inform ways in which instructors can promote stronger learner-learner interaction.

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Table 2. Ecological assessment tool Technology Evaluation

Comments

1. The technology and course platform provide multiple opportunities for learners to interact

YNU

2. Group chat is possible

YNU

3. Document sharing features are enabled

YNU

4. Discussion boards are available and used

YNU

5. Assignments to smaller groups is possible

YNU

Overall Comments on technology: Program Structure Evaluation

Comments

1. The program/degree is a cohort based approach

YNU

2. The course is within a program that includes a series of courses (not an isolated, one-time course)

YNU

3. The overall goals of the program encourage the development of collegial and collaborative relationships among students

YNU

Overall Comments on program structure: Course Structure Evaluation

Comments

1. The course content and structure is pre-determined (not instructor developed)

YNU

2. Interactive discussion is a requirement of the course (e.g. requirement to discuss with classmates)

YNU

3. Group projects/work is a requirement of the course

YNU

Overall Comments on course structure: Learner Characteristics Evaluation

Comments

1. The students are at a level of self-directed, independent learning

YNU

2. The students require flexibility in their learning environment (e.g. balancing family & work requirements)

YNU

3. The students have been taught the skills to interact effectively with one another to support L-L interaction

YNU

Overall Comments on student needs: Content Evaluation

Comments

1. The course content easily lends itself to group assigned projects

YNU

2. Learners likely have professional experience relevant to this content area.

YNU

3. Content is challenging and requires a strong instructor presence

YNU

Overall Comments on content:

continued on following page

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Table 2. continued Instructor Feedback Evaluation

Comments

1. The instructor creates mediated presence on the course

YNU

2. The instructor provides clear rules of engagement and emphasizes the importance of L-L interaction

YNU

3. The instructor uses a combination of social, cognitive and teaching presence as required to support a community of inquiry

YNU

4. The instructor provides timely feedback

YNU

5. The instructor provides feedback that supports the needs of the students

YNU

Overall Comments on instructor feedback:

course reviews 1.

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Course A: a. Content: This course is an introductory course for a master’s program in public policy. This 12-week, 6-credit course introduces students to the university and the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program. The course also prepares students to use the learning platform as well as Internet tools, e-mail, Web browsers, and techniques of online communication. In addition, skills important for success in graduate education, including (a) self- management, (b) application of APA writing style, (c) use of the online library system, (d) scholarly writing, (e) ethical applications, and (f) critical thinking skills are introduced and applied. b. Course structure: This course took place over 12 weeks, and included weekly threaded discussion, individual assignments, and one group assignment with a group discussion area. The goal of the group assignment was to create, refine, and post a group response on a particular policy question. The discussion area was to be used for

c.

d.

e.

f.

group discussion, consensus building and drafting, revising, and editing the group statement. Program structure: A sequential, cohort master’s program requiring 52 credits of core courses with an option for specialization. Program completion is estimated at 24 months. Technology: The platform used can support asynchronous discussion boards, a document sharing section, and live chat sessions for the whole class or individual groups (no synchronous participation was required for successful completion). Learner needs: This program has an open enrollment policy (e.g., no GRE is required). For this particular program, learners must have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution, and professional experience for admission. The majority of students are non-traditional, working professionals. Instructor feedback: Instructors can give feedback on the discussion board, in an announcement section, on individual applications, via e-mail, and through chat sessions. A specific look at the discussion board designed for group discussion found that the group

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2.

discussion pages had no instructor input. There were several groups who posted one learner’s initial discussion as their final work with no editing, revision, or discussion about the topic. Postings other than the one learner’s response to the actual prompt included primarily procedural questions (e.g., “When is an assignment due?”). This finding was surprising, given that the instructor receives high ratings from students for providing feedback. Further scrutiny of the course showed that this instructor posted numerous announcements (averaging three per week), and posted numerous—but brief—replies to discussion boards in other places on the course. Course B: a. Content: The course is designed to help teachers plan and manage their literacy classroom as they implement the concepts and strategies they have learned throughout this degree program.

This course covers planning, organizing, and managing a balanced literacy program. It examines flexible grouping for differentiated instruction, incorporating literacy across the curriculum, integrating technology, working with parents and paraprofessionals, and pacing instruction. b.

Course structure: This is an eight-week course, with a weekly threaded discussion where learners are required to respond to the initial discussion question, and then to two of their classmates (on average, students had three responses each week;1-2 students of 15 posted an average of four responses). Weekly individual assignments are submitted via a dropbox. The instructor scheduled two voluntary opportunities for synchronous discussion during the eight-week course.

c.

d.

e.

f.

Program structure: A sequential, cohort master’s program consisting of 10 courses. Technology: The platform used can support asynchronous discussion boards, a document sharing section, and live chat sessions for the whole class or individual groups (no synchronous participation was required for successful completion of this course). Learner needs: Learners in this course have a bachelor’s degree, teacher certification, and have successfully completed nine previous courses in the program. The majority are current classroom teachers. Instructor feedback: Instructors can give feedback on the discussion board, in an announcements section, on individual applications, via e-mail, and through chat sessions. In this course, the instructor created a voluntary process for peer editing applications, but no learners used this opportunity. A specific example of feedback provided on the regular discussion board to promote and encourage learner-learner interaction includes:

“I often read helpful responses. N’s to B is helpful, respectful, and instructional. As I read it, I knew that I was learning and that others would learn from N, too. Some day, I hope to hear that a lot of you are teacher-educators as well as teachers. Here is a model response that shows how to do this well. I have read others that are just as wonderful—N lucks out because I never thought to make this idea explicit before.” Here, the instructor pointed out that the learner’s response was helpful, which may prompt more learners to read that particular posting more carefully. It may also promote more thoughtful responses to one another, as it highlights the fact that each learner has important insights to share. In terms of measurable outcomes however, no further postings from learners were made after

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this instructor feedback, and it is difficult to tell if postings made in other places reflected more thoughtful responses, since we could not determine which or how many students read this post. Possible explanations for the lack of response include that the course structure requires learners to only make three postings to meet requirements; the posting was made near the end of the course week, and learners may have already progressed to subsequent discussion boards; learners may not have responded to this specific posting, but it may have encouraged increased activity on subsequent discussion boards (though this hypothesis seems unlikely after review of the remaining discussion boards). In another posting on the discussion board, the instructor made the following observation and comment: Do you remember what we’ve learned about differentiated instruction? We need to be judicious about how we choose the agenda of a guided reading session. K is correct to say that decoding skills and fluency are important for struggling readers. But let’s try to figure out where these readers learn the ideas and skills the more proficient readers’ lessons are about. Are there good reasons that struggling readers can’t discuss character traits or expand their vocabularies through learning multiple adjectives? I would love it if there could be an expanded thread here that helps everyone see how the strugglers can also learn complicated ideas. Here is the rub: processing difficulties do not preclude brilliant thinking. If we don’t expose those who decode with more effort to the higher levels, ask for their opinions, ask for them to think of other episodes, they won’t have the experience and then they will believe they can’t. What are ways around this problem? K has brought important issues to the surface. (An implied one is time: should the

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struggling readers have 2 sessions? A longer guided reading session?) Hmm... In this response, we see that the instructor is making connections to prior course content which builds on their common experience and knowledge base. Additionally, she is inviting learners to expand on this posting, and finally, providing specific ways in which they might do so through the use of an example already provided by a learner. The observable results of this feedback included two additional postings made by learners. Each posting was made directly to the instructor, not to another learner. Again, although the instructor is providing feedback that attempts to engage learners with one another, the attempts do not appear to be as successful as might be expected.

summary of reviews This review of courses highlights the need for a more comprehensive look at the online learning environment prior to making recommendations to instructors on how to improve and increase learner-learner interactions. For example, the instructor for Course A has many tools at his disposal, yet failed to intervene at a critical juncture in the course (e.g., group discussion boards). The instructor for Course B, however, provides feedback and support that exemplifies many of the best practice recommendations. However, the course structure is such that learners are not required to participate in peer editing, are only required to respond to two classmates each week (and that is all most do), and no synchronous or group work is required. Even when synchronous discussions were offered, learners did not participate. One interpretation of these findings is that we measured learner-learner interaction only in observable and quantitative terms: through the number of responses on discussion boards, and participation in other discussion-like activities. Learners may benefit a good deal from one another by reading each other’s postings on the discussion

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board, even if they choose not to respond further. Focus groups, questionnaires, or interviews with learners could provide important qualitative information on the impact that the instructors have on supporting the learners’ interaction with one another. Another consideration that is unaccounted for in this model is learner preference for interaction. As noted in other research (Sharp & Huett, 2006), online learning may attract people who prefer to work independently—interacting with the content and/or with the instructor may be the preferred learning mode. All of these factors bear consideration as instructors evaluate approaches to improving the online education experience for a particular set of learners. These reviews highlight important, possible applications of the ecological assessment tool that include: •

•

•

•

Instructors and faculty responsible for program/outcomes assessment may use this tool to conduct formative evaluations of their existing programs. By evaluating the context of the course and program, the instructor may find more effective ways to increase learner-learner interaction. For example, a request to a faculty chair to make synchronous chat, group work, and/or peer editing a required component of the course may lead to increased learner-learner interactions. A long-term application of this tool could be integration with learner evaluations to determine which elements are most effective depending upon degree, program, and/ or course structure. One important element of online learning research is that although a variety of models exist, there is no delineation among practices that are effective for different kinds of learners and content areas. Program chairs responsible for developing curricula and revising courses may use the tool to determine ways in which

•

the program and course structure may be varied to support increased learner-learner interaction. As suggested by Sharp & Huett (2006), learners come to the online education experience with many different needs. This tool may also be used to focus more on the specific needs of the learners, and the implications those needs carry for the instructor in supporting stronger interaction. For example, an instructor working with lessexperienced and more diverse learners— especially those for whom English is not a first language, and those who have had a history of negative academic experiences—may use different methods to promote learner-learner interaction than an instructor working with learners in advanced degree programs who have experience of professional and collegial collaboration.

Although this assessment can provide a comprehensive evaluation of the learning environment, challenges to supporting learner-learner interaction remain. As mentioned previously, online learners may value the independent nature and flexibility of an online program, and be unwilling to coordinate schedules to collaborate and interact more with other learners. An increased focus on collaboration to promote learner-learner interaction may support strong learning outcomes, but may do so at the risk of detracting from some of the more practical advantages offered by online education. Another challenge to supporting learner-learner interaction is that efforts to do so are difficult to measure. Learner-learner interaction is, to some extent, a latent variable, and measurements of the construct will always be subject to a level of interpretation. Typical measurements include analysis (primarily counts) of discussion board postings, correlations to student achievement, and student self-report of satisfaction with learner-learner interactions. The more elusive goal of determining

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the long-term effects of learner-learner interaction by measuring subsequent changes in behavior has yet to be realized. For example, when the number of discussion board replies to classmates increases from two to three, has achievement increased commensurately?

IMPLIcAtIons And Future trends Research that helps to clarify the variables, behaviors, and processes in which instructors engage to support learning in an online environment is important. Translating that research into practice that completely addresses the constraints operating on the instructor in a complex context is critical. Though the work on this ecological assessment tool is limited to a qualitative review of its application, the principles, research, and theories on which it is based, will allow program developers, course designers, and instructors to more clearly target the variable of concern and devise appropriate solutions to the development of stronger learner-learner interactions. Based on our reviews of both faculty training and course reviews, we offer the following recommendations to support online instructors in promoting stronger learner-learner interactions: 1.

2.

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Provide initial and ongoing professional development opportunities that not only teach the instructor how to use the technology, but also examine pedagogical principles in the online environment. Examine the specific context under which each course and program operates to determine the best means for increasing learnerlearner interaction. Though resources that outline procedures for increasing learnerlearner interaction are available and helpful, the recommendations are usually not context-specific. The ecological assessment tool provided in this chapter is one possible

3.

means with which to consider best-practices in an applied, context-specific setting, allowing the instructor to choose methods most suitable to their particular learning environment. Instructors and program designers can use the assessment tool as an end of course evaluation to complement the feedback provided by learners.

In addition to these practical applications, continued research on the instructor’s role in supporting learner-learner interaction is warranted. Further research should investigate the validity of the assessment tool by measuring pre/post levels of interaction and learner achievement after interventions are designed based on evaluation results, for example. Additionally, attempts to improve the ways in which we measure learner-learner interaction may significantly enhance efforts to promote it. Finally, though narrowly-focused research (e.g. examining the impact of an instructional change on a defined outcome) is beneficial in increasing our knowledge about effective online education, a parallel research agenda should continue to focus on “big picture” contexts to maintain thorough understandings, adequate problem representation, and relevant solution development.

concLusIon Regardless of delivery method, the instructor’s role in the education process is a critical determinant of overall effectiveness. In an online environment, one of the key challenges to effective course delivery is providing venues for and encouraging interaction among learners. Instructors need to consider the constraints under which they operate in order to effectively gauge where and in what manner they can support learner-learner interactions. Some of these constraints include the content, course structure, program structure, learner characteristics, and the technology. A

Preparing Online Instructors

comprehensive framework of the online learning environment allows instructors and IHEs to consider how best to support their learners. One way IHEs can develop reflective instructors is to include in faculty training discussion of learning theories and frameworks such as those discussed in this chapter to ensure that instructors not only use the technology available to them, but also engage in instructional practices that result in optimum learning.

reFerences Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. New York: General Learning Press. Boyer, E. (1991). The scholarship of teaching: From Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. College Teaching, 39, 11–13. Brown, A. L., & Palincsar, A. M. (1989). Guided, cooperative learning and individual knowledge acquisition. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing and learning: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (pp. 393-451). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Fulford, C. P., & Zhang, S. (1993). Perceptions of interaction: The critical predictor in distance education. The American Journal of Research on Distance Education, 7, 8–21. Garrison, D. R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge Falmer. Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Facilitating cognitive presence in online learning: Interaction is not enough. The American Journal of Research on Distance Education, 19(3), 133–148. doi:10.1207/s15389286ajde1903_2 Glaser, R. (1990). The reemergence of learning theory within instructional research. The American Psychologist, 45(1), 29–39. doi:10.1037/0003066X.45.1.29

Hillman, D. C. A., Willis, D. J., & Gunawardena, C. N. (1994). Learner-interface interaction in distance education: An extension of contemporary models and strategies for practitioners. American Journal of Distance Education, 8, 30–42. Institute for Higher Education Policy. (2000). Quality online: Benchmarks for success in internet based distance education. Washington, DC: National Education Association. Johnson, E. S. (in press). Promoting learner-learner interactions through ecological assessments of the online environment. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. Ko, S., & Rossen, S. (2004). Teaching online: A practical guide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin LaRose, R., & Whitten, P. (2000). Rethinking instructional immediacy for Web courses: A social cognitive exploration. Communication Education, 49, 320–338. Levin, S. R., Levin, J. A., & Chandler, M. (2001, April). Social and organizational factors in creating and maintaining effective online learning environments. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA. Loeding, B., & Wynn, M. (1999). Distance learning planning, preparation, and presentation: Instructors’ perspectives. International Journal of Instructional Media, 26(2), 181–182. McCauley. Jugovich, S., & Reeves, B. (2006). IT and educational technology: What’s pedagogy got to do with it? Educause Quarterly, 29(4). Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://www.educause.edu/ apps/eq/eqm06/eqm0649.asp Mezirow, J. (1998). On critical reflection. Adult Education Quarterly, 48, 185–198. doi:10.1177/074171369804800305

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Moore, M. (1989). Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1–6. Orvis, K. L., & Lassiter, A. L. R. (2006). Computer-supported collaborative learning: The role of the instructor. In S. P. Ferris & S. H. Godar (Eds.). Teaching and learning with virtual teams (pp. 158-179). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Reisetter, M., & Boris, G. (2004). What works: Student perceptions of effective elements in online learning. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 5, 277–291.

Sharp, J. H., & Huett, J. B. (2006). Importance of learner-learner interaction in distance education. Information Systems Education Journal, 4. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://isedj. org/4/46 Slavin, R. E. (1991). Synthesis of research on cooperative learning. Educational Leadership, 48, 71–82. U.S. Distance Learning Association. (2004). Distance learning link program. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://www.usdla.org/html/ resources/dllp.htm

Robinson, V. (1998). Methodology and the research-practice gap. Educational Researcher, 27, 17–26.

Zhao, J. J., Alexander, M. W., Perreault, H., & Waldman, L. (2003). Impact of information technologies on faculty and students in distance education. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 45(1), 17–33.

Roblyer, M. D., & Wiencke, W. R. (2003). Design and use of a rubric to assess and encourage interactive qualities in distance courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 17, 77–98. doi:10.1207/S15389286AJDE1702_2

Zhao, Y., Lei, J., Yan, B., Lai, C., & Tan, H. S. (2005). What makes the difference? A practical analysis of research on the effectiveness of distance education. Teachers College Record, 107, 1836– 1884. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9620.2005.00544.x

Russo, T. C., & Campbell, S. W. (2004). Perceptions of mediated presence in an asynchronous online course: Interplay of communication behaviors and medium. Distance Education, 25, 215–232. doi:10.1080/0158791042000262139

This work was previously published in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Best Practices and Principles for Instructors, edited by K. Orvis; A. Lassiter, pp. 89-113, copyright 2008 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.4

A Description of Online Instructors Use of Design Theory MarySue Cicciarelli Duquesne University, USA

AbstrAct In a recent dissertation study, research was conducted to evaluate online instructors’ characteristics and preferences concerning the use of a telementor, or online instructor’s assistant, as a part on an online course. Those who participated in the anonymous survey came from a sample of two thousand online instructors from colleges and universities located across the United States. Of those contacted, 323 online instructors responded to the survey. Results presented in this article were produced using data from nine of the questions included in the survey. These Likert Scale questions specifically asked the instructors about their use of theory of multiple representation, Gagne’s conditions of learning, instructional transaction theory, cognitive flexibility theory, three form theory, dual-coding theory, elaboration theory, theory of transactional distance, and theory of

immediacy and social presence. Outcomes showed that a larger number of online instructors applied design theory when creating a course compared to the instructors who indicated that they did not apply design theory. Descriptive results presented illustrate how often the participants said that they utilized each of the different theories.

IntroductIon Distance education has become an alternative when taking a course or earning a degree (Chu & Hinton, 2001). Researchers stated that taking an online course is one example of distance education through which students participate at different times from different locations (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2000). Colleges and universities that offer online courses have chosen to use course management systems because

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A Description of Online Instructors Use of Design Theory

of the alternatives and flexibility options that they provide (Course-Management Systems, 2005). One feature of a course management system often used by students and instructors is the asynchronous board feature, or venue for written discussion. Studies on the use of the asynchronous board tool showed that there are advantages and disadvantages to using the tool (Makrakis, 1998; Collins & Berge, 1996; Prestera & Moller, 2001). Providing instructors and students with a telementor, or online instructor’s assistant, was one possible solution to reducing the disadvantages experienced during asynchronous discussions. A dissertation study was conducted to identify online instructors’ characteristics and preferences concerning the utilization of a telementor. To help identify the instructors’ characteristics, participants were asked how often they utilized nine specific design theories when developing an online course (Cicciarelli, 2006, 2007).

revIew oF LIterAture Research showed that when online instructors design a course, they can use theory to guide the development process. Theories used by instructors tended to come from the three schools of psychology known as Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Humanism. Behavior theories have made use of the environment to influence actions. Theories that are cognitive-based have focused on meaningful ways of learning that included authentic learning experiences, and tasks that are declarative and procedural. Humanistic theories, which attended to students’ affective needs, concentrated on students’ feelings, emotions, values, and attitudes. The nine theories presented in this article are a part of the three schools of psychology (Cicciarelli, 2006, 2007).

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Theory of Multiple Representations The theory of multiple representations, a cognitive-based theory, held that the learner can take information and make it more meaningful by connecting multiple representations to the content. There are researchers who supported the use of this theory, and there are those who cautioned against its use during instruction (Gfeller, Niess, & Lederman, 1999; Huang & Liaw, 2004). Gfeller, et al. (1999) studied the perceptions of preservice teachers. They looked at their understanding of mathematical concepts and their ability to develop different representations of concepts that they would eventually teach in the classroom. The results showed that the teachers who had a mathematical background were better able to develop a number of representations which would make it easier for them to understand their future students’ different views of the subject matter when compared to the preservice teachers with a scientific background.

Cognitive Flexibility Theory Researchers studied the process of thinking and learning as children developed. Cognitive theory has been used to guide the interaction between students, the instructor, and the content. When this theory has been applied, students take their conceptual knowledge about a situation and relate it to new situations. This helps their understanding of a concept so they can move from a more basic understanding to one that is more complex (Huang & Liaw, 2004). Jonassen (2003) explained that when students have been presented with a problem, the problems have tended to be presented in a structured way. He indicated that real life problems are not structured, and since it has been recognized that transferring problem-solving skills to real life situations was

A Description of Online Instructors Use of Design Theory

not always done readily, it was vital for instructors to help their students externalize what they knew. In order to externalize knowledge and understanding, he suggested the development of mental representations—making internal maps of problems and using tools to externalize problem representations.

matter, because both modalities influence the way individuals perceive information. Instructors are encouraged to utilize aural and visual stimuli when presenting information to students to keep the learner from becoming confused and misunderstanding the content that is presented (Paivio, 1979, 1986; Simpson, 1997).

Bruner’s Three Form Theory

Gagne’s Conditions of Learning

Bruner (1990) stated that individuals see the world through three different ways; action, icons, and symbols. He said they used action when performing or demonstrating what it was they saw from their perspective. Icons or mental images, according to Bruner, were used to present a path, summary, or pattern. Symbolism, an abstract way of seeing reality, was used by individuals through words and numbers. Vacca and Vacca (1998) discussed Bruner’s work on scaffolding and categories. They said that when instructors help students recognize what they know and what is new, they can then help them build new categories of information and learning.

Another form of instructional learning is Gagne’s conditions of learning. This theory has been credited for the successful incorporation of instructional psychology into the instructional technology and design field. Gagne’s Conditions of Learning is a descriptive theory made up of five outcome categories. The five categories are labeled as intellectual skills, verbal information, cognitive strategies, motor skills, and attitudes. Intellectual skills require individuals to have the ability and knowledge to categorize and use materials. Having the ability to show what something is or what something means refer to verbal information abilities. Individuals’ own learning skills are connected with cognitive strategies, and the simple and complex movements that people make are connected to motor skills. Finally, attitudes are the feelings that individuals develop after interacting in situations that are either constructive or unconstructive. Nine practices have grown out of Gagne’s work. The nine conditions are known as gaining attention, informing learners of the objective, stimulating recall of previous learning, presenting the content, providing learning guidance, educing performance, providing feedback, assessing performance, and enhancing retention and ability to transfer learning (Gagne, 1985; Smith & Ragan, 1996; Molenda, 2002; Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller, 2005).

Dual-Coding Theory When dual-coding theory is applied, a system of verbal and imagery processing is used. The verbal aspect helps while information is presented and processed. Aspects of imagery help the learner create images, sounds, actions, and emotional responses when nonverbal cues are not available during the learning situation (Huang & Liaw, 2004). Research indicated that individuals use aural and visual paths when processing information and making meaning. The theory indicated that the ways in which people make use of their aural and visual abilities differs from one person to the next, because one way is stronger for some and the other way is stronger for others. Whichever modality is used by an individual does not

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Merrill’s Instructional Transaction Theory Merrill’s instructional transaction theory has posed a belief that motivation can be gained through processes of transactions that individuals use to make connections during the learning process. During this process, conventions are used while objects of knowledge are selected and sequenced (Huang & Liaw, 2004). When this theory is implemented, relationships between educational and technical factors can be made. There are two facets to the thought of Instructional Transaction Theory: schemes of knowledge and procedures for applying knowledge. According to this theory, in order for learning to take place, more than one knowledge structure has to be in place for the information to make sense. When instructional transactions are taking place, different parts of knowledge can be grouped into one structure of knowledge. The theory has made use of transactions so that the content that students are supposed to learn is categorized into ways that are more meaningful for the students (Buendia, Diaz, & Benlloch; 2002).

Elaboration Theory Reigeluth developed elaboration theory. According to this theory, the materials in a course should be organized so that new learning is presented in a simple way for initial understanding, and then the instructor should gradually present the information and content in more complex ways. When utilizing this strategy, instructors have tended to begin the learning experience by presenting information that the students are already familiar with. Then, they carefully move on to more complex content. This makes it easier for students to make connections and retain new knowledge. Elaboration Theory relies on the cognitive structure of the individual learners. Learners will move from having an understanding of the

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simple content to the more complex content at a different pace because their cognitive abilities differ. When students learn, they go through a process of selecting, sequencing, synthesizing, and finally, experiencing the summarizing phase of the learning experience. Student capacity to move through each phase varies depending on student ability. When instructors have implemented strategies to help the students move through each phase, the ability for students to understand the information has improved (Ludwig, 2000; Huang & Liaw, 2004).

Moore’s Theory of Transactional Distance Moore’s theory of transactional distance is a distance theory. The affective influence on teaching procedures has brought many instructors to implement this form of learning into course design. The theory is made up of three dimensions. They are referred to as interaction, course structure, and learner autonomy (Huang & Liaw, 2004). This theory holds that when a course is highly structured, the understanding and connection between the student and the instructor is more connected because the interaction between the two is stronger (Moore, 1973; Moore & Kearsley, 1996; Laly & Barrett, 1999; Chen, 2001; Jung, 2001; Kanuka, Collett, & Caswell, 2002).

Theory of Immediacy and Social Presence Researchers have held that learning takes place through the interaction of three core components: cognitive presence, teaching presence, and social presence. When a deeper look has been taken at these three components, the researcher refers to the responses as affective, interactive, and cohesive. When analyzing the responses made by students, the researchers found that affective behaviors impacted student perception of the learning experience and the course. As a result,

A Description of Online Instructors Use of Design Theory

the researchers have encouraged instructors to meet the affective needs of their students. Two behaviors that appeared to influence student perception were quick response and presence. Students who received a quick response from an instructor after a post and students who believed that the instructor was a present part of the learning situation perceived the learning experience in a better way (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 2001; Martyn, 2004).

ing characteristics and perspectives of telementor support. Questions that asked instructors to share how often they utilized particular design theories were included in the survey because they helped illustrate the varying characteristics of the online instructors. Of the 29 survey questions posed in the survey, there were nine questions that targeted use of design theory. A descriptive research design was used because the researcher wanted to identify the participants’ basic characteristics.

Summary

Procedures

Research has shown that online instructors use design theory to accomplish such goals as improve feedback, help students develop problemsolving skills, and reduce isolation (McAlpine & Ashcroft, 2002; Huang & Liaw, 2004). Other research has shown that threaded discussions have become more accessible and beneficial as course management systems have improved (Levin & Ben-Jacob, 1998; Hathorn & Ingram, 2002; McAlpine & Ashcroft, 2002; Fauske & Wade, 2003-2004; Greenlaw & DeLoach, 2003; Im & Lee, 2003-2004). Greater focus on different forms of interaction in the form of learner-to-content interaction, learner-to-learner interaction, learnerto-instructor interaction, and learner-to-interface interaction has been advised by researchers as well (Moore, 1989; Moore, 1999; Chen, 2001; Huang, 2002). Williams (2001) indicated that online instructors play a significant role in the success of computer-mediated discussions. How often online instructors utilize the different design theories to help them reduce the number of disadvantages and guide interaction has not been researched.

A convenience sample was used in this study because it was an expedient and accessible alternative for identifying possible study participants. The only restriction in the study was that the instructors had to have taught an online course. Discipline, years of teaching, and other existing conditions did not prohibit participation. A book titled Distance Degrees was used to identify schools that offered online courses (Wilson, 2001). Once the appropriate schools were identified, online instructors’ e-mail addresses were identified and recorded in a database. In all, two thousand online instructors’ e-mail addresses were recorded. Since the participants were found through a convenience sample, the researcher did not intend to generalize the results to the population, thus the researcher obtained a 95 percent confidence level by keeping access to the survey open until at least 322 participants had responded t to the survey.

MethodoLoGy Purpose The purpose of this quantitative exploratory study was to examine online instructors’ teach-

Instrumentation A survey, the Online Instructor Characteristics and Preference for Telementor Support (OIC and PTS) Survey-1, was developed as the instrument to be used. Questions were formed in a contingency arrangement, which meant that the participants were asked to continue or stop taking the survey depending on how they responded to a contingent question. For example, if an instructor indicated

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having never taught an online course, the participant was asked to stop answering questions and submit the survey.

validity and reliability For the purpose of providing validity and reliability; the survey questions were professionally reviewed. After the first draft of the cross-sectional survey had been developed, three university professors and one individual from the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group (TLT) reviewed the questions. Adjustments were made to the questions based on the suggestions.

Procedure for data collection University and college online instructors from across the United States were sent a request to participate by an e-mail which included a link to the anonymous survey. Incorporated in the message was an explanation that identified the purpose of the study, a description of the researcher and the researcher’s institution, and a polite participation request. In addition, the participants were provided with assurance of confidentiality. A reminder e-mail that contained the same information was also sent. Once 323 completed surveys had been submitted, access through the link to the survey was disabled.

Procedure for data Analysis First, data cleaning steps were taken to identify any outliers. Then, individual frequency distribution tests were run on each variable to find odd data in the output, and the original data were corrected if any anomalies appeared. A univariate, descriptive level analysis of frequency distributions was run for each variable during the analysis. Each survey question was created in Likert Scale format, thus all responses were at the ordinal level. These questions were used to operationalize the independent

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variables in the study. Finally, the researcher examined the data results and looked for any patterns that had developed. Cross-tabulations were utilized to determine additional patterns.

resuLts In all, 323 online instructors responded to the survey. There were instructors who chose not to respond to every survey question, and there were only six participants who indicated that they had never taught an online course. Presented in Table 1 below are the results which indicate how often the online instructors said that they used each of the nine design theories included in the study.

concLusIon In conclusion, the results from this part of the study provide educators with a general picture of how often instructors apply these different theories to course design. One can recognize that a greater number of instructors do incorporate theory into course design, but how the instructors blend the theories is not apparent. The greatest outcome of this study is the realization that since more instructors incorporate theory compared to those who do not, it would be of benefit to do further research on this topic. Learning exactly how instructors incorporate the theories, what strategies they use, and how they blend the theories when designing a course would add to the knowledge base on instructor use of theory. Exploring to find out whether or not instructors change the use of theory depending on the characteristics of the students would also be interesting. In addition, asking instructors who teach face-to-face and hybrid courses about how they make use of the theories when designing a course would be useful. Finally, investigating the use of other theories connected to the three schools of psychology would produce interesting results. The results from these possible

A Description of Online Instructors Use of Design Theory

Table 1. Online instructor use of specific design theories Design Theories Theory of Multiple Representation Cognitive Flexibility Theory Three Form Theory Dual-Coding Theory Gagne’s Nine Conditions of Learning Merrill’s Instructional Theory Reigeluth’s Elaboration Theory Theory of Transactional Distance Theory of Immediacy and Social Presence

Always

MOTO

Occasionally

LOTO

Never

32.8%

32.8%

20.7%

7.3%

6.4%

30.4%

36.7%

22.4%

5.4%

5.1%

14.6%

27.5%

25.9%

17.8%

14.2%

23.4%

23.7%

18.3%

17.6%

17.0%

29.2%

42.6%

13.8%

9.0%

5.4%

22.7%

39.1%

21.7%

8.6%

7.9%

31.4%

41.4%

16.2%

6.8%

4.2%

39.7%

37.4%

14.8%

5.5%

2.6%

37.0%

36.0%

15.1%

8.0%

3.9%

Note: Rows may not add up to 100% due to rounding MOTO=More Often Than Occasionally LOTO=Less Often Than Occasionally

studies could provide those connected to the field with a look at how pedagogy has shifted.

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Chen, Y. J. (2001). Dimensions of transactional distance in the world wide Web learning environment: A factor analysis. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32, 459-470. Chu, H. C., & Hinton, B. E. (2001). Factors affecting student completion in a distance learning mediated HRD baccalaureate program. Paper presented at the Academy of Human Resource Development 2001 Conference, Fayetteville, AR. (AHRD Reference No. 021). Cicciarelli, M. (2007). Behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic theories that guide online course design. The International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 3(4). Cicciarelli, M. (2006). Telementoring and computer mediated discussions: A description of online instructors’ support. Doctoral Dissertation, Duquesne University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2004. (UMI N0. 3238573)

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Collins, M., & Berge, Z. (1996). Facilitating interaction in computer mediated online courses. Paper presented at the FSU/AECT Distance Education Conference, June. Retrieved June 29, 2005 from, http://www.emoderators.com/moderators/ flcc.html Course-management systems. (2005). Library Technology Reports, 41(3), 7-11. Fauske, J., & Wade, S. E. (2003-2004). Research to practice online: Conditions that foster democracy, community, and critical thinking in computermediated discussions. Journal of Research on Technology n Education, 36(2), 137-153. Gagne, R. M., Wager, W. W., Golas, K. C., & Keller, J. M. (2005). Principles of instructional design (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Gfeller, M. K., Niess, M. L., & Lederman, N. G. (1999). Preservice teachers’ use of multiple representations in solving arithmetic mean problems. School Science and Mathematics, 99, 250-257. Greenlaw, S. A., & DeLoach, S. B. (2003). Teaching critical thinking with electronic discussion. Journal of Economic Education, 34(1), Winter, 36-52. Hathorn, L. G., & Ingram, A. L. (2002). Cooperation and collaboration using computer-mediated communication. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 26, 325-347. Huang, H. M. (2002). Student perceptions in an online mediated environment. International Journal of Instructional Media, 29, 405-422. Huang, H. M., & Liaw, S. S. (2004). Guiding distance educators in building Web-based instructions. International Journal of Instructional Media, 31(2), 125-137. Im, Y., & Lee, O. (2003-2004). Pedagogical implications of online discussion for preservice teacher training. Journal of Instructional Media, 31(2), 125-137. 300

Jonassen, D. (2003). Using cognitive tools to represent problems. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 35, 362-381. Jung, I. (2001). Building a theoretical framework of web-based instruction in the context of distance education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32, 525-534. Kanuka, H., Collett, D., & Caswell, C. (2002). University instructor perceptions of the use of asynchronous text-based discussion in distance courses. The American Journal of Distance Education, 16(3), 151-167. Lally, V., & Barrett, E. (1999). Building a learning community on-line: Towards socio-academic interaction. Research Papers in Education, 14(2), 147-163. Levin, D. S., & Ben-Jacob, M. G. (1998). Collaborative learning: A critical success factor in distance education. Paper presented at the Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, August, Madison, Wi. Ludwig, B. (2000). Web-based instruction: Theoretical differences in treatment of subject matter. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychological Association, August, Washington, DC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED453708). Makrakis, V. (1998). Guidelines for the design and development of computer-mediated collaborative open distance learning courseware. Paper presented at the 1998 World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia & World Conference on Educational Telecommunications, June, Freiburg, Germany. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED428694). Martyn, M. A. (2004). The effect of online threaded discussion on student perceptions and learning outcomes in both face-to-face and online courses. Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron. (UMI No. 3123389)

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McAlpine, I., & Ashcroft, B. (2002). Turning points: Learning from online discussions in an off-campus course. In P. Kommers, & G. Richards (Eds.), Proceedings of world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia & telecommunicationspp. 1251-1257, Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Molenda, M. (2002). A new framework for teaching in the cognitive domain. Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED470983) Moore, M. G. (1973). Towards a theory of independent learning and teaching. Journal of Higher Education, 44, 661-679. Moore, M. G. (1989). Three types of interaction [Editorial]. The American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2) 1-6. Moore, M. G. (1991). Distance education theory [Editorial]. The American Journal of Distance Education, 5(3) 1-6. Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance education: A systems view. New York: Wadsworth. Paivio, A. (1979). Imagery and verbal processes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Paivio, A. (1986). Mental representations. New York: Oxford University Press. Prestera, G. E., & Moller, L. A. (2001). Facilitating asynchronous distance learning: Exploiting opportunities for knowledge building in asynchronous distance learning environments. Paper presented at the Annual Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference, April, Murfreesboro, TN. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED463723.

Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social presentation asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14(2), 50-71. Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2000). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundation of distance education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. Simpson, T. J. (1995). Message into medium: An extension of the dual coding hypothesis. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association, October, Tempe, AZ. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED380084). Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (1996). Impact of R. M. Gagne’s work on instructional theory. Paper presented at the 1996 National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Indianapolis, IN. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED397841). Williams, S. W. (2001). Experiences of web-based instruction among African-American students enrolled in training and development graduate courses. Paper presented at the Academy of Human Resource Development Conference, Raleigh, NC. (AHRD Reference No. 059). Wilson, Mark. (2001). Distance degrees. Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing Company. Vacca, R. T., & Vacca, J. L. (1998). Content area reading: Literacy and learning across the curriculum (6th ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 4, Issue 1, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 25-32, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.5

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning Wei Liu National University of Singapore, Singapore

Charissa Lim Mei-Ling Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Keng Soon Teh National University of Singapore, Singapore

Yin-Leng Theng Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Roshan Peiris National University of Singapore, Singapore

Ta Huynh Duy Nguyen National University of Singapore, Singapore

Yongsoon Choi National University of Singapore, Singapore

Tran Cong Thien Qui National University of Singapore, Singapore

Adrian David Cheok National University of Singapore, Singapore

Athanasios V. Vasilakos University of Peloponnese, Greece

AbstrAct The advent of Internet technologies since decades ago has propelled distance learning drastically. In this modern world, knowledge develops so fast that the amount of intellectual information that needs to be learnt before it becomes obsolete again is so huge. Distance learning through the use of Internet technologies has the advantage of being able to get across the information to the students

remotely and effortlessly. The other advantage, which is the main focus of this paper, is that students are able to learn from their instructors on an entirely new media platform - the Internet-enabled and tangible user interface. This paper discusses how to use two main new media: multi-modal Internet technologies, namely remote physical interface and remote augmented reality technology in distance learning.

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Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

IntroductIon In an attempt to provide increased educational opportunities to their present students and to attract new students who are working or have other constraints on their time or mobility, many colleges and universities (Hentea, Shea, & Pennington, 2003) are developing distance education programs. Distance education before the Internet age was painstakingly ineffective. First of all, there was the lack of interaction between the instructors and the students. Then there was the issue of delay in communications. Today the distance learning is supposed to provide a rich, ``almost classroom experience’’ to distance students. It is a big challenge. Distance education offers freedom from space and time constraints, increased interactivity, improved delivery of multimedia, broadened curricula, and personalized learning (Hentea et al., 2003). Many tools have been developed to facilitate distance learning since its inception, such as traditional mails of printed material, videotape, CD-ROM, DVD, and the more recent web-based methods, which includes live video streaming, video conferencing and interactive graphical user interface. The advantage of distance learning has been mentioned briefly. There are far more disadvantages that needs to be discussed here. We would discuss how our proposed Internet technologies could help overcome these shortcomings in later sections. One of the major concerns is that students who are learning at a distance from the instructor and other fellow students may suffer from lack of interaction. Situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991) describes the process of learning as highly social, embedded in the lives of learners. Much of the theory of situated learning centers on the notion of communities of practice, dynamic groups that are present throughout our lives in which we participate in various ways. Such groups exist in schools, workplaces, social organization and families. With the pervasive of internet and

those online social networks such as ``facebook’’, social groups on internet become a new form of dynamic groups that people communicate using online chat, voice phone etc. technologies. However, usually students have little or no means of communicating with each other; even those who have the means of communicating with others in their class via online chats or email may not receive any encouragement to do so. Both students and instructors are affected if they do not have enough effective communication with each other. The instructor is unable to judge a student’s progress and is unable to adapt the learning to successfully meet the needs of the learners. The students are more likely to feel confused or angered by assignments when they do not understand their significance. In addition, if communication between student and instructor is not timely, much of the value of feedback on assignments and tests is lost (Hentea et al., 2003). We need to consider how to encourage students to communicate with the instructor and other students when developing a distance learning system. The other major concern of distance learning is that, often there is a loss of visual and physical experience. In other words, students sometimes could not visualize the physical objects or models as illustrated by the instructor. This shortfall is much real when it comes to subjects, which are best taught using physical artifacts. Instructors believe that visual enhancement helps students learn (Naps et al., 2003). Moreover, the feel of physical presence in front of the instructor or in the classroom also enhances the learning process. So the current distance learning suffers from, but not limited to, lack of interaction, lack of active learning group, loss of visual experience and absence of physical presence. In this article we address the use of Internet-enabled tangible user interfaces, which encompasses augmented reality and remote physical interaction to handle these problems. A few enabling systems which we envisage will enhance the distance learning process which has been developed with the end

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users involved in the development process. We hope that practical tools using these enabling technologies can enhance the students’ experience in remote learning. The tools, which will be described in later sections, are the 3D Live Technology (Nguyen et al., 2005), Mixed Reality Classroom-based Education Systems, and Internet Haptic System. The end users are involved in the development process of these tools and user studies are held to find out the usability and usefulness of using mixed reality technologies in educational area. We will show how these systems are or can be used in distance education and the future works.

deveLoPMent systeMs 3d Live technology in education Introduction The ability to overlay computer graphics onto the real world is commonly called Mixed Reality (MR). Unlike immersive Virtual Reality, MR interfaces allow users to see the real world at the same time as virtual imagery attached to real locations and objects. In an MR interface, the user views the world through a hand-held or head-mounted display (HMD) that is either seethrough or overlays of graphics on video of the surrounding environment. The most unique character of Mixed Reality Technology is that MR interface allows people to interact with real world in a tangible way. The 3D display and tangible interaction character enables this technology to be used in a wider range of application domains. According to Furness and Winn (Furness & Winn, 1997), virtual environments are unique in their usefulness to education due to their characteristics of autonomy, presence and interaction. There are three main reasons that make MR technology provide a totally different experience in education:

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1. 2. 3.

Support of seamless interaction between real and virtual environments. The use of a tangible interface metaphor for object manipulation. The ability to switch smoothly between reality and virtuality.

As extension of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, VR and MR have characteristics that make them suitable for this new paradigm of learning such as experiential education and constructivism (Bricken & Byrne, 1993). As mentioned in the “Introduction’’ section, Bricken and Byrne (Bricken & Byrne, 1993) also mentioned that social learning was one of the key learning theories. Multi-user virtual environments and augmented reality could help meet the need for communal learning (Dede, 2005). Collaboration is considered useful to the learning process because students have to articulate and debate their position, thereby leading to refection and constructed knowledge (Jackson & Fagan, 2000). Roussou stated (Roussou, 2004) that interactivity is “generally seen as an intrinsic feature of educational practice in the sense of social communication, but also as an inherent property of any interactive multimedia or virtual reality environment that promise physical and sensor, in addition to mental, activity and response.” Stuart (Stuart, 1996) looked at interactivity in two ways - the first, a generic view relating to the frequency of interaction, the range of choices when interacting with the system and the significance of those choices; the second, specific to virtual environments, defined as ``the tight coupling of head-tracked (and other) user input with multisensory display, so users perceive themselves as present in the environment’’. As to the importance of interactivity, it was argued by (Roussou, 2004) that there was a strong relationship between interactivity, engagement and learning. All these research indicate the great potential of using mixed reality in educational area, which

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

motivate us for further research and are good reference of our work. 3D Live is the technology for capturing a person and, at the same time, displaying his/ her 3D images in a mixed-reality environment in real time. The technology has been presented in (Prince, Cheok, & Farbiz, 2002) and (Nguyen et al., 2005) with its application in distant communication in mixed-reality spaces, where the user can see 3D images of his/her collaborators in mixed reality scenes when talking with them. We also applied the technology in Magic Land system, an interactive mixed reality game, where players can have themselves captured and then play with their own 3D captured avatars and other 3D virtual characters in mixed reality environment (Nguyen et al., 2005). 3D Live technology can “bring” instructors and students from different place together, which provide the face-to-face communication experience and encourage the communication among groups. The features of this technology can be applied effectively in education. In this section, we will explore the uses of 3D Live and Magic Land technology in remote education and training, including in areas such as cultural, dance, and sports training.

overview of 3d Live technology and Magic Land system Details of the 3D Live and Magic Land systems can be found in (Prince et al., 2002), and (Nguyen et al., 2005). Figure 1 represents the overall system structure. Basically, we use nine Dragonfly FireWire cameras to capture the subject from nine viewpoints, including the top view. Those captured images from the cameras are then processed by three Capture Server machines to eliminate the background scenes and retain the foreground silhouettes of the captured subject only. After that, the processed images are sent to the Synchronization machine, which then synchronizes the 9 streams of images so as to guarantee that each

selected sets of 9 images from 9 cameras were captured at approximately the same time. In the next step, those sets of 9 synchronized images are streamed through the Internet using IP multi-cast or RTP protocol to all the Rendering machines placed at different places. At the Rendering machine, the position of the virtual viewpoint is estimated when the user looks at the marker through an HMD with an attached camera. Based on that estimated position and the 9 synchronized silhouettes of the subject received from the Synchronization machine, a novel view of the captured subject from this viewpoint is generated and superimposed onto the mixed reality scene. The novel image is generated such that the virtual camera views the subject from exactly the same angle and position as the head-mounted camera views the marker. And finally, this simulated view of the remote collaborator is then superimposed on the original image and displayed to the user. The result gives the strong impression that the model is a real three-dimensional part of the scene. 3D Live is mainly aiming for applications needs live, real time communication. The technology allows us to capture and render the 3D images of the subject at the same time. However, of course, it can also be used to record the 3D images and playback after that. This feature has been applied in Magic Land system, where users can play with their own 3D captured images, creating a new special kind of human self reflection that shown in 3D, can be sent through internet and recaptured and displayed almost in real time. In this system, users can tangibly pick up themselves or their collaborators and watch them in 3D form encountering other virtual objects. To allow users to manipulate their own 3D recorded image in MR environment, Magic Land does not fully exploit the “live’’ capturing feature of 3D Live, instead, utilizes the fast processing and rendering algorithm for fast record and playback feature. For different applications, live capture and view can be achieved.

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Figure 1. Hardware architecture

Magic Land is a mixed reality application for art, story telling, and entertainment. The set-up mainly includes a large table with markers on top, the 3D Live recording system and several cups with marker on top. When looking at the table through the HMDs, users will see a virtual land on top of the table and virtual characters inside the cups. Users can have a capture of themselves inside the recording room for 20 seconds, and when the capture is finished, their 3D images will be rendered inside one of those cups. They can use their own hands to interact with the virtual characters, including their own 3D avatar, by moving the cups around the table, and the virtual characters will interact with each other when they are near to each other. Magic Land introduces to user easy, tangible and intuitive approaches in dealing with mixed

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reality content. The main challenge of the project is to create a new medium for story telling that is different from book, CD etc. The outcome of the project is an infrastructure that gives users new opportunities to transport audiovisual information and encourage them of any discipline to deal with those new approaches. Moreover, Magic Land is also an indoor mixed reality and tangible interaction game, which exploits physical tangible interaction, social interaction and also utilizes 3D graphics rendering to create an attractive imaginative virtual world. Moreover, the act of putting 3D images of real human beings in to that inventive world and making them new characters of the game story is unique in game context. Most importantly, Magic Land is a kind of “free play’’ game (Mandryk & M., 2001), in which players are free to use their imagination

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

and creativity to design the game story and rules. Thus, in Magic Land, the game story and rules are not fixed but depends on players’ imagination and decision, which is a good training for users to improve their creativity. Figure 2 shows users using the Magic Land system together.

Applications of 3d Live and Magic Land in remote education 3D Live technology can provide the real-time capturing, transmitting and rendering the 3D images of the captured subject. Consequently, similar to 2D video-conferencing technology, 3D Live is suitable for use in any remote applications that need to display live captured images in real-time. However, the 2D images in video-conferencing cannot fully satisfy people’s perception of sight, as human beings sense the world in 3D space. Moreover, 2D images cannot convey non-verbal cues such as body motion fully and completely. Another limitation of 2D video-conferencing is that users have to stay at one specific place, in front of their monitor.

3D Live overcomes the limitations of 2D video-conferencing by allowing people to see the 3D captured images at anywhere in physical space. Furthermore, with 3D Live, gestures, body motion and any 3D details of the captured subject are transmitted completely in full 3D, thus creating the full satisfaction of people’s perception of sight. Consequently, 3D Live outperforms 2D video-conferencing in some live video applications where details of 3D captured objects or 3D complicated actions are important to the viewers. It is very often in education that the learners need to observe their teacher’s actions very carefully so as they can do exactly the same thing. It is necessary in normal classes like physics, chemistry or biology where teachers instruct their students doing some experiments. In these cases, not only the detailed views of 3D experiment tools and subjects but also the instructors’ actions are very important for the students. This is because those students must follow the instructors’ operations as closely as possible, the real world is 3D and 3D display can reduce chances for misunderstanding the operation, as

Figure 2. Magic Land installation

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opposed to a 2D display. Students have the option to choose the viewpoint, which they prefer. In areas where physical action is inherent such as sports, dance, or cultural education, it would be highly advantageous, in our opinion, to have a real time 3D image of the teacher. Previous research works from Yeh (Yeh, 2004) and Lester et al. (Lester, Zettlemoyer, Grégoire, & Bares, 1999) have found that 3D representations aid learners in understanding phenomena that pervade physical space. And 3D learning Environment motivates learners and contributes to learning effectiveness. Dede (Dede, Salzman, Loftin, & Sprague, 1999) found that 3D representations can help students develop more accurate and causal mental models than 2D representations in learning complex scientific concepts. For that reason, 3D Live is very suitable to be applied in these contexts. The instructors with their experiment tools and subjects can be captured inside the recording room, and students at other places can observe the experiments fully in 3D, as if they were happening in front of them, anywhere in the world. We have developed an application of 3D Live in dance training, where the full 3D body motion is the main important thing that the trainees need to learn. Figure 3 is an example of one of the scene

Figure 3. Live dancers rendered in physical space

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that we captured. It can be seen in the figure that 3D Live technology allows users to see the captured subject in its real size, and it provides the flexibility to view the lessons at any places. Obviously, 3D Live can be applied not only in dance training but also in sports training, where full body motion and player’s actions are critical in the learning process. Figure 4 is an example of 3D Live application in Karate training. As one can see, it is very much advantageous for the trainees to see the Karate actions clearly and easily from any angle in full 3D. Using this technology, students anywhere in the world can learn and have a sense of presence with dance or sports masters in another country or even another continent. In our previous article we (Nguyen et al., 2005) have specified the sense of remote presence in social interaction and remote 3D collaboration. The 3D images displayed in a real environment can fully represent nonverbal communication such as gestures. Moreover, combine this technology with mixed reality technology, the remote collaborators become part of any real-world surroundings, potentially increasing the sense of social presence. In addition, a user study based on Magic Land project was given in (Nguyen et al., 2005). The results show that most of the participants think

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

Figure 4. Live karate training

Figure 5. 3D Hamlet

this technology will be useful for a remote 3D collaboration system. The record and play back features of 3D Live also enable people to preserve the old cultural values from being missed or destroyed throughout the time. For example, the old traditional dances can be recorded, stored and displayed for younger generations in the future. Streaming over the Internet allows these 3D cultural icons to be viewed remotely from the teacher. John Dewey’s theory (Warde) of education shows that children soak up knowledge and retain it for use when they are spontaneously induced to look into matters of compelling interest to themselves. Both the 3D Live and Magic Land system engage the users in the systems in a compelling manner, and the game features in the design bring more fun into the learning process. All these features enable the systems to be efficiently applied in education. The game itself, which stimulates the players’ imagination and creativity, is a good play-to-learn set-up for children. Moreover, the table top can be rendered

with historical architectures and characters in history or architecture or design lessons. We have developed books using 3d Live which teach about Malaysian culture, and also Hamlet, as can be seen in Figure 5. Such a system is especially suitable for children, who are too active to sit at one place in front of a desktop for a long time, but like to run around, play and experience the lessons tangibly using their own hands.

MIxed reALIty cLAssrooM-bAsed educAtIon systeMs related works Several applications for education have been developed. Liarokapis developed a system for engineering education (Liarokapis, Petridis, Lister, White, & M, 2002). It is developed using magnetic tracking device and ARToolkit freeware to design

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the visualization browser, attached with XML interface that allows teachers to input multimedia information into the database remotely. Following this project, a Web3D (Liarokapis et al., 2004) based educational tool is built that allows students to learn engineering related knowledge through a website in an Augmented Reality (AR) mode. It combined network and AR technologies together to achieve the remote education in the engineering field. This system is used to enhance students’ learning and understanding of digital design. This approach leads to an improvement in the teaching and learning process (Jay & White, 2000). At the same time, Liarokapis (Liarokapis, Sylaiou, Basu, Mourkoussis, & White, 2004) developed an Interactive Visualization Interface for Virtual Museum. It provides a new media for visitors, especially disabled visitors to see and interact with virtual artifacts at the convenience of their own home. These two projects are good attempts to combine AR technology with network technology, and have achieved a certain aim for remote learning and remote art. Woods et al. (Woods et al., 2004) have set up several educational exhibits for science centers, museums and education centers such as BlackMagic Kiosk, Solar System and Story Book. Stanton D. et al (Stanton et al., 2001) collaborated with children and teachers together, designing a tangible interface for storytelling using gesture recognition and collaborative navigation technologies. Children can create their own stories using this system. Construct3D (Kaufmann, 2003) is a system used for mathematics and geometry education. Researchers from MIT proposed a new concept - Games to Teach and they have developed three prototypes for electromagnetic, environment and history educations. Shelton et al (Shelton & Hedley, 2002) developed a system to teach Earth-Sun relationships to undergraduate geography students. It is quite similar to our mixed reality solar system, but it focuses on earth and sun related knowledge such as equinox and solstice to give students an AR experience. Loscos, Shelton, Liarokapis et al. (Liarokapis et al.,

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2002; Loscos et al., 2003; Shelton & Hedley, 2002) developed systems for arts-culture, geography and engineering education. FlatWorld created in USC can be used for education and training goals (Pair & Piepol, 2002). All these AR education prototypes are trying to use the AR technologies in educational area and, the results were somewhat encouraging. But all these systems are used as assistants to enhance the traditional teaching method and are not actually used in classroom environment. Based on similar goals, we collaborated with teachers from a primary school in Singapore and developed the classroom based Solar System and Plants System, which we will now discuss.

system overview In our attempt to make the learning process more interesting and attractive and let students learn in a more intuitive manner, we developed two classroom-based MR teaching tools. First of all, to ensure that they are in accordance to the teaching syllabus, the contents are acquired from the teachers of the primary school. Secondly, as a classroom-based system, it must be suitable for the classroom environment and at same time also suitable for self-learning and distance teaching. By projecting the display on a big screen, a teacher can use this system as a general teaching tool such as picture etc. For self-learning, texts and sounds are added in this system to help students understand the contents better. A quiz is included in this system to bring entertainment factors in the system and provide data for system evaluation. By connecting the system to the Internet, students can use the system at their own convenience at home and get help from teachers remotely if needed. Thirdly, an important thing is to allow robustness for the personal user. Simplicity must be accomplished, as in everyday interaction with the environment; virtual objects can be easily picked up and moved without touching a conventional

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

keyboard, mouse or joystick. By pressing buttons, different knowledge points can be chosen and displayed. Finally, education through entertainment is another important aspect. Introducing Mixed Reality technology into the educational area can achieve this. It goes to the heart of our universal love of libraries, books, films, and museums. We love knowledge, and we love to learn in the most fun and entertaining way. We now describe actual systems using this concept.

systeM desIGn Mixed reality solar system The Mixed Reality Solar System has a main operation table, where users (students) can sit around and look at the virtual solar system together. Users view the system through a head mounted display (HMD) with a small camera mounted on top. Several cups are used for the interactions between the users and the virtual objects. The teacher can be in a remote location and can view the various viewpoints of the students through a computer. To view the virtual system on the table, the users need to put on the Head-Mounted-Display (HMD), and aim at the board. They will see a virtual land on the base board as shown in Figure 6. User interactions are designed for different knowledge points. For example, using the cups, user can pick up and move the virtual object to different planets as shown in Figure 7. Users can also pick up part of the Earth to observe its inner structure as shown in Figure 8. A quiz is provided to help students to review the knowledge they learned and introduce more entertainment factors into the system. As shown in Figure 9, students need to use a cup to pick up the correct object and place it at the answer area (the square). A survey about this part is held

after students try this system, the feedback from students shows that (example): “It makes us feel like we are really exploring the solar system and It is interesting because I get to see the result immediately.” And students feel that (example): “The quiz component helps and allows me to learn some facts which my science teacher does not teach me in the classroom.” From the feedback, we found that the quiz function really can help students review the knowledge and bring more fun factors to the learning process. Currently, only the Solar System is involved in the quiz part, students’ Some feedback also pointed out this: “It is too easy and simple, it is not challenging enough for me.” Based on the feedback and research needed, in the future, we will enhance the quiz as follows: Currently, no time limit and scores are given in the quiz. Students are allowed to try as many times as possible until they find the correct answer. For future work, we will add the time limit, error record and score in the quiz. Based on these data, we hope to discover if the system can help students comprehend knowledge easily and quickly. It is also hoped that the system can help them identify their weak parts. For example, if the error rate of a knowledge point is much lower than others, this knowledge point should be more difficult than other points, or the system design for this part is not good. By analyzing these data, we can get useful information about the system and improve it further.

Plants system This system includes four knowledge points about plant systems: Reproductive, Seeds Dispersal, Seeds Germination and Photosynthesis. According to the virtual conditions set by teachers/ student, the corresponding natural process will be shown virtually and a virtual clock is used to show that all these natural processes happen in a certain time.

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Figure 6. System overview

Figure 7. User interaction

Figure 8. Pick up parts of the Earth

Figure 9. Quiz

Figure 10. Seed germination

Figure 11. Seed dispersed by wind

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In the following, we will introduce the user interactions of different parts. a.

b.

c.

d.

Seed Germination: users can set the water, light etc. conditions using virtual water, light bulb etc. When they finish the setting, press a button, the result will be shown. If the requirements for seed germination are met, the seed will germinate, users can see a bud growing up. (Figure 10). Seeds Dispersal: in this section, four cups related to different disposal methods (wind, water, splitting and animal) are provided, user can choose any cup and move it to a tree to observe the different dispersal phenomena, Figure 11 shows the seed is dispersed by wind. User also can move the cup to a fruit to find its dispersal method. Photosynthesis: User can alter the light and water conditions using different virtual objects and observe the effect in real time as shown in Figure 12. Students can observe the photosynthesis process when virtual light, water and carbon dioxide are provided. Reproduction: plant reproduction related knowledge is involved in this part such as pollination and fertilization. Users can move

Figure 12. Photosynthesis

a virtual bee to a flower to observe these processes as shown in Figure 13. After using this system in the classroom, the majority of the students reflected that they like the module on Seeds Dispersal and Seeds Germination. From their feedback: “I have a clearer picture about seeds dispersal after going through this module.” “I can see how seeds germinate.” “I can use the cute monkey and move it around to show how animal is used to disperse the seed.” “It is fun and interesting to watch seeds germinate within seconds.” “I love the hands-on experience.” We can find that the hands-on experience and entertainment factors really help students in learning, those should be the main factors we will consider for future education related research and development. In addition, the students feel that this system help them to learn plant related knowledge in an easy and interesting manner. This can be reflected from their own words: “It help me to remember the different types of seeds dispersal much easier.” “Before I went to the MXR lab, I did not really understand the conditions how the seeds germinate, but after this experience, I have a bigger picture of how seeds germinate.” “The graphics I see attracts my attention.” etc.

Figure 13. Pollination

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distance education using these two systems

the Pilot study of the solar system

The methodology of the mixed reality classroom provides the basis for distance education. By connecting to the Internet, these systems support distance education. There are two ways for distance education:

A group of seven primary student volunteers comprising three boys and four girls around 11-12 years old are involved. They are divided into three small group (A, B and C) to reflect the real-life scenario in a primary school setting where students were required to work and learn together using the MR teaching system. The whole study involves four sessions: Demonstration, brief hand-on, task-oriented interaction and focus group session. In task-oriented interaction session different questions are given different groups for answer to guide their interaction with the system and they were required to complete a task. After finishing this session, the students were asked to fill a form to get their feedback. At last, a brief focus group was contacted discuss the participants’ perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the Solar System.

1.

2.

Remote-teaching: the teacher operates the system in one classroom and all his/ her operations are sent to systems in other classrooms and students in those classrooms can see what the teacher does in real time. Self-learning with remote supporting: students who use these systems to learn themselves and get help from teachers online. In this case, online chat is supported. Students can send their questions as messages to the teacher and at same time show their operations to teacher. In the same way, teachers can answer these questions by message or giving a demo.

user study Research Design When new technologies evolve, there is a need to carry out user studies as early as possible, to identify and address usability and usefulness issues. To understand students’ acceptance of the MR technology for learning, and the factors pertinent to influence their intention to use it, a study on our MR classroom was conducted, which took place in two stages: a pilot study of the Solar System was carried in a laboratory and a quantitative study of Plant System took place from 7-8 July 2006 at Excel Fest, an exhibition organized by the Ministry of Education, Singapore. Forty-four students at the exhibition were surveyed. The students were from various schools and enrolled in different levels.

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FIndInGs And AnALysIs Interaction summaries All three groups are managed to complete their task except that group A get some prompting from the researcher. A1 indicates that she had positive intention to use the system while A2’s response was ambivalent due to the concern that it was “very difficult to capture image”. Both B1 and B2 expressed their intention to use the system and perceived usefulness of the system and all three students in group C showed positive intention to use the system. The system helped all students to understand the topic better. Group A answered “Maybe” as to weather the program was useful and make then more interested to learn about the topic. B1 thought that is was interesting and “help us understand science better.” C1 said that the program was fun and interesting and could motivate them

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

to learn science. C2 and C3 echoed similar sentiments, with both of them commenting that it was interesting and “made learning fun”. For the operation of the system, it is not easy to A2 and just “a bit difficult” to A2. Both, however, liked the system. Group B did not perceive the system as easy to use, but they enjoyed the system, with B1 using the word “fun”. Group C gave positive answer to all questions on perceived usefulness and generally indicated they found the program easy to use. All of them enjoyed the program while C1 and C3 felt that the graphics and sound effects could be improved and C2 said that the 3D effects were nice.

Focus Group Feedback Students Comment that they like the program because of the 3D models. For usage, they generally prefer independent exploration, which could indicate high self-efficacy and personal innovativeness. For usability, students had some difficult to position the camera properly, and issues were raised regarding the manipulation of the various devices, that is, the camera, the cylinder and the keys. Overall, it was seen that usability was a major issue for the students. However, they perceived the system is useful and could conceive of other topics that can use this system such as Math/Biology/Chemistry.

Analysis From the comments made by the participants, we found that to improve the acceptance, the innovation factors explored might have to be compatibility with needs, values and past experiences, perceived enjoyment, perceived system quality and interactivity. Individual factors should include gender, personal innovativeness and self-efficacy and other factors such as environment also could be involved. To get more evidenced findings, another bigger study is took place.

the user study oF PLAnt systeM Modified Theoretical Model and hypotheses In the context of education, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been applied to educational technologies such as Web-based learning systems and digital libraries, in a higher education setting, and it has received considerable attention in the context of user acceptance of IT. The questionnaire, using 5-point Likert-type questions, was designed according to the following factors: Interactivity, perceived enjoyment, interest and engagement, system quality, personal innovativeness, compatibility, gender, self-efficacy, attitude towards topic, social influence. And a research model, with five corresponding sets of hypotheses was developed using these factors. The factors and relationships were derived from literature on TAM, mixed reality, virtual environments and learning. Five sets of hypotheses are: • • • • •

Set H1 Hypotheses: Experience-related Set H2 Hypotheses: System-related Set H3 Hypotheses: Individual-related Set H4 Hypotheses: Social influencerelated Set H5 Hypotheses: Overall Perception

resuLts And AnALyses students’ response • General Response Students' general response towards the Plant program was very positive. Almost all the students found the program useful, with 40.9% of those surveyed expressing agreement and 56.8% expressing strong agreement that the program was useful for

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learning about plants. The students were slightly less positive towards ease of use. 50% reported agreement and 31.8% strong agreement that the program was easy to use. The remaining students were either neutral (13.6%) or disagreed (4.5%) that it was easy to use. Thus, the mean score for ease of use was slightly lower at 4.09 compared with 4.52 for usefulness. Regarding the intention to use the program, 86.3% wanted to have the program in their school (with 72.7% expressing strong agreement) while the remaining 13.6% were neutral. 90.9% said that they would use the program if it was available in their school. • Experience-Related Response The students reported a positive experience. Almost all the students (97.7%) felt that the program was interesting, with 84.1% expressing strong agreement with this. A slightly lower 90.9% found it engaging. 95.4% felt that the program was interactive while 90.9% enjoyed using the program. 90.9% liked this science topic. • System-Related Response The quality of the program, in terms of graphics quality and sensitivity of the program, was generally perceived to be good but the latter to a lesser extent. 90.9% of the students found the graphics attractive, while only 72.7% felt that the program was able to detect actions easily (sensitivity). 6.8% disagreed and 20.5% were neutral regarding the sensitivity of the program. Thus, the mean score for sensitivity was lower at 3.98 while that for attractiveness of the graphics was 4.43. Individual-Related Response and Profiles Mixed reality was largely compatible with their existing needs, values and experiences. 90.9% felt that multimedia CD-ROMs, websites or other learning technologies were useful for studies al•

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though a slightly lower 81.9% reported that they used such technologies. 77.3% liked computer games, arcade games or console games. Almost all of the students (97.8%) reported that they liked experimenting with new technology, showing that students' personal innovativeness towards technology is high. Nearly all of them (97.7%) were comfortable with using technology such as computers, showing high computer self-efficacy. Both genders were roughly equally represented, with 52.3% of the students surveyed being male and 47.7% female. Only 15.9% of the students found the subject difficult. The respondents ranged from Primary 1 to Secondary 3 students. 18.2% were in lower primary, 59.1% in upper primary and 22.8% in secondary school. • Social Influence-Related Response The majority of the students perceived that their friends would be receptive towards the program. While 95.4% felt that their friends would find this system useful for learning, only 88.6% felt that their friends would want to use this system.

Hypothesis Testing • Experience-Related The program was considered interactive, enjoyable, interesting and engaging, attitude towards the topic was found to predict interest and engagement, which reflected the notion of students taking interest in activities related to a topic that they like. Interest and engagement did not affect perceived usefulness or ease of use. • System-Related System quality did not have any significant correlation with the level of interest and engagement, this possibly due to the brevity of the interaction and the novelty of the technology. However, it did have a significant and positive relationship with the perceived ease of use of the system.

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

• Individual-Related Personal innovativeness and compatibility were significantly and positively correlated, which could indicate that students with greater propensity towards trying out IT innovations will tend to have more positive attitudes and behaviors towards websites and technology-related games. Compatibility and self-efficacy were found to be significantly and positively correlated with the perceived usefulness of the system. • Social Influence-Related Social influence had significant and positive relationship with the perceived usefulness of the system and it was also significantly and positively correlated with the intention to use the system. • TAM Related The basic TAM constructs showed the appropriate correlations. The perceived usefulness was more important than perceived ease of use as a factor in determining intention to use. At the same time, perceived ease of use indirectly influenced intention to use through perceived usefulness. From the result, we find that MR technology is very suitable for developing education related applications and most students are keen to use the new teaching tools. Also from the feedback, we find that the usability is very important for user-oriented applications. Improvement of the usability will be one of the important works for further development.

tangible Internet systems Extensive research has been done in exploring the potential of the human body and applying this in human computer interaction. Humans interact with their environment using several methods via several communication channels. Even as we focus on performing a task with our hands, our peripheral vision and hearing are constantly absorbing information from the surrounding environment. All these methods of interaction suggest to us

that human can learn much more by interacting in a multi modal way with their environment compared to traditional desktop computer based learning. Researchers have proposed that tangible user interfaces (TUI) can bridge the gap between cyberspace and the physical environment (Ishii & Ullmer, 1997). It is argued that by moving away from the current dominant model based on GUI to the TUI, we are actually drawing inspiration from classical ways of learning by using physical tools and instruments such as the abacus. Scientific measuring instruments of the past afford the users to use of their hands and eyes to coordinate and manipulate the instruments. This enabled them to work freely and creatively without limitation of a desktop-based GUI in everything they do. Tangible interactive interface coupled with the vast reach of the Internet presents an interesting method for distance learning. In (Lee et al., 2006), we proposed that tangible interactive interface when used as a communication tool enhances the feeling of presence of the person one is communicating remotely with. Besides that, this multi-modal tangible interactive system allows users to intuitively manipulate and send ‘bits’ within their physical world as (Ishii & Ullmer, 1997) proposed. This enables users to bridge the gap between cyberspace and their physical environment. All these features can enhance the communication and interaction among teachers and students. We therefore propose that such a system allows learners to learn in a more conducive manner by making use not only of their bits (desktop based GUI) but also of their atoms (real physical environment).

related tangible Internet systems for distance education In (Treviranus, 1999), it was mentioned that Internet delivers curriculum which does not simulate the experience of touching and manipulating objects or environments. This restricts the number of subjects that can be effectively taught, and the

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types of students who can access the curriculum. With this in mind, a project that would develop software applications that make it possible to deliver curriculum that can be touched, manipulated and heard over the Internet was underway. Both the necessary software tools and exemplary curriculum modules would be developed, and would be based upon the 3D ISO standard VRML, and a Haptic API developed by a company called Haptics Technology Inc. A “Haptics Pendulum” was developed (NIDE, 2001). The Haptics Pendulum device is a pen attached to a force feedback motor that simulates the swinging motion of a pendulum displayed on computer. The motion of the pendulum’s bob was mapped to the end of a PenCat Pro arm (a 3-D Haptic pen) that enabled students to “feel” the velocity, range, and resting state of a pendulum. One of the disadvantages of the above previous developed system is that they did not address much on the human-to-human interaction aspect. As mentioned, the tangible interaction was between human and a pendulum. We propose a system, which allows remote tangible interaction between students and instructors via the Internet.

Poultry Internet In (Lee et al., 2006) a remote tangible human-pet interaction system is developed to enable humans to interact with their pets remotely, in real time manner, through the Internet. A pet jacket (as shown in Figure 14) is worn by a live chicken; and the jacket consists of several vibration actuators. These actuators reproduce a haptic feeling when the pet owner touches the pet remotely via a tangible doll interface. There is a doll interface, and inside the hollow body of the doll, touchsensitive sensors and wireless transmitter are embedded. As the owner touches the outer shell of the doll, the touch signals are sensed by the embedded circuitry and sent through the Internet to the fluffy haptic pet jacket shown in Figure 15. This pet jacket receives data wirelessly through

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an embedded Bluetooth module. Besides that, the doll is mounted on a mechanical positioning table, which moves the doll according to the movement of the pet. The purpose is to enhance the physical presence of the pet in the vicinity of the owner. One of the main motivations for this research is that it has been shown that poultry have high levels of both cognition and feelings and as a result there has been a recent trend of promoting poultry welfare. There is also a tradition of keeping poultry as pets in some parts of the world (PTF). However in modern cities and societies it is often difficult to maintain contact with pets, particularly for office workers. Therefore the motivation of this work is to use mobile and Internet technology to improve the welfare of poultry by creating positive feelings towards them, and to allow humans to feel connected to poultry even if they cannot be physically present with them. It can also be used for people who are allergic to touching animals and thus cannot stroke them directly. In addition to this, touch is very important to both animals and human beings. Many homes have companion animals usually dogs or cats and people enjoy stroking them. Animals often respond by closing their eyes and showing pleasure. In a study by Jones et al. (Jones, Larkins, & Hughes, 1996), it was shown that poultry farmers could have more productive hens if they installed video screens showing chickens being stroked. It was found that hens that are deprived of human contact are likely to be more anxious and prone to poor egg-laying. The above shows that the touch and stroking are very essential for humans and animals. There might be certain situation where touching pets is not possible, for instance when we are in the office, travelling or in the hospital; therefore remote touching would be helpful when our real presence is not achievable.

user study People who have participated in and tried out our system experienced the human-animal interactive

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

Figure 14. The actual pet jacket worn by a live chicken in Poultry Internet

Figure 15. The fluffy haptic pet jacket

symbiosis supplied by the system. They saw the doll move in real time according to the poultry movement. Furthermore, through the touch interface the participant stroked the doll and saw in real time that the touch is transmitted to the poultry. We have done a user study for our system. The interviewees were 31 students (18 male and 13 female) in the age group of 20 to 30 years old. They completed our questionnaire after having some experiences with our system. The users were asked to firstly interact with the poultry in the present conventional remote method interaction with pets, a live web cam and monitor. Then the users were asked to interact with the poultry using the physical doll interface. The users were not given any time limit of interacting with the system. The result from the user study shows that most of the interviewees (84%) admitted that our system is better than current telecommunication systems for pets. A same number of users (84%) had a feeling of presence for the remote pet with our system. The survey shows that almost all users interviewed like to be able to touch and interact with their pets when they are out of home and their pets are alone (66%). Also most of them (68%) believed that the pet will have a pleasurable feeling and liked the remote touch using our system. Also the user study result shows that for most of

the interviewees touching in more important to them rather than other kind of a kind of interaction like watching of their pets through a monitor. Our system allowed the users to compare using the proposed system with a normal web-cam system, as they could experience viewing the pet using a web cam and monitor only.

huggy Pajama A variant to this pet jacket system is the Huggy Pajama. Huggy Pajama is a novel wearable system aimed at promoting physical interaction in remote communication between distant users. The system consists of a hug reproducing jacket and a mobile novel hugging interface, which is able to sense the hug and transmit over the internet. The overall system diagram is shown in Figure 16. According to the Figure 16 we have an input device, which acts as a cute interface that allows the transmitting user to hug user on the other end and send mood expressions to them. On the right side of the figure, connected through the Internet, we have air actuating module and color cloth changing expressive interfaces to reproduce hug and connect the two users. The system consists of 3 main parts namely the Input Sensing Device, Output Actuating Device (the jacket) and the color changing module.

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The Input Device is a cute doll interface with touch sensors embedded in it. The doll has 12 sensors embedded in it (four in the front, four in the back and two each on each side) to accurately measure the touch pressure details of a hug. The components of the input device are shown in the Figure 17. The 12 embedded sensors consist of 12 QTC (Quantum Tunneling Composite) sheets that accurately measure the pressure. The linearly measured pressure is read and sent via Bluetooth to the internet. The system block diagram for the input device is indicated in Figure 18 and how it connects to the output device. The input device was designed in a cute and mobile manner such that the users can freely carry it around or probably attach it to their mobile phones while on the move. The Output system mainly consists of jacket that is capable of reproducing the feeling of a hug. The jacket consists of 12 air actuating modules that are matched one to one against the 12 input sensors of the input device as shown in Figure 19. Two air pumps are used in each actuating module, one to pump air into the air pouch and one to pump air out of the air pouch to increase or decrease the pressure. The block diagram of the air actuator circuitry is shown in Figure 20. There air actuating modules are capable of accurately exerting a pressure that is related to the input pressure sensed by the QTC sensors on the

Figure 16. Huggy pajama system overview

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input device through the use of a closed loop PI control system. Thus when the user uses to input device to transmit a hug the same sensation is recreated with the use of the output jacket with the air actuating modules. A sample of a single air actuating module is shown in Figure 21. We also developed an arm band version with a single air actuating module for the concept implementation and testing. Figure 22 shows the usage of this version. The LED’s on the module indicate the current pressure level. And we developed colour changing module to represent the hugging context to the remote place receiver and also express the sender’s emotion and feelings to the receiver. Figure 23 shows the colour changing T-Shirt that was our prototype colour changing module. We used Thermochromic Ink that is changed colours by controlling the temperature in this shirt. According to the levels of developer types in this ink, we made different colours changing effect through controlling temperatures of the ink spot. (We used 2 types Thermochromic ink, and we made 3 different colours.) As we can see in Figure 24 we made heating spots using the conductive yarn and also attached a temperature sensor to measure the temperature of heating spot. And we tested painting method as well as dyeing method. Figure 25 shows flower accessory type color changing tests. We attached

Internet-Enabled User Interfaces for Distance Learning

Figure 17. Input device components

Figure 18. Input device system block diagram

Figure 19. Mapping between input sensors and output air actuators

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Figure 20. Block diagram of the air actuating module circuitry

Figure 21. Air actuating module components

Figure 22. Arm band version usage

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Figure 23. Colour changing t-shirt

Figure 24. Temperature sensor and conductive yarn

Figure 25. Colour changing flower accessory

Figure 26. Colour changing blouse

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Figure 27. Complete Huggy pajama prototype system usage

these accessories on the blouse and Figure 26 shows the result. The Huggy Pajama system was mainly aimed for the user of parents with their children. Parents who spend a busy work life may have to travel away from their children frequently and thus the Huggy Pajama system enables them to hug their children through the internet. Figure 27 shows the use of the Huggy Pajama prototype. It can be seen that those previous remote haptic systems provide such a rich multimodal interaction for people over the Internet. It will be a good idea if this can be deployed in distance learning.

a student how to play over the Internet, in real time. Both the instructor and the student would wear special haptic jacket, and thus remote action or movement synchronization can be achieved. Another example is the teaching and learning of dance. The learner wears a haptic jacket similar the to poultry. Internet system and his/her movement replicated by a mechanical robot in front of the dance teacher. Both are interacting through the Internet. The teacher may correct the student’s movements by touching the corresponding parts of the arms or legs. The student will feel these signals and be guided accordingly.

Proposed Application of tangible Internet systems for distance education

concLusIon And Future worKs

As mentioned earlier the feeling of physical presence of the instructor can enhance the learning process, this is particularly true in physical education. For instance a table-tennis expert could teach

In this article, we introduce related interactive media technologies and their usage in distance education and concern of the students’ learning process focus not just on specific subjects in class-

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room, but also on their preparation for learning and reviewing the knowledge at a distance. With the fast development of new technologies, adults need to learn new knowledge constantly. It is not so easy for everyone to go back school to learn new knowledge. Many new technologies are being introduced to distance education, but which technologies should be chosen is decided by the needs of students. Based on educational theories and previous research, the technologies we mentioned in previous sections have big potential in distance learning area. The prototypes and tools introduced have been or will be tested in real classrooms and over the Internet. We would like to combine these technologies to develop more distance education applications. For example, we can combine the above 3D live technology with mixed reality technology to let students see how the teachers are operating the solar system.

reFerences Bricken, M., & Byrne, C. (1993). Summer students in virtual reality: A pilot study on educational applications in virtual reality technology. Dede, C. (2005). Planning for neomillennial learning styles. Educause Quarterly, 28(1). Dede, C., Salzman, M., Loftin, B., & Sprague, a. D. (1999). Multisensory Immersion as a Modeling Environment for Learning Complex Scientific Concepts. In Computer Modeling and Simulation in Science Education (pp. 282-319). Furness, T. A., & Winn, W. (1997). The impact of three-dimensional immersive virtual environments on modern pedagogy o. Document Number) Hentea, M., Shea, M. J., & Pennington, L. (2003). A Perspective on Fulfilling the Expectations of Distance Education. Paper presented at the Proceeding of the 4th conference on Information technology curriculum, Lafayette, Indiana, USA.

Ishii, H., & Ullmer, B. (1997). Tangible bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between people, Bits and Atoms. Paper presented at the Proceeding of CHI 97. Jackson, R. L., & Fagan, E. (2000). Collaboration and learning within immersive virtual reality. Paper presented at the CVE ‘00: Proceedings of the third international conference on Collaborative virtual environments, New York, NY, USA. Jay, E., & White, M. (2000). The Virtual Design Educator: Realistic or Optimistic? An Approach to Teaching Design Virtually. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 7th National Conference on Product Design Education. Jones, R., Larkins, C., & Hughes, B. (1996). Approach/avoidance responses of domestic chicks to familiar and unfamiliar video images of biological neutral stimuli. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 48(1-2), 81-98. Kaufmann, H. (2003). Collaborative Augmented Reality in Education. Paper presented at the position paper for keynote speech at Inagina 2003 conference. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (Eds.). (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, USA. Lee, S. P., Cheok, A. D., Teh, K. S., Goh, P. L., Chio, W. J., Wang, C., et al. (2006). A Mobile Pet Wearable Computer and Mixed Reality System for Human-Poultry Interaction through the Internet. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 10(5), 301-317. Lester, J. C., Zettlemoyer, L. S., Grégoire, J. P., & Bares, W. H. (1999). Explanatory lifelike avatars: performing user-centered tasks in 3D learning environments. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the third annual conference on Autonomous Agents, Washington, USA.

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Liarokapis, F., Mourkoussis, N., White, M., Darcy, J., Sifniotis, M., Petridis, P., et al. (2004). Web3D and Augmented Reality to support Engineering Education. World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 3(1), 11-14. Liarokapis, F., Petridis, P., Lister, P., White, M., & M. (2002). Multimedia augmented reality interface for e-learning (MARIA). World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 1(2), 173-176. Liarokapis, F., Sylaiou, S., Basu, A., Mourkoussis, N., & White, M. (2004). An Interactive Visualisation Interface for Virtual Museums. Paper presented at the The 5th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Brussels, Belgium. Loscos, C., Widenfeld, H. R., Roussou, M., Meyer, A., Tecchia, F., Drettakis, G., et al. (2003). The Create Project: Mixed Reality for Design, Education, and Cultural Heritage with a Constructivist Approach. Paper presented at the Proc. Of 2nd IEEE and ACM international Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, Tokyo, Japan. Mandryk, R. L., & M., K. (2001). Supporting free play in ubiquitous computer games, Naps, T., Cooper, S., Koldehofe, B., Leska, C., Rößling, G., Dann, W., et al. (2003). Evaluating the Educational Impact of Visualization o. Document Number) Nguyen, T. H. D., Qui, T. C. T., Xu, K., Cheok, A. D., Teo, S. L., Zhou, Z. Y., et al. (2005). Real Time 3D Human Capture System for MixedReality Art and Entertainment. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 11, 706 - 721. NIDE. (2001). Haptic Pendulum Project. Retrieved June 27, 2008, from http://nide.snow.utoronto.ca/ Pendulum/Pendulumindex.html

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Pair, J., & Piepol, D. (2002). FlatWorld: A Mixed Reality Environment for Education and Training. Paper presented at the Invited presentation at SCI2002 session on “Gaming and role play in VR and Augmented Reality.”, Orlando, Florida, USA. Prince, S., Cheok, A. D., & Farbiz, F. W., T.; Johnson N.; Billinghurst M.; Kato H. (2002). 3D live: real time captured content for mixed reality. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). PTF. Projects: Chickens in the City. Retrieved June 27, 2008, from http://pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/ simpleliving/chickens.shtml

Roussou, M. (2004). Learning by doing and learning through play: an exploration of interactivity in virtual environments for children. ACM Computing in Entertainment, 2(1), 10--10. Shelton, B. E., & Hedley, N. R. (2002). Using Augmented Reality for teaching Earth-Sun Relationships to Undergraduate Geography Students. Paper presented at the Augmented Reality Toolkit, the First IEEE International Workshop. Stanton, D., Bayon, V., Neale, H., Ghali, A., Benford, S., Cobb, S., et al. (2001). Classroom Collaboration in the Design of Tangible Interfaces for Storytelling. Paper presented at the Proceeding of CHI2001. Stuart, R. (Ed.). (1996). The Design of Virtual Environments: McGraw-Hill, USA. Treviranus, J. (1999). Adding Feeling, Sound and Equal Access to Distance Education. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 1999 CSDN Conference, Los Angeles. Warde, W. F. John Dewey’s Theories of Education. Retrieved June 27, 2008, from http://www.marxists. org/archive/novack/works/1960/x03.htm

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Woods, E., Billinghurst, M., Looser, J., Aldridge, G., Brown, D., Garrie, B., et al. (2004). Augmenting the Science Centre and Museum Experience. Paper presented at the proceedings of the 2nd international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australasia and South East Asia.

Yeh, A. (2004). VRMath: knowledge construction of 3D geometry in virtual reality microworlds. Paper presented at the CHI’04 extended abstracts on Human Factors in computing systems, Vienna, Austria.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, Vol. 5, Issue 1, edited by B. Stahl, pp. 51-77, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.6

Balancing Tradeoffs in Designing, Deploying, and Authoring Interactive WebBased Learn-By-Doing Environments Lin Qiu State University of New York at Oswego, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

Computer-based learn-by-doing environments have been used to provide students supportive and authentic settings for challenge-based learning. This chapter describes the design tradeoffs involved in interactive learning environment design, deployment, and authoring. It presents a combination of design choices in INDIE, a software tool for authoring and delivering learnby-doing environments. INDIE’s design balances the tradeoffs and leverages Web technologies to improve the accessibility and deployability of learning environments as well as feedback generation and authorability. It explores a vision of learning environments that are more accessible and usable to students, more supportive and customizable to instructors, and more authorable to software developers.

The constructivist theory of learning has shown that learning is a process where the learner actively constructs understanding rather than passively receiving knowledge (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Bransford, Goldman, & Vye, 1991; Brown, 1988; Chi, Leeuw, Chiu, & LaVancher, 1994). This learning theory has become one of the dominant theories in education. It provides us a strong theoretical base about the nature of learning and calls for changes to the traditional didactic-based methodology of instruction. Meanwhile, greater demands are being placed on education systems at all levels to teach students the ability to apply knowledge and skills learned in classrooms to solve real-world problems. In response to these emerging needs, challenge-based learning has become a popular

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Balancing Tradeoffs in Designing, Deploying, and Authoring Interactive Web-Based Learn-By-Doing

new paradigm of teaching. It centers learning on investigation and development of solutions to complex and ill-structured authentic problems (e.g., Boud, 1985; Bridges, 1992). Students acquire content knowledge and problem-solving skills through self-directed learning. Instructors work as facilitators providing resources and coaching to students. While challenge-based learning offers an effective approach to improve teaching and learning, a number of difficulties occur in implementing it in schools (Hoffman & Ritchie, 1997). For example, activities in solving realistic problems can be expensive, time-consuming, and even dangerous. Students need extra support to have successful learning experiences in complex real-life contexts. Scenario-based learn-by-doing environments have been built to support challenge-based learning. They put students in fictional scenarios and provide tools such as simulations and data portfolios for solving challenges embedded in the scenarios. For example, Alien Rescue (Liu, Williams, & Pedersen, 2002) is a learning environment where students need to find a new home in the solar system for aliens to survive. BioWorld (Lajoie, Lavigne, Guerrera, & Munsie, 2001) is a learning environment where students need to diagnose patients in a simulated hospital setting. The goal-based scenario (GBS) (Schank & Neaman, 2001; Schank, Fano, Bell, & Jona, 1993) is a framework for scenario-based learn-by-doing environments. It engages students in a real-life role to solve some realistic problem in a simulated world. Students can carry out activities that are not feasible in classrooms and receive just-in-time individualized feedback. For example, Sickle Cell Counselor (Bell, Bareiss, & Beckwith, 1994) is a GBS where students work as reproductive counselors advising couples on the level of risk their children would have for sickle cell disease. Recent advances in technology such as the Web and inexpensive and powerful computers have been particularly promising in making

computer-based learning environments more accessible and deployable. This chapter describes INDIE, a software tool for authoring and delivering learn-by-doing environments. While INDIE is based on the GBS framework, it leverages the Web technology to improve its deployability, authorability, and usability. We begin with an overview of INDIE and description of Corrosion Investigator, a learning environment delivered by INDIE. We then focus on the design choices in INDIE to illustrate how to balance the design tradeoffs in deployment, authoring, and learning support.

IndIe INDIE is a software tool for authoring and delivering Web-based learning environments where students can run simulated experiments, collect data, generate hypotheses, and construct arguments. INDIE includes an authoring tool and a content-independent runtime engine. The authoring tool provides a form-based Web interface (Figure 1) for constructing the content in an INDIE learning environment. The runtime engine reads in the content and delivers a Web-based learning environment. Learning environments delivered by INDIE consist of a common set of Web interfaces: a challenge screen showing a statement describing the challenge scenario, a reference screen where students can browse materials describing the scenario and domain content, an experiment screen where students can order tests and collect results, a feedback screen where students can read and respond to comments from the instructor on their work, and a report screen where students can construct arguments for or against possible hypotheses. INDIE learning environments automatically generate lab test results based on requests from students and provide support for students to construct arguments.

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Figure 1. The INDIE authoring tool interface

An exAMPLe: corrosIon InvestIGAtor INDIE has been used to deliver Corrosion Investigator, a learning environment on biofilms in which environmental engineering students take the role of consultants helping a paper processing company find the cause for recurring pipe corrosion. In the following, we use Corrosion Investigator as an example to describe the INDIE learning environment. When students first enter Corrosion Investigator, a challenge screen (Figure 2) explains the problem context to the students. After reading the challenge, students can then go to the reference screen (Figure 3) to read background materials. Students can send e-mails to characters in the scenario for additional information. There are four people in the scenario: the plant foreman, the plant manager, the scientific consultant, and the supervisor. E-mails sent to these characters are forwarded to the instructor. The instructor plays the role of these characters and provides responses to students. Students need to direct different questions to different persons according to their specialty. Communicating with these characters allows students to involve in social interactions commonly seen in real workplaces. To run tests, students go to the experiment screen (Figure 4). The left side of the screen has

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the notebook and result area. The notebook automatically collects all the test results that students have received from the system and splits them into single items with labels indicating their test names and conditions. This helps students keep track of all the test results received from the system. Test results in the notebook are clickable items. Students can easily identify and select them to use as evidence in their reports. The result area displays test results in a readable form, typically a table with labeled columns and rows. The right side of the experiment screen allows students to look for tests by entering test names into a textbox. Tests matching the name will be shown. Students can view the description of the tests and possible variable values for the tests. If no test matches the name that a student enters, the student will be asked to try another name, or e-mail the scientific consultant character for help. When students decide to run a test, they can specify the parameters for the test on a separate screen (Figure 5). For example, there are two parameters for the water chemistry test, Location of Sample and Test Variable. Students can specify where to take water samples by clicking on appropriate checkboxes in the “Location of Sample” section or clicking the Use Map button to use an interactive map (Figure 6). The map allows students to pick checkpoints for taking water samples on a schematic layout of the pipeline. The

Balancing Tradeoffs in Designing, Deploying, and Authoring Interactive Web-Based Learn-By-Doing

Figure 2. The challenge screen in Corrosion Investigator

Figure 3. The reference screen in Corrosion Investigator

Figure 4. The experiment screen in Corrosion Investigator

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Figure 5. The parameter value selection screen in Corrosion Investigator

Figure 6. The interactive map in Corrosion Investigator

cost and delay field on the parameter selection screen displays the simulated amount of money and the days the test will take. These values are dynamically calculated and displayed based on the parameter selection. They will be added to the value of the project cost and day field at the top of the screen respectively. In addition to selecting values for each test parameter, students also need to enter reasons for ordering the test. To receive test results, students need to press the advance date button at the top of the screen to advance the simulated project date to the time when the most recent test results are available. Newly available test results will appear in both

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the notebook and result area on the Experiment screen. When students feel they have gathered enough information, they can go to the report screen (Figure 7) to make claims and use test results in the notebook as evidence to support their claims. Students can pick a corrosion location and enter their diagnosis. When they select a result in the notebook, a window will pop up allowing them to enter the reason for using the test result as evidence. Newly added evidence will appear in the report on the right side of the screen. When students finish constructing the report, they e-mail their report to their client in the scenario. The report

Balancing Tradeoffs in Designing, Deploying, and Authoring Interactive Web-Based Learn-By-Doing

Figure 7. The report screen in Corrosion Investigator

Figure 8. The feedback screen in Corrosion Investigator

will be evaluated by the instructor in terms of the correctness of their diagnoses and the relevance of the evidence to the diagnoses. While students are working in the system, their work is under review by their supervisor (roleplayed by the instructor). The supervisor can add comments to the student’s work such as the tests students have run and reasons for running the tests. These comments will appear on the feedback screen (Figure 8). Students can respond to these comments by clicking the respond link and enter their responses in a pop-up window.

desIGn choIces INDIE presents a combination of design choices that balance deployability and interactivity, generality and usability, authenticity and simulation, openendedness, and feedback generation. The following describes each design choice.

web-based client-server Architecture Up until the mid-90s, most educational software systems were monolithic systems. They could have rich multimedia interfaces and fast response time, but they needed to be installed on individual machines. For example, previous GBSs such as

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Figure 9. The client-server architecture of INDIE

Return of the Wolf (Schank & Neaman, 2001) and Volcano Investigator (Dobson, 1998) used extensive videos to create engaging problem contexts. They were deployed using CDs. This could create installation problems when conflicts occurred between the system and other software on the machine. Furthermore, when updates needed to be installed, each copy of the system needed to be updated. This required additional effort in all the places where the system was used. To avoid the above installation and update problem, a Web-based client-sever architecture in INDIE was used (see Figure 9). The architecture stores the code and content of the learning environment on the server so that there is no need to install any program on the student’s machine. The architecture provides a Web interface for students to access the learning environment through their Web browsers. Student interactions with the learning environment are recorded on the server. Saving learning content on the server allows students to have access to it anytime, anywhere through the Web. It also prevents students from having access to key information that they need to explore by themselves. For example, students

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would not be able to look at the code and find out all the tests in the learning environment without doing the research by themselves. Nor would they be able to find out the results for each test without running the tests. The storage of learning content on the server also facilitates authoring. With a Web-based authoring tool, authors can modify the learning content anytime, anywhere through Web browsers. When the learning content is modified, there is no need to update each copy on the students’ machines. Learning environments in student Web browsers are automatically updated because they are always constructed from the current content on the server. Student records saved on the server allow instructors to have easy access to them in a centralized location. Instructors do not need to collect student records from individual machines. INDIE further displays student records with a Web interface so that instructors can review and critique them from Web browsers. The record includes the time and money that students have spent, tests that students have scheduled and run, and diagnoses and supporting evidence that stu-

Balancing Tradeoffs in Designing, Deploying, and Authoring Interactive Web-Based Learn-By-Doing

Figure 10. A pop-up window for adding comments to student records

dents have created (see Figure 10). Items in the record are clickable links. Instructors can click on any of them and a pop-up window will allow the instructor to enter critiques. These critiques will appear in the feedback screen in the learning environment. The student record is updated every time the student makes a move in the learning environment so that the instructor sees the most recent student activity.

standards-based Platform-Independent Implementation There is a range of options to implement Webbased learning environments. Standard HTML pages are easily accessible from Web browsers on any platform. They are, however, typically not very interactive. JavaScript Web pages introduce more interactions, but they can only provide limited options such as textboxes and drop-down menus. Plug-in based tools such as Flash and Authorware Web Player support integration of video, text, audio, and graphics for richer interfaces and greater interactivity. They are, however, not fully supported on all platforms. They typically run on Windows, sometimes on Mac OS, and less often on other platforms such as Linux.

To provide wider deployability with the least commitment to third-party vendor support, a platform-independent implementation was used in INDIE. In INDIE learning environments, student activities do not require complex interactions such as drawing pictures. Therefore, standard JavaScript is used for the user interface. This implementation allows the interface to be accessible from modern Web browsers such as Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 7 without special software plug-ins. It provides quick response to user interactions because the JavaScript is downloaded into client Web browsers and executed on the local machine. For example, JavaScript is used to display the cost and delay of a test requested by students. Students can see the cost and delay change immediately when they pick different test parameter values. Handling such interactions on the client machine reduces the need to send information to the server for processing. It gives students fast interactivity even when connection bandwidth is low. Interactions that require intensive computation but do not need instant feedback are sent to the server for processing. For example, student test requests are sent to the server because generating results for these requests requires complex algorithms to produce random numbers under multiparameter constraints. Processing complex

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interactions on the server reduces the workload on the client and leverages the computing power on the server. Besides the learning environment, INDIE provides a Web-based authoring tool. User interactions in the authoring tool are different from the user interactions in the learning environment. In the authoring tool, users constantly modify the data on the server. This requires the interface to be kept consistent with the data on the server. We used JavaServer Pages (JSP) to implement the authoring interface. These JSP pages are reconstructed from the data on the server every time the user performs an authoring operation. The latest changes of the data on the server are reflected immediately on the authoring interface, which keeps the interface up-to-date. We used Java and extensible markup language (XML) to implement the code on the server. The Java code runs as a servlet to accept and process requests from the learning environment and authoring tool. The XML code records the scenario information such as test descriptions and result generation methods, as well as student work in the learning environment. The Java and XML implementation along with the standard Web interface provides INDIE cross-platform deployability with minimum requirements on both the client and server side. See Qiu, Riesbeck, and Parsek (2003) for further information on system architecture and implementation.

Predefined Interface Framework with data-oriented Authoring Approach In authoring tool design, there is a tradeoff between usability and generality. Usability means how easy it is for an author to use the tool to build a specific application. Generality refers to the number of different applications that can be created using the same authoring tool. During the design phase usability and generality are usually in tension. In order to make the authoring tool easy for creating a specific type of application, the

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tool usually needs to provide application-specific support, that is, a tool for constructing certain types of interface or processing certain types of data. This support, however, inevitably limits the variety of the applications that the authoring tool can create. For example, generic authoring tools such as Authorware or Flash allow authors to build any kind of interface, but they lack the support for building a specific type of application because they require authors to know how to design a good user interface and write code to handle user interactions and data processing. In contrast, authoring tools designed for specific kinds of problems, for example, balancing chemical equations, allow authors to define new problems with a relatively small amount of information and effort, but they can only create applications in specific domains with a fairly fixed interface. INDIE is designed to situate between application-specific authoring tools and generic authoring tools. It provides authors with a general but standard interface framework. This framework includes an interface for specifying test parameters, a persistent structured collection of received test results, an argument construction tool, and an interface for reviewing and responding to critiques. The framework includes the underlying code to handle user interactions with the above components. It allows authors to specify virtually all contents using static data. This includes the names of tests (e.g., “measure temperature”), the possible options for each test (e.g., “at checkpoint 1”), the costs of tests (e.g., “$1,000”), the durations of tests (e.g., “15 days”), and the generation of test results (e.g., “102 degrees, plus or minus 0.5”). Authors do not need to write rules or scripts. They only need to specify the scenario content. In addition to providing code for handling user interactions, the INDIE framework structures the authoring process to help authors develop a learning-by-doing environment based on sound educational principles. The framework requires the author to show a challenge statement upfront to motivate students. Authors also need to pro-

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vide tests and results that students need to use in solving the challenge. The framework makes sure that the student’s learning activity is investigative problem solving rather than reading essays and answering multiple choice questions. INDIE’s framework provides a relatively fixed learning environment interface with predefined components and layout. The framework, however, is not application-specific because it can be used for scenarios in different domains. For example, a previous version of INDIE (Dobson, 1998) produced learning environments for students to diagnose a patient or investigate the likelihood of the eruption of a volcano. Even though the main activity in the framework is always running tests and constructing arguments, various tests can be designed, and results can have different formats. This makes INDIE capable of creating different learning environments for diagnostic reasoning. In addition, because INDIE learning environments use Web-based interface, authors can use off-theshelf graphical Web page editors to customize the appearance of the interface. Web-based materials such as graphics, audios, or videos can be easily incorporated into the learning environment as content. This avoids the need to have a specialized graphical authoring tool for constructing multimedia learning materials.

rich Problem-solving options with Authentic constraints and Feedback In learning environment design, there is a tradeoff between providing accurate computer-based feedback and supporting authentic and open-ended problem solving. This is because natural language understanding by computers is still an unsolved problem. Texts freely entered by students cannot be understood by the system. In order to provide accurate feedback, all the actions that students can perform and their corresponding feedback in the system have to be specified in advance. Open-ended interface elements such as text boxes are usually avoided to limit student inputs

to information that the system can understand. Once deployed, students are only allowed to do what the system is prepared to support. Most interactions with the system become choosing existing options or paths in the system. Students will not be able to explore options beyond the ones supported in the system. Their problem-solving activity is restricted and becomes less authentic. For example, systems such as Wayang Outpost (Arroyo, Walles, Beal, & Woolf, 2003) can provide accurate feedback, but only allow students to enter numbers or “true” or “false” selections. Other systems allow for less fixed inputs, but they require significant domain knowledge to analyze and understand student inputs. For example, the LISP Tutor (Anderson, Conrad, & Corbett, 1989) allows students to write LISP code in the learning environment. It uses more than 300 production rules to detect misconceptions in the user’s code and provide feedback. AutoTutor (Graesser, Wiemer-Hastings, Wiemer-Hastings, Harter, Person, & the TRG, 2000) allows students to enter texts in natural language. It evaluates student inputs by using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) (Foltz, 1996; Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Landauer, Foltz, & Laham, 1998) to compare student inputs against examples of good and bad answers stored in the system. Systems such as WorldWatcher (Brown & Edelson, 1998) allow students to freely write texts and draw pictures, but they cannot provide any feedback. INDIE uses two approaches to address the above problem. The first approach is to make core choices that students have to make in the learning environment rich enough so that the problem solving process is as complex as in the real world. These choices are provided with authentic constraints and feedback. This approach keeps student inputs easy to understand by the system while making the scenario authentic and challenging. For example, the most complex test in Corrosion Investigator has four parameters, with three to 12 possible values for each parameter. Students have a total of over 500 different test

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options from which to choose. Such complexity of test options requires students to fully understand each test and make conscious decisions about which tests to run. One important feature of reallife tests is that tests take time and cost money. To simulate this feature, INDIE was designed to allow its tests to have simulated, differing time and money values depending on the student’s choice of parameter values. For example, the time and cost of the culturing test in Corrosion Investigator varies from seven to 14 days and $1,000 to $10,000 respectively based on its parameter values. If students order the test, they need to spend a certain amount of money (in simulated cost) and wait a certain amount of days (in simulated time) for the results to be available. The system keeps track of the total time and money that students have spent in solving the challenge. The instructor can use the time and cost to compare and evaluate student performance. Therefore, students have to think hard about what tests to run and when tests should be run in order to solve the challenge in a time- and cost-effective manner. Another feature of real-life tests is that test results rarely remain exactly the same when the same test is conducted again. To simulate this effect, INDIE allows its test results to be generated randomly based on the constraints set during scenario authoring. This gives students different results every time they run a test. INDIE further allows authors to use HTML templates to display test results in authentic formats. Students can receive test results as they would receive them in the real world.

hybrid Feedback Generation for open-ended Inputs and Incremental Authoring The second approach that we used in INDIE to balance the tradeoff between feedback generation and open-ended inputs is to use different feedback generation mechanisms for different types of inputs. We used the system to generate feedback to inputs that require immediate response

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or computational-intensive process, and let the instructor generate feedback to inputs that are open-ended. In INDIE, the system generates the cost and delay of a test. This is because these values needed to be generated immediately so that students know them before they make decisions on whether to run the test. The system also handles test result generation because it is fairly complex. The instructor is introduced into the feedback loop to provide feedback to open-ended inputs such as e-mails sent to characters in the scenario and reasons for requesting a test. INIDE provides a Web interface for instructors to add comments to the student’s work. To fully support challenge-based learning, it is important to allow students to explore options not available in the learning environment. Having instructors in the feedback loop lets students obtain additional information and coaching. Being a part of the feedback loop allows instructors to have access to the student’s work in the learning environment. Instructors are facilitated in becoming a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on the stage.” Assessment becomes an iterative process where students make progress, the instructor provides feedback, the students utilize the feedback and make improvement, and the instructor reviews the progress and provides more feedback. This process continues until the students correct all the mistakes and reach expected learning goals. Our experience indicates that instructors want to be in the feedback loop. For example, the designer and instructor of the Corrosion Investigator scenario requested to have students enter reasons for their test requests in the system so that he could review these reasons. Furthermore, having instructors in the feedback loop allows instructors to incrementally author the learning content as part of responding to requests from students. The design choices made in INDIE, especially the Web-based clientserver architecture and the instructor in the loop, naturally supported runtime adaptation and ex-

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tension of scenario content. Instructors can use the authoring tool to add new materials such as tests, test results, or background information, into the system after deployment. This in turn leads to a possible alternative model to scenario development—incremental authoring—that makes runtime extension the prime mode of authoring, rather than the exception. In this model, a learning environment is initially built with a challenge statement, relevant background information, the obvious actions that students will take, and feedback for those actions. It does not need to have all the possible resources and feedback, but should be complete enough so that students can start working within the learning environment. When the learning environment is put into use, it is the agent that students primarily interact with. When student inputs can be handled by the system, the system provides automatic feedback to these inputs. The instructor is in the feedback loop and can opt to verify and improve the feedback before it is given to students. When student inputs cannot be handled by the system, they are sent to the instructor. The instructor provides feedback to these inputs, and the feedback is automatically incorporated into the system. During the process of providing feedback, the instructor gradually incorporates new materials into the system to improve its performance. The incremental authoring model amortizes the significant upfront development effort that many learning environments have into “use time.” Authoring is done in the context of using the system to deliver a scenario. There is no need to anticipate and implement all possible situations upfront. Authoring is driven by real needs from students. Issues not anticipated during system design can be explored and incorporated into the system after deployment. The system is kept from totally depending on pre-programmed content. In addition, by having an instructor in the feedback loop, the system can be put into use during early development stages where automatic feedback generation is not yet mature and reliable.

cLAssrooM IMPLeMentAtIon Corrosion Investigator was used in a class by six first-year environmental engineering graduate students. The students formed into two groups of three. The pipe corrosion challenge was first introduced in class by the instructor. After a week, each group gave a presentation on their thoughts about what might be the cause of the corrosion problem. Then, the software was introduced to the students. The students were given three weeks to finish the project by themselves. They mainly interacted with the learning environment, but also had the option of contacting characters in the scenario role-played by the instructor. All communications were via e-mail except the in-class midterm and final presentations where student reported their progress and received feedback from the instructor. All software interactions were recorded, and after the project the students completed a survey regarding their experiences. Students reported that they spent an average of 10 to 15 hours on the project, including interacting with the system, doing background research, participating in group discussion, and so forth. Overall the system was satisfying for doing the project. Students largely benefited from immediate feedback generated from the system. Timesaving from test simulations reduced the project time from eight weeks (the time it took when all the test results were generated manually by the instructor) to three weeks. To test the effect of the time and cost mechanism, students were asked, “How much does the time and cost feature in the system force you to think hard on what tests to run and when to run them?” Students gave an average rating of 2 on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being “always” and 5 being “never.” This suggests that the time and cost mechanism caused the desired impact as intended. During the project, e-mails between the instructor and the students were much fewer (14 e-mails) compared to the situation where the

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scenario was delivered without the software (71 e-mails). This significantly reduced the instructor’s effort in generating responses to students. It, however, does not mean that interactions between students and instructor were discouraged. When responding to the statement, “I had sufficient communication with the characters (plant foreman, plant manager, and scientific consultant) in the system,” students rated an average of 2 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “strongly agree” and 5 being “strongly disagree.” This suggests that students were satisfied with the level of communication with the instructor. A survey was filled out by the instructor comparing his experience in using the Corrosion Investigator software with his experience in delivering the same challenge without the software. The instructor reported that the effort in delivering the scenario and the time students needed to complete the scenario were considered much less when using the software. The instructor’s workload was reduced from 24 total person-hours to four. It was most evident in reducing the work in generating test results. The quality of the data generated by the system was considered slightly better. The quality of the students’ final reports and their learning of the target skills were considered identical to the ones when the scenario was delivered without the software. When Corrosion Investigator was first created, there were 39 keywords to match student test inquiries. During the project, 34 new keywords were discovered in student inputs and added to the system. The addition resulted in a total of 87% increase of keywords in the system. The system’s coverage of student test inquiries was significantly improved. Furthermore, one student’s input pointed out that the parameter value Fe was missing from the water chemistry test. The parameter value and its corresponding test results were then added using the authoring tool without interrupting the on-going project.

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reLAted worK INDIE learning environments are based on a framework where students are engaged in a fictional scenario, working with a simulation, constructing arguments using data from the simulation, and receiving feedback. Other scenario-based learning environments have been built to engage students in such learn-by-doing activities. For example, Alien Rescue (Liu et al., 2002) is a learning environment teaching astronomy and space travel. It engages 6th graders in a scenario where they need to find a home in the solar system for a group of aliens arrived in Earth orbit. BioWorld (Lajoie, 1998) is another scenario-based learning environment. It teaches biological terminology by engaging students in a simulated hospital setting where they need to diagnose patients. Alien Rescue and BioWorld use multimedia such as videos and graphics to create a motivating setting. The current INDIE does not have special support for multimedia materials such as videos and graphics. However, because INDIE uses a Web-based interface, such materials could be incorporated using standard Web page mechanisms for multimedia objects. The focus of Alien Rescue and BioWorld is to provide cognitive tools (Lajoie, 1993) such as information libraries and graphics tools to reduce the cognitive load involved in problem solving. INDIE provides a notebook to help students collect and organize data, and a report construction interface for students to use the data to generate arguments. However, the focus of INDIE is not to provide cognitive tools but to support the delivery of a challenge by providing just-in-time feedback and a simulated environment. Like Alien Rescue and BioWorld, most scenario-based learning environments are closed systems. They do not support instructors participating in the feedback loop to respond to student requests and provide feedback. INDIE learning environments, however, allow instructors to re-

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ceive e-mail requests from students and critique student work. A number of simulation-based learning environments (Van Joolingen & de Jong, 1991) have been built to support learners performing tasks with simulations. For example, SHERLOCK (Lesgold, Lajoie, Bunzo, & Eggan, 1993) is a system where avionic technicians practice electronics troubleshooting in a simulated work environment. STEAMER (Hollan, Hutchins, & Weitzman, 1984) is an environment where students explore and manipulate a simulated steam propulsion plant. Using complex domain models, these systems provide students simulated results of their actions, explanations of mistakes, and intelligent coaching during the learning process. Different kinds of simulations have been used in learning environments. Van Joolingen and de Jong (1991) categorized them into two types: operational model-based simulations and conceptual model-based simulations. Operational models use sequences of cognitive and non-cognitive operations or procedures to represent the simulation. One example of an operational model can be found in a radar control simulation (Munro, Fehling, and Towne, 1985). Conceptual models use principles, concepts, and facts to represent the simulation. Mendelian genetics (Brant, Hooper, & Sugrue, 1991) and HUMAN (Coleman & Randall, 1986) are two example systems that use conceptual models in their simulations. Articulate software is a particular type of educational software that supports students building or interacting with a simulation, as well as receiving conceptual explanations of simulation outputs (Forbus, 2001). For example, CyclePad (Forbus & Whalley, 1994; Forbus, Whalley, Everett, Ureel, Brokowski, Baher, & Kuehne, 1999) is an articulate virtual lab where students design thermodynamic cycles and receive simulated results of their design, explanations of values or procedures involved in the simulation, and suggestions for improvement. Evaporation Laboratory is an example of articulate software called active

illustration (Forbus, 2001). It provides a simulated environment where students can set up experiments to observe simulated water evaporation in cups made of different materials in different environments. Students can receive data recorded during the simulated process as well as explanations of casual qualitative relationships between the factors involved in the process. Explanations generated in articulate software are not specifically entered by authors, but are produced by the simulation based on qualitative physics. This saves authors from specifying every example-specific explanation, and makes sure that the explanations are consistent with the simulation. Systems with extensive domain knowledge can automatically handle different problems and construct responses to student inputs. They, however, require significant development effort. The focus of INDIE is not on the simulation but on the challenge and task. Simulations in INDIE are the minimum necessary to support the challenge. This is to minimize upfront development cost and allow authors to quickly construct a scenario without building a model first. A major learning activity in INDIE is to collect test results and use them to construct arguments. A number of systems have also been built to support students collaboratively constructing arguments. CoVIS (Edelson, Pea, & Gomez, 1995) and CSILE (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991) are two representative systems. They allow students to post data such as images and documents in a common electronic workspace to refute or support different claims. The purpose of these systems is to facilitate students sharing information and ideas so that they can collaborate on a problem. It encourages students to bring information from various sources to generate different perspectives. Instructors can review student work in the workspace and provide commentary. INDIE differs from the above collaborative argument construction systems from two aspects. First, in INDIE, the data that students collect are primarily for use in report construction, not for

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collaborative problem solving. INDIE provides an interface that supports students selecting test results, attaching explanations, and inserting them into a report. It, however, does not provide facilities for sharing such information among students. Second, most of the data that students collect are generated internally by INDIE. This makes it possible for the computer to recognize them in the report and perform automatic critiquing.

concLusIon The goal of this chapter was to describe the design tradeoffs in designing, deploying, and authoring interactive learning environments, and illustrate an example of balancing these tradeoffs. We described INDIE, a software tool for authoring and delivering learn-by-doing environments. INDIE presents a particular combination of design choices that leverages Web technologies to improve the accessibility and deployability of learning environments as well as feedback generation and authorability. It explores a vision of learning environments that are more accessible and usable to students, more supportive and customizable to instructors, and more authorable to software developers. INDIE includes an authoring tool and a content-independent software engine. INDIE has been used to deliver Corrosion Investigator, a learning environment where students take the role of consultants helping a paper processing company determine the cause of recurring pipe corrosion. Classroom use of Corrosion Investigator suggested that the software successfully facilitated the delivery of the challenge. To make INDIE easily deployable and accessible, a Web-based client-server architecture and platform-independent implementation was used. To simplify and structure authoring, a predefined interface framework with a data-oriented approach was used for authoring the learning environment. To enable authors to create more authentic and

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challenging learning environments, INDIE was designed to support fairly complex test options with time and cost constraints and authentic test result generation. To provide feedback to openended inputs, instructors were introduced into the feedback loop complementing automatic feedback generation. Having instructors in the feedback further supports an incremental authoring model where the instructor improves the learning environment based on demands from actual students during usage. The synergy of the above design choices makes INDIE a highly deployable and accessible tool for authoring and delivering learnby-doing environments.

AcKnowLedGMents This work was supported primarily by the Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation under Award Number EEC-9876363.

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Liu, M., Williams, D., & Pedersen, S. (2002). Alien Rescue: A problem-based hypermedia learning environment for middle school science. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 30(3). Munro, A., Fehling, M. R., & Towne, D. M. (1985). Instruction intrusiveness in dynamic simulation training. Journal of Computer-Based Instruction, 2, 50-53. Qiu, L., Riesbeck, C. K., & Parsek, M. R. (2003). The design and implementation of an engine and authoring tool for Web-based learn-by-doing environments. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA), Hawaii. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1991). Higher levels of agency for children in knowledge building: A challenge for the design of new knowledge media. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1(1), 37-68. Schank, R., Fano, A., Bell, B., & Jona, M. (1993). The design of goal-based scenarios. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(4), 305-345. Schank, R., & Neaman, A. (2001). Motivation and failure in educational simulation design. In K. D. Forbus & P. J. Feltovich (Eds.), Smart machines in education (pp. 99-144). Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press/MIT Press. van Joolingen, W. R., & de Jong., T. (1991). Characteristics of simulations for instructional settings. Education & Computing, 6, 241-262.

This work was previously published in Advances in Computer-Supported Learning, edited by F. Neto, pp. 339-361, copyright 2007 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.7

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments F. Pozzi Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR, Italy

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

This chapter tackles the issue of how it is possible to integrate individual differences in the learning design of Web-based collaborative learning experiences. In particular, in online collaborative learning environments, it is quite common to adopt techniques to support collaboration and interactions among peers. This contribution proposes to monitor the enactment of the collaborative techniques to make individual and group differences emerge, thus allowing the consequent customization of the learning experience. To this aim, a monitoring model is proposed, whose flexibility allows the tutor to bring different aspects and different levels of the ongoing learning process under control

One of the main issues in the field of web-based education is how to incorporate individual differences in the learning design (Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993); the problem is currently being addressed from very different perspectives, ranging from the psychological point of view (Anastasi & Foley, 1949; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985; Merrill, 2001), to more technological perspectives, aimed at finding new technical solutions to meet individual styles and behaviors (ranging from Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) to Adaptive Hypermedia Systems (AHS)) (Brusilovsky, & Peylo, 2003). The issue of incorporating individual characteristics in the learning design is strictly related to the two concepts of individualization and person-

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-392-0.ch019

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Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

alization, the former being more focused on the ability of a learning environment to offer an ad hoc learning path to a certain student according to her/his individual characteristics; the latter being devoted to the possibility of the student to personally choose a certain path (Clarke, 2003). Going beyond the differences between the two concepts, there is a common idea underpinning them, that is that web-based education should not coincide with fixed, pre-determined contents to be equally distributed to all learners independently of their individual characteristics, but rather that contents (and the way they are presented) should evolve during the learning experience, on the basis of the learner’s styles, attitudes and behaviors (O’Connor, 1999; Henze et al., 2004; Lee, 2004). Even the most common specification in the field of learning design, namely IMS-LD1, recognizes personalization as a necessary aspect to be addressed (Koper & Olivier, 2004). But what does this mean in collaborative learning environments? To what extent are individualization and personalization possible in contexts that are primarily based on discussion and negotiation among peers as the way to construct knowledge? Brusilovsky and Peylo (2003) state that “Intelligent collaborative learning is an interesting group of technologies developed at the crossroads of two fields originally quite distant from each other: computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) and ITS. The recent stream of work on using AI techniques to support collaborative learning has resulted in an increasing level of interaction between these fields.[…] Currently we can list at least three distinct technologies within the intelligent collaborative learning group: adaptive group formation and peer help, adaptive collaboration support, and virtual students” (p. 161). This chapter aims to provide a more methodological contribution to the discussion in this field, by focusing on monitoring as a practice able to provide the tutor of an online collaborative learning experience with a run time picture

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of the participative, the social, the cognitive and the teaching dimensions, as they are developed by students performing activities, in such a way s/he can individualize the learning path according to the emerging individual and group characteristics. In other words, in this contribution monitoring is considered a valuable, methodological solution to address individualization in web-based collaborative learning processes.

bAcKGround In the last decade constructivist approaches have been increasingly appreciated, ranging from “radical constructivism”, which states that there is no reality, but only individual speculations and interpretations are possible (Suchman, 1987), to the “situated constructivism” point of view, which assumes that it is by using social patterns that we conceptually interpret events, objects, and perspectives and thus construct knowledge (Jonassen, 1991). According to the mentioned approaches, educational experience has to be as authentic and genuine as possible, so that learners can observe and critically reflect on real situations (Bendar et al., 1992). These methods lead far away from traditional, transmissive paradigms of learning and encourage the adoption of more modern, participative approaches. Partially inspired by these approaches, “social constructivists” definitively stress the importance of the social dimension in the process of developing new knowledge and state that learners develop understanding using language in discussion, collaboration and debate. Language therefore becomes the basic element of an educational experience (Vygotsky, 1962). In other terms, during a learning experience “the process of negotiation is how we construct knowledge and, if the process of negotiation results in agreement, the agreement is reality” (Kanuka & Anderson, 1999). On this line, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is the research area

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

that focuses on debate-based learning and peer negotiation in online learning environments (Feenberg, 1989; Harasim, 1989; Kaye, 1991; The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1991; Rowntree, 1995; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; Berge, 1995; Dillenbourg, 1999; Kanuka & Anderson, 1999). In these contexts, students work online and are subdivided in groups; each group is usually engaged in tasks (discussing a topic, solving a problem, studying a case, etc.) with concrete outputs to produce, which act as catalysts of interaction and collaboration among peers. In order to facilitate and encourage collaborative dynamics, it is quite common to adopt “techniques” or “strategies” with the aim of providing a structure to activities, so as to foster collaboration and exchange among peers (Kanuka & Anderson, 1999; Dillenbourg 2002; HernándezLeo et al., 2005; Persico & Sarti, 2005; Jaques & Salmon, 2007; Pozzi, 2007; Persico et al., 2008). Techniques are content-independent procedures, which serve as scaffolds to activities (which on the other hand are content-dependent). Techniques are typically selected by the designer prior to the educational pathway, taking into consideration different variables, such as course objectives and contents, characteristics of target population and – more in general - context constraints. Examples of techniques are: Discussion, Peer Review, Role Play, Jigsaw, Case Study, etc. In particular, a “collaborative technique” is aimed at specifying: •

The phase repartition and timing of a learning activity: most of the collaborative techniques adopt a two (or even more)-step model, that is to say that different stages are envisaged in the activity, so that participants contribute at different levels and possibly play different roles. Time availability is an important factor to be considered: some techniques are particularly time consuming; others are less structured and thus require less time.

•

•

•

The nature of the task to be performed and the work distribution: most collaborative techniques engage learners in concrete tasks, often with very tangible pragmatic outcomes, that can be either the solution to a problem, or the production of an artefact (a document, a concept map, a schema, a hypertext, etc.); this fosters the reciprocal interdependence of participants thus enhancing collaboration. The social structure of the group(s) (in terms of size, composition, etc.): the numerousness of learners may influence the choice of a collaborative technique (Caspi et al., 2003). Some techniques are more flexible as far as the social structure is concerned and thus they may be applied irrespective of the number of students; on the contrary, other techniques depend very strongly on social organization and thus can be applied only with small or large groups. As already mentioned, very often techniques are carried out into two steps, where one stage may be carried out by small groups (2-6 participants), while the other stage may involve larger groups (typically 20-25 people). The mode of interaction among participants and groups. In order to carry out collaborative activities, learners usually interact through Computer Mediated Communication systems (CMC), which allow both synchronous and asynchronous textual communication. Such systems can be configured in conferences, forums and/ or thread, so as to support different groups working in parallel and/or in sequence. Each technique is characterized by specific mechanisms of interaction, which may entail one-to-one communication, one-tomany communication or many-to-many communication. The CMC system usually provides group formation tools, so that different levels of permissions allow an easy

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Figure 1. The four dimensional model for evaluating and monitoring online collaborative learning processes

management of different groups/roles performing different tasks (Dimitracopoulou &. Petrou, 2005).

coLLAborAtIve technIQues And student ProFILes In the following three examples of collaborative techniques are briefly described, together with the features, which make each of them more or less “theoretically” adequate to certain initial students’ characteristics and group profiles. (Figure 1)

discussion During a Discussion2, students are subdivided in groups. The technique usually envisages two phases: during the first phase the task consists of individual study of some learning materials. During this phase, the CMC system, which is typically configured in conferences to allow groups to work separately, is used exclusively for asking questions and for expressing personal

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doubts, ideas or comments to the tutor or to the other members of the group. The second phase of the technique is much more collaborative, because students are explicitly asked to interact with the peers of their own group to carry out a collaborative task, on the basis of what they have learned from individual study of the first phase. The task at hand may range from information gathering, list-making or problem solving. As far as the social structure is concerned, since participants have to collaboratively produce an artefact, the technique is most suitable in case of small groups (2-6 people), otherwise interactions may become dispersive. The choice of Discussion as a collaborative technique within a course should be determined, among the other constraints, by certain students’ characteristics. In particular, since Discussion provides an opportunity for learners to share their knowledge, beliefs, values and experiences, it is a proper technique to be adopted when students are characterized by heterogeneity in competences, so that diversity may be exploited at its best. Moreover, Discussion, by providing a “weak” structure to the learning activity and leaving the interaction process relatively free, will very likely make students with social attitudes (socialoriented leaders), as well as task-oriented leaders emerge. Moreover, by looking at students while interacting, it will be possible to note those students who tend more to individual reasoning, as opposed for example to those with more grouporiented cognitive styles, or even those with reflective attitudes. This makes this technique particularly indicated in those contexts where the students’ profiles are not yet clear; for example, at the beginning of a course, it is very likely that information of this kind is not available to the tutor and this technique may be a good tool to break the ice and allow students to show their natural attitudes and skills at the same time.

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

Peer review Another interesting technique which may turn out to be very useful in online collaborative contexts, is Peer Review. The technique is usually structured in two phases: during the first phase students individually analyse some learning materials and are asked to report their impressions or points of view about what they have read. During the second phase, each student is typically assigned a peer and is required to read his/her analysis, in order to provide comments and/or suggestions. This way, each student receives feedback on the work done in the previous phase. Structured like this, a Peer Review may be adopted even in the context of large groups (20-25 participants) and this is not particularly disturbing, due to the fact that during the first phase each student simply delivers her/his document, while in the second phase communication occurs mainly in couples. As a matter of fact, Peer Review is not - per se - associated with a specific social structure and thus it could also be organized in such a way that the reciprocal feedback is provided not only from one individual to another, but from one pair to another, or even between groups. This feature makes the technique suitable also in contexts with large numbers, where the ratio tutor/students is particularly low. During the Peer Review, a reciprocal teaching approach is stressed, where one’s own interpretation of reality is to be faced and compared with those of others (Pozzi & Sugliano, 2006; Pozzi, 2007). In order to exploit the possibility of such reciprocal teaching, this technique is appropriate in those contexts where students have similar competences; another important requirement that students should have in order to effectively adopt this technique, is that they have already developed the ability to receive criticism positively, as well as a strong reciprocal commitment, otherwise they can fail to provide significant suggestions to their colleagues.

Moreover, the adoption of this technique requires a certain knowledge by the designer of the target population, so perhaps Peer Review should not be used at the beginning of a course, but rather as a mid-or late activity, when students’ attitudes and groups’ behaviours have already emerged. In particular, if groups have already experienced internal conflicts in previous activities, Peer Review should be avoided, due to the risk of flaming. If, on the contrary, students seem to lack the ability to consider others’ perspectives and/or comment on them, Peer Review may help. As far as pair composition is concerned, the tutor should devote special attention to the analysis of students’ individual behaviours, in terms of their level of participation on previous activities (for example, very active participants versus lurkers), cognitive styles (for example students who tend to develop individual reasoning, as opposed to those who prefer a group knowledge construction), social behaviors (more open and friendly students, as opposed to shy ones) and teaching attitudes (students who take the responsibility of the learning process more, versus those who simply carry out the task). If on one hand, a certain heterogeneity of behaviors within a pair may turn out to be fruitful (the student with the more positive attitude may influence the other), on the other hand, the tutor should avoid the opposition of extremely different behaviors: for example pairs composed of students who have shown very different levels of participation, may generate frustration in the more active student, who does not receive any feedback from his/her peer.

role Play An interesting technique that can be fruitfully adopted in online collaborative contexts is Role Play. Usually at the beginning of the activity students, subdivided in groups, choose (or are assigned) roles and are asked to individually read some learning materials.

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During the second phase of the activity, students are asked to pretend a certain situation and to collaboratively carry out a task (solve a problem, elaborate a shared document, etc.), by playing the assigned roles, in such a way that discussion and negotiation is made richer by the fact that students argument their positions according to their roles. The adoption of the Role Play technique may be supported in online environments by the fact that in CMC systems it is often possible to assign “aliases” to users: by using an alias, the leaner can act and respond to class mates who will not know her/his “true” identity (Kanuka & Anderson, 1999) and this will make the role play even more “realistic”. As we will see in the following, monitoring collaborative techniques during their enactment is a key element in keeping their effectiveness under control and - at the same time - for making group processes and individual differences emerge, so that the tutor can tune her/his actions and customize the next interventions accordingly.

MonItorInG onLIne coLLAborAtIve LeArnInG Processes Once a collaborative technique has been selected and the learning activity fully designed, it is proposed to students. During the enactment of the collaborative technique, it is very likely that new characteristics of the target population will emerge. As a matter of fact, some characteristics of the target population are known a priori, such as for example the numerousness of the learning group and the availability of tutors, which determines the ratio tutor/students; thus the designer may take them into due consideration from the very beginning of the learning design. On the contrary, other characteristics may seldom be investigated a priori, and more often emerge in

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fieri, such as for example individual attitudes by students (attitudes towards socialization, learning styles, etc.) and group dynamics. As already mentioned, monitoring can help in capturing the emerging behaviors and attitudes by groups and individual students, so that designers and tutors of the learning experience can customize and tune the subsequent techniques according to individual and group reactions. As a matter of fact, in order to gain information on the ongoing learning process, CSCL research has been increasingly using interaction analysis techniques, which take advantage of the non-intrusive capability of technology to record events and their effects (from user actions, like logging into the system to the texts of the messages exchanged), therefore replacing or most often complementing more intrusive ways to collect data (questionnaires and interviews with learners and tutors). Interaction analysis techniques may be based on both quantitative and qualitative data, the former being automatically tracked by the CMC system, the latter deriving from content analysis by a human agent of the messages exchanged between participants. In the last few years many approaches have been proposed which rely on both quantitative and qualitative data (Henri, 1992; Hara et al., 2000; Rourke et al., 2001; Lally, 2002; Aviv et al., 2003; Lipponen et al., 2003; Martinez et al., 2003; Daradoumis et al., 2004; Schrire, 2006; Weinberger & Fischer, 2006; ICALTS Kaleidoscope JEIRP3). On this same line, Pozzi et al. (2007) proposed a model for evaluating and monitoring collaborative learning processes, which mainly builds on Henri’s model (1992) and Garrison & Anderson’s Communities of Inquiry (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). The model has been extensively tested and improved (Persico et al., in press) and its final version encompasses four dimensions as those which mainly characterize the learning processes in collaborative learning environments, namely: the participative, the social, the cognitive and the teaching dimensions.

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

Table 1. Main indicators of the evaluation model Participative

Active participation (P1) Reactive participation (P2) Continuity (P3)

Social

Affection (S1) Cohesion (S2)

Cognitive

Individual knowledge building (C1) Group knowledge building (C2) Meta-reflection (C3)

Teaching

Organizational matters (T1) Facilitating discourse (T2) Direct instruction (T3)

In order to bridge the gap between the four dimensions and their effective manifestation, suitable indicators have been identified, that is quantitative or qualitative elements that allow the analysis of each dimension according to specific objectives. In particular, the participative dimension expresses the quantity of messages exchanged by students in the CMC system to carry out the assigned task and thus indicators of this dimension include: the number of active actions by members of the learning community (in terms of sent messages, uploaded documents, etc.), the number of reactive actions (e.g. reading messages, downloading documents, etc.), as well as the level of continuity in participation across time. As one may note, the participative dimension is based on indicators and data of a quantitative nature, that is to say that procedures to obtain and analyse data of this dimension can be totally automated. Unlike the participative dimension, the other three dimensions are based on indicators and data of a qualitative nature, that is to say that the evaluator needs to carry out a content analysis of the messages exchanged by participants. In particular, the social dimension is defined as “the ability of participants… to project themselves socially and emotionally, as ‘real’ people (i.e., their full personality), through the medium

of communication being used” (Garrison et al., 1999); thus indicators of this dimension include clues of affection (which is typically revealed by expressions of emotion or intimacy, humour or irony, presentations of personal anecdotes) and group cohesion (vocatives, expressions revealing group-self efficacy, references to the group using inclusive pronouns, phatics, salutations). As far as the cognitive dimension is concerned, this is defined in terms of “the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse…” (Garrison et al., 2001); the model makes a distinction between clues of individual and group knowledge building, by assuming that a collaborative activity in these contexts requires typically a personal ri-elaboration of contents and the expression of personal points of view, and at a second stage - discussion and negotiation to collaboratively construct common interpretations of reality. Moreover, according to the model, the cognitive dimension also encompasses metareflection, that is to say that monitoring and/or evaluating the process by students is considered an important component of the cognitive process itself. Lastly, the teaching dimension is defined as “the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing

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personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (Anderson et al., 2001). Thus indicators of the teaching dimension include organizational aspects, facilitating discourse and direct instruction. Table 1 summarizes the main indicators of the four dimensions. The innovativeness of this model with respect to the others cited here (see references above) lays in its flexibility, i.e. the fact that its dimensions (both quantitative and qualitative) and the related indicators can be instantiated according to the aim and time of the analysis and the type of the learning experience, in such a way that one can choose on what dimension(s) and indicator(s) to focus, on the basis of the real needs and requirements of the analysis itself. Thus the model can be considered a general framework, able to provide guidance for any analysis, but allowing the evaluator to choose what element to address (e.g. group dynamics, individual behaviors, level and intensity of interactions) and at what level of detail. This makes the model particularly indicated as a means to keep the various aspects of the ongoing learning process under control and consequently to customize the activities according to students’ and groups’ reactions. As already mentioned, the model has been extensively used in different online courses all designed and run by the Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR in the context of the Italian system for teacher training (Delfino & Persico, 2007). As we will see in the following, in these contexts the model confirmed to be flexible enough to capture and describe the processes deriving from the application of the various techniques by keeping the participative, the social, the cognitive and the teaching dimensions continuously monitored during the enactment of the activities themselves. Moreover, the flexibility of the model allowed the tutor to capture the performances and behaviors both at group and individual levels, so that s/he could consequently take the most suit-

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able measures to support students, thus guiding them towards the achievement of the learning objectives.

MonItorInG GrouPs: cAse studIes In the following, a number of case studies are presented deriving from real experiences, with the aim of demonstrating how the model can be used and what kind of results one may obtain by its application for monitoring groups and single students. The examples cited derive from the application of the model in the “SSIS”, the Italian teacher training institution. In recent years the Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche (ITD) – CNR has designed and run several blended courses for the SSIS of two Italian regions (Liguria and Veneto) on the topic “Educational Technology” (hereinafter these courses will be referred to as “TD-SSIS”). Although each TD-SSIS course has its own specificities (in terms of learning objectives, contents, activities, schedule, etc.), all of them use a CSCL approach and share a basic aim, namely promoting the development of instructional design competence, with special focus on the evaluation and selection of learning strategies, techniques and tools and on the implementation of educational technology in the school context (Delfino & Persico, 2007). These courses always envisage an alternation between face-to-face lectures and online activities through the use of a CMC system4. In particular, face-toface sessions are devoted to lay the bases for both a better understanding of the subject and an effective participation in online activity, whilst online work is mainly collaborative and asynchronous and is based on techniques such as Discussion, Peer Review and Role Play. The students of the courses are post-graduate adults with very diversified backgrounds, interests

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

and expectations. Since the size of the audience is usually notable (around one hundred students per year), the students are divided into virtual workgroups each supported and coordinated by a tutor. The method used to gather data is mixed: as far as the quantitative dimension is concerned (namely the participative one), data were automatically tracked by the CMC system5. On the contrary, as already mentioned, information concerning the social, the cognitive and the teaching dimensions relied on data deriving from the content analysis of the messages exchanged among students. This implied one coder to systematically identify significant properties of textual information. The most commonly used property is the frequency of given keywords or patterns or even expressions that are believed to reveal a feature of the communication act. For example, frequent use of emoticons, expressions like “dear X” or informal greetings are regarded as clues of social presence (Delfino & Manca, 2007). The unit of analysis chosen was the “unit of meaning”, i.e. each message was split into semantic units6 and each unit was assigned one indicator. The coding procedure was carried out by two independent coders, who worked separately after a 40-hour period of training. In order to calculate the inter-rater reliability between the two coders (i.e. the agreement between the two), a sample of messages was selected and coded, corresponding to 10% of the total number of messages in each activity. The selected messages were distributed in time (namely, at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of each activity). The inter-rater reliability was calculated using the Holsti coefficient and considering the agreement on each unit of meaning. This was 0.90 (percent agreement 0.84), which is usually considered a good result. Disagreements were solved through discussion. As we will see in the following, group behaviors resulting from the monitoring process, guided the

tutor’s actions and allowed a more customized approach towards groups.

case study 1 Figure 2 shows an example of the cognitive dimension as developed by a group of 21 students, during a Discussion (course TD-SSIS Liguria 2007). The technique was chosen a priori by the designers of the course mainly because the students were heterogeneous in competences and this was considered in principle a good factor in view of exchange and sharing of diverse experiences and ideas. The topic addressed by the activity was the use of blogs in educational contexts. In line with the design principles behind the Discussion, the activity was not particularly structured; nonetheless, two phases were envisaged so to give a pace to the work; besides, an artefact was required from students as output of the whole activity. In particular, during the first phase of the activity students were required to individually read some materials, navigate a certain number of educational blogs and try to implement a draft of a personal blog. During this phase forums were used exclusively for asking questions and for expressing personal doubts, ideas or comments if any. On the contrary, the second phase of the activity was much more collaborative, because students were in charge of discussing to conceive a common design of an educational blog. The figure shows the results obtained from the analysis of phase 2 of the Discussion, where there is evidence of a certain richness of indicators, which include: explaining personal points of view (C1.3), agreement (C2.2), suggestions to others (C2.3), offering knowledge to others (C2.4), integrating ideas (C2.5), creation of new meanings (C2.6). In this case the monitoring model helped in confirming the tutor that the reaction of the group to the proposed activity was positive and that the

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Figure 2. Cognitive dimension & Discussion: number of occurrences for each indicator7

group composition was satisfying, in that members showed a certain ability to exchange and collaborate, thus leading the group to a positive performance. At the same time, the tutor could observe that the tendency to disagreement (C2.1) and individual reasoning in general (C1) was not so high, so she was able to tune her action accordingly within this group, by fostering individual reflections and expression of personal ideas and by pointing out points of divergence.

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case study 2 The second case refers to the results obtained by monitoring a group performing a Peer Review (within TD-SSIS Liguria 2005). The object of the learning activity was the use of online resources for teaching and learning and the activity was structured in two phases: during the first phase students of the same subject matter individually analysed online resources and were

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

Figure 3. Cognitive dimension & Peer Review: number of occurrences for each indicator in phase 2

asked to fill in a template with their impressions about the websites they had visited. During the second phase, each student was assigned a peer and was required to read his/her analysis in order to provide comments and/or suggestions. This way each student received feedback on the work done in the previous phase. During the Peer Review interactions occurred among 19 people at a time. Nonetheless, this was not particularly disturbing, due to the fact that during the first phase each student simply delivered her/his document, while

in the second phase communication occurred mainly in couples. Figure 3 shows that during phase 2 of the activity the group under study is developing a cognitive dimension which is much more characterized by Individual reasoning (C1), rather than Group knowledge building (C2). In this case the model helped in pointing out that the students preferred to state their personal points of view, instead of addressing directly their peers by disagreeing or providing suggestions to them.

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Table 2. Participative dimension & Peer Review: data of Active and Reactive participation (whole activity) Number of participants: 19 –Number of messages sent: 91 Number of units of meanings: 654 Messages sent 4.05 mean per student

2.02 mean per student / per week

The overall low level of exchange and interactions among participants within this group during the Peer Review, was also confirmed by the participative dimension: indicators of Active participation (P1) and Reactive participation (P2) are not so high, as shown in the Table 2. Of course, when students receive very poor feedback, or even no feedback at all, the quality of subsequent work is at risk; when the tutor realized this, she started encouraging collaborative and generative feedback, by identifying areas of agreement/ disagreement, so as to move the process of knowledge construction forward. Moreover, by isolating data per couple of students, she could even customize her feedback according to the nature of interactions that occurred within each couple.

case study 3 Another interesting case emerged from monitoring a Role Play (TD-SSIS Veneto 2007), the topic of which was “Webquests”. During this activity, 24 students, organized in 4 sub-groups, were asked to pretend to be groups of teachers in charge of a common analysis and a shared evaluation of a certain number of webquests. The analysis of the webquests was to be carried out from a very particular perspective, i.e. by playing a specific role within the group. At the beginning of the activity, students chose their role, from a list of characters, including the “director” and the “rapperteur” of the group, both in charge of facilitating the discourse and organizing the work, and – on the other hand – other roles aiming at soliciting divergent per-

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Messages read 0.48 ratio between the mean of messages read by participants and the total number of messages present in the conference

spectives, such as the “techno-sceptical” teacher, the “techno-loving” teacher, the “bureaucrat”, the “defeatist”, the “efficient” one, etc. During the first phase of the activity each student chose a role, while in the second phase s/ he was asked to discuss a number of webquests, argument his/her position according to the role and negotiate a common evaluation with others. By monitoring this activity through the model (results are shown in Figure 4), it emerged that during the Role Play the level of teaching dimension increased and that students were able to take responsibility for the learning process, so that the tutor could react accordingly and limit her action to a few support interventions. At the same time, thanks to the assigned roles, students experimented argumentation and divergence at cognitive level, thus coming out with a very positive performance.

MonItorInG IndIvIduAL students: cAse studIes As we have already mentioned, the model also allows one to focus on single students and to understand their personal attitudes, behaviors and weaknesses, by looking at dimensions and indicators each learner develops through time. For example, looking at the participative dimension of each student, may help the tutor in detecting very active students, lurkers (i.e. people who read messages exchanged by others but rarely participate), or those who are later in

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

Figure 4. Teaching dimension & Role Play

accomplishing an activity and need to be reminded of deadlines. Similarly, by looking at the social dimension each student is developing, the model may help in detecting and bringing to light social-oriented leaders. In Figure 5 the social dimension is described, as developed by a group of 7 students performing the second phase of a Discussion (TD-SSIS Liguria 2005); values on the bottom represent the social dimension developed by the whole group, excluding that developed by a particular student, whose name is L. (represented at the top of the columns). In this case the model allowed the tutor to focus on a single student and highlighted that she was particularly active from the social point of view, in that she often told personal anecdotes (S1.3), expressed her feelings (S1.1), used selfirony (S1.2) and this encouraged the others to

do the same and contributed to the creation of a friendly climate. Moreover, L. often referred to the group as a whole (S2.1) and used expressions of group self-efficacy (S2.2) thus enhancing group cohesion. These aspects are determinant for the tutor, whose actions cannot leave these kinds of data out of consideration: starting from them, the tutor increases students’ personal involvement, help those who are more peripheral or hard to reach, and thus is able to individualize the proposed activities more, according to students’ personal results. Furthermore, when looking at a single student, especially if s/he is performing a technique that is not particularly pre-structured, the model may highlight his/her cognitive styles, by making reflective attitudes emerge (high levels of Meta-

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Figure 5. Social dimension & discussion: comparing data of the whole group and of a single student (L.)

reflection (C3)), or a tendency to Individual reasoning (C1), or a Group oriented attitude (C2). In the same way, by looking at the indicators of the teaching dimension developed by a student, one may note task-oriented leadership attitudes, such as: •

•

•

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Organizing the group and coordinating the work, which can make you think of an organizer (T1). Asking others for contributions, stimulating the group and fostering discussion, which may reflect an opinion seeker or an energizer (T2). Giving additional information which can make you think of an elaborator (T3) (Benne & Sheats, 1948).

Such use of the model to capture students’ behaviours, may help the tutor to learn more about her/his students, so that s/he can become able - on one hand - of more individualized interventions, and - on the other hand - of better exploiting personal students’ attitudes to improve group performances.

dIscussIon And concLusIon In this contribution we have focused on online collaborative learning environments and have tackled the issue of how it is possible to make this kind of environment flexible and adaptive to the learners’ needs and profiles. This can be done by monitoring the learning process, so as to keep group and individual reactions to the proposed activities under control; in

Supporting Group and Individual Processes in Web-Based Collaborative Learning Environments

particular, starting from the collaborative techniques used to enhance collaboration and interactions among students, it is advisable to monitor the participative, the social, the cognitive and the teaching dimensions, as they are developed by single students and groups, so as to take adequate measures when the techniques do not convey the expected results and in order to individualize the next actions. This chapter mainly assumes a methodological perspective and provides examples of how these dimensions (and the related indicators, as they have been defined in the proposed model) can be used, with the final aim of better customizing the collaborative activities on the basis of what emerges from the enactment of the techniques. Nonetheless, overall there is a lack of research effort devoted to the integration of individual differences in the learning design of online collaborative learning experiences and further work should be done to bridge this gap. Even the model proposed here suffers from a number of shortcomings, mainly due to the fact that gathering data is not always so easy. For example, as far as the quantitative data are concerned, it is true that the most recent CMC systems provide functionalities aimed at tracking the learning process and in some cases - where adequately configured – systems can elaborate data and alert tutors and /or students when the actual performance does not match with the expected one. Nonetheless, the possibility to automatically gather and elaborate quantitative data from CMC systems, should not be taken for granted, due to the fact that at the moment there are no standards for these kinds of systems and this causes differences in the kind of data available. Besides, if some sort of automation is possible for quantitative data, it is evident that, as for the content analysis of messages, this cannot be done automatically (at least not completely) and this makes the overall monitoring process strictly dependent on human intervention.

Despite these weaknesses which certainly call for further investigations in the field, the affordances opened by monitoring a web-based collaborative learning process through a mixed and flexible approach and the consequent possibility to adapt at run time the learning process itself according to the emerging individual differences, are worth studying. Moreover, while in this contribution we have mainly mentioned the affordances provided to the tutor, who may tune her/his actions according to the monitoring results (i.e. in an effort to individualize his/her interventions and the following activities), we should not forget the possibilities opened by presenting the same results directly to learners, who may thus increase the level of awareness of their performance, thus improving their ability of self-managing and self-regulating the learning process. This last consideration poses further challenges to the researchers in the field, by highlighting the possibility of bridging the gap between the two fields of personalization and CSCL, which still seems to be so distant.

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endnotes 1 2

http://www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign/ This collaborative technique in literature is also referred to as Pyramid (see for example http://gsic.tel.uva.es/~dherleo/clfp/ pyramid-en/)

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3

4

5

6

ICALTS (Interaction and Collaboration AnaLysis supporting Teachers and Students Self-regulation) is a Jointly Executed Integrated Research Project of the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence, website at http:// www.rhodes.aegean.gr/ltee/kaleidoscopeicalts/ In 2005 the system used was FirstClass™ Centrinity, while in 2007 Moodle was adopted. It is worthwhile noting that there are differences as far as the kind of data concerning reactive participation and continuity made available by the two CMC systems (namely First Class and Moodle). For an exhaustive debate on the unit of analysis see (De Wever et al., 2006). “One of the issues under discussion is the choice of the

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unit of analysis to perform content analysis. Researchers can consider each individual sentence as a single unit of analysis (Fahy et al., 2001). A second option is to identify a consistent ‘‘theme’’ or ‘‘idea’’ (unit of meaning) in a message and to approach this as the unit of analysis (Henri, 1992). A third option is to take the complete message a student posts at a certain moment in the discussion as the unit of analysis (Gunawardena et al., 1997; Rourke et al., 2001)” (De Wever et al., 2006, p. 9). Occurrences are calculated on the basis of the “units of meanings” attributed by the coder to the corresponding indicator. Each unit of meaning could be assigned one indicator only.

This work was previously published in Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Web-Based Education: Integrating Human Factors and Personalization, edited by C. Mourlas; N. Tsianos; P. Germanakos, pp. 396-413, copyright 2009 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.8

Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application Robert Z. Zheng University of Utah, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

The growth of online resources and the advancement of Web 2.0 technology are changing the instructional landscape and have significantly impacted the practices in education. With its ill-structured learning and rapid incrementation of information in a non-linear fashion, Web 2.0 learning poses enormous challenges to online instructional designers and teachers. The traditional ID models are deemed less fit for Web 2.0 learning due to their linear, wellstructured design approach. This chapter proposes a new ID model that specifically addresses the cognitive demands involved in Web 2.0 learning, promotes learning that focuses on metacognitive thinking and self-regulation, facilitates knowledge integration and construction of schemas-of-themoment for ill-structured learning, and delivers an environment by connecting activities with behavior to form a dynamic learning environment in Web 2.0 application.

The presence of new technology like Web 2.0 application has dramatically changed the instructional landscape in education (Brewer & Milam, 2006; Ellison & Wu, 2008; Glass & Spiegelman, 2007). Many universities, including K-12 schools, are already exploring the instructional use of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, iPods, podcasting, text messaging, and other social software like distributed classification systems (Glogoff, 2005; Ferris & Wilder, 2006). One of the challenges to use Web 2.0 application in education is to effectively design and develop instruction that prepares learners for discovery, change, and creativity in a highly complex and challenging learning environment. Research shows that as technology has increasingly become a key component in teaching and learning, the amount of effort and enthusiasm that goes into the development and implementation of new technology often fails to yield desired results (Oliver & Herrington, 2003). This is due partly to poor implementation of technology in learning and partly to a lack of effective instructional models

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-729-4.ch004

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Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application

and strategies that support such implementation. Current instructional design (ID) models are only moderately successful in taking advantage of the new online medium (Irlbeck, Kays, Jones, & Sims, 2006) because the existing models are characterized by a linear implementation procedure which suits well for well-structured learning but is less appropriate for complex, ill-structured learning (DeSchryver & Spiro, 2008), thereby omitting the most effective and innovative options for successful and creative online learning like Web 2.0 technologies. The inconsistency between existing ID models and practices has impeded the successful integration of new web technologies like blogs, podcasting, wikis, etc. into teaching and learning. Hence the need for a new ID framework that addresses the complexity in Web 2.0 learning. The chapter starts with a discussion of the characteristics of Web 2.0 learning and relevant cognitive demands associated with such learning, followed by a review of ID models which includes the traditional ID models, non-linear system instructional design (SID) models, and emergent e-learning ID models. Finally, a new ID framework is proposed for designing nonlinear, ill-structured learning in Web 2.0 application.

web 2.0 LeArnInG And coGnItIve deMAnds Akbulut and Kiyici (2007) describe Web 2.0 technology as the second generation web services which provide a new learning platform for online collaboration and sharing among web users. These services enact a perceived transition from static and isolated information chunks as represented by the learning model of the first generation web services to self-generated and open communication where the authority is decentralized allowing end-users to use the web space as a conversation field (Collis & Moonen, 2008). Whereas the first generation web services are characterized by a search for information coupled with well struc-

tured instructional strategies like WebQuests to facilitate learners’ knowledge acquisition (Zheng, 2007), Web 2.0 learning reflects a participatory, collaborative, and dynamic approach with which knowledge is created through the collective efforts of participants (Rogers, Liddle, Chan, Doxey, & Isom, 2007). In this section the discussion will primarily focus on the idiosyncratic features of Web 2.0 learning and cognitive demands associated with such learning.

characteristics of web 2.0 Application The traditional Web technology which is also known as the first generation Web technology reflects a one-to-many model in which the content was designed and developed by an individual, a team, a company, an institute or an organization (Breeding, 2006; Kesim & Agaoglu, 2007). The primary purpose was for readers to consume the information. For example, many of the early Websites were text-based serving as an information pamphlet for the business and industry, or as didactic lecture notes in education (Andrews, 1999). With the advent of the second generation WWW, namely Web 2.0 technology, information as well as knowledge are no longer distributed by an individual, a team, a company, an institute, or an organization. Rather, they are distributed and created by users within the cyber community. The new Web 2.0 technology is characterized by shared ownership, simultaneous traversals of multiple knowledge spaces, and social negotiation (DeSchryver & Spiro, 2008; Kesim & Agaoglu, 2007; Wang & Hsua, 2008). A discussion of each of those characteristics follows.

Shared Ownership Differing from the first generation WWW, Web 2.0 technology is designed to create a forum for everyone in online community. One of the characteristics of Web 2.0 is that knowledge is

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created collectively by a group of participants who share the same interest in the topic (Wang & Hsua, 2008). For example, participants who are interested in photography may form an online discussion group called the blog to discuss various issues related to photography. Thus, the content is no long pre-crafted by a specific author. Instead, it is contributed by whoever is involved in the online community and has a shared ownership among the group members who contribute to the well-being of the blog. Wang and Hsua (2008) point out that the shared ownership in Web 2.0 application has an instructional significance in that it facilitates collaboration among learners which “can be an ideal forum for social constructivist learning” (p. 82).

Simultaneous Traversals of Multiple Knowledge Spaces With Web 2.0 technology, learners are exposed to multiple knowledge spaces in a single learning environment (e.g., blog, wikis, etc.) in contrast to accessing information through separate websites which people typically do with the first generation WWW (Breeding, 2006). The fact that the learner is able to simultaneously access information across multiple knowledge domains within a single learning environment makes Web 2.0 application a popular form for both teaching and learning. Kim (2008) studied the differences between traditional computer-mediated communication (CMC) application and Web 2.0 application and concluded that the Web 2.0 application has a great potential for learning because it promotes critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Wassell and Crouch (2008) have drawn similar conclusions by pointing out that the Web 2.0 application such as blogs, wikis, etc. enables learners to focus on a particular topic while accessing wide range of knowledge domains at the same time. This unique feature of Web 2.0 application enhances learners’ ability to categorize and synthesize information, and therefore empowers them to become more

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informed in an ill-structured environment like Web 2.0 learning.

Social Negotiation Web 2.0 technology is characterized by a constructivist, collaborative social learning environment in which knowledge is shared through multiple ownership among online contributors (Wang & Hsua, 2008). Because of its shared ownership, the content in Web 2.0 is created collectively by the online community. However, some educators are concerned about the authenticity of the knowledge created (Xie, Ke, & Sharma, 2008; Young, 2008). Yet, those concerns become mitigated with the unique features in Web 2.0 application that underscore the process of social negotiation in knowledge construction. With instant feedback and synchronous and asynchronous responses, Web 2.0 technology provides learners with a conversation space for elaborating ideas and thoughts and corroborating facts and findings. The learner can challenge previous statements by going back to the archived messages and then propose new ideas based on his/her findings. This process of elaboration, corroboration and refinement represents a social negotiation process among web users whose opinions are critiqued, corrected and finally transformed into concepts acknowledged and accepted by the online community (Sorensen, Takle, & Moser, 2006; Trentin, 2008). Zheng, Flygare, Dahl, and Hoffman (in press) noted that social negotiation represents an important aspect in Web 2.0 learning where learners become dynamically engaged in the process of knowledge construction and creation.

cognitive demands in web 2.0 Learning Learners who learn with Web 2.0 can benefit from collaborating with others, engaging in online discussions to deepen understanding and develop

Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application

critical thinking skills for learning (Ellison & Wu, 2008; Glass & Spiegelman, 2007; Rogers et al., 2007). Notwithstanding the benefits that Web 2.0 has brought to its users, there are some challenges the users must face as they engage in Web 2.0 learning (DeSchryver & Spiro, 2008; Lee, 2004). They include cognitive overload, selection/use of appropriate cognitive strategies, and integration of information across multiple domains. A discussion of each of the above cognitive demands follows.

Cognitive Load The concept of cognitive load was first introduced by Sweller and his colleagues (Sweller, 1988; Sweller & Chandler 1991, 1994) who found that certain materials were more difficult to learn than others. Sweller and his colleagues (Sweller, 2006; Sweller, van Merrienboer & Paas, 1998; van Merrienboer & Sweller, 2005) identified three types of cognitive loads: intrinsic, extraneous and germane load. While the first two types of cognitive load pose threats to effective learning, the latter is considered to be effective, in that it elicits “mindful engagement” in learning. In Web 2.0 learning high intrinsic or extraneous cognitive load may occur due to the demand to synchronize information across multiple knowledge spaces (Lee, 2004). Thus, the challenge to instructional designers is to create a cognitively effective learning environment that reduces intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load by optimizing “mindful effort” in learning. For example, Sweller (1988) found that the goal free design helps reduce the amount of cognitive load associated with complex learning. By extrapolating the previous findings to Web 2.0 application, it can be reasonably assumed that implementing the goal free strategy would reduce learners’ cognitive load in an open-ended, ill-structured learning environment – a theoretical assumption that undergirds the proposed ID framework that will be discussed later in this chapter.

Selection/use of Appropriate Cognitive Strategies The second cognitive demand is associated with the selection and use of appropriate cognitive strategies. Characterized by an ill-structured, nonlinear learning environment, Web 2.0 application underscores a schemas-of-the-moment in learning as opposed to schema construction and automation in well-structured learning (DeSchryver & Spiro, 2008). For example, online blogging requires learners to quickly synthesize the existing information while responding to a continuing influx of new information. Obviously, cognitive strategies as defined in well-structured learning become less useful in this ill-structured learning environment. Instead, strategies in tantamount with cognitive demands in ill-structured learning are needed (Shin, Jonassen, & McGee, 2003). Because of the complexity and irregularity (i.e., ill-structured) pertaining to Web 2.0 learning, selecting and using cognitive strategies to construct open and flexible knowledge structures for situation specific application remain one of the challenges for learners.

Integration of Information Across Multiple Domains The third cognitive demand is related to the integration of information across multiple domains. In Web 2.0 learning, learners are exposed to kaleidoscopic presentation of information that imposes a high cognitive demand in terms of information integration (DeSchryver & Spiro, 2008). Rogers et al. (2007) identify areas of challenges when making connections among different domains. The challenges include (a) connecting between fields, ideas, and concepts, (b) maintaining connections among specialized nodes or information sources, (c) synthesizing diverse opinions, and (d) harnessing collective intelligence. Notably, the challenges identified by Rogers et al. are similar to those faced by the learners in Web 2.0

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application where the abilities to connect between fields, ideas, and concepts; maintain connections among specialized nodes or information sources; and so forth are essential for the success of Web 2.0 learning. Failure to develop and maintain these abilities can significantly impede learners’ learning in a Web 2.0 environment. Taken together, the high cognitive demands involved in Web 2.0 learning have posed challenges to educators and instructional designers who have perceived an increasing incongruency between existing instructional design models and new Web 2.0 technology (Akbulut & Kiyici, 2007; Maloney, 2007; Rogers et al., 2007). The ill-structured nature of Web 2.0 learning renders traditional ID models less applicable to learning that demands high cognitive flexibility and metacognitive thinking. Many educators and instructional designers thus question the stereotyped approach in applying traditional ID models to the fast evolving e-learning where ill-structured, rather than well-structured, learning is emphasized (Irlbeck et al., 2006).

exIstInG ModeLs oF InstructIonAL desIGn This section presents a review of ID models and their relevance to the design of Web 2.0 learning. Three types of ID models are discussed. They include early ID models, non-linear SID models, and recent emergent e-learning ID models.

early Instructional design Models The early efforts of instructional design were represented by the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) model which provided the foundation for later system instructional design (SID) models such as Dick, Carey and Carey’s (2005) system design model. Early ID models tended to have their premise based on behavioral principles. They were characterized

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by a linear design process in which components are streamlined to reflect a hierarchical structure in learning. Early ID models were designed for goal oriented, well-structured learning (Andrews & Goodson, 1980). The problem with this type of instructional design is that learning is considered to be stereotyped, cookie-cut behaviors with little variation and changes. It leaves little room for learning that requires a nonlinear, ill-structured thinking like Web 2.0 application. The SID models in the late 80s and early 90s emphasized human information processing in learning. The SID models were influenced by Gagne’s (1965) conditions of learning theory which identifies five outcomes related to human learning: psychomotor skills, verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, and attitudes. Despite of their obvious improvement over the early ID models, the SID models were designed for well-structured, goal directed learning. They followed a linear system design process (see Gagne’s (1965) nine events of instruction and Dick, Carey and Carey’s (2005) ten steps of system instructional design) that pre-determines the sequence of instruction. Some critics argued that the rigidity of linear SID models may limit what the instructor can teach and what learners can actually learn (Mashhadi, 1998). New philosophy like constructivism changed the mentality in instructional design. As a result, new instructional design models were proposed that allowed instructors to choose the instructional event(s) they deemed the most important based on their assessment of the instructional and learning situations (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2004).

non-linear sId Models Like linear SID models, the non-linear SID model contains similar critical design components including needs assessment, learner assessment, goals and objectives, instructional materials, instructional strategies, instructional assessment and evaluation, and so forth. Unlike the linear SID

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models, the non-linear SID model is not confined to a specific sequence of instructional design process where the events of instruction are organized based on the logic between the events. For example, in Morrison et al.’s (2004) ID model, the instructional designer can select any instructional event(s) (e.g., learner assessment, task analysis, or identification of instructional objectives) as a specific starting point. These instructional events are concurrently examined in a larger environment that is supported by planning, implementation, revision, formative and summative evaluations, and so on. The strength of non-linear SID model is that it allows the instructional designer to (a) choose one or several instructional events simultaneously in the design, (b) relate instructional event(s) to implementation and evaluation, (c) support the planning, implementation, and management of the instruction with adequate services, and (d) implement the instructional design from a holistic perspective. As demonstrated, non-linear SID is descriptive. It does not prescribe the steps that the instructional designer must follow. Instead, the model presents a holistic relationship among the components in the design process by asking the big-picture questions: What is the problem we are asked to solve? Will instruction solve the problem? What is the purpose of the planned instruction? and Is an instructional intervention the best solution? These questions guide the designer to determine exactly which instructional event to choose. Obviously, the non-linear SID gives instructional designers more latitude in design, specifically by allowing them to put in perspective simultaneously the interrelationship among various design components in the design process – a process advocated by early E-Learning instructional designers like Gunawardena, Ortegano-Layne, Carabajal, Frechette, Lindemann, and Jennings (2006). Nonetheless, like linear SID models, the non-linear SID model shows its limitation when being applied to ill-structured learning because both emphasize priori instructional goals and

objectives as the primary instructional component in the instructional design.

emergent Instructional design Models in e-Learning In the wake of the wide application of the Internet, the Web has become more popular for educational instruction. Educators and instructional designers resort to traditional ID models to design and develop Web-based courses to meet the increasing societal needs. Irlbeck et al. (2006) point out that “existing instructional design models … provide a foundation but not a relevance to complex and dynamic models for online learning environment” (p. 176). Recently, new approaches have emerged to address issues unique to online learning. The following models represent, among many emergent e-learning ID models, instructional approaches that focus on learner-centered, social learning in a Web-based environment.

WisCom Design Model The WisCom design model was created by Gunawardena et al in 2006. The word “WisCom” stands for wisdom community. The model drew from Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-constructivism and Wertsch’s (1991) sociocultural philosophy of learning. It was grounded in the theory of distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1991; Pea, 1993; Salomon, 1993) by advocating authentic contexts in learning where cognitive capability is distributed across groups of peers to do an activity (Brown, Collins, & Guguid, 1989). The core of the WisCom design model is to create an authentic learning environment in which collective wisdom is created among the community members who initiate reflection-in-action (Schon, 1983), social negotiation (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991), and knowledge creation through the stages of (a) building WidCom communities, (b) mentoring and learner support, (c) knowledge innovation, and (d) transformational learning. By implementing the

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model, the designer will be able to foster: shared identity; shared goals and missions; opportunities for critical reflection, dialogue, emergence, change, and transformation; exchange of diverse views and multiple perspectives; space for social interaction; and care for the common good of the members, all of which are critical for successful online learning. The model is distinguished by its power of exteriorizing the process of learning and facilitating scholarly inquiry in online learning. It encourages learners to become reflective thinkers and to acquire collaborative thinking skills that transcend the single disciplinary context. Despite its improvement over the ID or SID models previously mentioned, the WisCom design model focuses on the existing content as a starting point where knowledge is consumed by learners (first generation WWW). It lacks a mechanism that promotes self-generated and open communication which Collis and Moonen (2008) describes as decentralized authority that allows end-users to use the web space as a conversation field for knowledge creation and construction, a feature known to Web 2.0 application.

The “T5” Design Model The “T5” design model was developed by Salter, Richards, & Carey (2004) to provide a framework for effective online instruction. The design model emphasizes five critical components in online learning: Tasks, Tools, Tutorials, Topics, and Teamwork. The model takes an object oriented approach in which learning objects are used and reused to create the content. In order to optimize the effects of learning content, several mechanisms are created which include (a) a reflective thinking on learning process and roles, (b) feedback to learning deliverables and tasks, and (c) online supports for collaborative work. As with other online learning models, the “T5” design model adopts reflectionin-action approach to provide feedback to on-going learning activities and tasks. The model purports to provide a pedagogical gateway to online learning. It is designed to help faculty and other educational 370

professionals to effectively integrate learning management system (LMS) into their teaching, promote development and delivery of courses with a collaborative-constructivist approach to learning, and support creative and innovative thinking in an ill-structured online learning environment. Similar to the WisCom design model, the “T5” design model emphasizes the existing content as the basis for online learning. It fails to include the component in its design where end-users can use the web space as a conversation field for knowledge creation and construction.

Three-Phase Design (3PD) Model The 3PD model (Irlbeck et al., 2006) focuses on the creation of functional course delivery components, evaluation and improvement activities, and scaffolding in learning. The framework of 3PD model is manifested through three discrete phases: first, establishing environments for fully functional online teaching and learning components; second, modifying the components based on feedback from the teacher, learners, and others; third, monitoring and maintaining the quality of the online learning environments. In this model, the design proceeds from the bottom-up rather than from top-down, allowing for global behavior. The model is learner-oriented in that learners are given the options to choose learning elements. The role of teacher in this model is defined as a facilitator who provides feedback, and acts as part of the collective. More importantly, the model institutes a variety of interactions by creating effective communication paths which help shape learning experiences without predefined orders. Although the 3PD model takes a more interactive approach in its design by focusing on the relationship between learners’ behavior and related components in online learning, there is a lack of systematic approach to coordinate various components of learning in the design process. For example, it is not clear how bottom-up behaviors are measured, and how the feedback from teachers, learners and others is negotiated to form a collective wisdom

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for learning which is highly emphasized in Web 2.0 application. In short, the emergent online ID models manifest a new trend in design in that these models take an object oriented approach which is more flexible and provides larger interactive learning space as compared to that of hierarchical design approach in traditional ID models. Additionally, they are characterized by a learner-centered, social learning process in which feedback, reflection-inaction, and metacognitive skills are highlighted. All in all, the emergent online ID models have demonstrated characteristics that fit uniquely with online learning environment.

existing Id Models and web 2.0 Learning As mentioned earlier, Web 2.0 learning is characterized by its shared ownership, social negotiation, and simultaneous traversals of multiple knowledge domains. It is learner-centered and learner-initiated, featuring a nonlinear, ill-structured learning environment which imposes high cognitive demands on learners in terms of cognitive load, selection/ use of appropriate strategies, and integration of information across multiple domains. The traditional ID models, including linear and nonlinear SID models, seem less applicable for Web 2.0 learning because they are goal oriented and marked by a linear, hierarchical design approach. The non-linear ID models, albeit their nonlinear nature, are goal specific and lack flexibility for ill-structured learning where unexpected outcomes are typically found. The emergent e-learning ID models address some aspects of Web 2.0 learning. However, there is a lack of systematic approach to coordinate various components of learning in the design process. For example, in Irlbeck et al.’s (2006) 3PD model it is not clear how bottom-up behaviors are measured, and how the feedback from teachers, learners and others is negotiated to form a collective wisdom for learning.

An InstructIonAL desIGn FrAMeworK For web 2.0 APPLIcAtIon In this section the author proposes an instructional design framework for Web 2.0 learning. A discussion of the theoretical bases of the proposed ID framework will be presented, followed by a description of the framework and its implementation.

theoretical bases The proposed framework is informed by several theories including emergence theory (Johnson, 2001), functional contextualism (Fox, 2006), and literature in individual differences (Anastasi, 1965; Buss & Poley, 1976; Tyler, 1974), metacognition (Reeve & Brown, 1984), and self-regulation (Zimmerman, 2008). Emergence theory emerges from the study of the complex natural and social phenomena where dissimilar organized occurrences such as slime moulds, ant colonies, and human cities have exhibited similar results. These results, along with studies from molecular biology and computer science were drawn together by Johnson (2001) into the picture of a new scientific perspective called “emergence.” The key to understanding this new perspective, according to Johnson, lies in the understanding that simple interactions of the elements in a system – without any central top-down control – can lead to the emergence of highly complex, intelligent behavior. This theory has been used to explain the complex phenomena in Web 2.0 learning. In Web 2.0 learning we already see various types of emergent systems in use, such as blogs which allow the system to govern itself and learn from itself in a dynamic way. As indicated, emergence theory aligns well with the philosophy that underscores ill-structured and constructivist learning. While the theory provides an ideal for constructivist, ill-structured design, it is not without problems. It is difficult to

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measure the learning outlined by the emergence theory. Winn (2006) commented on some of the problems with descriptive measurement commonly employed by constructivist researchers: We cannot build useful theory without establishing causal relationships among phenomena. And we cannot establish causal relations just through observation. Without being able to establish through experiments, with a high level of certainty, that Factor A or Context B causes Behavior C, we will not be able to build theory, which successfully predicts learning outcomes, that we so desperately need. (p. 56) Beware of the lack of theoretical clarity in a significant amount of constructivist writing and the ambiguity in measuring the outcome in constructivist learning, Fox (2006) proposes a framework for constructivist instructional design by blending behaviorist positivism with constructivist learning, which results in a goal oriented constructivist instructional design approach. Such approach provides a behavior-in-context that “predicts and influences events with precision, scope, and depth using empirically based concepts and rules” (Fox, 2006, p. 11). However, functional contextualism focuses on priori goals and objectives in well-structured learning. In web 2.0 application like blogs, MySpace, YouTube, etc. where goals or objectives are often not specified, functional contextualism appears to be less congruent with such learning. The author thus proposes a modified version of functional contextualism by suggesting a design that emphasizes posteri goals and objectives. That is, instead of specifying the goals and objectives at the beginning of the design, the designer incorporates a mechanism to have the goals and objectives formulated after the initial open-ended learning. The goals and objectives thus formulated will provide guidance to the next phase activities while still allowing open-ended learning to occur. This modified version of functional contextualism provides the learner with the

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opportunity to construct and create new knowledge in an ill-structured learning environment while receiving support to shape their learning content with clear targets. The proposed framework is also informed by the research in individual differences, metacognition, and self regulation. Research suggests that individual differences can influence learners’ learning (Anastasi, 1965; Buss & Poley, 1976; Tyler, 1974). Zheng et al (in press) studied college students’ communication pattern in an online environment and found that learners’ online communication is significantly correlated with their individual differences. Metacognition is believed to be another factor that significantly influences learners’ learning (Reeve & Brown, 1984). In a study that investigated secondary students’ (N = 32) problem-solving vs. text-studying skills, van der Stel and Veenman (2008) detected a significant relation between intellectual ability and metacognitive skills as predictors of learning performance in young students. Further, research suggests that learners’ metacognitive skills are correlated with their individual differences in learning (Metallidou & Platsidou, 2008). Metallidou and Platsidou investigated the psychometric properties of Kolb’s LSI-1985 in a Greek sample of pre-service and in-service teachers (N = 338) and found the participants’ learning styles were correlated with their metacognitive knowledge about the frequency of using various problem-solving strategies. They proposed that teaching should take into consideration the roles of individual differences and metacognitive skills in learning. Self-regulation has long been recognized as an important factor in learning (Muis, 2008; Zimmerman, 2008). Torrance, Fidalgo, and Garcia (2007) found that learners’ self-regulation can significantly predict their academic performance. Muis (2008) concurred with Torrance et al.’s findings by identifying the role of self-regulation in math problem solving. Johnson and Liber (2008) argued that self-regulation is one of the issues that strike at the heart of current debates about the

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education and more deeply, the human condition in the modern world.

Instructional design Framework for web 2.0 Learning Drawn from the above theories and literature, a new ID framework is proposed for designing and developing Web 2.0 learning. The framework is characterized by (a) learner-centered approach, (b) interactive social communication, and (c) dynamic learning in Web 2.0 application.

Learner-Centered Approach The design is guided by a learner-centered approach which takes into consideration learners’ cognitive and metacognitive abilities, e.g., information processing ability, cognitive skill management, and self-regulation, in the process of learning. Informed by the findings in cognitive load studies, the learner-centered approach in the proposed framework specifically underscores a design process in Web 2.0 application in which learners are able to access simultaneously multiple knowledge spaces without being cognitively overloaded. For example, the concepts of distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1991; Pea, 1993; Salomon, 1993) and goal free design (Sweller, 1988) are implemented at the core of the proposed framework that focuses on learners’ behavior, where knowledge is assimilated, distributed and at the same time contributed collectively by the learners. This approach aligns with Web 2.0 learning which highlights open-ended, ill-structured learning and in which skills like metacognition, self-regulation, and social negotiation are highlighted.

Interactive Social Communication Based on a revised version of functional contextualism, the design incorporates an interactive social communication process in which learners initiate the learning process through an open-ended discus-

sion. The discussion is further guided by a social negotiation for exchanging opinions, elaborating thoughts, and corroborating facts and findings. The social negotiation process guides the initial discussion and leads to a more elaborate, refined discussion with collectively negotiated goals and objectives, that is, posteri goals and objectives for online learning. An important component in social negotiation is the feedback mechanism, through which the learners critique, correct and transform individual ideas and concepts into socially acceptable norms. The interactive social communication in the proposed framework is influenced by early works including Morrison et al.’s (2004) non-linear ID design and Gunawardena et al.’s (2006) WisCom design model. However, it differs from the previous ID models in that it accentuates an open-ended, dynamic learning process through interactive social communication. It can be reasonably argued that such approach would better fit the learning mode in Web 2.0 application (e.g., blogs, wikis, podcasting, etc.) because interactive social communication is essential to learning that is openended and ill-structured and in which knowledge is created through social negotiation.

Dynamic Learning The framework is characterized by a dynamic learning environment that includes (a) evolving activities accompanied by behavior that reflects a changing learning process; (b) schemas-ofthe-moment for ill-structured learning; and (c) collaboration among online learners. First, the activity in Web 2.0 learning is defined as a continuum from lower level complex learning to higher level complex learning. The concept of complex learning is explained by the number of element interactivity in learning (Sweller & Chandler, 1991, 1994). For instance, in low complex learning the learner is exposed to one subject domain or fewer element interactivity whereas in high complex learning the learner is

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required to deal with multiple subject domains or more element interactivity. The change from lower complex learning to high complex learning is achieved by a concomitant change in behavior, that is, learners’ abilities to socially negotiate with other learners, execute metacognitive thinking skills, and self-regulate in order to adjust to new learning demands. Next, due to the ill-structured nature of learning in Web 2.0 application, learners largely rely on schemas-of-the-moment to deal with emergent issues and solve ill-structured problems (DeSchryver & Spiro, 2008). Learners develop schemas-of-the-moment by accessing multiple knowledge spaces in learning. The information gleaned is refined through socially negotiated goals and objectives to facilitate deep learning. Finally, the dynamic learning is promoted by collaboration among learners and instructor. Differing from the traditional ID models which define instructor-learner relationship as didactic stable working relationship, this framework assumes the instructor-learner relationship to be of a collective and immersive type in that the instructor may provide instructional guidance at the beginning but quickly becomes merged into the collective body of learning community. During the entire process of Web 2.0 learning, the emphasis is made on the connection between behavior and activities. As learning evolves from lower level complex learning to higher level complex learning, learners adjust their self-regulation and metacognitive thinking skills to the changing activities in online learning. Figure 1 shows the dynamic learning environment for Web 2.0 application.

IMPLeMentAtIon oF the FrAMeworK In this section the implementation for the framework is proposed. Undoubtedly, the effectiveness of such implementation can only be substantiated

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when it is carried out in real learning environment. Therefore, instead of focusing on the operational aspects of the implementation, the following discussion attempts to present the implementation of the framework from a conceptual perspective. In other words, readers should take this as a guideline to the implementation of the framework rather than actual steps of the implementation.

Activity vs. behavior The implementation is pivoted around the relationship between activity and behavior. The designer must determine a starting point along the continuum of complex learning by putting learners’ behavior in perspective. In other words, what behavior should be involved in carrying out the learning activity identified? And what criteria (e.g., level of efficacy) should be applied to the outcomes of such behavior?

Initiate an open-ended Learning environment Next, for complex learning to occur, an openended learning must be initiated. The open-ended learning should be further refined by incorporating posteri goals and objectives to effect learning at a deeper level. This initiation of the open-ended stage is accomplished by including in place the mechanism of social negotiation where learners and the instructor collaborate on an equal footing in exploring, corroborating, negotiating concepts and principles, constructing and creating new knowledge. It should be noted that the initiation stage requires the consideration of several factors such as learner-learner and learner-instructor interactions, cognitive demands, selection and use of cognitive strategies, simultaneous traversals of multiple knowledge spaces, and so forth. Such consideration enables the designer to enact a process that optimizes learners’ engagement and reduces downtime in learning (Snelbecker,

Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application

Figure 1. Instructional Design Framework for Web 2.0 Learning

Miller, & Zheng, 2007).

Promote Metacognitive thinking and self-regulation Finally, the initiation of open-ended learning is culminated in the design that promotes metacognition and self-regulation. Ill-structured learning like Web 2.0 application requires considerable self-regulation and metacognitive monitoring on the part of learners to develop cognitive strategies that handle the irregularity and complexity in learning (Kauffman, 2004). Promoting self-regulation and metacognitive monitoring enhances learners’

critical thinking and improves their performance in ill-structured learning like Web 2.0 application. Of all the factors considered, individual differences are perhaps most influential and could have a direct bearing on learning. The instructional design in Web 2.0 application should thus put individual differences in perspective when designing activities pertinent to creative and constructivist learning in Web 2.0 application. Figure 1 delineates the behavior and supporting components at a specific learning point. As learning progresses along the continuum of activity, more complex behavior (e.g., high level metacognitive thinking) and related supporting

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components (e.g., posteri goals and objectives for higher level complex learning) should be designated to support higher level complex learning activities.

dIscussIon The proposed framework suggests a new perspective in regard to the design and development of Web 2.0 learning. Differing from the traditional ID design models, the framework proposes that instructional design for online learning, especially Web 2.0 learning, should take into consideration the ill-structured, non-linear nature of learning. As such, the framework includes a level of flexibility for activities and learning behavior with respect to learners’ cognitive and metacognitive abilities, individual differences, and self-regulation in learning. It allows complex and deep learning to emerge through a social negotiation process. The framework takes a holistic approach in design by examining concurrently various components in Web 2.0 learning. As a new instructional design approach, the proposed framework is specifically designed to reduce cognitive demands related to cognitive load, selection of appropriate cognitive strategies, and information integration in Web 2.0 learning. Firstly, the social learning mechanism like social negotiation and feedback enables the load of learning to be distributed among group members, hence reducing the cognitive load involved in Web 2.0 learning. Secondly, the collaboration among learners creates a supporting environment for metacognitive thinking and self-regulation. Learners are able to reflect on their actions and select appropriate strategies for learning and self-adjustment. Finally, by supporting schemasof-the-moment in learning, the framework enables learners to make association among various chunks of knowledge and therefore enhance their abilities to integrate information across multiple knowledge domains.

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Future trends As with other instructional design models, the proposed framework needs to be empirically tested to verify its underlying theoretical constructs and assumptions. Future research is needed to examine the function of the social mechanism in promoting metacognitive thinking and self-regulation. Further, investigation should be conducted to understand the relationship between activities and learning behavior in terms of cognitive demands, knowledge construction, and motivation in learning. It is suggested that research in the future should focus on the efficacy of behavior and supporting components (e.g., posteri goals and objectives) and the resultant impact on learners’ ability to succeed in an ill-structured learning, especially in the situation that evolves from lower complex to higher complex learning. Research in the future should focus on measurement scheme that clearly identifies the performance and outcomes related to Web 2.0 learning. Such measurement scheme should clearly explain the relationship between behavior and activity described in the framework and would help scale up the complex learning such as social blogging in Web 2.0 application.

concLusIon The growth of online resources and the advancement of Web 2.0 technology are changing the information landscape and impacting teaching and learning. With its ill-structured learning and rapid incrementation of information in a non-linear fashion, Web 2.0 learning poses enormous challenges to online instructional designers and teachers. The traditional ID models are deemed less fit for Web 2.0 learning due to their linear, well-structured design approach. This chapter proposes a new ID model that specifically addresses the cognitive demands involved in Web 2.0 learning, promotes learning that focuses on metacognitive thinking

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and self-regulation, facilitates knowledge integration and construction of schemas-of-the-moment for ill-structured learning, and delivers an environment by connecting activities with behavior to form a dynamic learning environment in Web 2.0 application. Unlike traditional ID models which spell out every design procedure in the process of learning, the proposed framework identifies the structural components in Web 2.0 learning, i.e., activities, behavior, and supporting components for behavior and allows the learning process to form its own direction and let the complex learning emerge through social negotiation. It should be pointed out that the proposed framework should not be interpreted as the only design approach for Web 2.0 learning. Instead, it provides an alternative view to traditional design models and calls for the need of studying the dynamic relationship between various components in Web 2.0 learning. The activities, behavior, and supporting components thus identified help instructional designers and educators to refocus on the dynamics of learning in the design process rather than imposing the design as a priori on the dynamics of learning.

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Sweller, J. (2006). How the human cognitive system deals with complexity. In J. Elen & R.E. Clark (Eds.), Handling complexity in learning environments: Theory and research (pp. 13-25). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Sweller, J., & Chandler, P. (1991). Evidence for cognitive load theory. Cognition and Instruction, 8(4), 351–362. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci0804_5 Sweller, J., & Chandler, P. (1994). Why some material is difficult to learn. Cognition and Instruction, 12(3), 185–233. doi:10.1207/ s1532690xci1203_1 Sweller, J., van Merrienboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296. doi:10.1023/A:1022193728205

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Torrance, M., Fidalgo, R., & Garcia, J. (2007). The teachability and effectiveness of cognitive self-regulation in sixth-grade writers. Learning and Instruction, 17(3), 265–285. doi:10.1016/j. learninstruc.2007.02.003 Trentin, G. (2008). Learning and knowledge sharing within online communities of professionals: An approach to the evaluation of virtual community environments. Educational Technology, 48(3), 32–38. Tyler, L. E. (1974). Individual differences: Abilities and motivational directions. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts. van der Stel, M., & Veenman, M. V. J. (2008). Relation between intellectual ability and metacognitive skillfulness as predictors of learning performance of young students performing tasks in different domains. Learning and Individual Differences, 18(1), 128–134. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2007.08.003 van Merrienboer, J. J. G., & Sweller, J. (2005). Cognitive load theory and complex learning: Recent developments and future directions. Educational Psychology Review, 17(2), 147–177. doi:10.1007/s10648-005-3951-0 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological process. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wang, S. K., & Hsua, H. Y. (2008). Reflections on using blogs to expand in-class discussion. TechTrends, 52(3), 81–85. doi:10.1007/s11528008-0160-y

Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A socialcultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winn, W. (2006). Functional contextualism in context: A reply to Fox. Educational Technology Research and Development, 54(1), 55–59. doi:10.1007/s11423-006-6495-1 Xie, Y., Ke, F., & Sharma, P. (2008). The effect of peer feedback for blogging on college students’ reflective learning processes. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(1), 18–25. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2007.11.001 Young, J. R. (2008, February). Blog comments vs. peer review: Which way makes a book better? The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(21), A20. Zheng, R. (2007). Understanding the underlying constructs of Webquests. In T. Kidd & H. Song (Eds.), Handbook of research on instructional systems and technology (pp. 752-767). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Zheng, R., Flygare, J. A., Dahl, L. B., & Hoffman, R. (in press). The impact of individual differences on social communication pattern in online learning. In C. Mourlas, N. Tsianos, & P. Germanakos (Eds.), Cognitive and emotional processes in Webbased education: Integrating human factors and personalization. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Zimmerman, B. J. (2008). Investigating self-regulation and motivation: Historical background, methodological developments, and future prospects. American Educational Research Journal, 45(1), 166–183. doi:10.3102/0002831207312909

Wassell, B., & Crouch, C. (2008). Fostering critical engagement in preservice teachers: Incorporating Weblogs into multicultural education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 16(2), 211–232. This work was previously published in Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking, edited by H. H. Yang; S. C. Chen, pp. 61-77, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.9

Designing Web-Based Training Courses to Maximize Learning Traci Sitzmann Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory, USA Katherine Ely George Mason University, USA Robert Wisher U.S. Department of Defense, USA

AbstrAct This chapter presents results from a meta-analysis that compares the effectiveness of Web-based instruction (WBI) to classroom instruction (CI). The results suggest that when the same instructional methods are used, WBI and CI are equally effective for teaching declarative knowledge. However, the instructional methods and course design features incorporated in WBI are critical factors in determining trainees’knowledge acquisition. Specifically, the chapter examines the influence of lecture, human interaction, and learner control on the effectiveness of WBI. Based on the findings, the authors provide the following recommendations for increasing learning in WBI: (1) require trainees to be active, (2) incorporate a variety of instructional methods, (3) offer computer and Internet skills courses, (4) DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-753-9.ch001

provide trainees with access to lecture notes, (5) incorporate synchronous human interaction, and (6) provide trainees with learner control.

IntroductIon Web-based instruction (WBI) is becoming an increasingly popular delivery medium for training and education. Recent surveys report that 37% of companies used technology-delivered instruction in 2005 (Rivera & Paradise, 2006) and 63% of traditional undergraduate institutions offered undergraduate courses online in 2004 (Allen & Seaman, 2005). The Washington Post reported that in 2007, 1.78 million college and university students were enrolled in online courses (Mendenhall, 2007). When properly employed, WBI can reduce training costs while simultaneously increasing training accessibility and strengthening human capital for

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organizations (Welsh, Wanberg, Brown, & Simmering, 2003). Due to the potential benefits and increasing prevalence of WBI, it is important to understand how instructors and course developers can design Web-based training programs that optimize learning outcomes. The overarching goal of the current chapter is to examine the influence of instructional methods on the relative effectiveness of WBI and classroom instruction (CI). Specifically, this chapter will address three important issues relevant to the effectiveness of WBI. First, we will examine if any observed differences between WBI and CI are driven by the delivery media (i.e., WBI vs. CI) or the instructional methods (e.g., lecture, tutorials). Second, we will investigate whether the incorporation of lecture, human interaction, and learner control during WBI influence the extent to which trainees learn during training. Third, we will synthesize our findings and present practical implications for designing Web-based training courses that research suggests will maximize learning. Specific examples of training courses that follow the recommendations from the study results will be provided to help instructors visualize how training courses can incorporate the current guidelines. A few key terms are necessary to understand the study results and their implications. WBI refers to courses where all of the training materials are delivered via the Internet, whereas CI refers to courses where the training materials are delivered face-to-face via an instructor. We define instructional methods as techniques used to convey course content such as lecture, group discussion, reading, and assignments. Delivery media is defined as technological devices such as computers, video-teleconferencing, and the Internet used for the purpose of instruction. We conducted a meta-analysis to compare the effectiveness of the two delivery media for teaching declarative knowledge, and to examine the effect of instructional methods on learning. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique for combining the results

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of studies that address a set of similar research questions. Finally, declarative knowledge is trainees’ memory of the facts and principles taught in training (e.g., trainees’ ability to define key terms and to describe a theory covered in training).

InstructIonAL Methods vs. deLIvery MedIA Our review of the education and training literature identified 76 studies that compared declarative knowledge outcomes from WBI and CI, and were included in the meta-analysis. Each study evaluated Web-based and classroom-based versions of a course on the same topic. All of the courses were adult work-related training, and included both organizational and university courses. For example, Weems (2002) provided data comparing test scores from Web-based and classroom versions of a university algebra course. Combined, these studies report data collected from 11,943 trainees across 155 courses. We calculated an effect size for differences in declarative knowledge between the Web-based and classroom versions of courses.1 The results indicate that across 155 courses, WBI was 5% more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge. This suggests that if the average test score in classroom training is 75%, then the average test score in the comparison Web-based training course will be 80%. Additionally, the relative effectiveness of WBI compared to CI for teaching declarative knowledge was similar for both college students and organizational employees, suggesting these results are valid for both groups of trainees. Educational theory can be used to shed light on the meaning of the current results. Clark (1983) proposed delivery media are “mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes change in our nutrition” (p. 445). In making this assertion, Clark (1983, 1994)

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noted the need to distinguish between the effects of instructional methods and delivery media on learning outcomes. Clark argued that while delivery media influence the cost and accessibility of material, the medium used is inconsequential in affecting learning—trainees’ learning outcomes are driven by the instructional methods. Clark’s theory suggests our finding that WBI is 5% more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge is driven by the instructional methods incorporated in WBI, rather than a true difference in the effectiveness of WBI and CI. Thus, if identical instructional methods are used in both Web-based and classroom versions of a course, the two delivery media should be equally effective for teaching declarative knowledge. To test Clark’s theory, we isolated studies that compared declarative knowledge from WBI and CI when similar instructional methods were used. Studies were coded as having similar instructional methods when all of the instructional methods included in the Web-based version of the course had a comparable instructional method in the classroom version of the course (e.g., when lecture is provided in CI, a comparable instructional method in WBI is an online video of the lecture). Studies were coded as having different instructional methods when an instructional method was present in WBI or CI, and there was not a comparable instructional method in the other delivery medium. The results of the current meta-analysis support Clark’s theory, and indicate WBI and CI were equally effective for teaching declarative knowledge when similar instructional methods were used. This result is consistent with a growing body of evidence that reports no significant difference between classroom instruction and distance learning (Russell, 1999). This suggests instructional methods rather than delivery media are the causal factor in determining trainees’ achievement levels. Therefore, course designers should choose instructional methods that will maximize learning outcomes.

Our analyses also indicate that when different instructional methods were used to deliver the two courses, WBI was 11% more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge. These findings highlight that the most effective Web-based courses were not merely Internet versions of CI, but rather they leveraged the instructional advantages afforded by WBI. These courses tended to incorporate a wide variety of instructional methods and chose activities, such as learner collaboration and tutorials, which require learners to be active during training. This suggests instructors should look for ways to use technology to support and enhance learning in order to design Web-based training courses that will maximize the acquisition of declarative knowledge.

the Impact of self-selection Clark (1983, 1994) also argued that many of the empirical studies comparing the effectiveness of WBI to CI failed to institute experimental controls sufficient to rule out alternative explanations for group differences. It is possible that trainees who self-select into Web-based courses may exhibit different characteristics than trainees who choose CI. For example, trainees who are more knowledgeable about the course topic, or trainees who are higher in cognitive ability or motivation might choose Web-based courses over CI, resulting in the appearance that WBI is more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge. To examine the effect of self-selection on the effectiveness of WBI, we isolated studies where trainees were allowed to choose their delivery medium. In these studies, WBI was 6% more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge. However, in studies where trainees were randomly assigned to delivery media, CI was 6% more effective than WBI. These findings highlight a need for additional research on individual differences that might influence trainees’ success rates in WBI and CI. Specifically, which trainees are most likely to

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be successful in WBI or CI? Are there instructional methods that can be incorporated in the delivery media to guarantee all trainees will be successful? These results also suggest that requiring trainees to participate in WBI may lead to lower learning outcomes if trainees lack the computer and Internet skills required for success in WBI. Overall, the results support Clark’s (1983, 1994) theory and suggest that instructional methods and experimental design influence the relative effectiveness of WBI and CI for teaching declarative knowledge, rather than true differences in the effectiveness of the delivery media. In the following pages, we will examine the effect of instructional methods and course design characteristics on learning declarative knowledge during WBI.

Is Lecture beneficial in wbI? Lecture is the most common instructional method in CI, and is used in almost all classroom courses (Van Buren & Erskine, 2002). When designing WBI, many instructors also attempt to incorporate lecture by uploading PowerPoint slides to the Web, creating audio-visual materials (e.g., streaming video of lectures, audio recordings of lectures along with PowerPoint slides or other visual aids), or providing trainees with access to online lecture notes. Seventy-three percent of Web-based training courses included in the current review utilized lecture as one of their instructional methods, and all of the comparison classroom courses utilized face-to-face lecture as one of their instructional methods. About 50% of the Web-based courses that included lecture utilized audio-visual materials, 41% utilized lecture notes, and 9% utilized PowerPoint slides without accompanying audio. With the majority of courses utilizing lecture, instructional designers need to be aware of whether or not lecture is an effective instructional method for teaching declarative knowledge in WBI.

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Our analysis indicated that various forms of online lecture differed in their effects on learning declarative knowledge. When lecture notes were provided online, WBI was 16% more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge. In addition, lecture notes were the only form of online lecture that resulted in WBI outperforming CI to a greater extent than when WBI did not include any form of lecture. WBI was 10% more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge when WBI did not include lecture, and 3% more effective than CI when WBI included audio-visual lectures. Finally, WBI and CI were equally effective for teaching declarative knowledge when WBI utilized PowerPoint lectures without accompanying audio. This suggests trainees are more likely to benefit from lecture notes than audio-visual or PowerPoint lectures in WBI, and including audio-visual or PowerPoint lectures did not improve the effectiveness of WBI, relative to CI, over Web-based courses that did not utilize lecture.2

Is human Interaction beneficial in wbI? Human interaction refers to the extent to which trainees communicate and interact with both the instructor and other trainees during training. While human interaction is prevalent in CI, through advances in technology, human interaction can also be built into WBI through features such as e-mails, chat rooms, group projects, and discussion boards. In a narrative review of the distance education literature, Zirkin and Sumler (1995) concluded that the more interactive the instruction, the more trainees learn. Brown and Ford (2002) proposed there are two potential benefits of human interaction in training. The first is informational—trainees receive more relevant information when collaborating, discussing, and sharing information. Listening to classmates express their ideas can provide trainees with additional perspectives and information

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that can increase the accuracy and complexity of their mental models. The second benefit is motivational. Human interaction provides the opportunity for collaborative learning, which is hypothesized to influence trainees’ adoption of learning goals (Brown & Ford, 2002), and create a sense of community by fostering a sense of mutual interdependence, trust, shared values, and goals (McMillan & Chavis, 1986; Rovai, 2002). In turn, this sense of a collaborative community reduces participants’ feelings of isolation (Haythornthwaite, Kazmer, Robins, & Shoemaker, 2000; Morgan & Tam, 1999), improves attitudes towards the course (Ludwig-Hardman & Dunlap, 2003), and correlates positively with learning outcomes (Rovai & Jordan, 2004). Based on previous research, we hypothesize trainees will learn more declarative knowledge in Web-based courses with a high—rather than a low—level of human interaction. In the current review, we classified Web-based courses as having a low level of human interaction if less than half of the trainees’ time was spent interacting with the instructor or other trainees. An example of a Web-based course with a low level of human interaction would be a semesterlong course in which trainees participated in an online discussion once a week or less. Courses in which the majority of the trainees’ time involved interacting with the instructor or other trainees were classified as having a high level of human interaction. An example of a Web-based course with a high level of human interaction would be a course in which trainees frequently collaborated on group projects and regularly participated in online discussions. In the human interaction analysis, all of the classroom courses were high in human interaction. This allowed us to examine the effect of varying the level of human interaction in the Web-based training courses. The results indicated that the effectiveness of WBI, relative to CI, did not differ when WBI had a high or a low level of human interaction. This suggests, when averaging across

all communication channels, human interaction is not beneficial in WBI. When discussing human interaction in WBI, one important factor to consider is the form of the human interaction (e.g., chat sessions, discussion boards, e-mail). Thus, we examined the effect of the synchronicity of the communication medium. Synchronous communication occurs in real time, and includes communication media such as chat sessions where trainees receive immediate feedback to their questions and comments. Asynchronous communication involves a time delay in communicating with the instructor or other trainees, such as with e-mail or discussion boards. As many Web-based courses utilize multiple forms of human interaction, each article was coded for the percentage of interaction that was synchronous. The results suggest trainees tended to learn more in courses that utilized synchronous rather than asynchronous communication during WBI. Thus, we recommend utilizing chat rooms and virtual classrooms rather than e-mail and discussion boards to communicate with trainees during WBI.

Is Learner control beneficial in wbI? Learner control refers to the extent to which trainees have control over their learning experience by affecting the content, sequence, or pace of material (Friend & Cole, 1990). In WBI, the absence of learner control is characterized by program control, in which the instructional software controls most or all of the decisions. WBI typically provides trainees with more control over their learning experience than CI (Sitzmann, Kraiger, Stewart, & Wisher, 2006). During classroom instruction, the instructor typically guides trainees’ instructional experience— providing little control to trainees. Classroom instruction assumes all trainees begin a course with the same knowledge level and requires trainees to learn the same content in the same timeframe.

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However, WBI often allows trainees to tailor the course to meet their needs by providing trainees with control over their learning experience. Previous research consistently finds that adults react favorably to receiving control during instruction (e.g., Kraiger & Jerden, 2007). Adults tend to believe they know what material they need to review and how much time they must spend reviewing the material (Knowles, 1990). However, research also shows that the impact of learner control on actual learning is either negligible or non-existent. A meta-analysis by Niemiec, Sikorski, and Walberg (1996) concluded that while the learner control construct is theoretically appealing, the effects of learner control on learning are “neither powerful nor consistent.” Kraiger and Jerden (2007) also conducted a meta-analysis to assess the effect of learner control on learning outcomes. They found learner control had a small, positive effect on learning declarative knowledge. This research suggests that while trainees like to control the means by which they engage instructional material, they do not necessarily benefit from it. Since prior research has not consistently demonstrated an effect for learner control on trainee achievement, we cannot develop a directional hypothesis regarding the effect of learner control on the effectiveness of WBI. However, given the great potential for individual customization in online courses, we were interested in the effect of learner control during WBI. In the current review, courses in which trainees had little control over the content, sequence, or pace of material were coded as having a low level of learner control. Examples of Web-based courses with low learner control would be non-interactive, lecture-based classes and computer-controlled sequences of activities completed in a set amount of time. Studies were coded as having a high level of learner control when trainees had at least some control over two of the three dimensions: pace, content, or sequence. Examples of courses with high levels of learner control would be managerial courses where trainees selected material they

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found relevant to their jobs, or online tutorials that trainees accessed when they needed to practice job-related skills. In the learner control analysis, all of the classroom courses were low in learner control. This allowed us to examine the effect of varying the level of learner control in the Web-based training courses. Our results indicated trainees learned more declarative knowledge when they received a high—rather than a low—level of learner control during WBI. When trainees received a high level of learner control, they learned 9% more declarative knowledge from WBI than CI. These results may be inconsistent with previous research because Niemiec et al. (1996) incorporated both adults and children in their meta-analysis, and Kraiger and Jerden (2007) found learner control was more likely to be beneficial in recent— rather than in older—studies. Together, the current and previous meta-analytic results suggest learner control is beneficial for the modern, adult learner.

GuIdeLInes For desIGnInG More eFFectIve webbAsed trAInInG courses Overall, the results indicate course design characteristics determine the extent to which trainees learn declarative knowledge from WBI. It is possible to design Web-based courses where learning will be much greater or much less than CI. The current study identified three instructional methods and course design characteristics which increased learning from WBI. Specifically, the extent to which trainees in WBI learned more declarative knowledge than trainees in CI was greatest when WBI contained lecture notes, included synchronous communication, and provided trainees with control over their learning experience. In contrast, it is also possible to design Web-based courses in which learning levels will be inferior to CI. Specifically, CI was more effective than WBI when the latter failed to incorporate synchronous

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human interaction, and provided little control over the learning experience. Thus, careful attention to course design features is critical for maximizing learning declarative knowledge during WBI. The following paragraphs outline six guidelines for designing Web-based courses to maximize learning. First, require trainees to be active during WBI. Trainees are highly active when they are asking questions, collaborating with other trainees, discussing training content, completing learning exercises, or practicing new skills, and are inactive when they are listening to lectures and reading a textbook. Webster and Hackley (1997) developed guidelines for teaching in distance learning, and stated that “learning is best accomplished through the active involvement of the students” (p. 1284). They proposed instructors must actively engage trainees for trainees to learn the course material. Spending time practicing the key task components of training should help trainees develop an understanding of the deeper, structural features of the task (Newell, Rosenbloom, & Laird, 1989). Online courses that require trainees to be active tended to also incorporate self-assessments such as quizzes, tests, and puzzles (Moore, 2005). One approach to promoting active learning is through online instructional tools such as Psychology Computer Assisted Learning (PsyCAL; Buchanan, 1998, 2000). After completing lessons, PsyCAL provides trainees with a series of questions, and then provides immediate feedback on which questions were answered correctly. For each incorrect answer, the program provides trainees with a reference on where to find the correct answer, thus requiring trainees to actively engage with the material they did not understand. After reviewing the material, trainees are then advised to repeat the test-learn-retest cycle until all the material is mastered. Second, incorporate a wide variety of instructional methods in WBI. One of the main benefits of WBI is the ability to customize instruction to the needs of different trainees. Incorpo-

rating a variety of instructional methods allows trainees to tailor the courses to be consistent with their learning styles (Salomon, 1988). Through the incorporation of a variety of instructional methods, WBI permits trainees who are having difficulty understanding the course material to continue to review the material in different ways. Additionally, including instructional methods that increase learner collaboration (e.g., discussion boards, group projects) may facilitate the learning of declarative knowledge by providing trainees with opportunities to learn the material from multiple perspectives. For example, a trainee who is not grasping the materials presented in an audio lecture may be able to learn and understand the content after reading other trainees’ discussion board comments. An example of a course with a wide variety of instructional methods was the Principles of Accounting I course at Montana State University (Campbell, Floyd, & Sheridan, 2002). Trainees had access to online learning objectives for each chapter of the course textbook, PowerPoint lectures, and relevant resource material. Frequent communication was also encouraged. Trainees participated in seven one-hour chat room sessions in which they could discuss course material with their instructor and other trainees, and the instructor posed questions for discussion. Trainees could also participate in small group chat room sessions, and e-mail the instructor or other trainees. In addition, homework and practice quizzes were available online to allow trainees to assess their progress towards mastering the training material. Third, offer a computer and Internet skills course for trainees participating in Web-based courses. Organizations should be cautious about completely replacing CI with WBI, because some trainees may not have the computer and Internet skills that are required to navigate Web-based training courses. Providing trainees with access to a computer and Internet skills course may enable all trainees to be successful in WBI. For example,

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Long Beach City College developed an orientation for all online trainees that included basic Internet skills, such as using computers and Web browsers to access the Internet (Moore, 2005). Fourth, provide trainees with access to online lecture notes. One of the main benefits of WBI is that it enables the instructor to provide trainees with control over the pace of instruction. When an instructor is lecturing during CI, all trainees are forced to learn at the pace set by the instructor. In contrast, online lecture notes enable trainees to review the course content at their own pace. Trainees can skip sections they are already familiar with, and read the notes as many times as desired. Online lecture notes can also serve as advanced organizers (i.e., devices that provide the trainee with the structure of the information that will be presented in the course) and study tools for preparing for the exam. Advanced organizers are theorized to facilitate effective training by focusing the trainees’ attention (Mayer, 1989), and assisting trainees in organizing the information presented in training (Kraiger, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 1995). When trainees are responsible for taking their own notes, research has shown notes tend to contain only 35% of the presented material, and are sometimes incorrect (Kiewra, 1985). Knight and McKelvie (1986) found that trainees who only reviewed complete lecture notes outperformed trainees who attended a face-to-face lecture, took their own notes, and then reviewed their own notes. In addition, research examining learner utilization of online lecture notes has shown that accessing lecture notes was correlated positively with course achievement (Grabe, 2002). Online lecture notes guarantee all trainees have complete and accurate information, and can improve learning from WBI. Fifth, incorporate synchronous human interaction in WBI. Synchronous communication lays the foundation for discussion and collaboration among learners. Synchronous communication also reduces frustration that can be associated

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with lengthy time delays between asking a question and receiving a response. When engaged in asynchronous discussions, a lack of immediate feedback can lead trainees to procrastinate on commenting, or even withdraw from the discussion (Mikulecky, 1998). Research suggests that learners may be hesitant to engage in online discussions with individuals they do not know (Vonderwalle, 2003). In order to establish a community of learners, instructors should provide trainees with the opportunities to get to know each other (e.g., posting short biographies), communicate clear expectations for participation in discussions, and model and reinforce effective communication (TallentRunnels, Cooper, Lan, Thomas, & Busby, 2005). Additionally, to encourage learner interaction, instructors may consider scheduling specific chat times when trainees may gather to discuss course topics, and creating a conversational space to allow trainees to reflect on ideas and learning experiences. Requiring learner-led discussions, and encouraging trainees to post responses that are relevant and thought provoking, provides trainees with opportunities to think deeper about the course material, and build more complex understandings of the domain (Moore, 2005). Within this conversational space, instructors should foster a norm of open discussion, and should provide feedback on trainees’ ideas. Instructors and instructional designers are encouraged to utilize chat rooms, instant messaging, and virtual classrooms to maximize opportunities for synchronous human interaction. When incorporating synchronous interaction in WBI, the role of the instructor is to facilitate learner interaction, to oversee the accuracy of the information exchanged between learners, and to monitor discussions and debates to limit conflict (Arbaugh, 2000; Coppola, Hiltz, & Rotter, 2002). Instructors can serve as powerful facilitators of online instruction, and provide individualized guidance to assist trainees in mastering course content. In addition to discussion providing a

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sense of camaraderie and building a learning community, it is an active learning approach that can enhance understanding of the course material (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2005). Sixth, design WBI to provide trainees with control over the content, sequence, and pace of instruction. Learner-controlled environments allow trainees to spend as much time as they want or need learning the material. Learner control provides each trainee with time to reflect on the material, prepare ideas, and compile responses thoughtfully. This allows trainees to tailor the experience to meet their specific needs and interests, helps trainees take responsibility for their learning and behavior, and accommodates initial differences in aptitude (Gay, 1986). Providing trainees with control should reduce frustration and boredom, since trainees can skip sections of the material they are already familiar with (Large, 1995). In addition, Web-based training courses have the capability of linking to the Internet, making it possible to provide additional content (and more choices regarding content) for learners, than either CI or single workstation training programs. If trainees are going to be successful in a learner-controlled environment, the course material must include a variety of content and informational resources, a clear statement of the learning objectives, and tools to assess their knowledge or skill acquisition (Wydra, 1980). Learners must understand their goals, have a means to reach them, and a way to know when their goals have been accomplished. Thus, research suggests that it is beneficial to provide trainees with guidance on their progress towards their goals, enabling them to make informed decisions in learner-controlled training courses (Brown & Ford, 2002). An example of a course with a high level of learner control is WinEcon, an online program for teaching introductory economics, developed by the Teaching and Learning Technology Program Economics Consortium (Lim, 2001). When trainees login to WinEcon, they are presented with a

breadth of available modules, providing trainees with control over the content and sequence of instruction. Trainees are active while learning the material, and can learn information in several ways as they deviate from the main body of learning materials. Material is also presented in a non-linear fashion, allowing trainees to choose a wide range of navigation routes. Trainees can set the pace of learning, and can quickly move through sections of the material they are familiar with, and repeat sections when necessary.

concLusIon The current results suggest attention to course design is critical for maximizing learning from WBI. Across 155 courses and 11,943 trainees, WBI was slightly more effective than CI for teaching declarative knowledge. This suggests that, on average, WBI will be at least as effective as CI for teaching declarative knowledge, and delivery media do not have a large effect on learning outcomes, supporting Clark’s (1983, 1994) theory. The instructional methods incorporated in WBI are the critical factors for determining how much declarative knowledge trainees will acquire from work-related training courses. Specifically, the effectiveness of WBI hinges upon the incorporation of instructional methods that facilitate learning, and it is possible to design Web-based training courses where learning will be far superior or inferior to the comparison classroom courses. Requiring trainees to be active during WBI, incorporating a wide variety of instructional methods, including synchronous human interaction, and providing trainees with control, lecture notes, and access to a computer and Internet skills course will maximize learning declarative knowledge from WBI. However, failing to follow these recommendations may result in classroom trainees having a strong advantage over Web-based trainees when attempting to master the training

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material. In the current meta-analysis, CI was more effective than WBI when the latter failed to incorporate synchronous human interaction and provided little control over the learning experience. These guidelines are based on empirical research, and provide instructors with suggestions on how to design more effective Web-based training courses. It is our hope that instructional designers will follow these guidelines, and design Web-based training courses that will optimize the instructional advantages of the Internet.

Author’s note An earlier version of the meta-analysis was published in Personnel Psychology. See Sitzmann, Kraiger, Stewart, and Wisher (2006) for additional information on the relative effectiveness of Webbased and classroom instruction.

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Haythornthwaite, C., Kazmer, M., Robins, J., & Shoemaker, S. (2000). Making connections: Community among computer-supported distance learners. Paper presented at the Association for Library and Information Science Education Conference, San Antonio, TX. Kiewra, K. A. (1985). Providing the instructor’s notes: An effective addition to student notetaking. Educational Psychologist, 20, 33–39. doi:10.1207/ s15326985ep2001_5 Knight, L. J., & McKelvie, S. J. (1986). Effects of attendance, note-taking, and review on memory for a lecture: Encoding versus external storage functions of notes. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 18, 52–61. doi:10.1037/h0079957 Knowles, M. S. (1990). The adult learner: A neglected species (4th ed.). Houston: Gulf Publishing. Kraiger, K., & Jerden, E. (2007). A new look at learner control: Meta-analytic results and directions for future research. In S. M. Fiore & E. Salas (Eds.), Where is the learning in distance learning? Towards a science of distributed learning and training. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Kraiger, K., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (1995). Measuring knowledge organization as a method of assessing learning during training. Human Factors, 37, 804–816. doi:10.1518/001872095778995535 Large, A. (1995). Hypertext instructional programs and learner control: A research review. Education for Information, 14, 95–107.

Lim, C. P. (2001). Learner control and task-orientation in a hypermedia learning environment: A case study of two economics departments. International Journal of Instructional Media. Retrieved October 15, 2007, from http://www.accessmylibrary.com/ comsite5/bin/ pdinventory.pl?pdlanding=1&refe rid=2930&purchase_type=ITM&item_id=02866753054 Ludwig-Hardman, S., & Dunlap, J. C. (2003). Learner support services for online students: Scaffolding for success. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4(1). Retrieved October 15, 2007, from http://www. irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/131/602 Mayer, R. E. (1989). Models for understanding. Review of Educational Research, 59, 43–64. McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14, 6–23. doi:10.1002/1520-6629(198601)14:1<6::AIDJCOP2290140103>3.0.CO;2-I Mendenhall, R. (2007). Challenging the myths about distance learning. Distance Learning Today, 1, 1, 4-5, 11. Mikulecky, L. (1998). Diversity, discussion, and participation: Comparing web-based and campusbased adolescent literature classes. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 42, 84–97. Moore, J. C. (2005). A synthesis of Sloan-C effective practices. Retrieved October 15, 2007, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/books/ v9n3_moore.pdf Morgan, C. K., & Tam, M. (1999). Unraveling the complexities of distance education student attrition. Distance Education, 20, 96–108. doi:10.1080/0158791990200108

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Rovai, A. P. (2002). Building sense of community at a distance. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 3. Retrieved October 15, 2007, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/ irrodl/article/view/79/153 Rovai, A. P., & Jordan, H. M. (2004). Blended learning and sense of community: A comparative analysis with traditional and fully online graduate courses. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 5. Retrieved October 15, 2007, from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/ irrodl/article/view/192/274 Russell, T. L. (1999). The no significant difference phenomenon as reported in 355 research reports, summaries and papers. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State University. Salomon, G. (1988). AI in reverse: Computer tools that turn cognitive. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 4, 123–134. Sitzmann, T., Kraiger, K., Stewart, D., & Wisher, R. (2006). The comparative effectiveness of Web-based and classroom instruction: A metaanalysis. Personnel Psychology, 59, 623–664. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00049.x

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endnotes 1

The Hedges and Olkin (1985) approach was used to analyze the data. The effect size calculated for each study was d, the difference between the Web and classroom training groups, divided by the pooled standard deviation. Effect sizes were corrected for small sample bias and for attenuation using the scale reliabilities reported in each study.

2

The subgroup procedure was used to test for the effects of categorical moderators. There was a lot of variability in the effectiveness of online audio-visuals for teaching declarative knowledge. The quality of the audio-visuals may be an important determinant of the effectiveness of this instructional method.

This work was previously published in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Best Practices and Principles for Instructors, edited by K. Orvis; A. Lassiter, pp. 1-19, copyright 2008 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.10

Implementing Successful Online Learning Communities Diane E. Beck University of Florida, USA Sven A. Normann University of Florida, USA

IntroductIon In the last decade, the number of courses using online learning has increased significantly and based on student demand; continued growth is projected. Although distance learning is well accepted, when compared to traditional classroom learning, lower student satisfaction, higher student attrition, and concerns about quality have been reported (Rovai, 2002a; Rovai, 2002b). The absence of “community” has been associated with each of these issues and this has stimulated research about how to successfully build a community in a virtual environment, to overcome these challenges. Successful online learning communities are also important for most blended learning courses (Rovai & Jordan, 2004). Discussion boards and other tools are being increasingly used to supplement instruction during traditional classroom courses. Therefore, across most courses in higher education today it is imperative that faculty members know how to DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch161

establish and sustain successful online learning communities. The goals of this article are to a) define “online learning community” and delineate the factors that contribute to a successful learning community, b) review the evidence supporting the importance of a learning community in distance and online learning, and c) recommend strategies to promote achievement of a successful learning community.

bAcKGround community Learning communities can occur in a variety of settings. For example, community is present not only in the traditional classroom setting but also the virtual online setting. Across all these settings, a learning community exists when there is sprit, trust, interaction, interdependence, and achievement of a set of common goals such as the learning objectives

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established for a course (Rovai, 2002a; Rovai, 2002b; Rovai & Jordan, 2004). An online learning community is defined as a bonded group of learners who interact with each other in a virtual learning environment and share their perspectives and during this process construct knowledge (Schwier, 2001; Luppicini, 2003). For interaction, the virtual learning environment may use either synchronous formats such as collaborative software, video-conferencing, and chat rooms or asynchronous formats such as discussion boards, email, blogs, and wikis. An online learning community may occur either in a virtual online course or be a component of a blended learning course. Interaction is the foundation of an effective learning community. Roblyer and Wiencke have defined interaction as “a created environment in which both social and instructional messages are exchanged among the entities in the course, and in which messages are both carried and influenced by the activities and the technology resources being employed” (Roblyer & Wiencke, 2003). There are four types of interaction that occur during a course: 1) learner-content, 2) learner-learner, 3) learner-instructor, and 4) learner-interface (Moore, 1989; Hillman, Willis, Gunawardena, 1994). Interaction results in communication, collaboration, and exchange of information and these outcomes are essential for a successful learning community. Course management systems enable instructors to post learning resources and set up discussion boards; however, this alone will not build community during an online course. In order for an online learning community to successfully evolve, the instructor must also effectively direct and facilitate learners so that they build cohesion and trust and become actively engaged in group learning. A successful online learning community occurs when the following are achieved: 1) students perceive the learning experiences to be enjoyable and also effectively enhance their knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes, 2) students achieve the learning

outcomes established for the course, and 3) there are high retention and graduation rates. Garrison, Anderson and Archer developed the “Community of Inquiry” framework to guide research and understanding about teaching and learning in a computer-mediated environment (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) (see Figure 1). This framework asserts that community and learning occur when teachers and learners come together and there are three overlapping elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2003; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Social presence is defined as the ability of learners to display their emotions and interact socially so that they are perceived as “real people” (Richardson & Swan, 2003; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). As a course evolves, this interaction must progress from group bonding to purposeful relationships that facilitate accomplishment of the course learning goals (Garrison 2007; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). This requires a safe and comfortable environment so that learners are at ease in expressing their thoughts. Cognitive presence is defined as the exploration, integration of knowledge, and resolution of a problem or issue by means of continuous reflection and collaborative discourse (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Development and growth of critical thinking skills occurs with cognitive presence. Garrison and Arbaugh have described cognitive process using a practical inquiry model which consists of the following four phases: 1) a triggering event in which students identify an issue or problem that needs inquiry, 2) exploration of the issue or problem which involves both reflection and discourse, 3) integration which requires learners to construct meaning from what was learned during the exploration phase, and 4) resolution which requires learners to apply their new knowledge to other situations or workplace settings (Garrison

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Figure 1. Community of inquiry: Elements of an educational experience (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000)

& Arbaugh, 2007). Garrison and Arbaugh note learners have a difficult time moving beyond the phases of problem identification and exploration and that this is a major reason why cognitive presence is the most challenging type of presence to develop during an online course (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). (Figure 2) Teaching presence refers to the course design, facilitation, and direct instruction that promotes achievement of social presence and cognitive presence and ultimately results in achievement of course learning outcomes. (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Course design involves creating a blend of learning activities that best accomplish the learning goals and developing a course schedule that ensures accomplishment of these activities and goals. Facilitation of learning involves responding to student questions, asking questions that promote student learning, and encouraging students to achieve deeper understanding and application of course content. Direct instruction involves moni-

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toring how well learning is occurring, assessing the discourse, and using this information to refine instruction. There are some studies suggesting that some students can only discern two instructor roles: course design and directed facilitation (Shea, 2006; Arbaugh, 2007). Garrison has suggested a leadership role is fulfilled during a course when an instructor provides both facilitation and direct instruction (Garrison, 2007). Shea and colleagues demonstrated that a sense of community correlated with a strong teacher presence and that the instructor’s role in facilitating discourse was more important than providing effective instructional design and organization (Shea, Li, & Pickett, 2006). Although social, cognitive, and teaching presence are three distinct elements, there are also overlapping relationships among them (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). For example, effective teaching presence involves designing the course so that learners bond and develop collaborative relationships and

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Figure 2. Practical inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2001)

this type of course design enables achievement of social presence. Successful achievement of cognitive presence also requires the teacher to not only design the course so that social presence evolves and is sustained, but also design course learning activities that will effectively engage learners in practical inquiry (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). This infers, attention must be given to teaching presence before a course begins so that there is both social and cognitive presence during the course. Social constructivism, as described by Dewey and Vygotsky provides the theoretical basis for online learning communities (Dewey, 1959; Vygotsky, 1978). Specifically, online learning communities allow students and instructors to share and negotiate meaning as they complete tasks and construct new knowledge.

evidence Although no causal relationships have been proven, a stronger sense of community has been associated with student satisfaction, and both

perceived and actual learning outcomes. Less research has evaluated the relationship between sense of community and attrition. The following discussion outlines how a sense of community is associated with student satisfaction, achievement of learning outcomes, and reduced attrition. Student satisfaction is greater with courses where they are able to interact in a manner that builds community and knowledge. Swan conducted an empirical investigation to identify course design factors that correlated with student perceptions of satisfaction (Swan, 2002). In this study of 73 courses, there was a significant relationship between students’ satisfaction with their online courses and perceived interaction with other students and course instructors. Several other studies by Swan and colleagues, have demonstrated a correlation between overall satisfaction with the instructor and overall social presence (Richardson & Swan, 2003; Swan & Shih, 2005). In addition to showing a correlation between course satisfaction and existence of community, Liu and colleagues found that both instructors and students

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have diverse perceptions about the importance of establishing community during a course and what strategies to use in building community (Liu, et al., 2007). Both student perceptions of learning and actual achievement of learning outcomes have been associated with presence of community (Rovai, 2002b; Shea, 2006). Rovai found that students who had greater perceived levels of cognitive learning had a stronger sense of community (Rovai, 2002b). He also noted a gender-related difference since female online students had a stronger sense of community and perceived cognitive learning compared to male students. Instead of using perception data, Picciano examined the relationship between actual student postings on a discussion board and their score on an exam and written assignment (Picciano, 2002). Although he found no relationship between level of interaction and exam score, students who had a higher level of interaction on the discussion board did achieve a higher score on the written assignment that involved higher levels of learning. These data support the notion that although lower levels of learning can occur when there is no interaction with peers, higher levels of learning are more likely when students participate in community discussions and activities. Tinto has described how building a sense of community can reduce student attrition (Tinto, 1993). His research also provides support for properly orienting learners who are new to distance learning and also the importance of establishing a positive learning environment. However, research evaluating the relationship between attrition and presence of community is needed. The elements of the community of inquiry framework have been confirmed using factor analysis in several studies which simultaneously measured social, cognitive, and teaching presence (Arbaugh & Hwang, Garrison, et al., 2004; Arbaugh, 2007). Garrison and Arbaugh have summarized the literature describing additional evidence related to social, cognitive, and teach-

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ing presence individually (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).

strAteGIes For successFuL onLIne coMMunItIes In order to establish successful online communities, the community of inquiry framework informs us that we must assure there is teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. Rovai has developed a conceptual model that provides guidance in how to build and lead online discussions (Rovai, 2007). (Figure 3) The following discussion summarizes key strategies for building and leading successful online communities. Based on the research and evidence to date, these strategies should increase student satisfaction, enable achievement of course learning outcomes, and increase retention and graduation rates.

course design and Planning strategies Before a course begins, teaching presence must be initiated by designing the course learning activities, creating the syllabus, and planning the course schedule. During course design, careful consideration should be given so that social presence and cognitive presence will be achieved. First, class size should be limited to a studentinstructor ratio of 30:1 (Rovai, 2007). This ratio may be achieved by involving multiple faculty members as facilitators of sub-groups of students in a large class. In designing the course, some content should be developed using an audio format since research shows that it can promote social presence by projecting the emotions of the instructor (Aragon, 2003). For example, the instructor can develop a welcome message using audio or video technology so that students immediately put a face to a name.

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Figure 3. Conceptual model for designing and facilitating online discussions (Rovai, 2007)

During design of the course, the instructor should also develop learning activities that will orient students to distance learning if they are new to this learning process. New students need an orientation about how to get started and how to be a successful distance learning student. They also need guidance about internet etiquette and how to appropriately post an item to the discussion board. One of the first course activities should require learners to develop a profile that helps learners discover each other’s personal life and career

interests. The profile can also provide contact information so that learners can communicate with each other. An early course activity that serves as an “icebreaker” can also be used to help students meet each other. For example, students can be randomly assigned a year and then asked to share something that occurred in their life during that year that was rewarding, fun, or funny. In a course using blended learning, some of the learning activities that build social presence will be done face-to-face. However, these courses should also pay attention to further establishing

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social presence online when online discussion boards will be used. Online discussion boards should be designed so that the name of the individual posting the discussion thread is identified. Anonymous postings could prompt incivility and disrupt the sense of community. These “socio-emotional discussions” initiate social presence; however, additional activities are needed to maintain social presence so that students develop cohesion and work collaboratively throughout the course. To achieve this, multiple learning activities should be planned for use across the course that require collaboration and that promote cognitive presence. These collaborative learning activities should be designed to facilitate learner-learner interaction (Rovai, 2007). They should also be carefully constructed so that learners are required to not only identify and explore problems but also provide solutions and insights about how to apply what has been learned in daily practice (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). The goal should be that students complete all four phases of the practical inquiry model. (Figure 3) Garrison and Arbaugh recommend that activities such as case-based and problem-based learning are more likely to achieve this goal (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). In order to assure that all students can actively participate in only group discussions, smaller group forums consisting of eight to ten students should be planned if the class size is anticipated to be large (Rovai, 2002a; Garrison, et al., 2004). The course syllabus should establish clear expectations that collaborative participation is expected and include grading criteria that motivate students to contribute to the discourse (Rovai, 2007). To motivate students to become involved in discussions, the course syllabus should make participation a significant component of the course grade. Rovai reports a significant increase in a sense of community when participation in discussion accounts for 10-20% of the course grade (Rovai, 2007). A course schedule should also be

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established that appropriately paces learning and communicates what students should expect.

strategies during the course Both when a course begins and as it progresses, social presence requires attention. Once the strategies described above are implemented, the teacher must augment social presence by providing leadership which includes both facilitation and direct instruction. Therefore, attention to teaching presence is also important in sustaining social presence. The instructor should facilitate student bonding by role modeling a warm personal introduction and effectively facilitating the icebreaker activity. The instructor can also facilitate expansion of social presence by contributing to discussion boards. When contributing to discussion boards, the instructor must balance his/her contributions so that learner-learner interactions are not compromised (Rovai, 2007). To enhance social presence, instructors should also promptly reply to email responses. It is very helpful for the instructor to communicate to learners at the beginning of the course how frequently the discussion boards will be reviewed and email responses will be sent so that students clearly understand the teacher role and responsibilities. During the course, instructors can also promote social presence by sharing personal stories, addressing students by name, and using humor and emoticons (Rovai, 2007). Students should also be encouraged to promote social presence by doing the same. As the course progresses, the instructor must monitor discussions and interactions to ensure that student status (e.g., minority status), gender and cultural differences do not hinder student participation and motivation to learn. Rovai provides detailed guidance about how to facilitate groups that consist of mixed gender, cultures, and student status (Rovai, 2007). Synchronous online discussions are now possible during online courses using Voice over IP technology and social presence can be enhanced

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by using this tool to add audio and video interactions (Bryant, 2006). Other social software that can enhance social presence during a course include blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking. Cognitive presence requires not only careful attention when designing of learning activities, but also providing direct instruction and facilitation that inspires students to reflect, resolve all learning issues, and apply learning to new situations. To assure completion of all four phases of the practical inquiry model, the instructor should inspirationally promote divergent thinking, push for understanding about complex issues, and encourage perspectives of multiple students by asking open-ended questions and encouraging diverse view points. (Figure 3) Rovai emphasizes that the quality of a discussion requires the instructor to establish a good discussion topic and he provides a list of recommended discussion topics (Rovai, 2007). As noted earlier, discussion threads that are case-based and problem-based are also very effective. The instructor should frequently review discussion threads and prompt learners to resolve misperceptions and address all learning issues so that cognitive presence is further achieved during the course. In order to encourage reflection and critical thinking, it is recommended that the amount of content be limited by having each discussion topic last for only one to two weeks (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000). Cognitive presence can also be promoted by the use of social software such as blogs and wikis. A blog is an online tool that allows students accomplish reflection by creating an online journal (Bryant, 2006). A wiki is also a web-publishing tool that is ideal for students to use in collaborative writing assignments and other group projects since it has no predefined structure (Bryant, 2006). As noted above, teaching presence begins during design of a course and continues to evolve across the course as the instructor facilitates discourse during the learning activities and directs instruction. Therefore, teaching presence plays

a very important role in successfully developing both social and cognitive presence. To effectively facilitate student discussions, the instructor must use teaching techniques that appropriately question and challenge the students. When providing direct instruction, the instructor must assess activity on discussion boards and use these findings in such a manner that constructivist learning continues to be promoted. These requirements reinforce that teaching an online course requires some unique abilities compared to traditional classroom teaching. Therefore, institutions should provide faculty development so that instructors are appropriately prepared to not only design online courses, but also facilitate discourse and provide direct instruction.

Future trends The community of inquiry framework has provided a theoretical grounding and has stimulated new insights about effective online learning. However, there are still many hypotheses related to online learning that need to be solved. Garrison and Arbaugh provide a comprehensive summary of the current issues related to the community of inquiry framework and recommendations for future research (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). For example, they note research to date has been primarily exploratory and descriptive and that future research should be more inference based. There is also a need to better understand the relationship and interdependence among social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Instruments measuring these elements also need to be refined (Arbaugh, 2007). Finally, additional studies are needed to confirm that the community of inquiry framework is germane across a variety of learners, learning environments and disciplines (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Specifically, there is need to assess the applicability of the framework to various blended learning environments. Finally, practical strategies for enhancing online learning also need

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to be further explored and validated.

reFerences

concLusIon

Aragon, S. R. (2003). Creating social presence in online environments. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 100(Winter), 57–68. doi:10.1002/ace.119

A sense of community has been associated with student satisfaction, achievement of learning outcomes and persistence in coursework. Therefore, it is essential that a learning community be successfully established in an online course. The Community of Inquiry framework provides a model for building community and sustaining a successful online course. This framework has established that social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence are essential for establishing a learning community. Practical strategies for building a successful online community include careful consideration in designing a course so that social presence and cognitive presence will result. Strategies to enhance social presence should include not only those which will build socioemotional relationships at the beginning of the course, but also effective facilitation and direct instruction techniques that promote collaborative discourse throughout the course. Successful achievement of cognitive presence requires the instructor to provide leadership so that student discussions involve more than just exploration of discussion topics. Specifically, discussions must result in knowledge creation and application to new situations. Strategies to achieve teaching presence include faculty development that focuses on how to design, facilitate, and direct instruction of online courses. The Community of Inquiry framework is now an established theoretical model for successful online learning and researchers are encouraged to use it to discover new understandings about successful online courses.

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Arbaugh, J. B. (2007). An empirical verification of the community of inquiry framework. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 73–85. Arbaugh, J. B., & Hwang, A. (2006). Does “teaching presence” exist in online MBA courses? The Internet and Higher Education, 9(1), 9–21. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2005.12.001 Bryant, T. (2006). Social software in academia. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 29(2), 61–64. Dewey, J. (1959). My pedagogic creed. In J. Dewey, (Ed.) Dewey on Education (pp. 19-32). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online Community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61–72. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking and computer conferencing: A model and tool to assess cognitive presence. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7–23. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2003). A Theory of Critical Inquiry in Online Distance Education. In Moore, M.G., Anderson, W.G. (Edits) Handbook of Distance Education. pp 113-127. New York: Erlbaum. Garrison, D. R., & Arbaugh, J. B. (2007). Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. The Internet and Higher Education, 10(3), 157–172. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2007.04.001

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Garrison, D. R., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Fung, T. (2004). Student role adjustment in online communities of inquiry. Model and instrument validation. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(2), 61–74.

Roblyer, M. D., & Wiencke, W. R. (2003). Design and use of a rubric to assess and encourage interactive qualities in distance courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 17(2), 77–98. doi:10.1207/S15389286AJDE1702_2

Garrison, R. D., Anderson, R., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87–105. doi:10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00016-6

Rovai, A. (2002a). Building sense of community at a distance. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 3(1), 1–16.

Hillman, D. C., Willis, D. J., & Gunawardena, C. N. (1994). Learner-interface interaction in distance education: an extension of contemporary models and strategies for practitioners. American Journal of Distance Education, 8(2), 30–42. Liu, X., Magjuka, J., Bonk, C. J., & Lee, S. (2007). Does sense of community matter? An examination of participants’ perceptions of building learning communities in online courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 8(1), 9–24. Luppicini, R. (2003). Categories of virtual learning communities for educational design. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 4(4), 409–416. Moore, M. G. (1989). Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1–6. Picciano, A. G. (2002). Beyond student perceptions: Issues of interaction, presence, and performance in an online course. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 6(1), 21–40. Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students’ perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(1), 68–88.

Rovai, A. P. (2002b). Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(4), 319–332. doi:10.1016/ S1096-7516(02)00130-6 Rovai, A. P. (2007). Facilitating online discussions effectively. The Internet and Higher Education, 10(1), 77–88. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.10.001 Rovai, A. P., & Jordan, H. M. (2004). Blended learning and sense of community: a comparative analysis with traditional and fully online graduate courses. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 5(2), 1–13. Schwier, R. A. (2001). Catalysts, emphases, and elements of virtual learning communities: Implications for research and practice. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 2(1), 5–18. Shea, P. (2006). A study of students’ sense of learning community in online environments. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(1), 35–44. Shea, P., Li, C. S., & Pickett, A. (2006). A study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and webenhanced college courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 9(3), 175–190. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2006.06.005

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Swan, D., & Shih, L. F. (2005). On the nature and development of social presence in online course discussions. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 9(3), 115–136. Swan, K. (2002). Building learning communities in online courses: the importance of interaction. Education Communication and Information, 2(1), 23–49. doi:10.1080/1463631022000005016 Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Cognitive Presence: The collaborative exploration, integration of knowledge, and resolution of a problem or issue by means of continuous reflection and discourse (Garrison 2007). Community Of Inquiry Framework: A research tool that is guiding understanding about how learning and community occur when teachers

and learners come together and there are three overlapping elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). Learning Community: An environment where there is sprit, trust, interaction, interdependence, and achievement of a set of common goals such as the learning objectives established for a course (Rovai, 2002a; Rovai, 2002b; Rovai & Jordan, 2004). Online Learning Community: A bonded group of learners who interact with each other in a virtual learning environment and share their perspectives and during this process construct knowledge (Schwier, 2001; Luppicini, 2003). Presence: The perception that what is perceived exists. Social Presence: The ability of learners to display their emotions and interact socially so that they are perceived as “real people” (Garrison 2007). Teaching Presence: The course design, facilitation, and direct instruction that promotes achievement of social presence and cognitive presence and ultimately results in achievement of course learning outcomes (Garrison 2007).

This work was previously published in Encyclopedia of Distance Learning, Second Edition, edited by P. Rogers; G. Berg; J. Boettcher; C. Howard; L. Justice; K. Schenk, pp. 1134-1141, copyright 2009 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.11

Web Accessibility Essentials for Online Course Developers Jozenia Torres Colorado Emporia State University, USA Jane H. Eberle Emporia State University, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

According to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, federal agencies must provide access to electronic and information technology to individuals with disabilities who are federal employees or members of the public. As institutions of higher education (IHE) put more services and resources online, formatting pages so they are accessible to users with disabilities is essential. Although IHEs are attempting to comply with Web Accessibility Standards with their public Web pages, full compliance has been difficult. In addition, the growth of online courses has only complicated the issue. Although learning management systems (LMS) may claim to be Web accessible, accessibility of individual content items at the course level, is set by the course developer. This chapter will discuss essential information necessary for online course developers to develop Web accessible content.

When designing online courses, there are so many components to prepare that the needs of students with disabilities can be overlooked. Not that this is intentional, but preparing for students who are not seen by the instructor allows him/her to make assumptions that all students will be able to access the information. Paciello (2000) notes that The fact that the Web is inherently inaccessible is not the result of some malicious or premeditated intent. The Web followed a very typical development process based on standard engineering processes that, all too often, do not include considerations for people with disabilities. Web page designers and content producers observe similar methods. Subsequently, most advanced technologies are not accessible to people with disabilities. Until now, it was satisfactory to create an assistive or adaptive device (or application). Until now, very few laws or standards mandated accessibility (p. 21).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch021

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Web Accessibility Essentials for Online Course Developers

Students who opt for online learning may face many barriers in accessing their courses, and the barriers do not stop with there. They may have difficulty obtaining schedules, registration materials, grades, library services, the Help desk, and evaluations, to name a few. It is similar to the student in a wheel chair who shows up for class only to find it is located on the second floor, and there are no elevators. As Finkelmeyer (2008) states, “For many young adults, making the step from high school to college can be an unnerving experience. For those with disabilities – either physical or mental – taking that jump to an institution of higher education can be downright scary” (¶1-2). Whether the classes are face-to-face or online, it is imperative that educators find tools to make them as accessible to everyone as possible. This chapter will discuss essential information necessary for online course developers to develop Web accessible content. The chapter will be divided into three sections. First, there will be a discussion of Web accessibility using the tenets of Universal Design for Learning and the disabilities affected by Web accessibility. Next, issues related to Web accessibility and online courses will be discussed. Finally, tools for evaluating course sites for accessibility and ways to make online course components accessible will be given. This will include a discussion of Web accessibility standards and guidelines as well as the accessibility of learning management systems and using multimedia in online courses. It is hoped that the reader will take away a better understanding of what it means to be prepared for all students who enroll in a class and a few suggestions for accommodations that can make this possible.

bAcKGround universal design for Learning Koppelman and Goodhart (2005) define the term “disability” as “a restriction of functional ability

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and activity caused by an impairment (such as hearing loss or reduced mobility” (p. 283). This could also include visual, motor, and cognitive impairments. For students with disabilities, making a course accessible means simply, as Paciello (2000) states, “information, regardless of form, structure or presentation that can be easily accessed by any person, regardless of ability” (p. 373). This does not mean that a course will be absolutely accessible by everyone but that legally and ethically, we must try to make it as accessible to as many people as possible. The tenets of Universal Design for Learning are appropriate and useful to this end. Rose and Meyer (2000) note that “Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a research-based set of principles that together form a practical framework for using technology to maximize learning opportunities for every student” (p. vi). Universal Design for Learning has its roots in Universal Design, an architectural term that promotes developing materials and buildings to accommodate diverse populations from the outset rather than retrofitting them at a later time. The inclusion of elevators in all modern buildings rather than adding ramps later is an example of universal design. The elevators may have initially been intended for use by people with mobility concerns, but they have become universal in that everyone uses them. This is the premise for UDL as well – that materials or functions may be designed for those with disabilities but may, in fact, be used by anyone with preferences for those options. The Partnership Grant at the Ohio State University (2004) defines UDL by stating that Universal design is an approach to designing course instruction, materials, and content to benefit people of all learning styles without adaptation or retrofitting. Universal design provides equal access to learning, not simply equal access to information, Universal design allows the student to control the method of accessing information while the teacher monitors the learning process and initiates any beneficial methods (¶1).

Web Accessibility Essentials for Online Course Developers

Universal Design for Learning is achieved by means of flexible curricular materials and activities. It provides alternatives for students with differing abilities, and alternatives built into the design and operating systems of materials – not added later. This allows courses to be ready for all students from the first day of classes. Even students who do not have a disability will have options for learning if they so choose without having to wait for the instructor to procure additional adaptive materials or devices. As Horton (2000) states, “Reaching the goal of global training requires solid knowledge of the differences among learners throughout the world – and careful design for these differences” (p. 439). In its Website, The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State (2008) lists seven principals of Universal Design that can be readily adapted for online application of UDL: 1:

2.

3.

4:

5:

6:

Principle One: Equitable Use: The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities. Principle Two: Flexibility in Use. The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. Principle Three: simple and intuitive. Use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level. Principle Four: Perceptible Information. The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s sensory abilities. Principle Five: Tolerance for Error. The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. Principle Six: Low Physical Effort. The design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue. (Eliminating repeated need to volley between links.)

7:

Principle Seven: Size and Space for Approach and Use. Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user’s body size, posture, or mobility. (Any adaptive technology will enhance the learner’s ability to navigate the site.), p.1.

Incorporating these principles helps to address the needs of all, incorporates the same fundamental ideas into learning, and supports improved access to information and learning. It should be noted that access to information may seem intuitive, but access to learning is equally important. Paving the way for students to use, reflect upon, and adapt the accessed information increases their ability to learn. The point of online education should be the students’ learning, and this is accomplished by addressing their needs and providing options that will help them reach their potential. It is not about tricking students or making navigation of the Website so difficult that the message is lost. Coombs (2002,) states that “failure to integrate the necessary design principles is causing new and needless barriers to educational success” (¶ 1) for those with disabilities. To make classes accessible, then, instructors need an awareness of the basic laws and guidelines that govern online learning. They need tools such as UDL to level the playing field for all, and they need to be prepared at the beginning of class. Table 1 addresses the four types of disabilities that may be encountered and suggestions for what helps.

visual Impairments While most people think of visual impairments as total blindness or low vision, color blindness can be a problem as well in that Websites often rely heavily on color or color recognition as part of their design. Making certain that this is not the case will remedy the situation.

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Screen readers are effective for those with total visual impairments or with low vision. According to Thatcher, et al. (2006), A screen reader is an output device that provides feedback on users’interaction with their computer, in the same way that a monitor is an output device that helps users interact with their computer. Screen readers read out anything that happens when you interact with the operating system, other applications, in browsers, and eventually in your Website” (p. 296). However, as Crow (2008) notes, “Designers of online materials should avoid using background images to convey meaningful information. Screen readers are currently unable to read background images” (¶8). He goes on to say that it is necessary to keep sites uncluttered and to use a sans-serif font and limit the use of italics. Italics and serif fonts can become difficult to read if the viewer has a monitor with low resolution.

Screen magnifiers that enlarge areas of the monitor screen can be very useful for those with partial vision, and the use of alternate text buttons can be especially helpful. An alt-text is defined by Thatcher, et al (2006) as “a generic term describing descriptive text attached to certain objects on a Web page that can be read aloud by a screen reader, so that a person with a visual impairment can know the nature of such objects, too” (p. 582). Inserting alternate text (alt tags) as a matter of procedure each time a Website is developed will keep sites more readily accessible for all from the outset, following the principles of UDL.

hearing Impairments People who have hearing disabilities can be aided by the use of “real-time text captioning for all audio, video, and multi-media presentations that are placed on learning Web sites” (Crow, ¶13). Offering a text version of the Website is sometimes substituted for this, but this is in violation of Section 508 that mandates real-time captioning.

Table 1. Impairments and solutions Disabilities

What helps

Visual Impairments • Total blindness • Low vision • Color blindness

1. Users rely on screen readers and magnifiers 2. Need Alt Tags 3. Minimize layout tables 4. Use heading labels (H1, H2, etc.) 5. Do not format information that requires color recognition

Hearing Impairments • Unable to hear certain frequencies • Tinnitus • Total hearing loss

1. Multimedia (audio, video, multimedia presentations, Web conferencing) files should be accompanied by real-time text captioning placed on learning Websites and delivered electronically. 2. Resources for text captioning options are listed at http://deafness.about.com/cs/ accessibility/a/Webvideocc.htm

Motor Impairments • Unable to use hands • Limited fine motor control

1. Users rely on mouth-sticks to eye tracking devices 2. Designers should not rely on synchronous real-time activities. 3. Those with motor impairments should be given extra time to complete activities.

Cognitive Impairments • Attributed to conditions such as, autism, brain injury, cerebral palsy, mental retardation • Impairments may be in perception, problem solving, memory

1. Avoid cluttered pages 2. Make pages easy to navigate 3. Avoid extra pop-ups and flashing graphics 4. Design text so it flows in logical sequence 5. Use page titles and text headers 6. Allow users extra time to complete assignments

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Recommendations for captioning will be discussed later in the chapter.

Motor Impairments For anyone with disabilities, and especially, those with motor impairments, time is a big factor. Allowing extra time to complete assignments and taking advantage of the asynchronous quality of online learning helps to address this. While students with motor impairments may use assistive technologies such as, keyboard inserts, voice activated commands, eye-tracking devices, etc., instructors still need to be aware of the possible need for other adaptations and greater time allotment for assignments and other tasks.

cognitive Impairments Cognitive impairments cover a broad spectrum but as stated in WebAIM (2008), “In loose terms, a person with a cognitive disability has greater difficulty with one or more types of mental tasks than the average person” (¶1). The severity may be profound or less so and may include difficulties with memory, problem-solving, attention, reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension, and/ or math and visual comprehension (WebAIM). Designing organized, neat, sequential, and easyto-navigate Websites will be appreciated by those with cognitive impairments, and again, this addresses universal design principles that work for everyone. Time is certainly a factor as mentioned in the section concerning motor impairments.

evALuAtInG web AccessIbILIty In onLIne course web Accessibility in online courses When users with disabilities can access and use the Web just as effectively as users without disabilities, then a Web page is considered to be ac-

cessible (Section 508, n.d.). Creating accessible Web pages requires Web content developers to learn and/or get training on what Web accessibility means and how to make accommodations using Web authoring software, adjusting scripts within Web page programming code, or making use of options within a learning management system to make content accessible. Although Web development software and learning management systems have become more user friendly, and the ability to create Web pages has become less technical, many accessibility standards require more technical knowledge for to make pages accessible. In order to comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Web page and online course developers must have an understanding of 1) what each standard means, 2) how those standards translate in terms of Web content, and 3) technical knowledge required to make content in Web pages and learning management systems accessible. One of the issues hindering instructor compliance with standards includes the lack of awareness and understanding of Web accessibility as well as technical knowledge required to develop accessible Web content. Most course instructors are not well versed in the tools and techniques to evaluate whether or not their content is accessible as well as how to develop accessible online content. Web development and productivity software has become more user-friendly with the “What-YouSee-Is-What-You-Get” (WYSIWYG) interface. Although this has increased the number of Web content developers, many of these developers lack the technical knowledge required to make their content accessible. In addition, most online courses are delivered using learning management systems (LMS) such as Blackboard and Angel. Some major learning management systems have released statements regarding their system’s accessibility. These statements may include information about the company’s dedication to accessibility as well as information about accessibility testing of the system (Blackboard, 2008). Although learning

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management system may be accessible as a system, the content added at the course level is not accessible unless the course developer has provided the required elements to make it accessible. These elements may include alternative text equivalents for images or other multimedia files used for instruction. One of the first steps an instructor can make toward developing accessible online content is to evaluate a page for accessibility. The next section will present tools for evaluating Web accessibility, including Web accessibility guidelines, a method to manually review a page for basic accessibility compliance, and accessibility validators.

Web Consortium for international use developed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in 1999 (Appendix B). According to Wells and Barron (2006),

tools for evaluating web Accessibility

These checkpoints correlate well with the federal guidelines but may seem somewhat simpler to follow. They are also in accordance with the tenets of UDL and promote high usability for people with disabilities and those without. Both sets of guidelines consist of fairly technical terminology. As previously stated, many Web developers, including online course instructors, lack the technical knowledge required to understand accessibility terminology. However, as online course developers learn about Web accessibility and related terminology, they can start evaluating their online content by using the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) “Preliminary Review of Web Sites for Accessibility” (W3C, 2006). This preliminary review was developed as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative. According to W3C (2006), this review allows quick identification of accessibility problems for online content. The review does not require the evaluator to know Web development languages, but he or she should be comfortable working with browsers and their settings. Conducting this review would also help the developer begin to learn some of the technical terminology associated with Web accessibility and how it is related to Web content. Steps for conducting a preliminary review for accessibility are in the next section.

As mentioned earlier, Website designers do not set out to make their pages inaccessible. However, because pages are often inaccessible, it has been necessary to define guidelines and laws to remedy the situation. Web accessibility guidelines can be used to assist developers to ensure Web pages and online courses are accessible. Two commonly used sets of guidelines include the Section 508 standards as well as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed through the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). According to the American Foundation for the Blind, “In general, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (Appendix A) requires federal governmental agencies to develop, procure, maintain and use electronic and information technology that is accessible to and usable by people with disabilities, including both such agencies’ employees and members of the public generally.” While not all institutions must comply with these mandates, it would seem that ethically any Website for learning should follow them. What is the point of providing learning sites if there are those who cannot use them? In addition to the federal mandates, the World Wide

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The WCAG define three levels, Priority 1, Priority 2, and Priority 3. Priority 1 contains the basic requirements and must be implemented for a Web site to be considered accessible; Priority 2 should be implemented to remove significant barriers; and Priority 3 may be implemented to improve access to Web documents. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) includes 14 checkpoints (p. 25).

Web Accessibility Essentials for Online Course Developers

conducting a Preliminary review for Accessibility The “Preliminary Review of Web Sites for Accessibility” (W3C) includes six steps: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Turn off images, and check whether appropriate alternative text for the images is available. Turn off the sound, and check whether audio content is still available through text equivalents. Use browser controls to vary font-size: verify that the font size changes on the screen accordingly; and that the page is still usable at larger font sizes. Test with different screen resolution, and/or by resizing the application window to less than maximum, to verify that horizontal scrolling is not required (caution: test with different browsers, or examine code for absolute sizing, to ensure that it is a content problem not a browser problem). Change the display color to gray scale (or print out page in gray scale or black and white) and observe whether the color contrast is adequate. Without using the mouse, use the keyboard to navigate through the links and form controls on a page (for example, using the “Tab” key), making sure that you can access all links and form controls, and that the links clearly indicate what they lead to.

This section will outline how to conduct each of these steps to review online content for accessibility. The first step, “Turn off images, and check whether appropriate alternative text for the images is available” (W3C, 2006) will partially cover Section 508 standard (a) and WCAG guideline #1. These standards require any non-text element such as images, videos, and animations to have text equivalent alternatives, or “alt text.” To test

whether your online content has text equivalent alternatives, first open your online course content in a Web browser. In the browser preferences or options, turn off the option to automatically load images. This is usually found in the Advanced Settings section. Refresh or reload the same Web page. If you have specified alternative text for your images, text will show up where there were previously images. For the next step, “Turn off the sound, and check whether audio content is still available through text equivalents” (W3C, 2006), navigate to an audio or video file located online. Turn off the sound and look to see if there are any options for captioning. These options will either show up automatically or you just won’t hear any sound. Although transcripts are helpful, they do not meet the requirement of real-time synchronization (Section 508, n.d.). In the case of video, a transcript does not allow users to see the text in combination with the events on the video. Captioning will allow those with hearing impairments to read the captions while viewing the video. Step three of the preliminary review tests the readability of a Web page at larger font sizes. Adjustable font sizes enable users with visual impairments to change the font sizes of the text to meet their needs. Text adjustments can usually be made from the “View” menu in most browsers. For example, in the Firefox Web browser, go to the “View” menu, select “Zoom,” and then “Zoom In.” You will notice all items on the pages will get larger. Some Web browsers will allow you to enlarge text only. Users should be able to change screen resolutions as well as window sizes without a horizontal scroll bar appearing. According to Slatin & Rush (2003), scrolling can be confusing for people using screen magnifiers and tiring for those with limited hand mobility. Step four of the review process tests for this. With an online course page open in a browser, resize the window to view changes. This can be done by using the mouse to click and drag a corner of a window. Check to see whether or

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not scroll bars appear when dragging to resize the window. Screen resolution changes can be made within the control panel or system preferences of a computer operating system. Step five of the review addresses users who have limited visual perception of colors, or color blindness. Colors are often used to emphasize points or grab student attention. However, approximately ten percent of males cannot perceive the colors red and green (Slatin & Rush, 2003). By changing the display colors of a browser to only show gray scale colors, or simply printing out a page, instructors can see whether or not their online content have barriers to those who are color blind. The last step of the preliminary review for accessibility tests whether or not a page can be navigated by a user with limited mobility. An accessible Web page should be able to be navigated by using the tab and/or arrow keys of a computer. To test this, a user will need to change settings within the browser. After changing the setting in a browser to allow for the use of cursor keys, users should be able to move within a page to by using the tab or arrow keys. When navigating to a link, click on the Enter key to follow the link.

Accessibility validators Accessibility validators can assist developers to evaluate whether or not their Web pages comply with either Section 508 or WCAG. One example of an accessibility validator is the HiSoftware Cynthia Says Portal (HiSoftware Inc., 2008). Developers can go to http://www.cynthiasays. com, insert a URL, or Web page address and test the site for accessibility. These validators will allow developers to designate which standards to evaluate the page against. Results let the developer know whether or not the site passes for each standard. There are several validators available on the Internet; however, depending on the validator,

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results can be highly technical and thus, intimidating for the non-technical course instructor.

Making online course Materials Accessible As previously discussed, many learning management system interfaces are generally Web accessible; however, materials added at the course and instructor level need other elements in order to make them accessible. One area of concern is multimedia. Harley (2007), conducted a study regarding faculty use of digital resources in undergraduate teaching. Out of 831 respondents, 75% stated they used images and visual materials, 62% used digital film or video, and 46% used audio (Harley, 2007). With the increasing use of digital media in instruction, instructors need to provide supplemental alternatives for those with disabilities. When uploading images to a course site, the instructor should provide a text alternative. Most LMS’s will give an “Alt Text” option for instructors to fill in. In Blackboard, the option to add “Alt Text” is offered when inserting images or links. Provide a simple yet clear statement of what the image is. In the event that it serves as a button or link, the statement should state it is a link to a Web page. For audio or video files, alternatives can be in the form of captions for the deaf and audio descriptions for the blind. For captioning, text can be edited directly onto a video or multimedia presentation or be added as a subtitle using a Web-based tool called dotSub. This tool not only allows subtitles for captioning purposes, but also for language translation (dotSub, 2008). To add subtitles, dotSub gives an interface in which users can play and pause the Web video while inserting the text. The text is inserted so that it shows at the same time the audio plays. For audio files, instructors can record and give students access to digital audio descriptions. Ideally, however, supplemental captions and audio descriptions would be made available as

Web Accessibility Essentials for Online Course Developers

streams that play along with the source file in real-time. Media Access Generator (MAGpie), a free downloadable utility developed by the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), is a used to create captions and audio descriptions as supplemental streams (WGBH, 2008). Two formats of supplemental caption and audio streams are W3C’s Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) and Microsoft’s Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI). When using SMIL, it is possible for users to turn captions or audio descriptions on or off within a user interface such as Apple Quicktime Player, GRiNs Player, Ambulant Player, or Real Player. SAMI only allows captions to be turned on or off when using Windows Media Player on the Windows operating system only. MAGpie can produce captions and audio descriptions for SMIL files, and captions only for SAMI and Flash files (WGBH, 2008).

Future trends The World Wide Web will continue to evolve at a rapid pace. According to an Internet usage statistics Website, the total number of Internet users in the North America increased by 129.6% between 2000 and 2008 (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2008). As the Web grows, so does the online course delivery medium. According to Gallagher (2004), an independent research firm, nearly 300,000 high school students attended online classes during the 2002-2003 academic year. In addition, rising gas prices during the summer of 2008 prompted an increase in online course enrollment in higher education institutions across the United States (Young, 2008). The growth in the Web and online course enrollment as well as the rapid evolution of new technologies will continue to create new challenges for users with disabilities. It is hoped that new tools for making Web content accessible will also evolve with the technology. Some Web development tools have made

accessibility options available, but more support and training on how to use the accessibility options is necessary. This support and training is necessary to increase the awareness of instructors, course developers, and the entire institutional community of accessibility issues of public Web pages and online course sites. According to Coombs (2002), the following are examples of those individuals and groups who should be aware of accessibility issues and tools: the institutions chief academic officer, the chief information officer, the university Webmaster and staff, distance and/or online learning departments, librarians, instructors, and the coordinator and staff of the disabilities office. It is a moral and legal obligation for institutions to increase the awareness of Web accessibility issues and strive to meet the needs of students with disabilities.

concLusIon There is much to learn about making online content accessible. This chapter touches on some essential information to increase online course developer awareness of Web accessibility. The U. S. Census Bureau (2002) counted 282,831 million people who have some type of disability. Over 222 million are over the age of fifteen. With the continued increase in online learning, if steps are not taken to increase instructor awareness and make Websites accessible for all, not only do those with disabilities lose, but so does the general public. Education matters, and learning should be for all.

reFerences American Foundation for the Blind. (n.d.). Memo regarding remedies available under section 508 of the rehabilitation act. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID= 3&TopicID=135&DocumentID=298

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Blackboard, Inc. (2008). Accessibility and the Blackboard Academic Suite. Retrieved July 31, 2008, from http://www.blackboard.com/company/accessibility.aspx

Miniwatts Marketing Group. (2008). World Internet Usage Statistics. Retrieved August 11, 2008, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/ stats.htm

Center for Universal Design. (2008). North Carolina University. Retrieved August 14, 2008, from http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/ udprincipleshtmlformat.html#top

Paciello, M. G. (2000). Web accessibility for people with disabilities. Lawrence, KS: CMP Books.

Coombs, N. (2002). Electronic ramp to success: Designing campus Web pages for users with Disabilities. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 2, 45–51. Crow, K. (2008, January/February). Four types of disabilities: Their impact on online learning. TechTrends, 52(1), 51–55. doi:10.1007/s11528008-0112-6 dotSub, LLC. (2008). dotSub - Any Film Any Language. Retrieved August 8, 2008, from http:// dotsub.com Finkelmeyer, T. (2008, August 12). MATC helps level the playing field for students with disabilities. Retrieved August 14, 2008, from http://www. madison.com/tct/news/300394 Gallagher, S. (2004). Online Distance Education Market Update: A Nascent Market Matures. Boston, MA: Eduventures.

Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2000). Universal design for learning: Associate editor column. Journal of Special Education Technology, 15(1). Retrieved February 15, 2005, from http://jset.unlv.edu/15.1/ asseds/rose.html Section 508. (n.d.). Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.section508.gov/ Slatin, J. M., & Rush, S. (2003). Maximum Accessibility. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Thatcher, J., Burks, M. R., Heilmann, C., Henry, S. L., Kirkpatrick, A., Lauke, P. H., et al. (2006). Web accessibility: Web standards and regulatory compliance. New York: FriendsofED. The Ohio State University. (2004). Universal design for learning: Elements of good teaching. Retrieved February 16, 2005, from http://telr.osu. edu/dpg/fastfact/undesign.html

Harley, D. (2007). Use and users of digital resources. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 30(4), 12–20.

U. S. Census Bureau. (2002). Americans with disabilities. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/disability/ disability.html

HiSoftware, Inc. (2008). HiSoftware CynthiaSays Portal. Retrieved July 31, 2008 from http://www. cynthiasays.com/

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (1999). Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://www. w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

Horton, W. (2000). Designing Web-based training. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

WebAIM (1999-2008). Cognitive disabilities. Retrieved August 15, 2008, from

http://www.Webaim.org/articles/cognitive/

Wells, J. A., & Barron, A. E. (2006). School Web sites: Are they accessible to all? Journal of Special Education Technology, 21(3), 23–30.

Koppelman, K. L., & Goodhart, R. L. (2005). Understanding human differences: Multicultural Education for a diverse america. Boston: Pearson.

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WGBH. (2008). Carl and Ruth Shapiro National Center for Accessible Media. Retrieved August 8, 2008, from http://ncam.wgbh.org/

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World Wide Web Consortium. (W3C). (2006). Web Accessibility Initiative. Retrieved July 31, 2008 from http://www.w3.org/WAI/ Young, J. (July 8, 2008). Gas Prices Drive Students to Online Courses. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Available: http://chronicle.com.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Alternative Text Equivalent: Text made available for non-text elements such as images, audio, video, or animations. Captioning: Text that is synchronized with multimedia presentations using audio Disability: “a restriction of functional ability and activity caused by an impairment (such as hearing loss or reduced mobility” (Koppelman & Goodhart, 2005, p. 283). Learning Management System (LMS): Systems used to facilitate the delivery of online courses. Also known as course management systems, examples include Blackboard, Angel, and Moodle.

Section 508: Section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 mandating federal agencies must provide access to electronic and information technology to individuals with disabilities who are federal employees or members of the public. The section also specifies standards for compliance. Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Universal design is an approach to designing course instruction, materials, and content to benefit people of all learning styles without adaptation or retrofitting. Universal design provides equal access to learning, not simply equal access to information, Universal design allows the student to control the method of accessing information while the teacher monitors the learning process and initiates any beneficial methods (Ohio State University, 2004). Web Accessibility: when users with disabilities can access and use the Web just as effectively as users without disabilities (Section 508, 2008). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Web accessibility guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium.

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APPendIx A 1194.22 web-based intranet and internet information and applications. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j) (k)

(l)

(m)

(n)

(o) (p)

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A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via “alt”, “longdesc”, or in element content). Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation. Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup. Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet. Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map. Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape. Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables. Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers. Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation. Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz. A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a Web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes. When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology. When a Web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l). When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues. A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links. When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required.

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APPendIx b web content Accessibility Guidelines 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content. Don’t rely on color alone. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly. Clarify natural language usage Create tables that transform gracefully. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces. Design for device-independence. Use interim solutions. Use W3C technologies and guidelines. Provide context and orientation information. Provide clear navigation mechanisms. Ensure that documents are clear and simple.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by H. Song; T. Kidd, pp. 344-356, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.12

Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching Parissa Haghirian Sophia University, Japan Bernd Simon Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

With the modern business environment becoming increasingly dependent on technology, management teaching in higher education faces the challenging task of effectively leveraging technology in diverse learning environments. This chapter discusses the use of virtual classrooms, namely collaborative, information technology-mediated teaching endeavours in management education at universities. The overall aim of this chapter is to provide insights for those who are responsible for the development of management curricula and to give specific guidelines to management educators interested in integrating IT-based teaching to increase teaching effectiveness when designing virtual classrooms.

The business environment within which management education takes place is becoming increasingly competitive. As schools are seeking prestige in terms of research outcomes and teaching evaluations (Armstrong & Sperry, 1994), information technologies (IT) play a crucial role in their pursuits to differentiate service offerings and enhance learning (e.g., Berger & Topol, 2001; Pallab & Kaushi, 2001). On many campuses, this led to “technologicallydriven change” (Blake & Jarvenpaa, 1996, p. 38; Green, 1999). However, the integration of IT into the curriculum is by no means trivial. Traditionally, there was only a loose link between theoretical/conceptual frameworks and their business applications. The

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-893-2.ch018

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching

bridging of theory and practice was managed by assignment questions, examples in texts, case studies, guest speakers or by integrating business projects into the curriculum. In a technologyoriented world, students are able to switch directly from conceptual and theoretical underpinnings and their application to the real world (Blake & Jarvenpaa, 1996). Thus, the integration of IT into classrooms generates substantial changes to how learning and teaching takes place, and can therefore become an arduous task for educators and education researchers (Webster & Hackley, 1997; Green, 1999).

educAtIonAL chALLenGes oF ItbAsed LeArnInG envIronMents Integrating information technology into university classroom confronts educators with numerous opportunities as well as challenges. IT is incredibly powerful in the facilitation of display of information and the access to explicit information. Leidner and Jarvenpaa (1995) argue that this increases the sharing and construction of knowledge in the classroom. The use of information technology (IT) in the classroom therefore creates a rich set of new educational opportunities (Alavi et al., 1997; Webster & Hackley, 1997; Garrison, 2000; Meier & Simon, 2000), especially for management as well as marketing, where real-world examples play an enormous role and student participation is encouraged to enhance team-building skills and marketing competencies (Ueltschy, 2001; Sinkovics et al., 2004). IT has so become an effective means of enabling intentional changes in teaching and learning process (Leidner & Jarvenpaa, 1995). Following Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory, IT enables the integration of a greater number of learning experiences into the curriculum. Kolb’s view implies that students’ comprehension of abstract ideas will be facilitated by immersing them in direct experiences that demonstrate the utility

of the concepts taught (Alderfer, 2003). Kolb’s (1984) cycle of experiential learning consists of four stages: concrete experience, observation and reflection, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. The student first is involved with the concrete experience. In the next stage he or she reflects and processes the information received during this experience. In stage 3 these experiences urge participants to create new concepts of their own, and finally the student uses the generalizations from the stages experienced to develop strategies and guidelines for similar but maybe more complex situations. While doing so, the student gains a clear idea about the experience and also knows how to transform it into activities and strategies. IT-mediated teaching can strongly support these learning processes, by providing actual experience-based learning and assessment and there is every reason to believe that the integration of technology into education will continue to increase with technological advances. It goes beyond the simple provision of computer access and training to faculty and students. IT can play a strategic role. It can be used in a systematic way for designing, carrying out and evaluating the whole process of learning and teaching in terms of specific objectives (Garrison, 2000). Not surprisingly, the integration of IT into management education has become a topic of interest in education and research. Little emphasis has been placed on the organizational context in which IT-based learning and teaching takes place in traditional higher education institutions (Kerres, 1998). This is an issue of high importance, since using IT is also a risky endeavour for management educators, where many sources of failure do exist. Integrating IT into a university classroom needs a lot of extra preparation and a high degree of interest in modern educational technologies. Students, on the other hand, are also challenged because they may get easily frustrated when IT is not properly introduced into the learning environment. Any meaningful and sensible integration of IT into the modern classroom needs to be guided by the

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inspiration of instructors about technological possibilities and educational benefits. IT should not and cannot be seen as a solution in its own right, otherwise it will lack pedagogic effectiveness. And IT can, as observed by Alavi, Yoo and Vogel (1997), even offer superior modes of learning and instruction. Yet, guidelines of how to exploit these opportunities will be needed (Smart et al., 1999; Manning et al., 2003). Consequently, this chapter focuses on the implementation of IT-mediated technology in international management classes. The technology discussed is the virtual classroom, an internetbased technology which makes it possible to broadcast a lecture via a videoconferencing system to a geographically distant location. Two or more classrooms can so be combined, and interactive teaching at several locations at the same time becomes possible. The objective of this chapter is to describe and analyse a series of virtual classroom events in international management education. It introduces the challenges of setting up this IT-mediated teaching event starting with the instructors` first intentions and subsequently describing the challenges of broadcasting the lecture to other classrooms. Our focus is on the participants of the virtual classroom event, namely instructors, students and IT personnel and their perceptions of the new learning experience. The chapter first presents an overview of the topic of virtual classrooms and shows their potential in enriching management teaching. After this processes and interaction patterns in a virtual classroom experiment are described. Field experiments, involving interactive university lectures at three universities supported by a video-based learning environment, were conducted to gain insight into the organizational and technological design of teaching management in an international context. The discussion focuses on information technology used and the frameworks in which the experiments took place. To provide an analysis of learning effectiveness, a qualitative research design was applied covering the perceptions of

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instructors, students and IT personnel concerning the costs and benefits of such settings. The final part of the chapter presents the results and recommendations on how to increase effectiveness of virtual classrooms in international management teaching.

MAnAGeMent teAchInG In vIrtuAL cLAssrooMs definition A virtual classroom refers to two or more higher education institutions that are geographically dispersed and which communicate, for example, via a video conference system. In this chapter, we assume that a virtual classroom has the following properties: • •

•

•

Two or more student-instructor teams are geographically dispersed. Knowledge and content are available from many sources, not just from the local instructor. Direct, symmetric interaction is available between all combinations of remote and local instructors and students. A combination of media may be deployed. (Multi-site) Video-conferencing supports symmetric, synchronous communication. Additional educational material such as slides, printed case studies, and video recordings may be incorporated into the lecture (Simon et al., 2003).

Such a learning environment allows instructors and students to overcome distance by taking advantage of information technology. Virtual classrooms can too enrich the quality and value of learning environment in an international setting (Alavi et al., 1997; Webster & Hackley 1997; Bell et al., 2001; Pallab & Kaushi 2001).

Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching

enrichment of Management education Management course enrichment can be seen at various levels. Dede (1990) states that this learning environment is opening up new opportunities to discover new educational goals and instructional methods that have the potential to reach a wider range of student skills than in the traditional classroom. It also provides opportunities for creating student awareness for international issues and helps understanding the global business environment. International dimensions can be incorporated swiftly by adopting this kind of learning environment (Bell et al., 2001). The virtual classrooms can thus broaden students’perspectives and increase their cross-cultural effectiveness (May, 1997). Students and instructors with different socio-cultural and educational backgrounds bring a host of different ideas, experiences, and distinctive management assumptions and practices to the (virtual) classroom (Ashamalla, 1999). This diversity offers great potential for enriching management courses (Simon et al., 2003). •

•

Exploring cross-cultural aspects of management: Global dimensions can be easily incorporated by exploring cross-cultural perspectives utilizing the virtual classroom (Bell et al., 2001). Teaching global management in the virtual classroom can thus broaden students’ perspectives and increase their cross-cultural effectiveness (May, 1997). It provides opportunities for making students more aware of international issues and for developing a greater knowledge and understanding of the global business environment. Creating international awareness and interest is an important prerequisite for developing knowledge, understanding and skills in the context of business-oriented education. Interaction with international partners: Students and instructors with different

•

•

socio-cultural and educational backgrounds bring a host of different ideas, experiences, and distinctive management assumptions and practices to the (virtual) classroom (Ashamalla, 1999). Differing views and new ideas can be exchanged between students and faculty located in the participating sites. Increasing students’ skills in intercultural communication: When teaching global management, a learning environment should focus on enhancing communication skills and training cultural sensitivity (Lundstrom & White, 1997). Virtual classrooms can provide a valuable teaching resource for achieving this educational objective (Green & Gerber, 1996). Students learn to read, critique and actively cultivate the ability to determine the relevance of emerging trends; in short, their criticalthinking skills are increasingly challenged and enhanced through interaction with multiple sources (Celsi & Wolfinbarger, 2002). Understanding the role of technology in a global business environment: In the corporate world, management departments increasingly take advantage of IT to perform their communication tasks. Thus, management professors must not only teach these technology-infused topics, they must also model active learning and flexibility by effectively using technology in their own extended classrooms. With video-conferencing increasingly becoming available on everyone’s desktop, this technology provides a flexible new tool for communicating with international clients. Hence, management educators need to incorporate these tools into the classroom so that students become familiar with them while they are still studying.

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Processes And InterActIon PAtterns A collaborative, IT-mediated teaching event, such as the virtual classroom involves various actors such as students, instructors and IT personnel (Guth et al., 2001). The following paragraphs outline the stages of a virtual classroom experience and how its actors interact. A summary of these interactions pattern is shown in Figure 1. A virtual classroom lecture starts with the expression of interest in undertaking such a IT-mediated teaching event. The formulation of interests should happen a few months before the actual trial, because coordination of time schedules of all participants needs time. This phase is called the finding and co-ordination phase and should ideally be supported by the use of new media applications. These technologies can support a number of activities during this first stage, such as support scheduling, maintaining an infrastructure for a community of scholars interested in international research and teaching projects. Media like

these can further support the search for suitable partners to conduct the virtual classroom. Finding the right partner is an essential issue. Preparing and conducting a virtual classroom lecture for the first time is extremely time consuming and often accompanied by complications, such as combining class schedules of all participants or different teaching approaches. It is therefore advisable to find a cooperation partner who has the same interest in IT-mediated teaching as the initiators. The second phase is the planning and preparation phase. During this stage, instructors begin to design the lecture. To do so they need to exchange teaching objectives, specify educational material to be used during the trial and outline the schedule of the lecture. Educational materials which have shown to be very applicable in the virtual classroom are case studies, PowerPoint slides and short videos. Here copyright and intellectual property issues need to be considered as well. Another issue of importance is the decision whether the trial should be evaluated at a later stage. If yes, the evaluation scheme has to be decided on as well.

Figure 1. Interaction pattern of collaborative, IT-mediated teaching Site A (e.g. Vienna)

Site B (e.g. Paris), Site C ...

Faculty expresses interest in collaboration

Finding & Coordination

Planning & Preparation

Delivery & Collaborative Learning

Evaluation & Reflection

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Instructor

Instructor, IT Personnel

Instructor, Students IT Personnel

Instructor, Students IT Personnel

Instructor Faculty agrees on appointments

Faculty specifies and exchanges educational material required Local teams of instructor(s) plan events IT personnel tests interconnection

Students discuss the case moderated by the instructor IT personnel accompany session

Faculty exchanges assessment data Local team of instructor(s) and IT personnel assesses event

Instructor, IT Personnel

Instructor, Students IT Personnel

Instructor, Students IT Personnel

Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching

During this stage IT personnel has to inform all participants about the possibilities of the technology used. They need to explain all details of the technology to instructors and students to decrease nervousness and inefficient preparation. During this stage instructors are requested to rehearse the presentations with their students. By the time delivery and collaborative phase starts the technology must be ready and the teaching activity should be fully prepared. At the actual virtual classroom event, instructors hold their lectures in co-operation with other sites according to their prior arranged schedule. Students present their case study results they had prepared during the preparation phase end receive feedback on their ideas from overseas audience. The delivery phase may optionally be followed by an evaluation and reflection phase, during which the parties involved are asked to judge each others’ performances: Student presentations are assessed, data on student’s perceptions of the event are gathered and reflections on the technology and organizational setting can be made.

reFLectIons on A FIeLd exPerIMent Participating sites and content The virtual classroom experiment described in this chapter involved two virtual classroom lecture held by three active European sites (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales Paris, France; Warsaw University of Technology Business School, Poland; and Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria). The trial took place in the framework of the Universal project, a project aiming at developing an infrastructure for the exchange of learning resources among higher education institutions in Europe (Brantner et al., 2001; Guth et al., 2001). By providing an inter-organizational information system, the still operational Educanext.org Portal, the project

served as facilitator for the secure exchange of educational material (e.g., PowerPoint slides, case studies), as well as the organization of collaborative, IT-mediated teaching.

the virtual classroom experiment At the three active sites the trial was part of courses in the context of a business administration curriculum. All three courses were held independently of each other. The delivery of the discussions on the case studies was carefully planned. The content and structure of the discussion were prepared in advance, to a high level of detail. The faculty in France and Austria were responsible for each of the two lectures and formulated questions to be addressed during the session. Since most of the instructors were inexperienced with the technology the trials were outlined with a instructional scenario, which arranges the order in which all participants are required to ask or answer questions. Developing the scenario was quite time consuming and finally all participants were provided with copies of the cases discussed. They prepared the questions individually and were informed via e-mail or postal mail of which ones to prepare. The whole structure of the experiment was put down in a very precise time schedule, which was distributed to all participants to make sure that there would be no miscommunication during the virtual classroom lecture. Before delivery, the instructors chose a number of students who were asked to participate actively by presenting their solutions in the trial. The selection of students was different at the various sites. In Austria, where such a trial was taking place for the first time, active students were chosen carefully and personally briefed by the instructor and the teaching assistant. These students prepared PowerPoint presentations and were asked to make them during the trial. More passive students prepared the same questions concerning the case, but no presentation. Thus they only submitted a chapter of five pages summarizing their proposed solution

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for the trial. In Warsaw, the preparation was based on general guidelines distributed by the instructor beforehand. The students presented solutions before delivery. In the planning and preparation phase the students who would present during delivery were chosen by the instructor. In France, the students and the instructor also discussed the case in advance. Topics related to the case study were assigned to the teams beforehand, but teams had to choose a presenter themselves. A rigid structure of the trial was a result of insecurity of most participants. Most students presented in front of an international audience for the first time, instructors on the other hand were nervous about the usage of technology and being exposed to their, in some cases, more experienced colleagues.

Information technology used The first trial used standard ISDN-based videoconferencing equipment. France Telecom operated a multicast-unit and the trial was further supported by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid which provided a comprehensive document on setting up a video conference environment. At the second trial, the IP-based videoconferencing and collaboration system ISABEL (http://isabel.dit.upm.es) was deployed. GEANT (a multi-gigabit pan-European data communications network, http://www.geant.net) was not active at that time. ISABEL therefore required a comprehensive set up of local, national and international networks in order to guarantee a 2 Mbit/s connection between all the participating sites.

MethodoLoGy After the first attempts using the virtual classroom in international management, teaching an inves-

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tigation was conducted to examine the benefits and costs of delivering management education in a collaborative IT-mediated environment. Our goal was to find out about perceptions of all participants and to develop ideas on how to improve the efficiency of virtual media in management education. The investigation was based on a qualitative research design. Patton (1990) defines qualitative research as follows: “Qualitative methods consist of three kinds of data collection: (1) in-depth, open-ended interviews; (2) direct observation; and (3) written documents. Data from interviews consist of direct quotations from people about their experiences, opinions, feelings, and knowledge. Data from observations consist of detailed descriptions of people’s activities, behaviours, actions and the full range of interpersonal interactions and organizational processes that are part of observable human experience” (p. 10). For this chapter, interviews and personal observations were used to assess the virtual classroom trials. During the process eleven persons were interviewed (3 instructors, 1 teaching assistant, 1 IT personnel, and 6 students) in order to get a comprehensive overview of participants’ perceptions. The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed. Dialects, wording and filler words were considered to be of less importance. The analysis itself was based on the question of how participants perceived teaching effectiveness of the virtual classroom. Content analysis was used to determine which aspects of the virtual classroom were considered to be valuable and which were not to generate global insights, by looking for similarities and varieties between the interviews and to recognize major trends (See Lamnek, 1995). The data gathered from the interviews was compared with the personal observations of the instructors. The results of the investigation are presented in the next sections.

Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching

AssessMent oF the trIALs students Actively Involved Students The virtual classroom presents not only a technological but also an intercultural challenge for international business students. This increases students` interest to participate but despite this, the first virtual classroom trials did not meet students` expectations. After the heavy workload during the preparation phase and as stressful perceived presentations during the trial, they did not feel that the trial was providing them with additional knowledge. The technology and the handling of it were overshadowing the actual event. Most students tried to perform well and concentrated on their presentations. During the lecture, students have to address two audiences simultaneously, the local and the remote, a task which is not easy to manage (Figure 2, top row). Students, therefore, mostly concentrated on their presentations and tried to give a very good impression. In doing so, they hardly listened to the content of the lecture or remarks of their counterparts. On top of this, the time schedule was very tight and each student had only about five minutes to present his or her views. This further increased nervousness among all participants, because they did not want to miss their time slots.

Not surprisingly, students did not judge learning effects in international management very highly, but appreciated the experience in the virtual classroom. Students perceived it as very valuable for their future in an international business setting. As one student put it: “It’s like speaking on TV. I was very nervous not to make a mistake.” However, they also realize that their learning experience in international management was not increased by using a new teaching technology. Teaching effectiveness was therefore much lower than in a traditional classroom setting.

Passively Involved Students Students showing a more passive approach towards virtual classroom activities evaluated the lectures in a different way. Since they were not stressed presenting and trying to give a good impression, they concentrated on the performances of their own classroom as well as of other sites. They appreciated the opportunity to gain knowledge from the interaction of all participants so they could observe cultural differences in presentation styles. One student observed: “Our instructor was in the middle of the students; the French instructor was sitting behind a desk and was separated from the students.” They also remarked on differences in student—teacher interactions and the language abilities of the participants. In fact, they did not only profit from being exposed to faculty, students

Figure 2. Snapshots of virtual classroom (Simon et al., 2003)

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and ideas from other countries, they could also gain some intercultural experiences by simply watching the virtual classroom activities. But they could also see the flaws of the event. They criticized the rigid structure of the discussions and presentations and the fact that there was a general tension in the classroom. The lecture seemed like “a long well-organized presentation” to these students, “which was a bit tiresome to watch.”

Instructors A lecture in an IT-mediated teaching environment differs greatly from a traditional lecture. Instructors interested in teaching technology are generally very enthusiastic about the possibilities arising with the integration of new technologies into their lectures, as information technology brings in a number of teaching opportunities, such as direct exchange with experts all over the world and discussion with overseas experts. However, they often underestimate that these activities also need extra preparation time. Instructors therefore perceived the integration of the virtual classroom into their management class as extremely time consuming. Setting up a virtual classroom for the first time may add an extra 40 hours of coordination for every lecture. Faculty participants have to be very clear about their teaching objectives and their preferred teaching style. All sites have to gain access to the educational material used. Another problem which needs to be considered in this phase is the time differences between participating sites. The farther the geographical distance between the sites the more complicated the arrangements of time schedules become. Preparation time is decreasing with the number of trials experienced. Instructors do not only feel more confident once they have experienced the virtual classroom for a number of times, they also created some kind of routine with their cooperation partners. In doing so, instructors include

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more creative elements in the classroom or even start experiments. Still, less experienced instructors feel often stressed by the fact that they will perform in front of an international audience and tend to prepare the lecture and students` presentation with very great detail. One instructor found the preparation efforts too time consuming and eliminated the virtual classroom event from his lectures after the first attempts. The two other instructors, on the other hand, were enthusiastic about the technology and found the unexpected unique learning effects (i.e., students` intercultural interpretations) very inspiring. Their overall expectations were not really fulfilled due to the structured outline of the lecture, because they had been surprised that the detailed outline did not improve but block communication between sites. Despite this, they started a number of experiments on how to integrate the virtual classroom into their future teaching activities, assuming that as experience with the new technology grows, teaching effectiveness will increase also. Neither of the instructors got any information on the technology used. However, they felt sufficiently supported during the trial by the IT personnel. Perceptions of technology varied. Instructors who had worked in this context before were enthusiastic about future possibilities for joint teaching. Instructors encountering the technology for the first time perceived the limitations of the media more strongly, whereas more experienced instructors did not. Or, as one instructor put it: “Perfect means the professor forgets that he is teaching in a virtual classroom.”

It Personnel The virtual classroom is a live event, which gives technical support extra importance. Technical staff is therefore more strongly included in class preparation and teaching activities than before. During preparation phase, instructors will demand detailed instructors on the system used and its

Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching

applications in the classroom. IT staff also needs to communicate with IT personnel at remote sites, to set up technical systems at all sites and test their interoperability. They therefore need to communicate with two target audiences: Local users (instructors and students) with little experiences using the virtual classroom and their fellow technology personnel at the partner sites. These additional tasks may put additional pressure and workloads on IT personnel supporting the virtual classroom experiences.

desIGnInG the vIrtuAL cLAssrooM For MAnAGeMent teAchInG

be applied in a classroom in which two or more classes and instructors are present. Teaching styles also need to be culturally adapted. Case studies are advisable, because all participants can prepare them beforehand and practice their presentations. Lectures and speeches are suitable for the virtual classroom as well, but in many cases students reported that they felt “like watching TV” and their attention decreased. Discussions with students and presenter cannot be as spontanous as in a “real” classroom, and also need to be discussed before starting the preparations. All instructors and students need to feel comfortable about the teaching style applied in the virtual classroom. At this stage, respecting intellectual property rights is essential but makes the distribution of materials more difficult. All printed case studies for example need to be placed in good time, all PowerPoint slides need to be converted into pdf files to hinder direct reuse, all non-digital materials need to be sent to all other participating sites.

The authors conducted a number of virtual classroom trials after the evaluation presented in the last section. Based on these experiences and perceptions of the first trials, the following recommendations for each stage of the virtual classroom experience were developed.

Planning and Preparation Phrase

Finding and co-ordination Phrase

Students

In the finding and co-ordination phase, instructors interested in IT-based learning environments are searching for partners who are willing to participate in a cooperative class. Preparation should start weeks before the start of the virtual classroom experiences and create additional efforts which are mostly underestimated. During this phase, the level of technology has to be well known and understood by the instructor to make sure there will be no problems connecting the various sites. Universities have to update their video-conferencing equipment frequently to keep up with technological changes. Preparation time usually decreases when experience increases and all participants get to know each other. Other aspects to be considered are the compatibility of teaching styles and topics between the participating sites. Not every teaching style can

Students generally show great interest in participating in the virtual classroom, but need to be carefully prepared before the trial to improve learning efficiency. During planning and preparation phase, the instructor and IT personnel are advised to explain how collaborative, IT-mediated teaching offers advantages on educational but also on personal levels. Being connected to other business schools does not only allow students to experience different teaching styles but also get feedback from faculty with differing cultural and research backgrounds. The virtual classroom also gives them the opportunity to increase their personal skills and gain experience in public speaking. In any event, the virtual classroom event is perceived as a challenge for participating students. Instead of only 20 or 30 students in a classroom, one more group of students of a differing cultural

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background has to be integrated in the teaching activity. The instructor therefore needs to handle the class preparation and interaction during the trial with special care. Jackson (2003) reports that students can be divided into two streams: techno-enthusiasts and students who see IT in the classroom with some trepidation. Students who have not participated in virtual classrooms before are generally very curious about the new environment, but also show some anxiety when presenting “live” in front of an international audience. Instructors’ empathy plays an especially important role in the application of the virtual classroom. Students need a lot of support and encouragement in highly IT-dependent courses (Rosie, 2000). The classroom is opened to the world, which creates a lot of nervousness, especially when using the virtual classroom for the first time. This leads to intensive preparation of the issues discussed and personal supervision of the materials students are going to present. When delivery is conducted in a multilingual setting, many participants are forced to present their solutions in a foreign language. Since the virtual classroom is mainly conducted in English, it is important to also involve students whose foreign language skills are not very good (Simon et al., 2003). This may present a stressful situation for the students involved, since some of them may not be familiar or comfortable presenting their results in a foreign language. It may further cause difficulties understanding participants in case they speak with a certain accent or use non-familiar words during their presentation. Spontaneous questions and avid discussions may therefore evolve very slowly if at all.

Instructors In general, instructors would have preferred a longer and more intensive preparation phase. The first virtual classroom event presents a very stressful situation for them as well, especially for younger faculty not being used to teach in front

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of more experienced colleagues. It is therefore recommended to discuss questions of course outline, presentation styles, contents and discussion processes with other faculty participating. This helps getting an impression about other participants` expectations of the virtual classroom and improves the quality of the teaching endeavor, especially when a virtual classroom lecture is carried out for the first time. It is further advisable to limit the number of sites to two during the first trials. The higher the number of sites involved the more stressful will the first virtual classroom be perceived. During the planning and preparation phase, instructors must leave enough room for new solutions to be developed spontaneously. During IT-mediated classroom experiences, instructors often tend to push students towards developing a “perfect solution” beforehand in order to guarantee a good performance in front of the international audience. This often puts additional stress on students and may inhibit them from acting in an open and flexible manner during delivery. We therefore recommend a semi-structured teaching scenario without a tight time schedule associated with it. Instructors further need to stress the importance of students` creativity when preparing for the event. For less experienced instructors, a scenario like this may seem very stressful, however, our experience showed that once the number of virtual classroom sessions increases, instructors get more relaxed about the technological environment and begin to develop a number of ideas on how to increase its teaching effectiveness.

IT Personnel IT personnel get a new role in virtual classroom. They are not only main actors in the delivery and collaborative learning phase, but also extend their role as technical supporters to technology enablers. At the beginning of the virtual classroom experience, they need to communicate with IT personnel from other participating sites to test the

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equipment used. Their additional job is to inform the instructors involved about the possibilities and challenges of the new technology. This is especially important, as instructors who are not familiar with the technology may feel insecure about the first trials themselves. As their experiences increases, the ability to outline the virtual lecture is improving as well. At the beginning of the virtual classroom experiences however, IT staff need to be able to instruct and communicate with all participants. Students should also be familiarized with the technology used, especially how to handle a microphone and how to address to audiences simultaneously. It has also shown to be successful, to provide background information on the technology used to instructors and students. Another aspect that should be considered is to point out the technology’s educational and business opportunities. Satisfaction with the virtual classroom also increases if all participants (all instructors involved and in some cases also students) communicate their goals and ideas to each other before the first actual virtual teaching event.

delivery and collaborative Learning Phrase Motivating Students Students perceive lectures conducted in the virtual classroom as something special, which will remain in their memories. The differing aspects of the topics discussed by students at the remote sites are positively perceived by most interviewed participants (Simon et al., 2003). The new setting and international discussion partners are highly appreciated and discussing with students from other countries via video-based technology is perceived as “very exciting and a new experience”. The exposure to different cultures and the opportunities to interact during the lectures on an international basis with universities in foreign

countries have a major impact on the positive emotions associated with the lecture. Despite this positive result, the virtual classroom requires highly motivated students. It is easy to confuse the classroom setting with the passive watching of TV. Seeing colleagues from behind a camera sometimes encourages the tendency to drift off and become even more passive. Involving students in new teaching activities means to identify students who show a strong interest in modern media or teaching technologies. These students should be put on the forefront of the first attempt of virtual classroom teaching and can make the first impression of this technology more appealing to students who feel a bit intimidated about it at first. However, if instructors were to divide classes into active and passive students, they might impose a new two-tier role-distribution, reinforced by technology, with negative effects on overall learning effectiveness (Simon et al., 2002).

Controlling Virtual Classrooms’ Interaction The various instructors at the different sites are a dominant feature of the virtual classroom because they play a vital role in leading the class discussion. Interaction within the classroom may automatically occur, but effective interaction, which aims at promoting learning, does not (Guzley et al., 2001). Technology cannot handle all aspects of group dynamics, which requires instructors to balance IT-based activities and personal interaction (Jackson, 2003). Instructors have to coordinate contributions from the local audience as well as from the remote sites. The dialogue between the various instructors itself adds to the dynamics of the educational activity and helps to hold students’ attention (Tsichritzis, 1999). The need for classroom interaction increases with increases in the number of sites and students participating in the virtual classroom. Teaching simultaneously at more than two sites involved requires a relatively

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rigid discussion structure in order to avoid chaos in the discussion process. Every participant was given about five minutes to either place a question or answer one based on a very detailed schedule. This inhibited students and instructors to communicated freely and left no room for ad hoc contributions. Free discussion could not develop and most answers were prepared very carefully. Intercultural differences between different sites were therefore only experienced by students who just watched the whole trial, but did not present their results. Communication including various sites and a high number of students naturally creates challenges for instructors. Not all students can be addressed and it is also difficult to hold the attention of all participants, which may lead to a larger number of students not participating and becoming less interested (Rosenberg, 2001). The quality of the virtual classroom can therefore be enhanced by keeping the group of participating students small (Guzley et al., 2001). The more sites and students participate the more difficult is it to integrate all of them in a discussion. A higher number of participants therefore also implies longer waiting periods and a lot of listening. It is advisable not to rely on an overly-structured design so that interaction between the various participants of the virtual classroom remains fluid and dynamic. In many cases, instructors tend to structure the discussion with the foreign partners too rigidly. This involves designating students to present results and ask prepared questions. However, this also involves a higher proportion of passive students in every site. A more lively and spontaneous interaction design between the various sites proves more satisfying when applying the virtual classroom into the management curriculum. Students listen more attentively and contribute more actively to a lively discussion with culturally diverse participants.

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evaluation and reflection Phase After the virtual classroom is conducted, evaluation and reflection of the experience are very important. Especially after the first attempts using video-conferencing technology, instructors and IT personnel need to discuss its effectiveness and possible hindrances when applying it in order to get feedback on their performance by their colleagues from other sites. This may induce critical reactions from colleagues but will improve the future performance of all participants. Another important aspect is to assess students` perceptions of the virtual classroom. Their feedback does not only enable improvement of the interaction in future virtual classroom activities but also gives them a forum to express their opinions on the experience. For most students presenting via a video-conference system is a rather challenging task; they not only have to speak in a foreign language, but are also exposed to an unknown and sometimes critical audience, whose reactions they can not calculate. Knowing students` perceptions makes it easier to prepare them better and also improves their performance. This is especially important for students who are participating in the virtual classroom for the first time. As time goes by and students and instructors gain more experience, feedback sessions may get shorter. All participants will then have developed a certain routine in video-conferencing.

Future trends As today’s business educators’ focus is not only on theory-orientation, but increasingly attempt to prepare students for a future in multinational corporations, practice-oriented teaching approaches become imperative. Technologies, such as the virtual classroom, are not only an interesting feature of every business course focusing on

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international aspects, but an interesting means to introduce students to technology which are used in modern corporations on a daily basis. Latest developments allow students to implement videobased technology at their personal computers. They can so get used to the technology and its usage, which will improve the efficiency of virtual classroom event, since students will concentrate more strongly on their presentations and the interaction during the trial. There is a need to develop new applications for the virtual classroom in international management teaching. We implemented a number of new features into our lectures, such as guest speakers from overseas units speaking to the students about their work, company-projects in which students cooperated with corporations via video-based information systems. As technology advances interactive student projects between classes dispersed in various countries will be another future option.

concluding remarks Every new teaching technology needs extensive preparation time, and the virtual classroom is no exception. Both students and instructors need experience in order to begin to feel comfortable with this technology. However, since instructors and students are exposed to the feedback of colleagues from other sites, pressure to perform well increases and overshadows the first experiences with technology. Technology must therefore be introduced very carefully at the beginning of the teaching experience. For virtual classroom interaction, instructors are encouraged to identify motivated students, focus on their active participation in in-class discussion and provide empathic support when needed. Students should be given clear guidelines on the importance of various issues concerning case study presentation, but at the same time have

enough freedom to find solutions for themselves. When preparing the delivery, instructors should list the issues that will be subject to discussion beforehand, so that remote instructors and students can prepare themselves, but desist from a strict schedule. Students profit from the experience in any case. However, although a one-time virtual classroom experience may stay in students` minds, it does not increase overall teaching effectiveness. It is therefore advisable to implement virtual classrooms on a more regular basis to ensure their teaching effectiveness in international management teaching can be increased. Numerous challenges remain in the area of deploying collaborative, IT-mediated teaching. In particular, more thorough investigation of several issues is required: how to deal with a larger, international audience, how to avoid losing the attention of passive students and how to integrate other teaching media like presentation slides, videos and speeches into the teaching environment. Our findings show that a virtual classroom environment is perceived as more successful as faculty gains experience in using it. At their first trial, instructors have difficulties in judging the quality of the technology, and tend to overestimate its challenges and limitations. Hence, virtual classroom teaching needs to be conducted a number of times to establish a routine and confidence among all participants.

AcKnowLedGMent This work was supported by the Universal Project, a research project partly sponsored by the European Commission (IST-1999-11747). We would like to express our special gratitude to the team from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

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Key terMs And deFInItIons Computer-Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL): Any kind of learning process, where cooperation and communication between two dispersed learning sites and their participants

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are supported by the use of computer-mediated information and communication systems. Computer Simulation: Training situation in which a real experiment is conducted in form of a computer-supported case study. In business, education simulations are seen as an extension to business case studies. Educational Mediator: An educational mediator is a service that supports the sharing of learning resources. Examples of educational mediators are Educanext, Merlot or Ariadne. These portals support the exchange of learning resources under open content licenses (e.g., the Creative Commons Licenses). Recent developments in interoperability research have led to a federation of these portals via a protocol referred to as Simple Query Interface (SQI). E-Learning: Any kind of learning process, which is supported by digital media for presenting

and distributing teaching materials or improving or allowing communication between instructor(s) and learner(s), such as simulating a certain situation or allowing access to information which would not be accessible without technology. Virtual Classroom: A virtual classroom connects geographically dispersed instructors and students, for example via a video conference system. Information and communication technology (ICT) is used to facilitate communication between students and instructors. Video Conferencing: Video Conferencing Technology provides means for audio and visual communication over telephone lines (ISDN-based) or Internet technology (IP-based). Nowadays, video-conferencing technology is already available at the desktop, provided by Instant Messaging Tools such as Skype, Yahoo! Messenger and Windows LiveTM Messenger.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the New Nature of Business Practices, edited by P. Zemliansky; K. St.Amant, pp. 241-256, copyright 2008 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.13

Augmenting Collaboration with Personalization Services Christina E. Evangelou Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Manolis Tzagarakis Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Nikos Karousos Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece George Gkotsis Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Dora Nousia Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece

AbstrAct Collaboration is considered as an essential element for effective learning since it enables learners to better develop their points of view and refine their knowledge. Our aim being to facilitate communities of practice members as learners, we argue that collaboration tools should provide personalization features and functionalities in order to fit the specific individual and community learning requirements. More specifically, we propose a framework of services supporting personalization that being embedded in collaboration tools, can act as catalysts for individual and community

learning. The proposed set of services has derived after the careful consideration of a generic learner profile, developed to formalize human actors in settings where learning takes place.

IntroductIon As organizations start to acknowledge the significance of communities of practice (CoPs) in helping them meet their business needs and objectives, new efforts to better facilitate the process of learning in these communities are constantly emerging (Quan-Haase, 2005). CoPs, also referred to as

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“knowledge networks,” is a term commonly used to identify institutionalized, informal networks of professionals managing domains of knowledge (Gongla & Rizzuto, 2001). Such communities are formed by groups of people who share an interest in a domain of human endeavour and engage in a process of collective learning (Wenger, 1998). It is this very process of collective learning that creates bonds between them since such communities are formed by groups of people who are willing to share and elaborate further on their knowledge, insights, and experiences (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). Being tied to and performed through practice, learning is considered of premium value by practitioners for improving their real working practices (Steeples & Goodyear, 1999). Situated learning in particular, that is learning that normally occurs as the function of an activity, context, and culture, is closely related to the social interactions in the community context. Above and beyond learning situated in explicitly defined contexts such as the school classroom, seminars, or even e-learning approaches, modern learning theories strongly support the value of communities and collaborative work as effective settings for learning (Hoadley & Kilner, 2005). More specifically, they emphasize on collaborative learning work that refers to processes, methodologies, and environments, where professionals engage in a common task and where individuals depend on and are accountable to each other. When speaking about collaborative learning, we espouse the Wenger’s perspective of learning as a social phenomenon in the context of our lived experience of participation in the world (Wenger, 1998). As regards to it, an especially valued activity involves information exchanges in which information is constructed through addition, explanation, evaluation, transformation, or summarising (Gray, 2004; Maudet & Moore, 1999). Discoursing, in particular, is considered as an essential element for effective learning, since it enables learners to better develop their points of view and refine their knowledge. This

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is because, in discoursing, participants focus on the same issues, share their knowledge, and learn to negotiate conflicting opinions in order to reach a commonly accepted solution (Veerman, Andriessen, & Kanselaar, 1998). Still, it is generally acknowledged that traditional software approaches supporting collaboration are no longer sufficient to support contemporary communication and collaboration needs (Moor & Aakhus, 2006). Research findings on the usage of collaboration tools show that learners are not sufficiently supported in expressing personal ideas and opinions, nor are provided with adequate means for the articulation and sharing of their knowledge. Taking this into account, our work concerns the design of tools that enable discoursing to support collaborative work, emphasis given to aspects, such as the sharing of knowledge and the building of trust. We envisage collaboration tools that can promote learning and encourage creative, parallel, and lateral thinking during collaboration. Towards this, we argue that personalized services can be of great value, as they as they enable the provision of services tailored according to an individual’s (or community’s when applicable) skills, needs, and preferences. In this paper, we present a set of personalization services that has been developed to address the requirements for efficient and effective collaboration between CoP members who can act as catalysts for individual and community learning. Thus, we first performed a comprehensive literature and practice survey of related issues regarding communities of practice, collaboration, and learning. Then, we developed a generic Learner Profile model to formalize CoP members as human actors in settings where learning takes place. The Learner Profile proposed in this paper contributes to the proper user modelling required for the development of virtual environments for collaboration. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. The following section discusses user modelling issues and presents the Learner

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Profile model of our approach. Next to that, we provide information about the acquisition of the data required for the population of the proposed Learner Profile. Then we present the proposed set of personalized collaboration services towards learning and their relation to the proposed Learner Profile. In the following we discuss implementation issues regarding the embedment of the proposed set of services to collaboration tools. We conclude this paper with final remarks and future work directions.

User models are an essential part of every adaptive system. In the following, we discuss design issues, and we present the proposed learner profile model of our approach. The specification of this model is oriented to the development of the personalized services appropriate for learners and/or CoPs.

third-party applications. More specifically, fields that can be filled up by users constitute the userderived information (e.g., login name, password, address, etc.). In contrast, fields that are calculated and filled up by the tool are machine-derived information (e.g., level of participation, average response time, etc.). Furthermore, some fields can be filled up both from the user and machine (preferences, resources, etc.). In addition, there can be fields that are calculated by external or third-party tools (or applications). Although user and machine-derived information can be easily gathered, third-party tools have to be aware of the user profile and the communication means with the tool in order to interchange data of the user profile. For this purpose, the user profile template is available through an xml schema definition to third-party requestors via Web services. In the storage layer, user records are stored in a relational database and manipulated through SQL queries.

design Issues

the Learner Profile

The primary design aims of our approach in modelling users as learners was to achieve extensibility and adaptability of the user profile as well as the ability to exchange user information between the proposed personalized collaboration services and third-party services. In this context, the proposed learner profile comprises both computational and noncomputational information. Computational information comprises information such as the name, contact details, education, training, and so forth, of users, as well as information about the community they belong to. The noncomputational information is calculated after the processing of the users’ individual behaviour during their participation in system activities. This type of information comprises fields that can be defined during run-time, whenever a new requirement for a new kind of user information is raised. As regards the source of the information stored in the user model, this may derive from the user, the tool, and

In successful learning organizations, individual learning is continuous, knowledge is shared, and the organizational culture must support learning (Gephart, Marsick, Van Buren, & Spiro,1996; Marsick & Watkins, 1999;). Learning entities transform themselves by acquiring new knowledge, skills, or behaviours in their everyday work, through study, instruction, or experience. That is why software tools facilitating working practices for individuals, communities, or organizations should also be conceived and designed as environments where learning takes place. In our approach, collaboration tools should satisfy the community members’ needs to construct and refine their ideas, opinions, and thoughts in meaningful ways, in order to successfully assist individual and community learning. At the same time, individual standpoints should be articulated in such a way that can be proven useful for the rest of the community’s members. In addition to that,

user ModeLLInG

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Figure 1. The proposed Learner Profile Learner Profile Static Information

Dynamic Information

Individual Information

Preferences

Relations

Community Information

Competences

Experience

Domain independent

Domain specific

support should be offered for the development of learning skills, such as the interaction with other actors, as well as growth of the learners’ autonomy and self-direction. Moreover, identification of CoP members’ individual characteristics, as well as the culture, norms, and incentive schemes of the community should be appropriately handled. Research findings about learners’ modelling prove that due to the complexity of human actors and the diversity regarding the learning context, the development of a commonly accepted learner profile is a highly complex task (Dolog & Schäfer, 2005). For instance, the learner model proposed in Chen and Mizoguchi (1999) depicts a learner as a concept hierarchy, but it does not refer to issues such as the learning object, or the learners’ interactions with their environment and other people. However, it provides interesting information about a learner’s cognitive characteristics, and it provides a representation of knowledge assessment issues. Another related approach, the “PAPI Learner” conceptual model, comprises preferences, performance, portfolio, and other types of information (PAPI, 2000). Yet, this model is too generic, as its primary aim is to be portable in order to fit a wide range of applications, and it does not provide any information about a learner’s profile dynamic aspects. The IMS Learner Information Package specification (IMS LIP, 2001) is a useful collection of information that addresses the interoperability of Internet-based Learner

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Information Systems with other systems that support the Internet learning environment. After the careful consideration of the above, we developed a generic Learner Profile (see Figure 1) that can be employed for the representation of both individuals and communities as learners (Vidou, Dieng-Kuntz, El Ghali, Evangelou, Giboin, Jacquemart, & Tifous, 2006). The proposed model can be used for developing customized services for both individual and group learners. More specifically, the proposed Learner Profile consists of two types of information, namely static information and dynamic information in compliance with the computational and noncomputational data presented. Static information is considered as domain independent in our approach. The Learner Profile dynamic information elements were chosen to reflect one’s individual behaviour during his participation in a specific CoP’s collaboration activities. Thus, all four dynamic elements, that is, preferences, relations, competences, and experience are to be implicitly or explicitly defined through the learner’s interaction with a tool supporting collaboration. Preferences regarding the use of resources and services provided by the tool, as well as relations among individuals, CoPs, and learning items (e.g., argument, URL, or document) can reveal the learners’ different personality types and learning styles. Competences refer to cognitive characteristics such as the creativity, reciprocity, and social skills. Experience reflects

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Figure 2. Data acquisition and interpretation structure Interpretation Engine

User Action Tracking Module

Actions/ Event Store

Rule Store

SystemData Base

learners’ familiarity and know-how regarding a specific domain. It should be noted that all dynamic elements of the proposed Learner Profile can be of assistance towards learning. Nevertheless, the domain of the issue under consideration is a decisive factor. Thus, dynamic aspects of a learner’s profile are treated as domain specific in our approach.

AcQuIrInG the LeArner ProFILe dAtA In order to enable the operation of personalized collaboration services, the Learner Profile has to be populated with the appropriate data. Such data can be acquired in two ways: explicitly from the users’ preferences, and implicitly based on the users’ behaviour while using the system. Static information of the Learner Profile is explicitly provided by the user as a required initialization step of the registration procedure. While such information is usually provided when registering to the system, users should be able to edit this set of profile information at any time. Such explicit data acquisition constitutes a subjective way of profiling, since it depends on the statements made by the user (e.g., experience level, competences, etc.). Their subjective nature may influence personalization services in an unpredictable way (e.g., suggesting to a novice user a document that requires advanced domain knowledge because the user misjudged his experience or competence level). To cope with such issues, we are currently

in the process of designing methods that assess explicitly stated profile data, based on the users’ behaviour. We refer to these ways as implicit or behaviour-based data acquisition. In general, the aim of implicit or behaviour-based data acquisition is to assess experience, domains, competences of an individual user based on his behaviour. Implicit data acquisition utilizes the users’ actions and interactions, and attempts to extract information that can permit assessing or augmenting a user profile data. A special part of the system’s architecture should be dedicated to support implicit data acquisition and interpretation. It consists of a number of modules, each of which is responsible for a particular task (see Figure 2). More specifically, the User Action and Tracking module is responsible for observing user actions and recording them in a special repository of the infrastructure called the Action and Event Store. The Action and Event Store only maintains all actions and events that are useful for implicit user action analysis and does not interpret them in any way. Analysis and interpretation of the gathered data as well as triggering of the appropriate computations (i.e., system reactions) is the main responsibility of the Action Interpretation Engine. The Action Interpretation Engine analyses the available information in the actions and event store and triggers computations that either update accordingly the user profile or execute a particular action. The interpretation engine can be configured using rules that are also stored within the infrastructure, making the interpretation engine rule based. A rule

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essentially specifies under which circumstances (i.e., the events and actions of a particular user in the store) an action is triggered. The rule-based nature of the interpretation engine makes the engine itself extensible so that even more cases of implicit data acquisition and interpretation are able to be supported. Based on the explicit or implicit data, explicit or implicit adaptation mechanisms can be supported within the collaboration tool. Explicit adaptation mechanisms refer to approaches where the tool adapts its services based on the explicitly stated characteristics or preferences of the user. Users are usually aware of explicit adaptations since they themselves triggered the initiation and presence of the respective services. On the other hand, implicit adaptation mechanisms refer to approaches that adapt the system’s services to the user, based on his/her actions within it. Such mechanisms work in the background; Users are usually unaware of the origin of these services since they did not explicitly initiate their activation and, thus, do not perceive their operation. Implicit personalization mechanisms are automatically triggered by the system utilizing implicit or behaviour-based data in the proposed Learner Profile. In order to enable the foreseen functionalities (such as dynamic update of user information, adaptation of the tool according to the user needs, etc.), the most important actions of the entire set of users’ actions should be tracked down. As regards the User Action Tracking Mechanism, the recorded data about user actions contain information about who did the action, when, what type of action was executed, and what objects were affected by the action. In this way, it will be possible for the system to give valuable feedback to other mechanisms so as to be able to both examine and calculate dynamic user characteristics. Furthermore, a variety of statistical reports that cover both the overall and the specific views of usage of the system should also be produced. Furthermore, a rule-based approach has been chosen so as to facilitate incorporation of new

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rules once they are observed, or modification of existing ones if they prove to be too restrictive or even harmful. More specifically, we propose the development of a set of rules that deal with resource access, as access to resources are logged, and a number of rules operate on the logged data to provide additional information to resources and/or user profiles. These can be based on the frequency of access, as well as the competence and experience levels of users (e.g., a document that is frequently accessed by novice users should augment the documents metadata with elements that mirror this fact, so that this document can be recommended to any novice user entering a discussion). A second set of rules observing discussion contribution could control how user behaviour in the context of discussions will affect the users’ competence and experience (e.g., users that actively and frequently participate can be assigned with a high experience level). Another useful indicator associated to the proposed learner profile is the reasoning about how a competence level of a particular user changes in time. This may provide useful insights about the learning capabilities of the particular user and the usefulness of the system.

PersonALIzed servIces For coLLAborAtIon tooLs One of the major challenges in developing software is that all users are different, in that they vary in terms of intelligence, knowledge, training, experience, personality, and cognitive style. Therefore, collaboration tools should provide a set of personalized services, with the emphasis given to the individuals’ learning styles. In the following we present a set of services employed for enhancing software tools supporting collaboration towards learning. The proposed set of services has resulted out of a thorough investigation of the related literature, existing case studies that consider diverse aspects of learning within com-

Augmenting Collaboration with Personalization Services

munities, as well as a transversal analysis of a set of interviews with real CoP members engaged in various domains of practice.

Awareness According to the findings of our research, CoPs' members consider system awareness services as the most helpful ones for collaboration tools. Participation awareness provides information about CoP members, online members as well as the discourse moves of individual CoP members. Users will be able to see which user is online, how the space changed by a particular member, and so forth. Social awareness provides information on how members are related to other members in the CoP, and includes statistics about how and how many times members within a CoP communicate with each other and social networks representing the community. Based on the data populated in the Learner Profile, personalized services can provide the proper set of notification actions for the provision of helpful personalized information about system events to CoP members. For instance, a collaboration tool could alert users about the entrance of another user to the system, or about new content insertion into the system. In order to enable this personalized awareness, terms such as “related” or “interesting” that define a relation between the user and the content should be determined by the user himself, or automatically by the system through the manipulation of some characteristics from the user profile. Furthermore, system awareness can play an important role to assist the familiarization on the new learners of the system. By both informing the CoP moderator about the entrance of a new member and proposing some starting guidelines to the incomer, this service can assist the learning of the way of participation within a CoP. On the other hand, the awareness can provide the moderators with the activity monitoring service that helps the moderator to better understand and manage the whole CoPs’ procedures. That,

in turn, contributes to the process of learning the CoP’s moderator role. Awareness services can also be of use towards the self-evaluation of the participation of a community member, providing him with valuable feedback about his overall contribution to the community and assisting him in collaborative learning as well as in self-reflecting. Using statistic reports populated according to the Learner Profile, such services can measure the level of the member’s contribution to the collaboration procedure. More specifically, these kinds of services can provide with reports about the actual usage of the resources posted by a member, the citations of their resources, or the actual impact of posts to the overall process. In this way, one can be aware of the overall impression that other members have about his participation.

Allocation of resources Allocation of resources is another service that being personalized in collaboration tools can facilitate learning activities, especially for autonomous learners. As regards to searching for instance, a Learner’s Profile can provide useful information to rank search resources according to a number of factors, such as the learner’s preferences, or even his/her competence and experience level. In this way, the system will be able to adapt to an individual user’s needs. Moreover, the information about the user’s domains of interest will provide additional information with which a search can be better contextualized, thus leading to more relevant results. Furthermore, reasoning mechanisms could be employed for providing the necessary filtering features for capturing and reusing the knowledge shared in past collaboration activities. In this vein, filtering and recommendation of content services can further support learning. For instance, some of the attached documents of posted positions that contribute to the strengthening of an argument should be suggested for view to the users according to their Learner Profile. Further-

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more, a document library could recommend some documents that are related to a specific learner (e.g., experienced learner’s recommendations or popular documents). Thus, members will be able to extend their knowledge through explicit learning of associated content. Services for classifying other learners according to their domain of expertise can also assist learning in the community. Such services enable the community members to request for suggestion, find and communicate with their coworkers in a knowledgeable way. Furthermore, if coinciding with a community’s norms and wills, such services could also be used for the assignment of weights regarding the weight of a member’s arguments. In addition, services that keep tracking of the members’ activity contribute to the procedure of learning by example, in which a member can learn during watching another one’s practice in collaborative activities.

visualization It has been widely argued that visualization of collaboration conducted by a group of people working collaboratively towards solving a common problem can facilitate the overall process in many ways, such as in explicating and sharing individual representations of the problem, in maintaining focus on the overall process, as well as in maintaining consistency and in increasing plausibility and accuracy (Evangelou, Karacapilidis, & Tzagarakis , 2006; Kirschner, Buckingham-Shum, & Carr, 2003;). Personalized representation of the associated processes, such as the process of discoursing or knowledge sharing, is an essential feature for tools providing effective environments for learning. Furthermore, personalized visualization of context should provide learners with a working environment that fits to their preferred visualization style. System personalization includes alterations in colours, fonts, and text effects, enabling and disabling pieces of information in the working panel, predefinition

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of system responses in user actions and so forth. In this direction, taxonomies and classification schemes should be employed, wherever possible, as a means for “guiding” users’ cognition. In any case, it should be noted that there is no panacea for the design of user-friendly interfaces; the related practices should be interpreted, refined, and exploited according to the needs of the different types of learners involved in the particular environment. Appropriate navigation and help tools should also be provided for users with diverse expertise. Adaptive User Interfaces should adapt themselves to the learner by reasoning about the user, based on his Learner Profile.

building trust Privacy policies and access control services are a critical requirement for the employment of all these services, as well as for the building of trust between the CoP members and the software application. These should be provided in order to satisfy the learner/users’ need to know what information about them is recorded, for what purposes, how long this information will be kept, and if this information is revealed to other people. Furthermore, the security assurance, while establishing connections between users and services, or while accessing stored information, should be taken into consideration as well. Towards this end, two major techniques are broadly used to provide denial of access to data, that is, anonymity and encryption. Anonymity cuts the relation between the particular user and the information about him/her, while information encryption provides protection of the exchanged personal data. In our approach, we employed the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) approach, a W3C recommendation that supports the description of privacy policies in a standardized XML-based form, which can be automatically retrieved and interpreted by the user client (Cranor, Langheinrich, Marchiori, Presler-Marshall, & Reagle, 2002).

Augmenting Collaboration with Personalization Services

Figure 3. The proposed services Learner Information Acquisition Service Awareness Service

Learner Profile Service

Personalized Search Personalized Presentation Content Filtering and Recommendation Related Learners Activity Participation Evaluation Learner Search by Expertise Privacy Policies and Access Control New Services

IMPLeMentAtIon Issues According to current trends in developing Webbased tools, for reasons such as the reusability of components and agility of services, our approach builds on top of a service-oriented environment. In order to exploit advantages enabled by the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design paradigm, the proposed set of services should be based on Web service architecture so as to enable the reusability of the implemented modules, as well as the integration or the interoperation with other services (from external systems). An overall design for the enhancement of tools supporting collaboration with personalized functionality towards learning is depicted in Figure 3. In this approach, we sketch a generic architecture design in which a Learner Profile Service is the basis for the storage and the provision of each learner’s characteristics to a set of proposed services that contribute to the system’s personalization. In order to support extensibility, the learning profile service can be dynamically augmented with new learners’ characteristics during run-time. Furthermore, targeting to the openness of the service, the service can provide the learner profile schema in the form of XML Schema Definition (XSD) in the service requestors. Considering the set of proposed

services as nonexhaustive, our approach is open for the addition of new personalized services (see Figure 3, block “New Service”) and can use the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) for both internal and external communication.

concLusIon In this paper, we presented a set of services enhancing CoPs interactions and collaborative work based on a generic Learner Profile model. Our approach concerns an alternative form of online learning with different forms of interaction, and a new way of promoting community building. Its purpose is to aid researchers and developers in the development of personalized collaboration systems, that is, tools that adapt their structure and services to the individual user’s characteristics and social behaviour. Our main goal being to support individual and community learning, the proposed set of services is based on personalized features and functionalities. We argue that it can further support learning, as well as the achievement of learning objectives, as it can assist CoP members in the development of learning skills such as the interaction with other actors, growth of their autonomy, and self-direction. Nevertheless, in

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order to be creatively adapted in CoPs’ everyday practices, the proposed services must fit into the specific culture, norms, and incentive schemes of the community. Our future work directions concern the appropriate handling of these issues as well as the full development of the proposed set of personalization services and its evaluation in diverse CoPs.

AcKnowLedGMent Research carried out in the context of this paper has been partially funded by the EU PALETTE (Pedagogically Sustained Adaptive Learning through the Exploitation of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge) Integrated Project (IST FP6-2004, Contract Number 028038). Also, the authors thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions on the previous versions of this paper.

reFerences Chen, W., & Mizoguchi, R. (1999). Communication content ontology for learner model agent in multi-agent architecture. In Prof. AIED99 Workshop on Ontologies for Intelligent educational Systems. Retrieved from http://www.ei.sanken. osaka-u.ac.jp/aied99/a-papers/W-Chen.pdf Cranor, L., Langheinrich, M., Marchiori, M., Presler-Marshall, M., & Reagle, J. (2002). The platform for privacy preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification. World WideWeb Consortium (W3C). Retrieved from http://www. w3.org/TR/ P3P/. Dolog, P., & Schäfer, M. (2005, July 24-30). Learner modeling on the semantic Web? Workshop on Personalisation on the Semantic Web PerSWeb05, Edinburgh, UK.

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Evangelou, C. E., Karacapilidis, N., & Tzagarakis M. (2006). On the development of knowledge management services for collaborative decision making. Journal of Computers, 1(6), 19-28. Gephart, M., Marsick, V., Van Buren, M., & Spiro, M., (1996). Learning organizations come alive. Training & Development, 50(12), 34-45. Gongla, P., & Rizzuto, C. R. (2001). Evolving communities of practice: IBM Global Services experience. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 842862. Gray, B. (2004). Informal learning in an online community of practice. Journal of Distance Education, 19(1), 20-35. Hoadley, C. M., & Kilner, P. G. (2005). Using technology to transform communities of practice into knowledge-building communities. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 25(1), 31-40. IMS LIP. (2001). IMS learner information package specification. The Global Learning Consortium. Retrieved from http://www.imsglobal.org/ profiles/index.html Kirschner, P., Buckingham-Shum, S., & Carr, C. (2003). Visualizing argumentation: Software tools for collaborative and educational sense-making. London: Springer Verlag. Marsick, V. J., & Watkins, K. E. (1999). Facilitating learning organizations: Making learning count. Aldershot, U.K.; Brookfield, VT: Gower. Maudet, N., & Moore, D. J. (1999). Dialogue games for computer supported collaborative argumentation. In Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Computer Supported Collaborative Argumentation (CSCA99). Moor, A., & Aakhus, M. (2006). Argumentation support: from technologies to tools. Communications ACM, 49(3), 93-98.

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PAPI. (2000). Draft standard for learning technology—Public and Private Information (PAPI) for Learners (PAPI Learner). IEEE P1484.2/D7, 2000-11-28. Retrieved from http://edutool.com/ papi Quan-Haase, A. (2005). Trends in online learning communities. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 25(1), 1-6. Steeples, C., & Goodyear, P. (1999) Enabling professional learning in distributed communities of practice: Descriptors for multimedia objects. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 22, 133-145 Veerman, A. L., Andriessen, J. E., & Kanselaar, G. (1998). Learning through computer-mediated collaborative argumentation. Retrieved from http://eduweb.fsw.ruu.nl/arja/PhD2.html

Vidou, G., Dieng-Kuntz, R., El Ghali, A., Evangelou, C. E., Giboin, A., Jacquemart, S., & Tifous, A. (2006, Nov. 30-Dec. 1). Towards an ontology for knowledge management in communities of practice. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, (PAKM06). Vienna, Austria Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78, 139-145.

This work was previously published in International Journal Of Web-Based Learning And Teaching Technologies, Vol. 2, Issue 3, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 77-89, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.14

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces: The Hellenic Open University Case Study D. Karaiskakis Hellenic Open University, Greece D. Kalles Hellenic Open University, Greece Th. Hadzilacos Hellenic Open University, Greece

AbstrAct All undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) attend courses at a distance. The lack of a live academic community is reported by many as a drawback in their studies. Systematic exploitation of new communication and collaboration technologies is desirable in HOU but cannot be imposed universally as the average student’s IT competence level is relatively low. In this work, we present a

key aspect of the development of an integrated communication environment in which collaboration spaces serving as open communities play a key role in user engagement in the whole communication environment. To track and evaluate user participation, we propose to use indices drawn from inexpensively collected usage data. Such indices, when combined with our detailed knowledge of the internal workings of user groups, provide concrete evaluation of the community online activity.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

IntroductIon The Hellenic Open University (HOU) provides at-a-distance education taking into consideration a founding tenet for the universal access of students to educational resources. HOU is thus formally based on traditional practices, namely, mailing books and educational material, encouraging students to personally communicate with their tutors, and organizing a small number of student-tutor consulting sessions per year. Thus, the use of new communication and collaboration technologies is not mandatory for students to complete their studies. Still, such technologies are being systematically used for publishing announcements and general-purpose information, and for providing basic supplementary electronic material and sources for further study. As the only entry requirement of HOU students is the successful completion of high school studies, its students reflect the mean level of experience and competence in the use of electronic services in Greece, which, to date, is not particularly high; in 2005, for example, 59% of the population aged 25 to 54 had no basic computer skills (Eurostat, 2006). This problem is aggravated in the uptake of collaboration in e-learning services, which also demands an investigating attitude by the users (beyond usage skills). Thus, planning for the development of electronic services should address the need for universal access in services of stratified complexity (suitable for each team level in order for all to accept their use) and the organizational aspects of scaling up in numbers and in complexity. Moving from a model where Web technologies are used for publishing information to a model where such technologies constitute a basic working tool in the everyday life of students is a huge undertaking, which addresses both technical and cultural issues. Both types of issues are closely linked to the diversity of the backgrounds of the students and of the tutors, as well as to the

availability and ease of use of the underlying infrastructure. Our laboratory is heavily involved in designing the entire communication environment provided to students and tutors. Collaboration spaces constitute a focal point in our environment, wherein users can engage in asynchronous communication, publishing content and opinions related to their work. Given that access to these spaces is allowed for every student and centrally managed but that attendance and participation are optional, these spaces function as emerging communities of practice for collaborating tutors and as communities of learning for students. We liberally use the term community to refer to the tutors and their students who are actively engaged in the same subject during an academic year. In HOU nomenclature, this refers to a thematic unit (TU), the basic unit in HOU studies. The population of a TU consists of student groups, each of which is assigned to a tutor who oversees 10 to 35 students per group. There are some really small TUs with just one tutor and just over 10 students. There are also some very large ones with about 1,250 students in over 40 groups. Currently (2007) about 200 TUs are offered to about 28,000 students and about 1,100 tutors are allocated to TU groups. In the present article, we explore a key aspect of our work toward the goal of establishing a working communication environment. This aspect is to define indices that express user participation in the community spaces. We expect that a comparative evaluation of community online activity will help us propose actions to promote user engagement and participation across varying communities. In particular, we explore aspects of a methodology for the quantitative and qualitative follow-up and evaluation of users’ participation in combination with the participation of tutors. Our hypothesis is that we will eventually be able to provide a quantitative index of the maturity of communities and therefore will be able to offer sound advice to lagging communities. We are particularly interested

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in studying the participation of tutors who act as expert users providing advanced knowledge and guidance to their students and may, in the process, affect the way their students view and utilize the communication services we offer them. The rest of this article is structured in five sections. Next, we offer a coarse description of the infrastructure. Following that, we elaborate on numeric indices for quantifying the role of the tutors as experts. We then analyze specific groups with respect to their usage patterns and attempt to classify their maturity in using the collaborative work environment. We then proceed to qualitative remarks on the impact of personal attitudes of tutors toward communication and towards the uptake of the collaboration infrastructure. Finally, we conclude and highlight our research directions.

A coMMunIcAtIon InFrAstructure to suPPort coLLAborAtIon In HOU, a substantial part of the mandatory administrative procedures followed by students is carried out through a portal platform; a key example is the selection of TUs in which a student will be enrolled in the coming academic year. Typically, such portal platforms do not support specialized services for educational purposes; thus emerges the need to explore the deployment of specialized LMS (learning management system) applications. However, the latter tend to serve well advanced users only and are seldom harnessed to their potential. Because of the average level of student IT literacy, LMS acceptance and exploitation is fraught with difficulties, especially when attempted at a university scale. On the other hand, the same level of literacy does not seem to hamper the exploitation of electronic services in organization and administration. It is not, therefore, surprising that experience in EU (European Union) coun-

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tries suggests that the use of new technologies in the educational domain is first introduced for organizational purposes and later for educational ones (Eurydice, 2004). HOU tutors who manage to promote the emergence of student communities often employ a constructivist learning instructional model (Savery & Duffy, 1995), usually subconsciously so. This means that they defer directly answering student queries by instead opting to generate online discussions around the query topics. The skillful running of such discussions is swiftly discovered by progressively more students who start frequenting the workspaces, realizing that this is the preferred mode of communication by their group tutor. However, this approach is heavily dependent on a specific tutor’s modus operandi and is not a common characteristic of how group communication is carried out within individual student groups (and their tutors). Of course, HOU cannot match traditional campus-based universities as far as the existence of a vibrant academic community. The online workspace is no match for the campus. A high percentage of student dropout in HOU (at least, as far as the informatics undergraduate program is concerned) is related to academic factors, especially a lack of confidence to pursue universitylevel studies and the perceived lack of adequate assistance (Xenos, Pierrakeas, & Pintelas, 2002). Both reasons are far easier to emerge as obstacles when one studies at a distance as opposed to when one discusses problems with one’s classmates. Working toward addressing such problems, HOU today has an integrated common communication environment based on a portal infrastructure. To date, it supports information services, content management services, asynchronous team collaboration services, real-time services, and further administration services (see Figure 1). All users and user groups are updated in an LDAP server on an annual basis, with data drawn from the student registry management information system. Based on those user and

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

Figure 1. Layers of services offered through the HOU portal from the viewpoint of user initiative U se r In itia tive D ffiicu lty

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A w a re n e ss, Q .u e stio n s & . T e sts, C h a t, . A syn c. T e a m L e a rn in g V id e o . C o lla b o ra tio n . C o n fe re n cin g . O b je cts

group structures, a workplace was deployed for every TU to support the communication and collaboration among students with their group tutor, but also among tutors in the same TU. Beyond the content management space, each TU also has a forum accessed by all TU members and a special forum accessed only by the TU tutors. In the collaboration spaces of large TUs, additional spaces (inner rooms) were created to facilitate the private collaboration within one teaching subgroup (students and their tutor). Videoconferencing services were initially provided by an independent application (with its own user and group management infrastructure), but now a new service allows users to access and use it in a seamless fashion through the existing (unified) LDAP-based authentication scheme. Additionally, the (open-source) Moodle LMS was installed and integrated; subsequently, it has been extensively used over a number of years by one TU to manage the submission and (automatic) grading of a large part of its homework assignments and is now progressively used by other TUs as an alternative means to communicate and to streamline several aspects of the educational process. Note that all administrative services, content management, team collaboration spaces, teleconferencing, and chatting services are hosted on different platforms but are all integrated through a common multiserver Web single-sign-on domain to provide authentication. Figure 2 shows a highlevel diagram of the overall infrastructure.

MeAsurInG the roLe oF the coMMunIty exPerts In FosterInG onLIne PArtIcIPAtIon We will start discussing the key aspects of measuring the role of the experts by drawing on statistics generated by our platform. We will first introduce the concepts using some examples before presenting the detailed results for all TUs. Participation of group members is defined as the average number of visits per month per community member (Pm = Σ Vn/n), where a visit is defined as a sequence of successive page visits, with each page visit at most 30 minutes apart from the previous one. Such participation was examined in correlation with the activity of the expert (which is expressed as a percentage figure, Exp_Activity = Exp_Visits / 100* All_Visits). For example, with reference to Figure 3 (which also serves as a gentle introduction to our notation), we note that the members of group G37 visit the workplace on average 20 times per month (roughly once per working day), whereas that rate is about 5 visits per month for the members of G188 (y-axis). A group index denotes the size of the group (as does the corresponding circle area). Furthermore, we also note that within G188, about 6% of its overall traffic was generated by the tutors whereas in G37, this climbs up to about 9% (x-axis). Last, the dark filling of the G37 circle denotes a postgraduate group. At this point we

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Figure 2. The server-services architecture Use r & G ro u p D a ta LD A P s erv er

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would also like to note that we defer an actual comparative discussion (of groups G37 and G188, among others) to the fourth section. While there is a substantial qualitative difference between passive and active user contribution, we believe that such differentiation is only significant in the scope of individual user assessment (Hazari, 2004). When the focus is on the overall comparative evaluation of community activity (as in our case), the total number of visits is a sufficient index. Figure 4 shows the aggregate results. Data regarding an undergraduate program (consisting of 13 TUs) and an affiliated postgraduate program (5 TUs) were analyzed. In 7 of those TUs, the use of collaboration services was almost null and thus we analyzed the activity in the remaining 11 (six undergraduate, PLIxx, and five postgraduate, PLSxx), accounting for a total of 2,086 engaged users. The data refer to a spring trimester of the 2005 to 2006 academic year.

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The distributions of visits within each group are not identical (not surprisingly). As a side product, we computed two standard statistical measures of these datasets, namely kurtosis and skewness. Kurtosis in a distribution provides a way to estimate the homogeneousness in the distribution of participation in each group (by focusing on the distribution tail size). We report kurtosis in Figure 5. Skewness provides a direct way to estimate the relation between the number of users who are strong participators and those who are not. We noted that skewness was positive (ranging from 2 to 7) in all cases, meaning that very active members are significantly outnumbered by the less active ones (especially so in undergraduate groups). Herein, the differentiation between groups is less pronounced compared to the kurtosis case, suggesting that this pattern is traced in all groups. Before referring the reader to the appendix for a detailed interpretation of the particular results,

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

Figure 3. A measurement example Participation (mean) 25

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we note that such interpretation is facilitated by the fact that we have a detailed knowledge of the internal workings of the reported groups. Such knowledge is easily diffused among people who regularly share their tutoring experiences. Moreover, the systematic recording and analysis of activity in these spaces directly aims at tracking characteristic access patterns and at depicting problematic situations or highlighting efficient

models of operation. In a working place, interaction between all the members of teams is desirable, particularly so for students. The role, however, of the tutor may be decisive since she or he, as an expert among other members, may be able to also open up new subjects and not simply respond to questions. Encouragement and participation by an instructor helps a community form more readily (Brown, 2001).

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Figure 5. Dataset kurtosis (small numbers indicate more even distributions) 90 80 70

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A coMMunIty MAturIty Index bAsed on detAILed GrouP Access ProFILe AnALysIs For the next step in our research, we turned to a systematic analysis per group. We decided to study the access profile of every group for the first trimester of the current academic year (2006-2007), which witnessed scientifically higher levels of portal awareness and usage in the student population. It should suffice to note that about 10 million page visits per month is now representa-

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tive of the order of magnitude of portal usage. The corresponding server logs were preprocessed and imported into an industrial-strength relational database server application (which was not part of the portal infrastructure), along with student and tutor membership data for every TU. Subsequently, we built SQL (structured query language) queries to retrieve detailed statistics for every user in every group (we remind the reader that users typically attend more than one TU per year). We studied six undergraduate (PLIxx) and five postgraduate (PLSxx) TUs accounting for a

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Figure 7. 2006 to 2007 student mean participation per TU (distinct days)

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28%

Tutors Activity (% pages visits)

total of 2,428 engaged students and 73 tutors. We calculated the distribution of access frequency of users at the day level during a period of 1 month. For each user, we recorded the number of distinct days during the month period that the user was active within the system (regardless of whether page visits indicated casual navigation, reads, or posts, or of whether the visited pages belonged to particular sections of that workspace). Reporting our results at the day level within a month was a choice made after careful deliberation of what might be considered as user participation in an academic context. That context was drawn from our tutoring experience. To highlight the rationale of our resolution choice, we urge the cautious reader to contemplate the differences between an academic and a news reading context: The latter context may well deliver access statistics of several sessions dispersed within a day for the same user. In the following diagrams we report mean participation expressed in visits as well as in days (as a function of tutor activity) to smooth the transition from reporting in terms of visits to reporting in terms of days. These figures serve to establish a baseline for our results for the 2006 to 2007 academic year, and we decided to report that baseline in the format we introduced previ-

ously in this article. Incidentally, they also record an overall improvement in portal usage by the groups that we have focused on. It is instructing to note that the two diagrams are very similar, with the only exception of two quite active TUs, PLI42 (with new users recording many page visits every day they visited) and PLS60 (with active tutors actually stirring up students to watch closely the collaboration space). The precise knowledge of the type of activity in a space would probably lead to a better analysis of the activity. Such knowledge could be of a qualitative or a quantitative nature. Qualitative issues could refer to whether a visit was mainly passive or active, whereas quantitative issues could refer to the actual duration of a visit. In any case, we believe that the total activity is an explicit indicator of systematic usage in a workspace because periodicity of usage is at least a hint that the user has indeed some benefit in visiting that space. We now turn to reporting the actual statistics. Let Pi (participation) indicate the number of distinct days (d) during a 30-day period that user i accessed the system (where 1≤i≤n, n is the numbers of users in a group and 1≤Pi≤30). Let Pm (mean participation) indicate the mean value of Pi and let P(d) indicate the probability that Pi =d (where d is the number of distinct days).

453

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

Table 1. TU

Members

Pm

Least Sq Pm

Test pdf

PLI10

877

5,9

5,5

Exp

PLI11

449

7,0

7,2

Exp

PLI12

424

4,1

3,5

Exp

PLI30

129

4,1

3,6

Exp

PLI31

126

7,4

8,7

H Norm

PLI42

100

8,9

9,6

H Norm

PLS51

84

6,9

7,2

H Norm

PLS50

147

15,5

15,7

Norm

PLS60

44

14,3

14,5

Norm

PLS61

34

17,1

17,6

Norm

PLS62

14

6,0

5,8

Exp

As we have already stated in the introduction of this article, the aim of studying the form of the P(d) distribution for each TU (user group) is the categorization of groups in maturity levels. Given this, we hope to be able to derive an estimate of the profile of each team by only knowing the total activity of the TU. To do that, we sought simple test probability distribution functions (henceforth test pdfs) that best fitted the actual distribution at hand. A first examination of the distributions led to the more analytic examination of three typical simple pdfs. Exponential F ( A, B, d ) =

1 A−d exp( ) B B

Half-Normal F ( A, B, d ) =

Normal F ( A, B, d ) =

1 B

2

1 d−A 2 exp( − ( ) ) 2 B

1 d−A 2 exp( − ( ) ) 2 B B 2 1

We selected these three simple distributions as our main goal is not to accurately fit the actual distributions, but to categorize each TU activity

454

instead. We used least squares to calculate the fit to the selected test pdf. Also, for each test pdf, we calculated a Pm(LeastSq) that minimized the sum of squares of the normalized residuals. The data for each of the eleven TUs are recorded in Table 1. We now delve into a more detailed description of each fit we observed. In the following diagrams, the actual distribution is recorded along with the distribution of the test function for the actual Pm value (and not for the Pm(LeastSq) value). For Pm values up to 6 (up to one visit per 5 days per user; see Figure 8), the distribution fits well an exponential one: 1 1− d exp( ). Pm Pm

For Pm values of 6 up to 8, the distribution gradually fits a half-normal distribution and gradually stops fitting an exponential one (see Figure 9). We believe that the exact value might also depend on the size of the group and the maturity of its members, and aim to examine this in more depth in the future. For Pm values larger than ~7 (one visit per 4 days per user; see Figure 10), the distribution fits well a half-normal one: 1 Pm

2

1 d −1 2 exp(− ( ) ). 2 Pm

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

Figure 8. Actual participation distribution and test pdf (PLI30 and PlI10, Exp) PLI30 Pm=4,1

30% 25%

PLI10, Pm=5,9

20% 16%

20%

12%

15% 8%

10%

4%

5%

0%

0% 1

4

7

1

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

4

7

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

Figure 9. Actual distribution and test pdf (PLI1, Exp; PLS51, H Normal) PLI11, Pm=7,0

16%

PLs51, Pm=6,9

14% 12%

12%

10% 8%

8%

6% 4%

4%

2%

0%

0%

1

4

7

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

1

For Pm values larger than 10 (at least one visit per 3 days per user; see Figure 11), the distribution tends to fit an almost uniform distribution, which, in turn, can be approximated by the almost-constant mid-upper part of a normal pdf: C 1 d −1 2 e( − ( ) ). Pm 2 Pm

•

However, since most active TUs correspond to small user groups, the distributions have a particularly saw-like form. Summarizing the findings, we have three clusters of TU activity:

•

•

Groups in an exponential phase have Pm < ~6 days per month. Therein, average participation is relatively sparse. Based on our

4

7

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

firsthand knowledge of how the TUs process in their day-to-day work, these are TUs in which a forum is not active and where the students occasionally visit the system to retrieve assignments and related, relatively static, material. Groups in a half-normal phase have ~7 < Pm < ~10 days per month. Therein, an active student forum and a relatively active tutor group are observed. Groups in a normal phase have ~10 < Pm < ~20 days per month. These are TUs with strong all-around activity and a high level of community (Brown, 2001). It is important to note that in this category, the distribution is almost constant (presenting a relatively high deviation from the mean value). Also

455

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

Figure 10. Actual distribution and test pdf (PL31 and PLI42, H Normal) PLI31, Pm=7,4

14%

PLI42, Pm=8,9

14%

12%

12%

10%

10%

8%

8%

6%

6%

4%

4%

2%

2% 0%

0% 1

4

7

1

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

4

7

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

Figure 11. Actual distribution and test pdf (PLS 50 and PLS61, Normal) PLs50, Pm=15,5

12%

6%

10%

5% 4%

8%

3%

6%

2%

4%

1%

2%

0%

0% 1

4

7

10

13 16

19

22 25

28

note that in the HOU context, the 20-days index can be safely considered as a realistic upper limit.

on observInG And resoLvInG AttItude Issues In coLLAborAtIon worKsPAces As earlier described, since HOU communication is traditionally based on e-mail and telephone, student attendance is nowhere obligatory (except for exams, of course). Furthermore, the tutor has a mainly supporting and advisory role. However, HOU students are mostly professionals who do not easily engage in activities that do not carry a direct practical profit. The emergence and the evolution of the collaboration spaces of TUs as

456

PLs61, Pm=17,1

14%

7%

1

4

7

10 13 16 19 22 25 28

communities of practice is closely linked to how much these can satisfactorily address the real needs of their users. We have noted several problems that may limit user engagement and participation. • •

•

Access problems (lack of basic skills and/ or adequate infrastructure) Lack of time (full-time or part-time employment and family matters may limit the availability of time to study to just some time chunks during weekends) Lack of apparent activity in the collaboration space by others, which is aggravated by physical isolation (Taplin, 2000)

A surprising finding (based on our intimate knowledge of the internal workings of groups)

Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

was that a postgraduate group had very low tutor activity because one of its most active tutors is strongly opposed to the use of collaboration technologies due to his strong preference for e-mail in the organization and carrying out of tutoring activities. This was, thus, a negative result. How does one counter such a negative stance? The answer might lie within deploying a symmetrically strong opposition. In particular, in another postgraduate group, one of the most active tutors strongly opposed the deployment of the portal-based collaboration spaces due to his strong preference for a then-existing open-source system for forum discussions. That opposition was unfortunately aggravated by several “teething” problems in the operation of the portal, at that time. It took a very focused and sustained contribution by at least one other tutor, in terms of generating fruitful discussions in the collaboration-place forum, to establish a culture of actually using the collaboration place for further work (coupled, of course, with increased system availability; Bhagyavati & Whitehead, 2005). As the portal gained credibility and opposition grew smaller, it turned out that group participation was sustained even if fruitful discussions were now forthcoming at a more relaxed pace compared to the initial phase.

we want our indices to be subsequently employed for identifying collaboration best practices at a large scale. There are a number of limitations in our approach. For example, we know that a small number of subgroups frequently engage in collaboration based on technologies that have not been integrated into our infrastructure, apart from e-mail (text or voice) chat mechanisms or virtual classrooms. Such collaboration statistics are much more difficult to collect reliably and we believe that this (pessimistically) skews our results. Our recent infrastructure upgrade that allows chat and meeting sessions to be organized tightly integrated with the collaboration software will increase the seamless availability of such services to our academic community and will also boost our ability to collect essential usage statistics. After all, we hope to use our detailed knowledge of the TUs that we focus on to progressively refine our indices to also reflect as accurately as possible the situation in all other TUs (currently at about 200) without requiring us to invest in understanding all of them. Not surprisingly, we are approaching the problem of the technology uptake in a rather conventional fashion, first trying several approaches on rather receptive users before applying the new concepts to more reluctant (even subconsciously) ones.

concLusIon And Further worK dIrectIons

AcKnowLedGMent

We have provided statistical evidence that links the maturity of the collaboration culture of study groups to the participation of the users, and we have explored the extent to which the activity of the tutors as expert users helps the student communities better adapt to an online environment. We have developed statistical indices to describe such maturity based on data that are readily available from typical server logs. This is crucial if

This article is an extended version of “Tracking User Participation in a Large Scale Team Collaboration Environment,” which was included in the proceedings of the First International Workshop on Building Technology Enhanced Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice, held in conjunction with the First European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (October 2, 2006).

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Profiling Group Activity of Online Academic Workspaces

reFerences Bhagyavati, S. K., & Whitehead, C. C. (2005). Using asynchronous discussions to enhance student participation in CS courses. Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education SIGCSE ’05, 37(1). Brown, R. E. (2001). The process of communitybuilding in distance learning classes. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2). Eurostat. (2006). News release 20/6/2006: The e-society in 2005. Retrieved from http://ec.europa. eu/eurostat/ Eurydice. (2004). Key data on information and communication technology in schools in Europe 2004 edition. Retrieved from http://www.eurydice.org

Hazari, S. (2004). Strategy for assessment of online course discussions. Journal of Information Systems Education, 15(4), 349-356. Savery, J. R., & Duffy, T. M. (1995). Problem based learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Educational Technology, 35(5), 31-38. Taplin, M. (2000). Problem-based learning in distance education: Practitioners’ beliefs about an action learning project. Distance Education, 21(2), 284-307. Xenos, M., Pierrakeas, C., & Pintelas, P. (2002). A survey on student dropout rates and dropout causes concerning the students in the Course of Informatics of the Hellenic Open University. Computers & Education, 39, 361-377.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 3, Issue 3, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 1-15, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.15

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System Mei-Yu Chang National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan Wernhuar Tarng National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan Fu-Yu Shin Chien-Kuo Elementary School, Taiwan

AbstrAct This study combined ideas from learning hierarchy and scaffolding theory to design a webbased, adaptive learning system to investigate the effectiveness of scaffolding for elementary school students having different levels of learning achievement. The topic chosen for learning was the Three States of Water. A quasi-experiment was conducted. In this experiment, students were divided into three groups: control group (without scaffolds), experimental group A (scaffolds providing by on-line conversation) and experimental group B (scaffolds providing by face-to-face conversation). The experimental results showed significant improvement for students after they

had studied using the web-based, adaptive learning system. Specifically, scaffolds in the form of face-to-face conversations greatly enhanced the learning of high-achievement students. However, there were no significant differences between the low-achievement students with or without the provision of scaffolds. It was also discovered that the web-based, adaptive learning system could help students develop their learning responsibility.

IntroductIon The purpose of science education is to provide students with scientific knowledge, concepts, attitudes and methods for application in their daily

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

lives. The role of a teacher is to assist students in learning and solving problems. At the beginning, students are usually interested in learning science, but to some extent, they lose it or become confused, especially when learning abstract concepts. The Three States of Water is a learning unit containing abstract and complicated concepts for elementary students. Use of the Internet and instructional technology can help teachers and students in many ways. It is easier for students to understand abstract concepts if their learning process is assisted by instructional technology. This study combined with ideas of learning hierarchy and scaffolding theory to the design of a web-based, adaptive learning system to improve the quality of webbased learning. The major purpose of this study was to investigate students’ learning via a web-based, adaptive learning system where scaffolds were provided to help the students to study the concept of the Three States of Water. This study also tried to find out whether students’ learning responsibility was being developed during their learning process. The concept of scaffolding is based on Vygotsky’s social constructivist view of learning (1978). Vygotsky proposed that there were two major factors, i.e., culture and social context, which influence learning. He claimed that every mental function in a child’s development first came from the social interaction with an adult. This kind of interaction provides a supportive environment in which children can extend their current knowledge and skills. The supported situation occurs in what Vygotsky referred to as the zone of proximal development. That is the area between what children can do independently and what they can do with assistance, such as they get from teachers and other students. The assistance that other people provide is a scaffold for a child. Given repeated experiences, children can internalize the supported situation of the mental processes, and can engage in them in new contexts (Clark & Graves, 2005).

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Two sources of knowledge are suggested by Vygotsky. The first is everyday knowledge, i.e., gut knowledge, instinctive knowledge and spontaneous knowledge. This type of knowledge is influenced by peer interaction, language and experience of the individual who tries to understand his or her environment. The second is from formal education in the classroom, which is called formal knowledge and it possesses strict logic and clear definitions. Therefore, learners construct meaningful knowledge through both their daily lives and school experiences. However, some scientific concepts are very abstract and difficult for students to grasp. In addition, they may often be influenced by different cultural and social environments. For example, the concept of “The sun rises in the east and falls in the west” generally exists in textbooks and daily communication, and students have this misconception before they are educated with formal knowledge. Students may think the experiences they have in daily life constitute their full knowledge base. Therefore, it is important for them to know if the knowledge they have received is formally right or not. According to scaffolding theory, teachers should hold continuous and active conversations with students to find out the possible levels of their potential development (where they are) and to control their learning environments (where they should be) by providing proper support to make the concepts they acquire consistent with scientists’ current definitions.

empirical studies on related topics Osbome and Cosgrove (1983) discovered in their study that students lacked the support of substantial scientific concepts when they explained changes in the states of water. The finding was that they had only superficial knowledge of the terms and expressions. For example, some students would think that a solid changing into a liquid will lose weight or condensation will

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

make particles more compacted. Bar and Travis (1991) investigated the concepts of liquid and gas as possessed by Israeli children and they found that most children had misconceptions about evaporation and condensation, suggesting that it was more difficult for the children to understand these abstract concepts. The curriculum for science and technology in elementary schools in Taiwan includes the learning about substances and energy, natural environments, ecological conservation and information technology. The learning unit chosen in this study was focused on the important concepts of the Three States of Water and changes such as solidification, melting, condensation and evaporation, because it is related directly or indirectly to most of the subjects mentioned above. Although most of the phenomena can widely be seen in our daily lives, students may still have misconceptions due to their own mis-understanding and mis-reasoning. After reviewing related research conducted in this area, the authors found that most children do have misconceptions about the states of water. Only a few of them think that vapor can also become water at a low temperature. Very few of them discover that wind blowing can make water evaporate more easily. Senior students in elementary schools know much about evaporation, but they know little about condensation as a formal scientific concept. Many children think condensation is solidification. In general, condensation is a more difficult concept than evaporation for students to understand. Most students do not know the white smoke above boiling water is a gas or vapor; they think of it as smoke. Again, some students believe the weight of water changes after it becomes ice. This study therefore designed diagnostic tools and adaptive learning mechanisms to correct the students’ misconceptions that often occur.

current status of Adaptive Learning Electronic Learning (or e-Learning), sometimes provided as online learning or web-based learning, means learning through digital content to reach the goal of learning anytime and anywhere. In general, e-Learning includes any means of delivering teaching materials through networks (Whittington, 2000). Since 1990, the Internet has developed rapidly. After the establishment of the World Wide Web (WWW), many educational websites emerged (Berge & Collins, 1995; Cahoon, 1998; Collis, 1996; Porter, 1997). Digital content may consist of multimedia as well as online interactions, allowing learners to play a more active role in the process of learning (Aivazidis, Lazaridou & Hellden, 2006). Learners’ locations are no longer limited to classrooms, and they can learn anytime they want. In addition to a variety of teaching materials, e-Learning has gradually become the most convenient way for students to access new information and knowledge. Since traditional ways of learning can not meeting the needs of individual learners, an increasing number of researches in adaptive learning systems have been conducted in recent years. An adaptive learning system can provide suitable contents for different learners according to their backgrounds, prior knowledge, individual demands and learning statuses (Papanikolaou et al. 2002). Atkinson (1976) suggested that an efficient instructional strategy must be adaptive. Therefore, an adaptive learning system must change instructional strategy according to learners’ situations during a learning process under teacher’s control to enhance learning and achieve the expected instructional objectives. Besides, the system can collect some features of learners and store them in certain learning modules, which can be used to provide suitable contents for different learners (Brusilovsky,1996).

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The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Web-based learning has become more and more popular today. A web-based learning system is accessible by a large number of students at the same time according to individual necessity and learning pace, and it is not limited by time or space. Therefore, it is suitable for the development of adaptive learning environments (Chang, 2005). According to Lin’s study (1998), an adaptive learning system can achieve the goal of teaching students according to their aptitudes in a normal class grouping environment, and it makes learning more active and efficient. A personalized web-based learning system was proposed by Chang et al. (2006) based on item response theory (IRT). The system was aimed at providing a suitable learning environment by considering the learning portfolios of content difficulty, learner’s ability and conceptual coherence. Lin and Kuo (2005) developed a virtual learning environment based on the theory of learning objects and constructivism. The learning contents and statuses of learners on the system can be individualized to achieve the goal of adaptive learning. Also, learners can cooperate in the inhabited virtual world to increase learning effectiveness during their learning processes. Because e-Learning systems are usually developed in accordance with learners’ requirement in terms of platforms, materials, presentation styles and virtual communities, it often occurs that some systems are only suitable for certain users. If a system is transferred to another environment, for some other people, tremendous manpower and costs must be spent in making changes (Dodds, 2001a; 2001b). To solve this problem, international standard organizations have specified e-Learning standards. E-Learning systems such as SCORM, AICC, IEEE, IMS, IEEELOM, ARIADNE, and Microsoft promulgate these standards (Hodgins & Conner, 2000). Among them, SCORM has now become an important standard for e-Learning content (Chang, Hsu, Smith & Wang, 2004). Learning contents that conform to SCORM standards have reusable and sharable features.

462

However, there are still some disadvantages, such as complicated definitions for the rules of learning activity and huge frameworks for learning contents, making it difficult to manage, reuse and combine these with traditional educational theories. E-Learning does need a good system to support online services, such as course design, learning resource delivery, integration of courses and teaching methods (Suthers, Johnson & Tillinghast, 2002), etc. For this reason, the Graduate School of Online Learning Applications, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan developed their Object Oriented Learning Activity System (OOLAS) based on the standards of SCORM, Learning Design Specification, Knowledge Tree and Multibook. In the SCORM standards, most metadata models were used to define learning materials (Su, Tseng, Lin & Lu, 2005). Chang et al. proposed in their study (2004) a metadata model to define online assessment. OOLAS is composed of an authoring system and a learning system. In addition to a simple process for editing materials, it presents the contents of curricula easily and allows teachers to plan related programs to assist students with learning effectively. OOLAS also allows teachers to design the related tests of concepts. In this study, the authors used OOLAS to develop a web-based, adaptive learning system that was integrated with scaffolding to improve the learning efficiency of students. They also developed teaching materials for the concepts of the Three States of Water. The system modules were: diagnostic tools, a test-item database, adaptive learning modules and learning contents for the scientific concepts in the Three States of Water (Figure 1). The diagnostic tools were designed using two-tiered test items to identify the prior misconceptions of students. After detecting their misconceptions, an adaptive learning module was initiated by a rule-based inference engine to generate individualized learning content for

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Figure 1. The operation of the web-based, adaptive learning system Misconceptions Diagnostic Tools Adaptive Learning Contents

students according to the particular misconceptions of the particular student.

reseArch desIGn This study was conducted using a quasi-experimental design. A total of 200 students belonging to two elementary schools in Taipei County were chosen for the experiment. The authors divided the students into a control group and experimental groups to investigate the learning of students with or without scaffolds. The authors also measured the changes in their learning responsibility after the e-Learning. For the control group, the students studied using the web-based, adaptive learning system by themselves without the provision of any scaffolds. For the experimental groups, the students could ask teachers for help if they had questions during the learning processes and after the diagnostic tests. There were two experimental groups, provided with scaffolds in different ways. For experimental group A, the scaffolds were provided in the form of online conversation between the teachers and students. For experimental group B, the scaffolds were provided in the form of face-to-face conversations between the teachers and students. For both media of communication, teachers provided scaffolds by discussing with the students to find out their problems and correct their misconceptions.

research Procedure This study selected the Three States of Water as the topic of learning. Therefore, the authors first

Test-Item Database

Adaptive Learning Modules

Learning Content Database

analyzed the related concepts covered by textbooks of elementary schools, and then developed a learning hierarchy according to these concepts. Based on the learning hierarchy, the authors used the diagnostic tools of the web-based, adaptive learning system to find out the misconceptions of students. The authors developed the adaptive learning modules by using a rule-based inference engine to provide remedial instructions for students according to a categorization of the types of their misconceptions. After that, the authors conducted a quasi-experiment to find out the influence of scaffolding on students when they were learning using the system.

research samples The samples in this study were 5th and 6th grade students, randomly selected from two elementary schools in Taipei County. Because these students had already taken computer courses during their 3rd grade year, by the time of this experiment, they had two to three years of experience in using computers and the Internet. This reduced the influence of computer skills on the effectiveness of e-Learning. As stated, the students were divided into the control group (without scaffolds) and the experimental groups (with scaffolds). The experimental groups consisted of group A (providing scaffolds via online conversation) and group B (providing scaffolds via face-to-face conversation). According to a pretest, students with scores above the first 50% were classified as high achievement students while the remaining 50% were classified as low achievement students. In the

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The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Table 1. The number of students in each group Content

Three States of Water

Groups

Scaffolds

Achievement

Number of Students

High

33

Low

33

Control Group

None

Experimental Group A

Online Conversation

High

33

Low

32

Experimental Group B

Face-to-Face Conversation

High

35

Low

34

Total Number of Students

control group, there were 33 high-achievement students and 33 low-achievement students, making a total of 66 students. In the experimental group A, there were 33 high-achievement students and 32 low-achievement students, making a total of 65 students. In the experimental group B, there were 35 high-achievement students and 34 low-achievement students, making a total of 69 students (as listed in Table 1).

diagnostic tools The questions to diagnose misconceptions about the Three States of Water in this study were modified from the paper-based test questions designed by Chang (2003), who analyzed the misconceptions that students in elementary schools often have. Since two-tier test items have been used widely and efficiently in discovering misconceptions and conceptual changes (Tsai & Chou, 2002), the authors thus used them to develop the diagnostic tools based on the empirical study of Lin (1995). The authors consulted three science teachers and two experts in science education about the validity of the test items and diagnostic tools. Finally, the two-tier test items were uploaded and stored in the test-item bank by using authoring tools of the system. An example of the two-tiered question follows: There are two identical wet towels. One is spread and the other is folded. Which one do you think will dry first?

464

200

Answer: (A) Folded one. (B) Both at the same time. (C) Spread one. (D) I don’t know. Explain your reason:.

Pretest and Posttest Limited by the sampling method and number of samples, we adopted a non-equivalent group pretest-posttest design in our experiment, and adjusted the difference in students’ background using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to investigate the influence of scaffolding on the students with different levels of achievement. The questions in the pretest and posttest were designed based on the learning contents and related concepts of the Three States of Water. The reliability of the achievement test was verified by an internal-consistency reliability test with Cronbach α=0.71. After removing the inappropriate questions, there were 113 multiple-choice questions left. Among them, 37 questions were selected to form the pretest and posttest, and the remaining questions were used as diagnostic test items. The scores of the pretest were used to measure the students’ levels of achievement. The questions in the posttest were similar to that of the pretest, enabling the authors to compare the experimental and control group results. An example of a question follows: Which of the following is the correct description for the speed of evaporation? (A) The more

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

humid the environment is, the faster the evaporation is. (B) The hotter the environment is, the faster the evaporation is. (C) The more airtight the environment is, the faster the evaporation is.

Measurement of Learning responsibility In this study, the authors used a questionnaire to measure the development of self-learning responsibility after the web-based learning. The questionnaire was developed by the researchers and verified by three elementary school teachers and two experts in the research area of science education. It contained 18 questions. Each question had five scales in its answer: 5 points for very likely, 4 points for likely, 3 points for no opinion, 2 points for not likely, and 1 point for not likely at all (as shown in Appendix I). This is an indicator for the degree of development of the students’ learning responsibility. All questions in this measurement were positive-response designed. Thus, the more points a student gained, the more responsible and active he or she was in learning. The reliability of this measurement was verified by testing on 32 6th grade students and the total internal consistency was calculated as Cronbach α=0.89.

InstructIonAL desIGn The principle of instructional design in this study was based on Gagne’s learning hierarchy (1985). The major concepts of the Three States of Water were analyzed to form a hierarchical diagram. The learning hierarchy was constructed according to competence indicators for the curriculum of science and technology in elementary schools in Taiwan. For example, the concepts of the Three States of Water are based on solidification, melting, evaporation and condensation. Deeper, the concept of solidification contains the lower-level

concepts of water changing from liquid to solid, increasing volume, and mass conservation. Because condensation, solidification, melting and evaporation are the major concepts for the Three States of Water in elementary science courses, a number of teaching activities were designed to introduce these concepts. The authors encoded all concepts in the learning hierarchy by number to simplify the diagnostic sequences. A student with a misconception at a high level implies that he or she may have misconceptions at lower levels and thus requires further diagnostic processes. Generally, the higher the hierarchical level is, the smaller the number is. For example, the highest-level concept is “three states of water”, which was encoded as 1. The secondlevel concepts are “solidification”, “melting”, “evaporation”, “condensation”, and which were encoded as 2, 3, 4, and 5. The concept of “solidification” (2) contains the lower-level concepts of water changing from “liquid to solid” (6), “mass conservation” (7), and “increasing volume” (8) as shown in Figure 2. Because experiments and observation are very important for the establishment of scientific concepts, the authors designed several online experiments to simulate the phenomena of the Three States of Water to help students develop their scientific concepts (Figure 3). The experiments were designed using Flash to provide an interactive user interface, animations for the simulation of the phenomena and concepts in the Three States of Water. In this study, there were four lessons for all students to complete. After each one, the students did a diagnostic test to see if they had completely understood the scientific concepts. The design of diagnostic tests followed the sequence of solidification, melting, evaporation and condensation. After students had completed a learning activity, they were directed to the diagnostic tests to see if their understanding about the related concepts was correct. If the concepts of students were valid

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The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Figure 2. Hierarchy of scientific concepts in the three states of water 1 2 6

7

3 8

9

4 10

5 11

12

13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 26

27

28

29

30

34 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

three states of water solidification melting evaporation condensation liquid to solid mass conservation increasing volume mass conservation solid to liquid liquid to gas

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

evaporation speed gas to liquid liquid water solid water decreasing temperature freezing point liquid water solid water increasing temperature

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

33

32

31

25

35

36

temperature convection relative temperature Gaseous water is invisible. decreasing temperature achromatic tasteless without fixed shape achromatic

30. tasteless 31. without fixed shape 32. evaporation absorbing heat 33. steam in the air 34. evaporation at room temperature 35. Heating speeds up evaporation. 36. Heating causes water to evaporate.

Figure 3. The online experiments incorporated in the learning content

according to the diagnostic results, they could keep on learning the remaining concepts. Otherwise, the students had to proceed with remedial instruction to correct their misconceptions. For example, if students passed the tests on the concept of solidification, they could move to the next stage to start the learning activities on the concept of condensation. Otherwise, they

466

were directed to the remedial instructions for the correction of previous misconceptions, followed by formative evaluations to guarantee the conceptual changes had been internalized. When all misconceptions were corrected after remedial learning activities, they could start learning the contents for the next stage (Figure 4).

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Figure 4. Learning diagnosis design of the system

Diagnosis of other Concepts

Remedial Instructions

resuLts And dIscussIons The major purpose of this experiment was to investigate students’ learning enhancement on the web-based, adaptive learning system and the development of learning responsibility after the e-Learning. In addition, the learning statuses of students, such as misconceptions and conceptual changes, were also studied by analyzing learning records. Students’ scores in the pretest and posttest were analyzed using statistical software SPSS to calculate the mean and standard deviation for each group.

Learning effectiveness Based on the analysis of the T-test, all students performed very well on the web-based, adaptive learning system, no matter whether they were high-achievement (t=7.27, p<0.01) or low-achievement (t=13.63, p<0.01) students. This revealed that the system was efficient for students in learning the concepts in the Three States of Water. Based on the analysis of distribution in students’ misconceptions, over 70% of the students had valid concepts about melting before learning activities. However, there were also 65% of the students with misconceptions about condensation so that they spent more time in the related remedial instruction. According to the results of the T-test, we found the students made significant progress

Next Stage

Incorrect Concepts

Correct Concepts

Learning Diagnosis

Teaching Activity

Correct Concepts

Formative Evaluations in the areas of solidification (t=2.37, p<0.05), evaporation (t=2.98, p<0.05), and condensation (t=2.57, p<0.05). Besides, the results showed that more students understood the concept of evaporation than that of condensation, which agreed with the results of the studies by Lin (1995), Lai (1994) and Chang (1997). Because the teaching materials were designed based on Gagne’s notion of learning hierarchy (1985), it was effective for learning the concepts in the Three States of Water. Also, the web-based, adaptive learning system was useful for teachers in reducing the workload, while increasing the learning effectiveness of the students. According to the diagnostic results, students could go immediately through remedial instructions to correct their misconceptions. It could also solve the problem of insufficient teachers to provide feedback for individual students. Besides, through the records of learning processes, it was easy to know the status of each student and provide appropriate support.

high-Achievement students The effective samples of the high-achievement students contained 29 students in the control group, 31 students in the experimental group A, and 32 students in the experimental group B. Using ANCOVA, the homogeneity of the regression slope was tested ( f=0.32, p>0.05), indicating that

467

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Table 2. ANCOVA summary data of the high-achievement students Source

S.S.

DF

MS

F

Sig.

Pretest

76.73

1

76.73

12.04**

0.01

Deviation

105.14

2

52.57

8.25**

0.01

Error

560.68

88

6.37

Sum

75114.00

92

**p<0.01

Table 3. Post-hoc analysis on the posttest of high-achievement students Comparison

Standard Error

Experimental Group B

vs.

Experimental Group A

2.59

0.65

Experimental Group B

vs.

Control Group

1.46

0.64

Experimental Group A

vs.

Control Group

-1.12

0.67

the homogeneity assumption was met. After the ANCOVA analysis, the results showed that there were significant differences among these three groups. Table 2 shows the provision of scaffolds had a significant impact on the learning effectiveness of high-achievement students ( f=12.04, p<0.01). It also reveals that the high-achievement students had different learning effectiveness in the three groups with deviation in the provision of scaffolds ( f=8.25, p<0.01). The post-hoc analysis revealed that the highachievement students in the experimental group B had better learning effectiveness than those in the control group and experimental group A. In addition, Table 3 shows no significant difference between the high-achievement students in the control group and experimental group A. According to the above results, it can be discovered that providing the scaffold of face-toface interactions between teachers and students was better than that of online interactions for the high-achievement students. For the students in experimental group A, the support of teachers did not assist them too much because the scaffold provided was in the form of online conversation. It was not so effective because

468

Mean Difference

the teachers might not understand the student s’ difficulties during the processes of web-based learning, especially when the students had some misconceptions. However, in the face-to-face conversation, the teachers could understand the students’ misconceptions and then decide what kind of support to provide. That is why the learning effectiveness was significantly increased.

Low-Achievement students The effective samples of the low-achievement students consisted of 28 students in the control group, 31 students in the experimental group A, and 31 students in the experimental group B. Using ANCOVA, the homogeneity of the regression slope was tested ( f=0.27, p>0.05), indicating that the homogeneity assumption was met. Through the analysis of ANCOVA, the authors were able to investigate the influences of different approaches on low-achievement students. The deviation F value caused by the independent variables (scaffold-provision difference) was 0.51 (p>0.05), which did not reach the degree of significance. The results in Table 4 show that the learning of

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

Table 4. ANCOVA summary data of the low-achievement students Source

S.S.

DF

MS

F

Sig.

Pretest

299.26

1

299.26

24.84

0.01

Deviation

12.33

2

6.17

0.51

0.60

Error

1036.33

86

12.05

Sum

65606.00

90

scientific concepts by low-achievement students was not affected by the provision of scaffolds. From the above results, it can be implied that the learning effect of low-achievement students was not influenced by the provision of scaffolds in e-Learning processes, meaning that no matter whether scaffolds were provided or not and regardless of the forms of scaffolds, there was no significant difference in the learning effectiveness of low-achievement students. According to the above results, it is better for teachers to provide the high-achievement students with face-to-face conversations instead of online discussions. However, providing either scaffold could not help low-achievement students improve further because they all made a remarkable progress in the posttest, meaning that the web-based, adaptive learning system was very effective for low-achievement students and scaffolding was not a factor in influencing their learning.

development of Learning responsibility Another objective of this study was to find out if the web-based, adaptive learning system could help students develop their responsibility for selflearning. There were 18 questions to measure the development of learning responsibility, and the score for each question was from 1 to 5 according to the agreement with the answer. A higher score meant more responsibility was established by the student, and vice versa. The results showed that both levels of students (t=2.82, p<0.01), no matter whether they

were high-achievement (t=2.93, p<0.01) or lowachievement (t=2.71, p<0.01), reached statistical significance in the comparison of the pretest and posttest. More precisely, the students raised their sense of self-responsibility as a result of e-Learning. E-Learning is different from traditional ways of learning. Given well-organized teaching materials and learning activities, students were more aware of their learning conditions and therefore could do better by themselves to obtain knowledge. Therefore, the e-Learning process was helpful for the development of students’ learning responsibility. They could follow the directions to study by themselves and make their schedules to complete the learning activities. For both types of students, the difference was that the low-achievement students preferred to find the answers by themselves, while the high-achievement students wanted to ask teachers for help when they had problems. In both ways, they performed well on the web-based, adaptive learning system. After the experiment, the authors conducted some semi-structural interviews with a few students to understand their ideas about the web-based, adaptive learning system and its performance. The interview results are summarized as: I like the way of web-based learning, because I can also do it by myself at home. I can stop somewhere and repeat studying for several times until I can fully understand the concepts. However, I cannot do it that way in

469

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

classrooms because I am afraid to ask teachers to slow down their teaching. Web-based learning is more efficient in raising my learning motivation than traditional classroom learning does. The web-based, adaptive learning system can point out my misconceptions and help me correct them. I can operate the system easily, so I am not afraid of it. I can learn the concepts of the three states of water efficiently on the system. Learning on the system is very interesting. I wish teachers in other classes (could) also use the same way in their teaching. The authors also asked the teachers who were involved in this experiment for their opinions, and they were satisfied with the system because it provided a convenient interface for teachers to design the teaching activities and edit the learning contents. Besides, the system could help teachers identify the misconceptions of students and direct them to suitable learning content to enhance their learning effectiveness. Therefore, it could save teachers’ time and effort in providing remedial instructions for individual students.

concLusIon In this study, a web-based, adaptive learning system was designed to investigate the effectiveness of scaffolding on elementary school students with different levels of learning achievement. This study was conducted using a quasi-experimental design and the contents for learning were the scientific concepts of the Three States of Water. According to the experimental results, the findings are:

470

The web-based, adaptive learning system is effective in helping students acquire the concepts of the Three States of Water. For the high-achievement students, providing scaffolds in the form of face-to-face conversation could significantly enhance the learning effectiveness, which is better than using online interactions or without provision of scaffolds. However, there was no significant difference for the low-achievement students with or without the provision of scaffolds, since they all performed well on the web-based, adaptive learning system. For both types of students, their learning responsibility was significantly improved in the web-based learning environment. The design of the web-based, adaptive learning system in this study was based on the notion of scaffolding theory and Gagne’s learning hierarchy. Because the system provided diagnostic mechanisms in the entire learning processes, it was assumed that the students passing the diagnostic tests would not have any misconceptions. However, the results in posttest showed that some students still had misconceptions about the material. Therefore, teachers should not rely on the diagnostic tools completely. They should use some other assessment tools to see if the students’ concepts were correct or not, and then provide appropriate feedback to correct the misconceptions. If the use of teaching materials and diagnostic tools on the system can be easily transferred to other systems, it will increase the sharing among schools to help more students learn effectively. Moreover, advances in computer and network technologies make it easier for students to learn through networks, and this reduces the workload of teachers in helping students solve their problems. This study was quantitatively oriented so that it might not be enough to discover the details of students’ learning statuses and the process of conceptual changes. Future studies can be focused on qualitative methods to understand students’ behavior while learning.

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

AcKnowLedGMent The authors would like to thank for the financial support of the National Science Council of the Republic of China under the contract number NSC 92-2524-S-134-006.

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Chang, S. L.(2005). Applying characteristics described system to diagnosis of e-learning. Master thesis, Department of Information and Computer Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chung-Li, Taiwan. Chang, W., Hsu, H., Smith, T. K. & Wang, C. (2004). Enhancing SCORM metadata for assessment authoring in e-Learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20, 305-316. Clark, K. F. & Graves, M. F. (2005). Scaffolding students’ comprehension of text. The Reading Teacher, 58(6), 570-580.

Atkinson, R. C. (1976). Adaptive instructional systems: some attempts to optimize the learning process. In D. Klahr (Ed.), Cognition and instruction. New York: Wiley.

Chen, C. M, Liu, C. Y. & Chang, M. H. (2006). Personalized curriculum sequencing utilizing modified item response theory for web-based instruction. Expert Systems with Applications, 30(2), 378-396.

Bar, V. & Travis, A. S. (1991). Children’s views concerning phase changes. Journal of Research in Science Education, 18, 363-382.

Collis, B. (1996). Tele-learning in digital world: The future of distance learning. New York: International Thomson Computer Press.

Berge, Z. & Collins, M. P. (Eds.) (1995). Computer-mediated communications and the online classroom, Vol. III: Distance Learning. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Dodds, P. (2001a). Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) Version 1.2 Technical Report. The SCORM content aggregation Model, Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, URL:

Brusilovsky, P. (1996). Methods and techniques of adaptive hypermedia. User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction, 6(2-3), 87-129. Cahoon, B. (1998). New directions for adult and continuing education, Summer, No. 78. Adult Learning and the Internet. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chang, C. (1997). A study on the concepts of evaporation, condensation and boiling by senior students in elementary schools. Chinese Journal of Science Education, 5(3), 321-346. Chang, K. (2003). A research on the concepts of states of water. Master thesis, National Pingtung Teachers College, Pingtung, Taiwan.

http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=SCOR-Down

[last accessed 20 November 2003] Dodds, P. (2001b). Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) Version 1.2 Technical Report. The SCORM Run-Time Environment, Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, URL: http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=SCOR-Down

[last accessed 20 November 2003] Gagne, R. M. (1985). The conditions of learning and theory of instruction. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Hodgins, W. & Conner, M. (2000). Everything you ever wanted to know about learning standards but were afraid to ask. LiNE Zine, URL:

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Lai, H. C. (1994). Children’s concepts of water cycle and the forms of substances. Master thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan. Lin, C. H. (1998). The study of individual differences and automated learning strategies in hypertext learning environment. Journal of National Hsinchu Teachers College, 11, 1-14. Lin, C. S. & Kuo, M. S. (2005, July 5-8). Adaptive networked learning environments using learning objects, learner profiles and inhabited virtual learning worlds. The 5th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Lin, S. (1995). A study on students’ concepts of evaporation and condensation in elementary schools. Technical report, National Science Council, Taipei, Taiwan. Osbome, R. J. & Cosgrove, M. M. (1983). Children's conception of changes of state of water. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27, 825-838. Papanikolaou, K., Grigoriadou, M., Magoulas, G. D. & Kornilakis, H. (2002). Towards new forms of knowledge communication: the adaptive dimension of a web-based learning environment. Computers and Education, 39, 333-360.

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Porter, L. R. (1997). Creating the virtual classroom: Distance learning with the Internet. New York: John Wiley. Su, J. M., Tseng, S. S., Lin, H. Y. & Lu, C. Y. (2005, May 6-7). The development of an object-oriented learning activities system. Taiwan e-Learning Forum 2005, Taipei, Taiwan. Suthers, D., Johnson, S. & Tillinghast, B. (2002). Learning object meta-data for a database of elementary and secondary school resources. Interactive Learning Environments. 9, 273-289. Tsai, C. & Chou, C. (2002). Diagnosing students’ alternative conceptions in science through a networked two-tier test system. International Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18 (2), 157-165. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Whittington, D. (2000). Evaluating three years’ use of virtual university. Quality Assurance in Education, 8(1), 48-52.

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding in a Web-Based, Adaptive Learning System

APPendIx: A QuestIonnAIre to MeAsure the deveLoPMent oF LeArnInG resPonsIbILIty 5. Not likely at all

4. Not likely

3. No opinion

2. Likely

Grade: □5th Grade □6th Grade

1. Very likely

Dear students, The following is a questionnaire to measure the establishment of learning responsibility after web-based, adaptive learning. It is not a test and there are no standard answers. Please read the following questions carefully, and put a check mark inside the space to represent your opinion regarding each question.

Sex: □Boy □Girl

1.

In the process of learning, I often finish all learning activities by myself.

2.

In the process of learning, I know clearly whether or not I have understood all learning contents taught in class.

3.

In the process of learning, I would look for the answers actively to prove that my ideas are correct.

4.

In the process of learning, I would join the discussion among my classmates actively.

5.

When discussing with my classmates, I could judge whose ideas are correct.

6.

I consider that learning is my own responsibility no matter if the result is good or bad.

7.

In the process of learning, I usually doubt if my own ideas are correct or not.

8.

If I have difficulty in learning, I will ask for help actively when my teacher does not assist me.

9.

In the process of learning, I would check on myself to see if my ideas are correct.

10.

I know clearly how to learn in class.

11.

If I have difficulty in learning, I will ask for help actively when my classmates do not assist me.

12.

In the process of learning, I would often request myself to learn more conscientiously.

13.

During the in-class discussion, I often doubt if the ideas of teachers or classmates are correct or not.

14.

When I have doubts about the ideas of teachers or classmates, I would search for the answers to prove if they are correct or not.

15.

I would rather find the answers to my questions than have my teachers or classmates help me.

16.

After school, I do a self test to see if I have learned whatever was taught in class.

17.

I think I have to learn actively and positively in order to understand the materials taught in class.

18.

I make my own learning schedule and follow it accurately.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 1, edited by E. M.W. Ng; N. Karacapilidis; M. S. Raisinghani, pp. 1-15, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.16

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning:

Collaborative-Constructivist Approaches Zehra Akyol Middle East Technical University, Turkey D. Randy Garrison University of Calgary, Canada

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

The adult education literature emphasizes community building in order to increase effectiveness and success of online teaching and learning. In this chapter the Community of Inquiry Framework that was developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) has been introduced as a promising theory for adult learning in online environments. The chapter discusses the potential of the CoI framework to create effective adult online learning communities by utilizing the research findings from an online course. Overall, the research findings showed that students had positive attitudes toward the community developed in the course and that their perception of constituting elements of the community of inquiry was significantly related to perceived learning and satisfaction.

The advances in information and communication technologies, changing needs of individuals, and globalization are the influencing forces for all societal endeavors - including adult learning (Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). Training and degree programs and other continuing educational opportunities for adults are increasing. In today’s world, learning occurs for adults in a variety of settings from formal institutional settings such as college or university to non-formal and informal contexts such as home or community at different times and for different purposes (Selwyn, 2006; Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). However, adults are busy people and they have pressing responsibilities that often restrict participation in these learning environments. The main obstacle identified by adults is the lack of time, mainly due

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch006

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Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

to work or family reasons (OECD, 2005; Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). For these reasons, online learning environments have a growing interest and potential for widening access to education for adult learners. Growing interest in online learning has shifted the research from its technical aspects to more pedagogical concerns (Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). Adult educators are now giving increased attention to designing online learning environments to meet adult learner needs, expectations, and maximizing its potential. Poorly designed online learning environments often result in unsuccessful or unsatisfactory educational experiences. DuCharme-Hansen and Dupin-Bryant (2005) indicate that problems with technology, instructor direction, building community, facilitating communication, or humanizing learning can sabotage educational efforts. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a community of inquiry develops and progresses for adult learners in terms of their perceived learning and satisfaction. The Community of Inquiry framework was used to guide this research in an adult online learning environment. The potential of the framework to illuminate adult learning in an online environment is also discussed in the context of the results of this study.

bAcKGround Merriam, Cafarella and Baumgartner (2007) classify adult learning theories into 3 groups as western theories, eastern theories, and modern approaches. They indicate that western theories are more individualistic with an emphasis on freedom and independence, whereas eastern theories are more collectivistic with an emphasis on belonging, harmony and family. For example, self-directed learning and andragogy claim that people learn on their own as they mature (Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). Others have gone further in proposing that self-direction in learning is the

distinguishing characteristic of adult learning (Knowles, 1973; Brookfield, 1986). On the other hand, examples of eastern theories such as the Confucian way of thinking, Hindu perspective, or Islamic perspective emphasize interdependence instead of independence. The assumption of traditional western adult learning theories is currently being challenged by eastern and modern theories (Mackeracher, 1996). The transition from traditional western theories to modern adult learning approaches indicates the shift from seeing learning as an individual activity to a more collaborative activity. In recent years, adult educators began to emphasize constructivist approaches and community building for more effective adult learning environments. Merriam, Cafarrella and Baumgartner (2007) claim that some aspects of constructivism can be found in adult learning theories such as active inquiry or the central role of experience. Garrison and Archer (2000) also emphasize a constructivist and collaborative approach in adult and higher education. It is argued here that constructivist approaches and community are necessary to create and confirm meaning and are essential to achieve effective critical thinking and self-directed learning. Building a community to facilitate critical thinking is important because “construction of meaning may result from individual critical reflection but ideas are generated and knowledge constructed through the collaborative and confirmatory process of sustained dialogue within a critical community of learners” (Garrison & Archer, 2000, p. 91). Yorks and Kasl (2002) discuss the potential of collaborative inquiry to be a theory of adult learning. The authors state that collaborative inquiry provides a systematic structure for learning from experience. Learners organize themselves in small purposeful groups to solve a question and construct new meaning by engaging in cycles of reflection and action while evoking multiple ways of knowing and addressing validity problems. Moreover, Vella (2002) points out that learning is enhanced by peers who have similar experiences. They can

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Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

challenge one another in ways a teacher can not and create a safe environment for the learner who is struggling with complex concepts, skills or attitudes. Besides constructing knowledge, Bruffee (1999) identifies the function of collaborative groups in terms of a shared classroom. A shared classroom experience has a motivational aspect in that “when learners are deeply engaged, working in small groups or teams, it is often difficult to extricate them from the delight of that learning” (Vella, 2002, p. 25). With an emphasis on critical thinking (i.e., reflection) and collaboration, a coherent theory that has attracted considerable attention in online learning research is the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). The Community of Inquiry framework was developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) as a guide and methodology to study the complex dynamics of online learning. The assumption is that a worthwhile educational experience occurs within the community through the interaction of three core elements: teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence (see Figure 1). It could be said that the framework exists between the interplay of western and eastern theories with the overlap between cognitive independence and social interdependence. The underlying foundational perspective of the framework is a collaborative constructivist view of teaching and learning (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). Collaborative constructionism is in essence the recognition of the interplay between individual meaning and socially redeeming knowledge. The first element of the framework is the development of cognitive presence, which Garrison, Anderson & Archer (2001) define as “the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication.” Cognitive presence is the interplay between reflection and discourse in the initiation, construction and confirmation of meaningful learning outcomes. Cognitive presence is operationally

476

defined through the Practical Inquiry model that consists of four phases: triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution. Indicators for each of these categories have been developed to aide in coding for cognitive presence (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). If a deep and meaningful learning outcome is the goal of an educational experience, then an understanding of cognitive presence is a priority (Garrison, 2003). Teaching presence includes designing and managing learning sequences, providing subject matter expertise, and facilitating active learning. It is defined as ‘the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes’ (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison & Archer, 2001). Indicators for each of the categories have been developed for the purposes of coding for teaching presence in online transcripts (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). Garrison and Anderson (2003) emphasize the critical role of teaching presence to create a community of inquiry that includes both cognitive and social presence. Collaborative activities are grounded in features of voluntary learning and respect for participants (Brookfield, 1987). Consistent with this, the third element of the framework, social presence, is essential in setting the climate for learning activities. The definition of social presence has been updated recently by Garrison (in press) as “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities.” Indicators for social presence categories (open communication, cohesion, affective/interpersonal) were used to code the transcripts (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). Garrison and Anderson (2003) argue that social presence is an important antecedent to collaboration and critical discourse. Social presence supports cognitive objectives through its ability to instigate, sustain, and support critical think-

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

Figure 1. Community of inquiry model

ing in a community of learners. Each element of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has been substantially studied in different contexts by many researchers. However, there are few studies that have concurrently examined the dynamics of the three elements of the framework, either qualitatively or qualitatively (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Previous studies explored students’ perception of a community of inquiry and its elements and their impact on learning and perceived satisfaction (e.g. Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 1999; Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2001; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Meyer, 2003; Vaughan & Garrison, 2005; Shea, Li & Pickett, 2006; Hwang & Arbaugh, 2006). Satisfaction is an important variable that has been studied to evaluate the effectiveness of online learning communities. One of the critical questions regarding the effectiveness is how online learning opportunities can provide a consistent level of satisfaction for students (Allen, Burrell,

Timmerman, Bourhis & Mabry, 2007). Garrison, Cleveland-Innes and Fung (2004) claim that when all three elements (social, cognitive, and teaching presence) of a learning community are integrated harmoniously in a way that supports critical discourse and reflection, then satisfaction and success result. Introduction of the CoI framework provided order to exploring how a community of inquiry is created and develops in an adult education context. We now describe the design and methodology of the study.

Methodology A graduate course given in the fall term of 2007 was the focus of this study. The topic of the course was blended learning. The CoI framework not only provided the methodological framework but provided the structure for the content of the course (Akyol & Garrison, 2008). That is, it addressed

477

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

issues of social, cognitive and teaching presence in terms of a blended learning approach. The course was delivered fully online using asynchronous and synchronous formats (i.e., Blackboard and Elluminate). Learning activities, strategies and assessment techniques were all developed to reflect social, cognitive and teaching presence. The major assignments were article critiques and peer reviews, weekly online discussions, and prototype course redesign projects. In the first online discussion, the instructor modeled how to facilitate the discussion in an effective way. In order to distribute teaching presence among students and teacher, students were responsible to facilitate and direct the online discussions in each of the remaining weeks. Distribution of teaching presence through student moderation can attenuate the authoritative influence of a teacher and encourage freer discussion (Rourke & Anderson, 2002). The final assignment was a course redesign project where students incorporated understandings from the discussions. It was assumed that development and progression of a community of inquiry will vary and the elements will have differing influences on learning and satisfaction over time. Therefore, the aim was to explore how the community of inquiry develops for adult learners as well as how the community of inquiry supports and moves adult learning toward intend goals.

Participants There were sixteen students enrolled in the course. Fifteen students responded to the student consent form and accepted to participate in the study. Table 1 shows the summary of demographic information of the students obtained through the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Survey (Swan, Richardson, Ice, Garrison, Cleveland-Innes, & Arbaugh, 2008). There were six male and nine female students who completed the survey. The demographic data shows that all the students were over 30 years of age. Six students lived in the city

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of the university while most of the students lived in other cities and other states. One student lived in another country. All the students were enrolled in a Master of Education graduate program. At the same time, all the students were part or full-time working adults. There were teachers in K-12 or high school, instructors at colleges, and instructional designers. Most of the students (12) had previous online/blended learning experience and some of them (8) had taken all their previous graduate courses in online/blended environments. Only three students had not taken an online or blended course before. With regard to their computer skills, six students indicated that they had intermediate computer skills while nine of them had advanced computer skills.

Data Collection and Analysis Three sources of data were used to explore the research question – transcript analysis, interviews, and the CoI Survey. Transcript analysis was applied in order to code and explore posting patterns of social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence based on category indicators defined in the CoI framework (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). The first author and a research assistant analyzed the transcripts by applying a negotiated coding approach (Garrison, Cleveland-Innes, Koole & Kappelman, 2006). The researchers coded two discussion transcripts of a previous online course to get experience and gain familiarity with the process. In the negotiated approach, the researchers coded transcripts and then actively discussed their respective codes to arrive at a final assessment of the code. Negotiation provided a means of on-going training, coding scheme refinement, controls for simple errors, thereby, increasing reliability. A follow up interview was conducted with eleven voluntary students at the end of the term in order to provide detailed information about their perceptions of the community of inquiry in relation

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

Table1. Demographics of participants Age

Gender

Where they live

Computer Skills

20-29: 0

Male:6

Calgary: 6

Novice: 0

30-39: 8

Female: 9

Other city/Alberta: 4

Intermediate: 6

40-49: 6

Other state:4

Advanced: 9

50 or above:1

Other country: 1

to their perceived learning and satisfaction. Each interview was conducted using Elluminate as most of the students were in different cities and they were familiar with the use of synchronous online meetings. Only one interview was conducted face-to-face because of the technical problems the student had with Elluminate. With informed consent, the interviews were recorded and were later transcribed. Data analysis was carried out using constant comparative analysis method including three phases: open coding, axial coding and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Interview questions and the community of inquiry framework were utilized to develop and categorize the themes that emerged from the data. The CoI Survey was administered at the end of the class to assess the relationships among the three presences and student perceived learning and satisfaction. The instrument was developed and initially validated by Swan and colleagues (2008). Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.94 for teaching presence, 0.91 for social presence, and 0.95 for cognitive presence. The survey included teaching presence perception (13 items), social presence perception (9 items), cognitive presence perception (12 items), an item for perceived learning, and one item for perceived satisfaction. Fifteen students (out of 16) completed the survey.

results Perceptions of Community of Inquiry The CoI Survey, transcripts and follow-up interviews were used to explore students’ perceptions

of the community of inquiry and its elements. Generally, it was found that most of the students had positive attitudes towards online learning and the community of inquiry developed during the course. The descriptive analysis of the CoI Survey indicated that students had high perceptions of each presence in the course. Overall perceptions of each presence were 4.15 for teaching presence, 3.94 for social presence and 4.07 for cognitive presence. The main question asked to students in interviews was how they felt about the community of inquiry that was developed during the course of studies. Students’ responses to this question confirmed the critical role of each element of the CoI framework as their perception of each element directly influenced their perception of the community of inquiry as a whole. Students’ sense of a community of inquiry developed according to their sense of teaching presence, cognitive presence or social presence in the course. For example, if students did not feel sufficient teaching presence, or if they did not sense social presence, or if they did not think they could reach higher levels of critical thinking, they would have indicated that the community of inquiry was not developed sufficiently.

Teaching Presence With regard to teaching presence, students generally indicated that they found teaching presence high and valuable in the course. They appreciated frequent communication, immediate feedback, availability, good balance on learning activities,

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good facilitation, correcting misunderstanding, and modeling the use of tools. However, seven students indicated that they could not perceive much teaching presence on the discussion board; they preferred to see more. Students’ perceptions of teaching presence indicators in the course gathered from CoI Survey were consistent with what students indicated during the interviews. Students showed high perceptions of teaching presence in terms of communication and feedback and relatively lower perceptions on the role of instructor on the discussion board. The latter would appear to be due to students having to take turns moderating online discussions. The course design provided opportunities for students to share teaching presence by allowing them to lead and facilitate weekly discussions. Some students found this valuable where others found it difficult. The student who found the distribution of teaching presence among students difficult further explained that s/he could not interpret what others said as s/he did not know or could not meet them in person. S/he said “if the instructors comes to the class and say ‘you should do this, you should try this’, most students have a tendency to take, to trust and believe he knows what he is talking about.” Another student indicated inconsistency in terms of course outcomes when different students facilitate the discussions every week. S/he stated that the outcomes for the discussions changed each time as the discussions focused on whatever the students come up with for the week. On the other hand, three students appreciated this strategy as it provided a new way to participate and contribute. One student stated that s/he enjoyed having a chance to facilitate the discussions and found it good in terms of her/his own metacognition, and in terms of providing better understanding. Similar to this comment, another student found this strategy as a mirror to show the difficulty and importance of facilitation. In order to explore students’ teaching presence in the discussion board, the messages posted by

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the instructor and guest speakers were excluded from the analysis. Facilitating discourse (mostly occurred as encouraging, acknowledging, or reinforcing student contributions) and direct instruction (mostly occurred as injecting knowledge from diverse sources) categories of teaching presence were coded most frequently. Table 2 illustrates the coding results for categories of teaching presence in terms of three week segments. Not surprisingly, considering that students had no control over the design of the task, design postings were virtually nonexistent. However, while facilitating discourse stayed more or less the same over time, interestingly there was an increase in the number of messages coded as direct instruction.

Social Presence The analysis of the CoI Survey showed that students perceived social presence as reasonably high but relatively low compared to teaching presence and cognitive presence in the course. The items about feeling comfortable conversing through the online medium and participating in discussions were perceived the highest of the social presence indicators by the students. Students’ perception of social presence varied during the interviews. Although most students expressed they found social presence good, there were some students who assessed the course as lacking social presence. One student emphasized respect and trust as key factors for social presence to provide a climate where people are willing to put themselves out there, willing to give their opinions, or willing to take criticism. He stated that in this course they could create a good climate in which the students respected and trusted each other and, thereby, felt comfortable discussing issues. Another student expressed that the social atmosphere was very supportive based on her/his experience in this course and previous experiences. Social presence was analyzed in the transcripts by coding for affective/interpersonal expression, open communication and group cohesion. Table

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

Table 2. Posting patterns of teaching presence Teaching Presence

First 3 weeks of Discussion

Second 3 weeks of discussion

Last 3 weeks of discussion

Total

Design and Organization

0.6%

1.0%

0.0%

0.5%

Facilitating Discourse

28.1%

23.0%

24.7%

25.3%

Direct Instruction

18.5%

32.5%

37.6%

29.6%

No category detected

52.8%

43.5%

37.6%

44,6%

3 illustrates the coding results for categories of social presence in three week periods. As seen in the table, the majority of the messages throughout the course were open communication. Compared to the other two categories of social presence, open communication refers largely to continuing a discussion thread. In this regard, this finding is consistent with the survey and interview results in that social presence was perceived mostly in relation to online discussion. Another significant finding is that the percentage of group cohesion indicators increased over time.

Cognitive Presence The analysis of the CoI Survey yielded high perceptions of cognitive presence in the course. Students perceived the items related to the resolution phase of the Practical Inquiry Model the highest; which means that most of the students agreed that they were able to know how to use and apply the knowledge and develop their solutions. The other items which were perceived highly were related to the triggering event phase showing that students felt motivated and were interested in the discussions.

Consistent with the survey results, during the interviews most of the students (8 students) indicated that they perceived cognitive presence to be very strong in the course. One student’s comment was “the cognitive presence was probably the best part, because the way the course was structured and designed, I felt like I was actually constructing my knowledge of blended learning as I was going through the course.” Moreover, two of them found too much cognitive presence compared to other presences. However, with regard to the categories of cognitive presence, some of them indicated that they needed more time to reach the resolution phase. Students’ comments about cognitive presence noted the importance of resources and learning activities in order to develop deep approaches to learning. They appreciated the good balance of resources and not being overloaded with content. They also found course readings to be relevant, interesting, forcing them to think critically, and encouraging them to do more research. Cognitive presence was analyzed in the transcripts by coding for the triggering event, exploration, integration and resolution. Table 4 illustrates

Table 3. Posting patterns of social presence Social Presence

First 3 weeks of Discussion

Second 3 weeks of discussion

Last 3 weeks of discussion

Total

Affective

34.3%

38.5%

24.7%

32.5%

Open Communication

58.4%

42.5%

43.0%

48.0%

Group Cohesion

7.3%

15.5%

19.9%

14.2%

No category detected

0.0%

3.5%

12.4%

5.3%

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the coding results for the categories of cognitive presence over the three segments of time. As the distribution of percentages for each category of cognitive presence showed, the integration phase was the most frequently coded category of messages posted by students throughout the course.

Perceived Learning and satisfaction A Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was conducted in order to explore the relationships among variables (teaching presence, cognitive presence, social presence, perceived learning and satisfaction). The analysis revealed significant relationships among perceived learning, satisfaction, and levels of teaching, social and cognitive presence. As shown in Table 7, there was a positively significant relationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence (r=.78, p=.001); between teaching presence and perceived learning (r=.55, p=.03); and between teaching presence and satisfaction (r=.63, p=.01). The implication is that students who perceived higher levels of teaching presence also perceived higher levels of cognitive presence, learning and satisfaction. The correlation coefficients also showed significant relationships between cognitive presence and perceived learning (r=.67, p=.007) and between cognitive presence and satisfaction (r=.65, p=.009). This would appear to indicate that students who perceived higher levels of cognitive presence in the course also perceived higher levels of perceived learning and satisfaction. The analysis

did not find a significant relationship between social presence and perceived learning but found a significant relationship between social presence and satisfaction (r=.54, p=038). Overall, it was found that all three presences showed a significant relationship with students’ satisfaction. However, only two presences (teaching and cognitive presence) showed a significant relationship with perceived learning. This finding indicates that students think that they learn more when they perceive sufficient levels of teaching and cognitive presence. Their responses to open ended questions in the survey were also consistent with this result. Responses related to how and which aspects of teaching, social and cognitive presence affected their perceived learning and satisfaction. Most responses emphasized the role teaching and cognitive presence had on their learning. Students’ perceptions of the impact of the community of inquiry as a whole and each element of the framework on perceived learning and satisfaction were further explored in interviews. With regard to the impact of sense of community on their learning, students indicated that it was particularly powerful for participation. One student indicated that he felt greater comfort in participating in course discussions. Another student compared the sense of community to reading paper material and sending in assignments in response and stated that “the difference is, I’ve gotten to know the teacher and some of the students. I know that if I learn something I will be able to share

Table 4. Posting patterns of cognitive presence

482

Cognitive Presence

First 3 weeks of Discussion

Second 3 weeks of discussion

Last 3 weeks of discussion

Triggering Event

14.6%

7.0%

8.1%

9.9%

Exploration

18.0%

29.5%

26.9%

24.8%

Integration

46.6%

45.0%

51.6%

47.7%

Resolution

6.7%

9.5%

5.9%

7.4%

No category detected

14.0%

9.0%

7.5%

10.2%

Total

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

Figure 2. Relationships among teaching presence, social presence, cognitive presence, learning and satisfaction

it.” On the other side, two of the students who indicated that they did not feel a sense of community expressed that they learned a lot from the instructor and course readings. In relation to the role of teaching presence on perceived learning and satisfaction, most of the students emphasized that teaching presence was very important and valuable. One student stated that when the instructor was present, it definitely helped her/his learning because, as an expert in the area of blended learning, the instructor’s presence let her/him know whether s/he was on the right track in terms of understanding the material. Moreover, eight of them emphasized the need for more teaching presence. Cognitive presence was emphasized as important for their learning by students. In particular, they indicated that learning activities and assignments were challenging and supportive of critical thinking and problem solving. One student explained the role

of cognitive presence on learning such that “…I think the cognitive presence comes down to what you actually do in terms of learning, in terms of projects and writings, and things like that. So I think it is very important to me that tasks should require some kind of critical thinking or problem solving.” With regard to the role of social presence on their learning and satisfaction, students’ comments varied. Six students indicated that social presence was not an important aspect compared to teaching presence or cognitive presence for their learning or satisfaction. On the other hand, four students indicated social presence affected their learning.

contextual contingencies Students’ comments about their perceptions of the community of inquiry, each of the presences during interviews, and their entries in open ended

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questions in the CoI Survey also identified some barriers or limitations. Time was the main barrier identified by eight students. This was followed by class size, different background, and restriction on the number of postings. Time was an important factor, especially for cognitive presence. First, students indicated that they needed more time for discussions. They assessed one week for each topic as insufficient for effective discussions. This factor was pointed out to explain why they could not reach the resolution phase more often. One student’s suggestion was “I think if the discussions had a longer time period, we had one week for each discussion, I think if it was two weeks, maybe there would be a longer time for us to bring out our own ideas, start sharing with each other and learning, maybe come up with some others, form ideas and understand a little bit better through some more discussions.” Secondly, time was expressed in terms of being on time to post a message to the discussion board for cognitive engagement. Three students explained that when they were late in postings, pretty much of everything they wanted to say had already been said which made it difficult to become cognitively present. Thirdly, because of being busy in their lives, three students also indicated that they did not have enough time to do all the readings or be more active in discussions. Class size is another barrier identified by five students for the development of a community of inquiry, particularly social presence. The students indicated that they felt greater social presence in small group activities such as peer critiques. One student compared this course with another course s/he had before in terms of class size effect on community of inquiry and said “…Community of inquiry was much more solidified early in the course, I can say, it was a lot easier to follow the questions and the answers and the things like that. With the amount of people that we have now in the course, I find it a bit much.” With regard to different backgrounds as a

484

barrier, one student said “the things I had to say maybe were not interesting for other people, so I’ve rather been unusual participant, I sort of felt like an outsider so the discussions, I do not think I made much of an impact on other people, I do not think I got as much from the discussions as from the other components of the course.” Another student also stated that coming from a different field, she felt herself as being out of the loop and sometimes she found the online discussions hard to directly relate to her/his own area. Regarding the restriction on the amount of postings, one student indicated that it affected the development of social presence based on her/his previous experiences. S/he stated that social presence was as good as one could get in this course but in some courses students are not supposed to post trivial things. When they were supposed to post just one-page, s/he found social presence restricted.

dIscussIon The adult education literature emphasizes community building in order to increase effectiveness and success of online teaching and learning. In this study, it was found that students had positive attitudes toward the community developed in the course and that their perception of constituting elements of the community of inquiry was significantly related to perceived learning and satisfaction. Previous research also indicates that sense of community is significantly associated with perceived learning (e.g. Rovai, 2002; Ertmer & Stepich, 2004; Shea, 2006; Shea, Li, & Pickett, 2006). In a study of how students sense online community, it was found that community was constructed and maintained as a necessary tool for the completion of tasks (Conrad, 2002). Teaching presence plays a crucial role in arranging activities and setting the climate for the development of social and cognitive presence.

Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning

Although the students expressed their desire to see more of the instructor on the discussion board, overall they were satisfied with the teaching presence and they perceived teaching presence high in the course. The interviews and survey indicated that they most appreciated the instructor’s frequent communication and feedback. This is consistent with Ausburn (2004) who found that adult learners ranked highest the course design feature related to communication with instructor. This study found a direct impact of teaching presence on perceived learning and satisfaction which was consistent with previous studies (Shea, Pickett & Pelz, 2003; Shea, 2006). Shea et al. (2006) also found a clear connection between perceived teaching presence and students’ sense of learning community. The transcript analysis showed an increase in direct instruction for the course, indicating that students started to inject knowledge from various sources. This finding is probably due to distribution of teaching presence among students which increased their contributions to the discussion forum. Rourke and Anderson (2002) also report that students preferred the peer teams to the instructor as discussion leaders. Many professionals emphasize the importance of de-authorization to further the self-directedness and self-authorship of the group and its members (e.g. Vella, 2002, Bruffee, 1999). Perry and Edwards (2005) found that students felt more motivated when the teacher-learner relationship involves a mutual learning experience. Sharing responsibilities could be seen as an advantage over what an individual teacher is able to offer (Kukulska-Hulme, 2004). The CoI framework emphasizes collaboration. Collaborative activity and community building have important influences on each other. Collaboration supports the creation of community and community supports the ability to be collaborative (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). However, as Bruffee (1999) indicated, students may not work effectively as collaborative peers, especially at the beginning. Social presence in the CoI framework

reflects the need to create a learning environment where students respect and trust each other and feel comfortable to participate. In the study reported here, the indicator of social presence reflecting the need to create a comfortable environment for discussion was perceived highest by students. Another important finding about social presence is the increase in the group cohesion category over time. This would indicate that students sensed group identity and belonging to the community more as time passed. Rogers and Lea (2005) argue that the group will work more productively when the students identify with the group and they will feel more motivated. In this study, although social presence did not have an apparent impact on students’ perceived learning, there is a clear connection found between social presence and satisfaction. The impact of social presence on satisfaction and perceived learning was also found in previous studies (Swan & Shih, 2005; Arbaugh & Hwang, 2006). Cognitive presence is the core element necessary for higher learning (Kanuka & Garrison, 2004). Adult learning focuses primarily on modifying, transforming and reintegrating knowledge and skills (Mackeracher, 1996); therefore, the design of learning activities has crucial importance. Students also emphasized the role of learning activities and assignments on the development of cognitive presence. Vella (2002) points out the importance of immediacy for adult learners. She states that they want to see something in hand as soon as possible. Learners must be provided opportunities to apply what they have learned (Kanuka & Garrison, 2004). As most students stated in the interviews, the student’s final project - redesigning a course into a blended format - enabled them to apply what they gained throughout the course. All of them redesigned a course that they could apply in their work or school settings. Transcript analysis revealed that integration was the most dominant phase in the discussion postings and this increased over time. Previous studies also found that most of the postings on the

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discussion board were focused on exploration and integration (Meyer, 2004; Vaughan & Garrison, 2005). This was because of the collaborative nature of online discussion; students were able to create knowledge collaboratively by adding to each other’s ideas, or integrating those ideas and information. Interaction is not enough for higher levels of learning (Garrison & ClevelandInnes, 2005). Collaboration goes beyond simple interaction and, as such, it is argued that this is an effective means to create cognitive presence for the purposes of higher levels of learning (Murphy, 2004; Kanuka & Garrison, 2004). Meyer (2004) also points out the nature of triggering questions can support progression into higher levels of cognitive inquiry. The activities which are well structured, provide clearly defined roles and responsibilities for the students, and which provoke the students to explicitly confront other’s opinions have more potential to move students to higher levels of understanding and discourse (Kanuka, Rourke & Laflamme, 2007). One of the important relationships found in this study was between teaching presence and cognitive presence. The role of teaching presence is to moderate and shape the direction of the discourse for a successful community of inquiry (Kanuka & Garrison, 2004; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Stein and his colleagues (2007) also found that both social presence and teaching presence support the initialization and progression of cognitive presence. In the study reported here, the increase in group cohesion and direct instruction fed the progression through higher levels of critical thinking.

concLusIon The developments in technology and increasing need for life-long learning makes online learning particularly appropriate for adult learners. This situation increases the recognition of the importance to design and develop better learning environments

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that can meet the needs of adult learners. Vella (2002) emphasizes that three aspects of learning, cognitive, affective and psychomotor should be considered in the design of adult learning. The main emphasis of the Community of Inquiry framework is to create an effective community that extends Vella’s learning outcomes to include other elements (presences) that enhance and support learning. Building a learning community is valuable as it serves social needs as well as enhancing student satisfaction and learning through community involvement (DuCharme-Hansen & Dupin-Bryant, 2005; Palloff & Pratt, 1999). The primary focus of this chapter was to introduce the CoI framework for adult online learning environments utilizing the research findings from an online course. A recent study has emphasized that epistemic engagement in which the students are collaborative knowledge builders is well articulated and extended through the community of inquiry framework (Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). The authors of this chapter argue that the CoI framework provides a well-structured guideline to create effective adult online learning communities by meaningfully integrating and combining teaching, social and cognitive presence. Taking into consideration the contextual contingencies such as class size or time, instructional designers can apply the CoI framework and approach to designing effective online environments for adult learners.

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Meyer, K. (2004). Evaluating Online Discussions: Four Difference Frames of Analysis. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(2), 101–114. Murphy, E. (2004). Recognizing and promoting collaboration in an online asynchronous discussion. British Journal of Educational Technology, 35(4), 421–431. doi:10.1111/j.00071013.2004.00401.x OECD. (2005). Promoting Adult Learning. Paris: Author. Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: learning together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Perry, B., & Edwards, M. (2005). Exemplary online educators: Creating a community of inquiry. Turkish Online Journal of Distance EducationTOJDE, 6(2). Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students’ perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(1), 68–88. Rogers, P., & Lea, M. (2005). Social presence in distributed group environments: the role of social identity. Behaviour & Information Technology, 24(2), 151–158. doi:10.1080/01449290410001 723472 Rourke, L., & Anderson, T. (2002). Using peer teams to lead online discussion. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1. Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (1999). Assessing social presence in asynchronous, text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14(3), 51–70.

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Rovai, A. P. (2002). Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(4), 319–332. doi:10.1016/ S1096-7516(02)00130-6 Selwyn, N. (2006). ICT in adult education: defining the territory. In ICT and learning: supporting out-of-school youth and adults (pp. 13-42). Paris: OECD. Shea, P., & Bidjerano, T. (2009). Community of Inquiry as a theoretical framework to foster “epistemic engagement” and “cognitive presence” in online education. Computers & Education, 52(3), 543–553. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2008.10.007 Shea, P., Li, C. S., & Pickett, A. (2006). A study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and webenhanced college courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 9(3), 175–190. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2006.06.005 Shea, P., Pickett, A., & Pelz, W. (2003). A followup investigation of teaching presence in the SUNY Learning Network. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(2), 61–80. Shea, P. J. (2006). A study of students’ sense of community in online learning environments. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(1), 35–44.

Stein, D. S., Wanstreet, C. E., Glazer, H. R., Engle, C. L., Harris, R. T., & Johnston, S. M. (2007). Creating shared understanding through chats in a community of inquiry. The Internet and Higher Education, 10(2), 103–115. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2007.02.002 Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research - Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Swan, K., Shea, P., Richardson, J., Ice, P., Garrison, D. R., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Arbaugh, J. B. (2008). Validating a measurement tool of presence in online communities of inquiry. EMentor, 2(24), 1–12. Swan, K., & Shih, L. F. (2005). On the Nature and Development of Social Presence in Online course Discussions. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 9(3), 115–136. Vaughan, N., & Garrison, D. R. (2005). Creating cognitive presence in a blended faculty development community. The Internet and Higher Education, 8(1), 1–12. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2004.11.001 Vella, J. (2002). Learning to Listen Learning to Teach. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass. Yorks, L., & Kasl, E. (2002). Collaborative inquiry as a strategy for adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This work was previously published in Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes, edited by T. T. Kidd; J. Keengwe, pp. 52-66, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Development of Online Distributed Training: Practical Considerations and Lesson Learned Eileen B. Entin Aptima Inc., USA Jason Sidman Aptima Inc., USA Lisa Neal eLearn Magazine, USA

AbstrAct This chapter discusses considerations and tradeoffs in designing and developing an online teamwork skills training program for geographically distributed instructors and students. The training program is grounded in principles of scenario-based learning, in which operationally realistic scenarios are used to engage students in actively forming links between classroom and real-world applications of key concepts. The chapter focuses on supporting active engagement of learners, and meaningful and thoughtful learner-learner interactions appropriate to the subject matter (Neal & Miller, 2006). We describe lessons learned in the development of a distributed training program that interleaves asynDOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-753-9.ch009

chronous and synchronous training modules (Neal & Miller, 2005) to leverage the advantages of both self-paced and group learning, provide opportunities to practice the teamwork concepts being trained, create social presence, and promote interaction and reflection among the course members.

IntroductIon The value of peer learning is well known, especially for domains in which people will apply what they learn in collaborative settings, but it is challenging to design courses that effectively incorporate and support peer learning. When learners are copresent in the classroom, it is easier to devise exercises that facilitate peer learning. Currently, most training outside of the classroom is self-paced, eliminating

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peer and instructor contact, due to the perceived cost reduction and the greater ease of implementation. It is a challenge to develop online training that incorporates these rich human interactions while respecting the time constraints under which learners operate, yet it can lead to deeper learning that is more memorable and more easily applicable (Neal & Miller, 2005; Notess & Neal, 2006). This chapter discusses considerations and tradeoffs in designing, developing, and evaluating an online training program for an instructor and students who are geographically distributed. The discussion will take readers through the development process, starting with analysis of audience and goals, to the challenges in acquiring and adapting course material to the online format, and finally the implementation and evaluation. We focus on considerations involved in supporting active engagement of learners, and meaningful and thoughtful learner-learner interactions appropriate to the subject matter (Neal & Miller, 2006). Training is successful only when there is a demonstrable performance improvement; for that to occur requires opportunities for demonstration, practice, and feedback, as well as for declarative learning (Cannon-Bowers, Tannenbaum, Salas, & Volpe, 1995). Furthermore, training that involves teams, rather than individuals, requires that the practice and feedback is conducted in a team environment. Whereas in the past training has been traditionally delivered in a face-to-face, classroom-like environment (Neal & Miller, 2006), our goal was to develop a distributed training program that includes elements of didactic instruction and demonstration, as well as the opportunity for practice and feedback in a team-based environment. The training program we developed was designed to train civilian and military emergency medical team members in teamwork skills and in methods for enhancing teamwork; the approaches used are applicable to any training where learners will not be practicing in isolation.

This chapter is written through the lens of our experiences in developing the teamwork training program. The program was developed for medical professionals, and in that sense is different from the academic environment where students are still in a learning mode, and have not yet had experience in their chosen profession. Nonetheless, we suggest that many of the points discussed in this chapter are relevant for academic instructors teaching courses that involve the students in practice and application, as well as for instructors in a professional training program. In discussing the issues involved in developing this online training course, we organize the discussion around two major phases of development: research leading to the development of substantive materials and factors considered during the development of the course materials and process. Although the two phases are not totally independent of one another, for the purposes of exposition, they can be usefully separated. We note that while our approach is based on both sound theory and substantial experience, as well as feedback we received during formative testing of the program, at this writing, the specific techniques we implemented in our training program have not been validated by a thorough training evaluation. Therefore, while this chapter can make training developers aware of some of the key considerations that led to our implementation approaches, it cannot offer empirical proof of their effectiveness. Additional research is required for that.

teamwork skills training Teamwork skills (Sims, Salas, & Burke, 2004) are valuable in many settings, but in emergency medical settings, they are crucial to the safety and well-being of patients. Many medical teams are ad hoc, and they, in particular, need to rapidly increase team proficiency when brought together by implementing effective leadership, backup

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behavior, and the other components of teamwork. Teamwork training and assessment in a remote and networked environment (T-TRANE) is a teamwork skills training program for emergency medical teams that is delivered using Web-enabled collaborative technologies (see Entin, Lai, Sidman, Mizrahi, Stewart, Neal, Mackenzie, & Xiao, 2007 for a more complete description of the program). The program assumes students are skilled in clinical techniques, but have minimal formal knowledge of teamwork. The goals of T-TRANE are to train emergency medical teams, be they ad hoc or enduring teams, to understand and use teamwork skills. Due to the difficulties of arranging lengthy training for such learners, the focus of the course is not on a theoretical understanding of teamwork skills, but on the components of teamwork as applied to emergency medicine. The course is specifically designed to do this through the use of real video footage and authentic textual scenarios culled from emergency medical personnel. Furthermore, the course objective is the immediate application of skills in the workplace, and this is accomplished through questions about and reflection on daily practice. In order to achieve the course goals, T-TRANE is comprised of information about and examples of teamwork skills and scenario-based training exercises that provide practice in strategies to promote teamwork such as conducting pre-planning and debriefing sessions. The program includes four modules, with both live (synchronous) interactive sessions and self-paced (asynchronous) sessions that students complete within scheduled intervals. The first module provides definitions and examples of five critical teamwork skills: communication, monitoring, back-up, leadership, and team orientation (Sims, Salas, & Burke, 2004). It discusses internal and external threats that may disrupt effective teamwork, and the use of planning and debriefing as strategies for promoting effective teamwork. Modules 2 through 4 reinforce and apply the concepts and strategies discussed

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in Module 1, and provide opportunities for the students to apply these concepts in their current work. Scenario-based exercises ask the students to identify the teamwork skills that were displayed in a video-based or verbally-described situation and the threats that emerged to disrupt effective teamwork, and show how these threats could be addressed in a debriefing. The training is led by an instructor who is experienced in the emergency medical domain, but who is not necessarily an expert in teamwork training. An extensive Instructor’s Manual supports the instructor in planning and delivering the course. The approach used in this program can be adapted to any domain in which ad hoc teams are formed or when teams need to perform well together.

Pre-development considerations Planning any online program requires consideration of many factors, most importantly the target learners and the topic, the constraints that arise due to these factors, and the course objectives that will satisfy stakeholders (Neal & Miller, 2005). In this section, we discuss some of the issues that we grappled with in the program-planning stage, when certain decisions that would frame the subsequent development needed to be made.

Identifying the target Learner Population and other stakeholders Many of the decisions about training system development occur before any curriculum is drafted or any courseware is designed. While content and functionality are obviously critical components to any training system, they can only be optimally designed when the training consumer is considered (Neal & Miller, 2005). Consumers of training are not only the trainees themselves, but instructors, administrators, and potentially other people who may purchase, assign, deliver, or study training content. These stakeholders may vary widely with

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respect to their level of expertise in the training domain, level of familiarity with the training technology, and so on. Therefore, determining who the consumers of the training are, and what unique relevant characteristics they possess, is a critical first step in training development. For our training program, we identified three categories of stakeholders: administrators, instructors, and students. All three groups were medical professionals in emergency medical units: department heads (administrators), attendings (instructors), and residents (students). As emergency medical providers, their defining common characteristics were their education level and their extremely busy schedules; and these factors demanded three requirements of our training system. First, we needed to find a way to allow time- and location-independent access to the training. If their schedules suddenly permitted some time for training, then we wanted learners to be able to access the course and use their time productively. Second, the course needed to be efficiently designed, and instructors well-prepared, so that everyone’s valuable and limited time was optimally used during training sessions. Finally, and most importantly, course materials needed to be appropriate, relevant, and immediately applicable, capitalizing on existing knowledge and experience.

Identifying course objectives As any course is being developed, it is important to be clear about the course objectives. For the teamwork training course we developed, we had several key objectives, including: enabling distributed (rather than colocated) training, providing opportunities to practice the teamwork concepts being trained, promoting interaction and reflection among the course members, and circumventing the need for a teamwork trainer to deliver the course. All aspects of the program were developed in light of these objectives.

Identifying how training is delivered Before development of a distributed training program starts, the development team must ascertain what options are available in terms of “where” in space the team will meet–in particular, whether it is desirable to use an asynchronous or synchronous method only, or whether both technology options are blended into a solution that is in harmony with user requirements and constraints (Shneiderman, 2002). Once that is decided, the challenge is to use each mode to its best pedagogical advantage (Neal & Miller, 2006). Relevant considerations here, due to the nature of the topic, were the need to present realistic scenarios, to provide opportunities to practice together, and to promote and reinforce training through independent reflection and group discussion (Notess & Neal, 2006). Synchronous sessions allow for dynamic interchange of ideas and promote social networking, since learners have better opportunities to get to know each other (Neal & Miller, 2005). This is especially important for teaching teamwork, where there are limited opportunities for practice through role-play or sharing of insights without real-time interaction. Even with the value of synchronous sessions, they can be challenging to incorporate into training, since they require all participants to be available at the same time. Participants may be distributed across multiple time zones, further complicating the task of identifying suitable times to meet. In our case, this was further constrained by busy schedules that were often out of the participants control since they could be paged at any time. Furthermore, synchronous technology is more complex to introduce. Asynchronous learning is the most common way of delivering e-learning (Neal & Miller, 2005). It circumvents the scheduling difficulties, because learners can choose a time that is convenient and can work at their own pace. On the other hand, the only interaction is through discussion forums, which are less dynamic, and there is less of a sense of belonging to a class, since the class

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never “meets” (Neal & Ingram, 2001). In addition, because the time commitments are not rigid and harder to reinforce, it is easier for students to lag behind, which creates problems when students are out of sync. In order to leverage the advantages of both self-paced and group learning, we decided upon a blended solution that would interleave asynchronous and synchronous training modules (Neal & Miller, 2005). For a few hours over the course of the entire training program, the students would be required to participate in synchronous modules. They could complete asynchronous training modules at their convenience within a specified period of time. Defining a time window in which each asynchronous module had to be completed was necessary, because the modules had to be completed in a specified order, and the students’ responses to exercises in the modules needed to be integrated and distributed to the class members by specified times. Given the busy schedules of our training consumers, we believed that this was an effective compromise between demands on time and the desire for dynamic interchange among students.

technology usage The delivery of the synchronous sessions proved to be a considerable challenge, both logistically and practically. Logistically, coordinating synchronous sessions requires finding a common meeting time, a challenge with varied schedules and time zones, ensuring that all computers have the necessary hardware (speakers, microphones) and software, providing login names and passwords to access the Web site, and so on. While advances in technology, as evidenced by the growing popularity of remote meetings and e-learning and the sophistication of supporting technology, provide solutions to all of these logistical challenges, whether learners know how to use the latest technology is another matter.

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We identified several Web-conferencing platforms capable of running synchronous sessions with distributed users. While most people in our target population know how to access the Internet and interact with a Web site, fewer are knowledgeable about and comfortable using Web-conferencing tools, such as voiceover-Internet protocol (VoIP), as a method of communication. Consequently, our pilot test of one Web-conferencing platform barely got past introductions. Our untrained group demonstrated a dismal display of what military personnel refer to as “comms discipline.” People were unaware of when other people were talking, and therefore interrupted communications, of whether what they were saying was being heard by others, and so on. Indeed the technology itself was functioning fine; the people, however, did not know how to use it appropriately and were not being adequately facilitated. In order to allow consumers to avoid the frustrating and unproductive pilot test experience, we decided to integrate within the training program a structured introductory synchronous session in which people could (a) test that they could connect to the Web-conferencing platform, (b) ensure that their computers contained the necessary hardware and software to view training content and to communicate with others, and (c) be taught protocols for online communication. Although this required an additional synchronous session (and the time commitment and logistical preparation that goes along with that), the benefit of knowing how to use the technology outweighed the cost of not being able to conduct the sessions at all, or to conduct ones that would not accomplish our pedagogical objectives.

Instructor Preparation and support One of the goals we established for the training program was that the instructor did not have to be a subject matter expert in teamwork, since that would have required bringing in an outside person

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to deliver the training, for which hospitals may not have the resources. Rather, we felt it was more important that the instructor was experienced in the application domain–in this case emergency medicine–and could therefore apply the training concepts to a range of teamwork situations he or she experienced. Having identified ways to allow anytime, anywhere access to training (and being trained on the tools necessary to conduct the training), we then faced our second dilemma with respect to our training: preparing nonexpert instructors to deliver our training content. The defining feature of this training was the focus on teamwork in emergency medicine, not on the delivery of the medicine itself. While emergency medical units are populated with qualified medical instructors, these medical experts are not experts in teamwork. Our challenge, therefore, was to implement measures to allow nonexpert instructors to be sufficiently prepared to facilitate discussions of teamwork. We created several methods to prepare instructors to facilitate the course. First, from a logistical perspective, we needed enough preparation time for instructors to become familiar with the course prior to delivering it. We therefore hard-coded triggers within the training system that would alert instructors to upcoming deadlines well in advance. For example, when an administrator assigns an instructor to a course, an e-mail is automatically sent to the instructor weeks in advance of the class. While instructors had plenty of advance notice prior to leading sessions, they still required the requisite domain knowledge to truly facilitate sessions. One of the key resources we included within the training system was an Instructor’s Manual that included background information on teamwork skills such as communication, monitoring, and back-up. The Instructor’s Manual also contained a guide to each of the training modules, highlighting key teaching points along the way. Additional aids were implemented within the synchronous sessions to provide instructors with

timely notices of what to talk about and when. When using the synchronous platform, the instructor could see notes within the training content that the trainees could not see. The notes within the Instructor View might point out a key instance of teamwork from a video clip, or suggest a critical question to ask to get trainees to think about teamwork instead of taskwork. Again, this feature of the training allowed nonexpert instructors to confidently and competently facilitate discussion on teamwork. Despite our best efforts to reduce the workload on an instructor, there were still significant preparation and facilitation responsibilities for the designated instructor. All of these responsibilities, of course, do not include actually providing any feedback to students on their self-paced exercises. This task, as any school teacher or college professor knows quite well, is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Given our priority to minimize the time commitment of all of our consumers, we decided to diffuse the responsibility of reviewing student work across the trainees themselves. We included an administrative functionality within the training system by which Instructors could designate trainees to be Peer Leaders for a given training module. Peer Leaders would be responsible for reviewing completed assignments and identifying key themes within them that would promote discussion in subsequent synchronous sessions.

Lessons Learned In sum, many decisions were made about training development prior to developing any training content. The following lessons learned may be useful for future instructional designers developing distributed training: •

Tailor your training to your consumers: Consumers may be more than the trainees themselves. There may be administrators and instructors as well who will purchase,

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•

•

•

•

facilitate, or interact with your training system. These populations need to be identified from the start and their needs considered for training to be successful. Blended learning is not just an effective pedagogical approach. It is a practical compromise between achieving learning objectives and acknowledging real-world time constraints. Instructors do not have to be experts: However, the burden is on the training developers to implement measures to allow nonexperts to effectively deliver training. Students can be more than just students: Diffusing some of the instructor’s responsibility to Peer Leaders can alleviate some of the burden on the instructor. Providing students with additional responsibilities may increase their level of commitment to the course and enhance their educational experience since they think more deeply about the training materials. Just because technologies exist that enable distributed learning does not mean that people know how to use them: The capabilities of some technology may exceed people’s ability to use it. Be sure to allow adequate preparation time to ensure that consumers of all ages, education levels, and technical expertise can be comfortable with and fully exploit the training technology, so that it does not get in the way of the learning it is supposed to deliver.

substantive development considerations How course material is designed and delivered is dependent on the learners and topic, as well as on the course objectives. While a decision to offer a blended course, incorporating synchronous and asynchronous interaction, fosters many pedagogical approaches beyond the self-paced “electronic page-turner” model, many decisions

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and some creativity needs to be applied to design a course that meets learners’ needs and meets course objectives. In this section, we explain some of the considerations and issues that arose as we developed the training program content. As noted previously, the program we developed used a blended approach, but we focus here primarily on the challenges in development of asynchronous training modules, where engagement and student interaction are more difficult to achieve than in synchronous modules.

Materials for exercises The training program we developed is grounded in the principles of scenario-based learning in which operationally realistic scenarios are used to engage students in actively forming links between classroom and real-world applications of key concepts. Scenarios place students in a particular context and encourage them to think about cause and effect (Neal, Miller, & Perez, 2004). Therefore, our first challenge when developing training materials was to create engaging scenarios upon which the training content would be based. Our preference was to use real experiences within emergency medicine as the source for examples and training exercises. This was possible because our medical subject matter experts had independently developed a library of video recordings of cases treated at a major medical trauma center. Our plan was to use the video clips both to provide illustrations of teamwork skills and give the students practice in applying teamwork skills by giving them the opportunity to recognize, assess, analyze, and perhaps even role-play aspects of teamwork from multiple points of view. The challenge was in how to select and use the video clips effectively. However, the key dilemma was that the video recordings we drew from were made for different purposes than the training program we were developing. As a result, we found that they were not indexed according to

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teamwork concepts captured in the videos, so the development team had to spend many hours going through videos to find ones that were relevant for the purposes of the examples and exercises. A further problem we encountered was in finding clips in which both the video and audio portions were of sufficiently high quality that they could be understood both visually and aurally. While for their original purpose there was not a need for clear audio, for teamwork training, where verbal communication is a central skill, the audio portions were critical. As a result, we had to work through the videos that we selected multiple times to insure that we understood what was being said and captured it in a transcript that could be played along with the video. Where that was not possible, we needed to find other alternatives. An alternative in scenario-based training is for the developers to generate their own exercise materials. The advantage of creating original scenarios from scratch is that training developers can tailor them to the specific training objectives. Although it was not possible to create videos of our original scenarios, we found that a scenario could be described effectively in text format. We therefore worked with both civilian and military emergency medical practitioners to develop and integrate several authentic textual scenarios along with the video clips.

creating social Presence Social presence is a variable that may affect learner-instructor interactions in distance education courses and is an important aspect for effective online learning (Volery, 2001). Because of the lack of physical, face-to-face contact in Web-based courses, students may not feel the instructor’s presence in the course, and they are less likely to be aware of the presence of other students. The absence of the visual cues that normally exist in the traditional classroom may lead to feelings of isolation or lack of connection with students and instructors in the Web-based environment (Atack

& Rankin, 2002; Billings, Connors, & Skiba, 2001). Getting to know the instructor is more difficult in a Web-based environment because of the absence of the face-to-face interaction and the lack of visual cues. Furthermore, students’ perceptions of social presence are significant predictors in students’ perception of overall learning (Richardson & Swan, 2001). As a way of creating social presence at the outset of the course, we provided the ability for both the instructor and the students to enter profiles in which they provided information about themselves related to the course and their professional background. In addition to the text-based information, the instructor and students can upload a picture, which could increment the sense of knowing one’s fellow students. Participants are urged to upload their profiles before the course begins, so that everyone has an understanding of who the other course members are. This is important because sharing personal information at the beginning of team formation boosts member satisfaction and communication (Kahai & Cooper, 1999) and increases feelings of social cohesion (Zaccaro & McCoy, 1998).

engaging Learners The active engagement of learners in forming connections between existing and newly-presented material is known to be an important aspect of facilitating learning, retention, and comprehension, and is supported by a large body of literature (e.g., Mayer, 1997; Soraci, Carlin, Chechile, Franks, Wills, & Watanade, 1999; Slamecka & Graf, 1978; Wittrock, 1989). Active involvement of students in the learning process can be ensured by cuing important concepts with open-ended questions, providing multiple examples in different formats, and perhaps most importantly, providing opportunities for discussion, which helps in actively forming links between classroom and real-world experiences.

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The first module in the training program, we developed was asynchronous in format and primarily didactic in nature. Especially because it was the first one and set the tone for the rest of the course, we felt is was important to ensure that it was engaging as well as informative. We provided audio clips from high-profile and experienced medical personnel testifying to the importance of effective teamwork. We used pictures and video clips to provide examples of the teamwork skills we were training. While most of the examples were taken from the emergency medical domain, we also included examples from other domains– including, for example, aviation and sports–to illustrate the importance of teamwork skills in a wide range of domains. But still we were concerned that the module did not require the learner to become actively engaged. We explored a number of available online courses and found that, for the most part, they provided useful lessons in what not to do. The courses we reviewed tended to foster what might be called a “read and click” mindset, in which the learner passively reads the information that is presented and clicks to move on, without any deep processing of the material. We were concerned that the first module in the training program, which is primarily didactic in nature, could foster this kind of behavior. Yet we wanted to establish at the outset that the training program required active participation. To clearly establish the interactive nature of the program, we inserted reflection questions early in the first module. These questions required the students to think about the material being presented in terms of their own experiences, and to periodically reformulate their ideas as new concepts were introduced. To ensure that students actively engaged with the material, they were required to submit their responses to the instructor and, in addition, to provide a relevant work experience in an online student forum. The requirement to submit their responses to the instructor established accountability; it was made clear that the instruc-

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tor would be reading the students’ responses and would discuss them with the group in the next module, which was conducted synchronously. The requirement to enter their experiences in the forum, and then to read the other students’ entries, reinforced the reflective nature of the training; in addition, it set the expectations for learner-tolearner interaction.

Promoting LearnerLearner Interaction In learner-learner interaction, students help themselves to learn, by sharing ideas and discussing problems, often in a real or virtual group setting (Moore & Kearsley, 1996). LeBaron and Miller (2004) describe the successful infusion of various instructional techniques, including the use of discussion forums and role plays, implemented within an online graduate-level course, to provide for the social construction of peer knowledge, and facilitate an overall sense of course community. Further, when an online course facilitates the structured discussions that enrich and provide context to learning, learning is more enjoyable and more social (Neal, 2002). Orvis and Lassiter (2006) recommend that instructors focus on learner-learner interactions as early as possible in a course. In the synchronous sessions the instructor can facilitate learner-learner interactions. Our challenge was how, in a distributed, asynchronous environment, to create interactions among the students in a timely and effective manner. One solution was to use a process whereby each student’s responses to the exercise questions were submitted to one of the students in the training program who was assigned by the instructor to be the peer leader for a particular module. The peer leader was responsible for reviewing all the students’ responses, summarizing them, and providing comments to all the trainees. This mechanism served several purposes. It motivated the students to provide thoughtful responses, it

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engaged the peer leader in the training, and it provided an efficient way that the students could share the other students’ perspectives. In addition, the use of the peer leader shifted a task away from the instructor. A second mechanism for encouraging learnerlearner interaction was a “forum” where students could post ideas and comments and respond to other students’ postings (Neal & Miller, 2005). At the end of each asynchronous module, the student was asked to think about a situation in his or her experience where issues relevant to the concepts and techniques trained in that module had arisen, and to describe that situation in a posting to the discussion forum. The students were then encouraged to read the other students’ postings and respond to them. These ideas were available to all the students, who could then comment upon them in a “chat” dialogue about a particular topic. Although the text-based forum does not have the spontaneity of a live online session, research suggests that online asynchronous discussions possess the ability to invite a higher level of learner-learner interaction than occurs in face-to-face settings (Chih, 2004). In addition to its use in discussing the exercises, the discussion forum was available for student discussion on any topic. This opportunity is particularly useful for student teams that will be working in field settings, where it is useful, and even sometimes necessary, to know about team members skills, interests, and concerns that fall outside the medical domain. For example, in a field setting, it may be important to know who is able to drive an ambulance or who has had experience with specialized field equipment. Together these mechanisms allowed students to respond to questions, reflect on what they were learning, and exchange relevant experiences and ideas with peers. The fact that the postings were public served as a motivator to engage in the conversation. That students were describing real experiences generated “deep” responses from their

peers, based on how the description resonated with their own experiences (Notess & Neal, 2006).

Lessons Learned In sum, many decisions were made to achieve training that engages learners and promotes learner-learner interaction. The following lessons learned may be useful for instructional designers developing distributed training: •

•

•

Involving subject matter experts as a resource eliminates some of the burden of developing training materials: The developers’ role becomes tailoring the materials to meet the specific training objectives. Engage the student immediately: Set the precedent that active learning will take place early in the first training module. Learner-learner interaction can be synchronous or asynchronous: Do not be of the mindset that interaction has to be synchronous. Asynchronous interaction can be achieved through the use of email and discussion forums, and can set the stage for future synchronous interactions.

conclusion In this chapter, we have discussed some of the considerations and challenges that arose as we planned and developed a teamwork training course, how we resolved them, and our lessons learned. Any course has unique requirements for which a unique solution must be crafted to provide an optimal solution to training on a given topic for a group of learners. As we have described, in our case, decisions about delivery methods and approach were based not only on existing theory, but also on the abilities and constraints of the targeted learner population and the other stakeholders, and the requirements imposed by the topic. Furthermore, we needed to be realistic about the opportunities provided and limitations imposed by

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the technology in order to ensure that the selected technology served to facilitate learning rather than impede it. Given these considerations, we tried to be creative in developing a training program that met our course objectives, engaged learners, and led students to immediately apply what they learned in their professional practice. While our recommendations are based on research, theory, and experience, future research is necessary to empirically validate our approach.

reFerences Atack, L., & Rankin, J. (2002). A descriptive study of registered nurses’ experiences with Web-based learning. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 40, 457– 465. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2648.2002.02394.x Billings, D. M., Connors, H. R., & Skiba, D. J. (2001). Benchmarking best practices in Web-based nursing courses. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 23, 41–52. Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Tannenbaum, S. I., Salas, E., & Volpe, C. E. (1995). Defining team competencies and establishing team training requirements. In R. Guzzo & E. Salas (Eds.), Team effectiveness and decision making in organizations (pp. 330-380). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chih (2004, April). Research in interaction and durations of online asynchronous discussions. Presentation at American Educational Research Association Meeting. Entin, E. B., Lai, F., Sidman, J., Mizrahi, G., Stewart, B., Neal, L., et al. (2007). A Web-based teamwork skills training program for emergency medical teams. In J. Westwood et al. (Eds.), Medicine meets virtual reality 15. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

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Kahai, S., & Cooper, R. L. (1999). The effect of computer mediated communication on agreement and acceptance. Journal of Management Information Systems, 16, 165–188. LeBaron, J., & Miller, D. (2004). The teacher as agent provocateur: Strategies to promote community in online course settings. In T. Latomaa, J. Pohjonen, J. Pulkkinen, & M. Ruotsalainen (Eds.), eReflections: Ten years of educational technology studies at the University of Oulu (pp. 109-125). Retrieved November 6, 2007, from http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514276329/ Mayer, R. E. (1997). Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right questions? Educational Psychologist, 32, 1–19. doi:10.1207/ s15326985ep3201_1 Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance education: A systems view. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Neal, L. (2002). Talk to me: Discussion is the key to engaging online courses. eLearn Magazine. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage/sub_ page.cfm?article_pk=6142&page_number_ nb=1&title=COLUMN Neal, L., & Ingram, D. (2001). Asynchronous distance learning for corporate education. In K. Mantyla & J. Woods (Eds.), 2001/2002 ASTD distance learning yearbook. McGraw-Hill. Neal, L., & Miller, D. (2005). Distance education. In R. Proctor & K. Vu (Eds.), The handbook of human factors in Web design (pp. 454-470). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Neal, L., & Miller, D. (2006). The use of technology in education. In H. F. O’Neil & R. Perez, (Eds.), Web-based learning: Theory, research, and practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Neal, L., Miller, D., & Perez, R. (2004). Online learning and fun. eLearn Magazine. Retrieved November 6, 2007 from http://www.elearnmag.org/ subpage/sub_page.cfm?article_pk=12265&page_ number_nb=1&title=FEATURE%20STORY

Sims, D. E., Salas, E., & Burke, C. S. (2004). Is there a big five in teamwork? Paper presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, IL.

Notess, M., & Neal, L. (2006). Deep thoughts: Do mandatory online learning activities help students leave surface learning behind? eLearn Magazine. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from http://www. elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=opinion& article=75-1

Slamecka, N. J., & Graf, P. (1978). The generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Learning and Memory, 4, 592–604. doi:10.1037/02787393.4.6.592

Orvis, K. L., & Lassiter, A. L. R. (2006). Computer supported collaborative learning: The role of the instructor. In S. P. Ferris & S.H. Godar (Eds.), Teaching and learning with virtual teams. Hersey, PA: Idea Group. Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. (2001). The role of social presence in online courses: How does it relate to students’ perceived learning and satisfaction? World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, 1, 1545-1546. Shneiderman, B. (2002). Leonardo’s laptop: Human needs and the new computing technologies. Boston: MIT Press.

Soraci, S. A., Carlin, M. T., Chechile, R. A., Franks, J. J., Wills, T., & Watanabe, T. (1999). Encoding variability and cuing in generative processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 541–559. doi:10.1006/jmla.1999.2661 Volery, T. (2001). Online education: An exploratory study into success factors. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 24, 77–92. doi:10.2190/F0DY-BNYJ-18RB-NNNY Wittrock, M. C. (1989). Generative processes of comprehension. Educational Psychologist, 24, 345–376. doi:10.1207/s15326985ep2404_2 Zaccaro, S. J., & McCoy, M. C. (1998). The effects of task and interpersonal cohesiveness on performance of a disjunctive group task. [f]. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 837–851. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1988.tb01178.x

This work was previously published in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Best Practices and Principles for Instructors, edited by K. Orvis; A. Lassiter, pp. 180-197, copyright 2008 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.18

Virtual Tour:

A Web-Based Model of Instruction Melissa B. Holler Agora Cyber Charter School, USA

IntroductIon Perhaps for the first time since the computer made its debut, the teacher is in the position to command the technology-based instructional resources used in the classroom. Gone are the days when teachers must rely solely on the expertise of computer professionals to create computer-assisted instruction. With the advent of the World Wide Web, creating student-centered, age-appropriate material rests in the hands of the classroom teacher. The Virtual Tour is the newest link to literally millions of content specific sites that supply images, sounds, and video media. Defining the Virtual Tour. A Virtual Tour is a Web-based teaching strategy that presents multisensory, multimedia instruction appropriate for individual student exploration and group learning experiences. Virtual Tours offer the learner a host of “Front Doors,” 14 in all, each uniquely suited to address a particular learning style. “Amplified” sites provide the specific content information. They are DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-881-9.ch147

either external (found on the Internet) or internal (developed by the classroom teacher). From the teacher’s perspective. Few strategies provide teachers with such rich opportunities for expanding the walls of their classroom. The Virtual Tour enhances curriculum with authentic learning experiences in the form of exhibits, simulations, games, portfolios, paths, galleries, guided tours, and linked itineraries. Both Cooperative and Discovery lessons are improved by focusing the Virtual Tour on instructional units immersed in interpersonal communication, community awareness, and technology objectives. Students with special needs also benefit greatly from a multitude of learning medias. Needing individualized instruction can be challenging at times, but having a medium that addresses a variety of learning styles proves beneficial for both student and teacher. Preparing a Virtual Tour. Technology-based instruction is best prepared with the aid of an instructional systems design (ISD) model, and the ADDIE Model is an excellent choice for creating a Virtual Tour. By following the five-step process, teachers analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate

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Virtual Tour

a technology-rich unit of instruction employing all the strengths of the World Wide Web. To aid in reader understanding, a prototype Virtual Tour was prepared to serve as our example. The Tour was based on an actual third-grade lesson presented to special education students, during the 2005-2006 school year, on the topic of The Nine Planets, and they loved it. The lesson was modified and adapted to meet a variety of individual learners and their ability levels. Its design followed these steps. Analysis. The initial stage of any instructional development effort determines the appropriate goals, objectives, and content for the lesson. When preparing a Virtual Tour, teachers must first select a topic best taught using the Web-based format. Some topics lend themselves to technology; others do not, and no amount of images, sounds, or video clips will make them successful. Once the content focus is determined, the psychology for teaching the topic (behavioral, cognitive, or humanistic) must be decided. Behaviorally, the Virtual Tour is a natural extension of sequential learning with content presented from first to last, simple to complex, general to specific. The Cognitive teacher offers content in progressive steps until a schema, or pattern, emerges to aid the learner in the construction of new knowledge. Humanism offers a personalized approach to learning, selecting information

important to the student although, for younger students, they may not be particularly aware of what is or will be important to them. The Virtual Tour supports each of these major psychologies perhaps better than any previous teaching strategy ever devised. The Virtual Tour makes the perfect integrated thematic unit by combining several academic disciplines. As a result, the analysis phase can be the most time-consuming step in lesson preparation. In their Backward Design Model, Wiggins and McTighe (1998) suggest that learning goals must be the first decision when creating the new lesson. Table 1 displays the learning goals for The Nine Planets lesson on the left, and the specific activity that is being targeted on the right. Design. Lesson design begins by considering the target learner. Piaget (1970) identifies a characteristic of learning called “operations” and distinguishes between the concrete and abstract learner, bringing to light the importance of making instructional material age-appropriate for the learner. Concrete learning (approximately ages 7-11 years) demands tangible experiences: images, sounds, and video clips, each supported by the Virtual Tour and the Web-based media on which the Tour is grounded. The abstract learner (ages 11 years and older) revels in concepts and ideas; graphics and hyperlinks support multisensory exploration.

Table 1. Learning goals for the nine planets lesson Navigate the Internet

Use the mouse to point and click on hyperlinks identified by the teacher and containing content-specific information.

Locate specific Web sites

Enter a specific URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in the Location Window of Netscape.

Download images and text

Use the right mouse button to click on an image, view that image to ensure it is desired, then save that image onto a personal copy or storage media. Use the left mouse button to click and drag selected text, copy that text, and paste the text into a word processing document.

Print images and pages

Use Netscape to print an entire web page, selected portion of a web page, and specific images on a page.

Prepare a 3-5 minute presentation

Use the rubric for classroom presentations to present the Nine Planets lesson to your classmates.

Prepare a personal Web Address Book

Add, File, and Edit Bookmarks in Netscape and print a copy of your bookmarks to share with other students.

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Once the age and learning styles of the prospective students are in place, specific learning objectives can be formulated. For this task, many teachers prefer the format attributed to Mager (1962). Its simplicity of design makes the behavioral learning objective a natural for this instructional format. Mager suggests three components for a properly constructed objective: • •

•

Condition, provides the instruments for the learning situation Behavior, are both observable and measurable activities that surround the lesson and present evidence that learning has occurred. Criteria, specifically details how well the behavior must be performed to satisfactorily accomplish the lesson goals.

The behavioral learning objectives for the Nine Planets Virtual Tour are shown in Table 2. Development. With the analysis and design firmly in mind, the next step in the ADDIE Model is the advancement of the lesson material. And, for the Virtual Tour, that means the selection of a front door. There are 14 actual front doors that offer a facade for the Tour and its many amplified sites. Each is strong in a particular operation, either Concrete or Abstract. Each is also tagged with a psychology for learning: Behavioral, Cognitive, or Humanistic. And, since we are dealing with technology, each front door has also been labeled Easy, Challenging, or Difficult with respect to the

intricacy of the tools required to effectively place the Tour online. Implementation. Selecting a front door commensurate with your lesson objectives and personal technical skills is not difficult. With 14 available, the selection is based first and foremost on your analysis of the lesson goals, followed by the learning styles of the student, and then finally by the technical expertise of the designer. For this article, we have selected the six “Easy” front doors to explore in detail. Let’s examine each of them now. •

Next exhibit: One of the most readily mastered formats for the Virtual Tour, the Next Exhibit opens with an introductory screen explaining the purpose of the lesson and some simple directions. Textual material is held to a minimum; images control movement throughout the lesson. The learner travels sequentially forward to the next exhibit, returns to the previous exhibit, or ends the tour at any point by returning to the front door. The Evaluation Tag “ABE” indicates that the Next Exhibit is most appropriate for teaching (A)bstract content, creating a lasting image in the mind of the learner. (B)ehavorial in focus, this door presents information from first to last. And, the door is technically (E)asy to create in both concept and application. Table 4 depicts the Nine Planets Virtual Tour using the Next Exhibit format.

Table 2. Behavioral learning objectives for the dinosaur lesson Objective I

Using a personal computer and Web address list, students will navigate the Internet locating two specific Planets and/or Solar System Web sites and, locate, download, and print at least two images of a planet that caught your interest or that you learned something new about.

Objective II

After locating a given Web site, a student will review the information and answer the questions in the Workbook: “What is the difference between an Omnivores and a Carnivore? When did the Dinosaurs Live? And, What Where the Most Common Dinosaurs in North America?”

Objective III

Given a Web address, students will click on a dinosaur’s name to go to a simple black-and-white print-out and color, cut out, and mount their favorite Dinosaur for instructional use. Students will be expected to provide a 3-5 minute presentation on their Dinosaur.

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•

•

•

•

Topical path: Also appropriate for Abstract content is the Topical Path, which focuses on the delivery of content material appropriate for Discovery Learning objectives. Learners are provided an opportunity to use their prior knowledge (a precept of the Cognitive approach) by selecting teacheridentified amplified sites containing additional instructional materials. Event sequence: A lesson on The Nine Planets might be composed of many minilessons; one for each of the specific planets, the solar system, as well as the different changes in weather and seasonal patterns. The Event Sequence front door focuses on the planets in our solar system- their locations, the time it takes them to rotate around the sun, the seasonal changes that may occur- as well as their dependency on one other. Highly Abstract, this door is principally Humanistic in its presentation and relies primarily on text-based links to its amplified sites. Chronology text: This front door uses the timeline approach to create text-based links to new information. Each time increment is expressed in days, weeks, years, decades, or centuries, and is a link to more detailed material oftentimes created by the teacher. Remaining consistent with the demands of the Concrete learner, images augment the instruction with multisensory features. Chronology is a natural learning style for the Behavioral lesson as it follows the time increments to present the information. And, again, Planets are a likely topic for this front door format. Gallery: One of the most popular of front doors, the Gallery promotes cognitive learning via images organized to follow the specific learning objectives of the lesson. Amplified sites augment the instruction, and sidebars (links provided on the

•

left or right of the screen) offer navigation beyond the lesson, should the student wish additional materials. The Gallery’s reliance on graphics promotes Concrete learning and fosters the building block approach that Cognitive learners relish. Itinerary: The final “Easy” front door is patterned after a person’s daily diary. It presents learning as a series of related activities, appointments, and personal memories. Most Itinerary Virtual Tours simulate the activities of a subject during a “typical” 24-hours period, while others chronicle events over a much longer period of time.

One of the many advantages of the Virtual Tour is the flexibility that Web-based lessons offer the teacher. While other forms of educational technology demand considerable computer storage resources, a Tour is usually hosted on a single floppy diskette. Most of the resources of the Virtual Tour are external sites. Only the front door itself, along with any internal sites and related images, needs to be captured to a local storage medium. Students can take the single floppy to any Internetready computer in the school lab, classroom or even at home, and immediately connect to the materials that the teacher has prescreened for content and applicability. Or, the diskette can be given to the technology coordinator and uploaded to the school’s Web server for universal access and better teacher control. Regardless, the use of the Virtual Tour is becoming a popular venue for the presentation of Web-based material. But until now, no one has identified the various front door formats and their pedagogical importance. Evaluation. The final stage of the ADDIE Model is often overlooked by educators, particularly when technology is used. Table 3 offers a final look at each of the six Easy front doors examined in this article and offers a few words regarding their evaluative strengths and weaknesses.

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Table 3. Evaluating the front door lesson Front Door

Rating (1-10)

Next Exhibit

2

Assessment almost non-existent; requires external review via objective tests such as matching, true-false, completion.

Topical Path

2

Similar to the Next Exhibit, this Front Door requires external assessment via class discussion or essay tests.

Event Sequence

4

Most effective evaluation for this Front Door includes authentic assessments such as portfolios and thinking journals.

Chronology Text

5

Use a hard-copy, text-based quiz with this Front Door to assess your student’s understanding of the material.

Gallery

6

With so many user choices for this format, students are best assessed using typical discovery learning techniques such as group work, reports, and presentations.

Itinerary

5

Subjective evaluations are most appropriate here. Assess your student’s knowledge with reports.

Comments

Table 4. Front doors and representative Internet sites Front Door

Evaluation Tag

Guided Tour

ABC

US White House

www.whitehouse.gov

Table

ACC

A. Phillip Randolph Museum

http://aphiliprandolphmuseum.com/

Site Name

Site URL

Map/Globe

ACD

Gordon’s Ongoing Journey

http://www.philnolimits.com/

Room Exhibit

AHD

The Mariner’s Museum

http://www.mariner.org/exhibitions/

Timeline Map

CBD

The History of Invention

http://www.cbc.ca/kids/general/the-lab/history-of-invention/default. html

Picture Button

CCC

New Mexico Museum of History

http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/

Button Advance

CCD

Teaching About Religion

http://www.teachingaboutreligion.com/ activities/Activity09.pdf

Vehicle

CHD

The U-505 Submarine Tour

http://www.msichicago.org/exhibit/U505/index.html

concLusIon Keep in mind that there are eight additional Front Doors available for presenting abstract and concrete ideas; behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic content; and technically challenging or difficult construction. If you would like to visit representative sites of these remaining formats, Table 4 provides URLs of some of the best sites discovered so far. Using the Virtual Tour format and these Front Doors, teachers can design their own online resources for the classroom. They no longer rely on

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the computer professional to create technologybased instruction. The Virtual Tour is the answer to locating, organizing, and incorporating millions of content specific sites into student-oriented online lessons.

reFerences Mager, R. F. (1962). Preparing instructional objectives. Palo Alto, CA: Fearon Publishers.

Virtual Tour

Piaget, J. (1970). Science of education and the psychology of the child. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), Alexandria VA.

Key words And deFInItIons Amplified Sites: Web pages that provide the specific content information. They are either external (found on the Internet) or internal (developed by the classroom teacher). Concrete Learners: Individuals that learn best with hands-on methods and show the most success when doing it themselves, being involved with their learning process, and “doing” rather than “watching.” Front Doors: One of 14 teacher-developed formats uniquely suited to serve as the opening

page of a virtual tour, and addressing an instructor’s preferred teaching strategy and a student’s particular learning style. Individualized Instruction: Instruction focused on the individual learner and their needs, making sure that they master the skills being taught in the way that the individual student learns best. This can be done by using a variety of medias to produce a lesson that “fits” many different ability levels at the same time. Multimedia: Refers to integrated collections of computer-based media including (but not limited to) text, graphics, sound, animation, photo images, and video. Virtual Tour: A Virtual Tour is a Web-based teaching strategy that presents multisensory, multimedia instruction appropriate for individual student exploration and group learning experiences.

This work was previously published in Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 943-947, copyright 2008 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 2.19

Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated Learning: An Exploratory Study Pei-Di Shen Ming Chuan University, Taiwan Tsang-Hsiung Lee National Chengchi University, Taiwan Chia-Wen Tsai Ming Chuan University, Taiwan

AbstrAct The computer software education in vocational schools in Taiwan can hardly be deemed as effective. To increase students’ learning motivation and develop practical skills, innovative learning designs such as problem-based learning (PBL) and self-regulated learning (SRL) are on trial in this specific context. We conducted a series of quasiexperiments to examine effects of these designs mediated by a web-based learning environment. Two classes of 106 freshmen in a semester course

at Institute of Technology in Taiwan were chosen for this empirical study. Result sreveal that effects of web-enabled PBL, web-enabled SRL, and their combinations, on students’ skills of application software have significant differences. The implications of this study are also discussed.

IntroductIon Professionals with a vocational degree represent a major portion of the work force in Taiwan. Vo-

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Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

cational education is highly competitive in that it must attract enough student enrollments in the face of a continually decreasing birthrate and a rapidly increasing number of schools. Students in these schools tend to have lower levels of academic achievement. They spend more time on part-time jobs and do not get involved in their schoolwork adequately. They also care less about their grades. Teaching in such a context, particularly teaching the curriculum of application software, is a great challenge to most educators. No one doubts the guiding principles of practical applications in the vocational education in Taiwan (Tai, Chen, & Lai, 2003). However, most teaching and learning efforts in this area have been devoted to helping students pass written tests, and, thus, receiving awards or official certificates. Schools, facing the high pressure of market competition, often emphasize the proportion of students awarded such certificates before they graduate instead of quality education. This materialistic aim puts students’ attention less on mastering application software and more on preparing for tests through memorization. Consequently, a student who has passed the examination may still be unable to apply what was learned in school, and worse, lack motivation to learn more in the future. The courses in application software traditionally emphasize memorization by applying short, disjointed, lack-of-context examples. There is a wide gap between what is learned in school and what is required in the workplace (Wu, 2000). In this regard, the computer software education in vocational schools in Taiwan can hardly be deemed as effective. In order to increase students’ learning motivation and develop practical skills, problem-based learning (PBL) is considered to be the most appropriate. PBL uses real-world, simulated, contextualized problems in practice to motivate, focus, and initiate content learning and skill development (Boud & Feletti, 1991; Bruer, 1993; Williams, 1993). We believe that PBL could help low-academic-achievement students

to develop practical skills of application software through online courses. Web-based instruction seems to be an ideal learning environment because students can access an almost-unlimited amount of information and apply it in multiple ways (Kauffman, 2004). However, implementing e-learning for low-academicachievement students inevitably runs high risks. For instance, Internet addiction is quite common among low-academic-achievement students. When students enter the traditional classroom, they are used to logging on to MSN Web Messenger and checking their e-mail first. Many students like to chat with each other frequently via MSN Web Messenger, even though they are in the same classroom. They might browse shopping Web sites, even while a teacher is lecturing in the classroom. Thus, the teacher has to disconnect the network several times in his classroom to focus students’ attention. It is even more difficult for students to concentrate on online learning because of this addiction to the Internet and a lack of on-the-spot teacher monitoring. To respond to this challenge, we propose an approach that can help students regulate their learning in a better way. Success in online courses often depends on students’ abilities to successfully direct their own learning efforts (Cennamo, Ross, & Rogers, 2002). It is very critical to develop students’ self-regulation of learning before providing online courses to them. In web-based learning environments, physical absence of an instructor and increased responsibility of learners to effectively engage in learning tasks may present difficulties, particularly those with low self-regulatory skills (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2005). Student motivation may benefit from Web-based instruction with self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies. Students in the online environment, equipped with SRL competence, become more responsible for their learning and more intrinsically orientated (Chang, 2005). So self-regulation is important, particularly while learning in World-Wide-Web-supported environments (Winnips, 2000).

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Although researchers have consistently shown that self-regulation helps high achievers reach their potential (Risemberg & Zimmerman, 1992), it also makes a difference between failure and success for low achievers (Borkowski & Thorpe, 1994). However, there has been relatively little empirical research on students’ SRL with such complex technology-based learning environments (Azevedo & Cromley, 2004). Therefore, this study applies SRL in this study to help vocational school students (particularly the low achievers) concentrate on their learning, leave time for learning after their part-time jobs, and furthermore, take responsibility for their learning. There are few studies that have discussed effective online teaching methods for low academic achievers. In this area, the restructuring and translation of traditional computer software courses into e-learning has seldom been documented. Thus, this study redesigns a course in application software to integrate innovative teaching methods and learning technologies to help students learn and apply what they have learned. This study specifically explores potential effects of Web-based PBL and SRL on the development of low-academic-achievement students’ skills in using packaged software.

AuthentIc AssessMent The traditional teaching approach regarded learners as passive recipients of information. Memorization of the content lectured by the teacher was the main goal of the instructional process. The assessment approach that accompanied this instructional approach was mainly operationalized by the so-called objective test, often standardized and with a true/false or a multiple-choice item format. Such assessments mostly do not seem to assess higher-order cognitive skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, and reasoning (Segers, Dochy, & De Corte, 1999).

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However, the objective tests are often given, even in computer software education. They could not evaluate students’ practical skills, but also limit the potential application. Two innovative and practical teaching methods are applied in this study, so the traditional measurement is not appropriate to assess students’ learning, particular in computer software education. More appropriate assessment methods for PBL would include reports, practical examinations, construction of concept maps, peer assessment, or oral presentations (Sonmez & Lee, 2003). In this regard, we measure students’ skills of application software according to the correctness and completeness of their problem solving and artistry of their design instead of the memorization. The way we assess students’ improvement in skills of application software is described in the “Measures” section.

ProbLeM-bAsed LeArnInG Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method that may engage students in authentic learning activities by using challenging problems in practice as a starting point, stimulus, and focus for learning (Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980; Boud, 1985; Barrows, 1985, 1986; Walton & Matthews, 1989; Boud & Feletti, 1991). PBL promotes student learning based on the need to solve problems. It not only emphasizes the learning in the subject area, but also provides opportunities for students to practice and apply knowledge and learned skills. Davis and Harden (1999) indicate that PBL is one of the most effective teaching methods in recent 30 years. The probable reason is that the learning environment of PBL includes all kinds of factors currently known which can improve efficiency of learning, such as activity, cooperation, feedback, adaptability, and accountability. Albanese and Mitchell (1993) reveal that PBL helps students more in knowledge construction and reasoning skills compared with the traditional

Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

teaching approach. PBL may help students achieve learning goals, such as professional reasoning; integration of scientific, academic, and professional knowledge; and lifelong learning skills (Dunlap, 2005). Many Researchers examine PBL’s positive impact on knowledge and skill acquisition and transfer, problem solving, attitudes and opinions about courses and programs, measures of performance, and self-directed learning (Norman & Schmidt, 1992; Albanese & Mitchell, 1993; Berkson, 1993; Vernon & Blake, 1993; Colliver, 2000; Davies, 2000). Furthermore, Polanco, Calderón, and Delgado (2004) point out that students in PBL groups attain significantly higher scores than students in a course from a control group composed of physics, mathematics and computer science. In the domain of Information Science, Greening, Kay, Kingston, and Crawford (1996) consider that upper-level university students should have developed many key competencies. However, during teaching, they actually find many third-year students not having acquired necessary competencies from information science curriculum. PBL, as an alternative teaching method, demonstrates that it helps to improve students’ key competencies. Yip (2001) points out that PBL can enhance competencies, both in professional and information systems education. PBL is a flexible approach. It has demonstrated its working well with both small teams and large groups. However there might be disagreement whether PBL will be as effective, or even possible, for online learning. In this regard, Chanlin and Chan (2004) examine the effects of PBL in a Web-based approach. Results reveal that students in the PBL treatment group perform better than those from the control group. Therefore, it can be summarized that, in a Web-enabled learning environment, the effects of problem-based learning on students’ skills of application software are positive, and higher than those without PBL.

seLF-reGuLAted LeArnInG Zimmerman and Schunk (1989) define SRL in terms of self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions, which are systematically oriented towards attainment of students’ own goals. SRL is also defined as a learner’s intentional efforts to manage and direct complex learning activities and is composed of three primary components, namely cognitive strategy use, meta-cognitive processing, and motivational beliefs (Kauffman, 2004). Yang (1993) finds that students who are high self-regulatory skill users, as measured by a preexisting index, score significantly higher than their counterparts, low self-regulatory skill users, regardless of the level of control. Characteristics attributed to self-regulated persons coincide with those attributed to high-performance, highcapacity students, as opposed to those with low performance (or learning disabilities), who show a deficit in these variables (Roces & González Torres, 1998; Zimmerman, 1998; Reyero & Tourón, 2003). Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons (1986) point out that students’ frequency of self-regulated strategy use predicts a substantial amount of variance in their achievement test scores. Nota, Soresi, and Zimmerman (2004) indicate that the cognitive self-regulation strategy of organizing and transforming proves to be a significant predictor of the students’ course grades in mathematics and technical subjects of high school, their subsequent average course grades, and examinations passed at the university. As for the effects of SRL on computer software, Bielaczyc, Pirolli, and Brown (1995) incorporate self-explanation and self-regulation strategies in the attainment of the cognitive skill of computer programming. They find that their treatment group, which incorporates the self-regulation strategies of self-monitoring and clarifying comprehension failures in conjunction with self-explanation strategies, outperforms a control group that did not have the benefit of instruction in these strategies.

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Their study implies that, in addition to knowledge acquisition strategies, students benefit from the incorporation of strategies which allow them to plan, monitor, and evaluate their understanding and strategy use (Bielaczyc, Pirolli, & Brown, 1995). In a similar vein, this study provides us an insight that SRL is appropriate to be applied in computer software education. Researchers have consistently shown that self-regulation helps high achievers reach their potential (Risemberg & Zimmerman, 1992). It also makes a difference between failure and success for low achievers (Borkowski & Thorpe, 1994). Young (1996) identifies that low self-regulatory skill users are found to perform significantly lower in computer-based instruction that applied learner control of the sequencing. It is believed that SRL is effective to the low achievers, not only through face-to-face instruction, but also in computerbased or technology-based instruction. Learners who report more extensive use of SRL strategies show higher academic achievement than learners who use self-regulated learning strategies less often (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1986). In the same study, students’ achievement could be predicted with 93% accuracy from reported use of SRL strategies. Web-enabled learning environment is an interactive network system consisting of a variety of functions to support a virtual classroom to enhance the quality of teaching and learning activities (Poon, Low, & Yong, 2004). Students can access information at their convenience, are free to work at their own pace, and can revisit information that they find confusing and/or interesting (Lehman, Kauffman, White, Horn, & Bruning, 2001). Nevertheless, providing students with opportunities to integrate their knowledge through Web-enabled instruction may not be effective if they lack the skills needed to regulate their learning. Thus, strategies that prepare students for the rigors of learning at a distance and increase the probability of retention and success must be put into practice (Chang, 2005). Winnips (2000) suggests that

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self-regulation is particularly important when learning in World-Wide-Web-supported environments. In other words, it is even more critical for students to transform into self-regulated learners in Web-enabled learning. Previous studies have established that self-regulated skills can help foster learning from any instructional method (Weinstein, 1989; Zimmerman, 1990; Lindner & Harris, 1993; Ertmer, Newby, & MacDougall, 1996). To sum up, in the Web-enabled learning environment, effects of self-regulated learning on students’ skills of application software are positive and performance higher than those without SRL.

ProbLeM-bAsed LeArnInG And seLF-reGuLAted LeArnInG In PBL, students work in collaborative groups to identify what they need to learn in order to solve problems. They engage in self-directed learning (SDL), apply knowledge they acquire to the problems, and reflect on what they have learned and the effectiveness of the strategies they have employed. That is, PBL is well-suited to help students become active learners as it situates learning in real-world problems and makes students responsible for their learning (HmeloSilver, 2004). PBL helps prepare students for lifelong learning by developing students’ ability for self-directed learning and their meta-cognitive awareness (Dunlap, 2005). PBL is a task-based approach that teachers can apply to support development of SRL. If PBL activities are designed carefully with teachers who provide appropriate modeling and scaffolding, they facilitate and necessitate SRL. PBL provides opportunities for self-directed learning by offering students choice, control of what to work on, how to work, and what products to generate. PBL facilitates SRL because it places responsibility on the students to discover information, to coordinate

Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

actions and people, to monitor understanding, and to reach goals (Paris & Paris, 2001). Hmelo-Silver (2004) points out that students’ approaches to learn from problems are different qualitatively because of their degree of self-regulation. Ertmer et al. (1996) conducts a qualitative study of how veterinary students learned from problems. Low self-regulated learners have difficulty in adapting to the kind of learning required in problem-based instruction. They fluctuate according to their perception of the value of learning from problems. High self-regulated students value learning from problems and tend to focus on the problem analysis and reflection process. In contrast, low self-regulated students tend to focus on fact acquisition. Furthermore, the results of Ertmer et al. suggest that low self-regulated students may have difficulty in dealing with SRL demands of a PBL curriculum. Combined training with self-regulatory and problem-solving strategies is effective for enhancing self-regulatory competences in solving mathematical problems (Perels, Gürtler, & Schmitz, 2005). However, there are very few studies that discuss the effects of PBL and SRL simultaneously, particularly through teaching Web sites. According to the literature reviewed , it is believed that the learning effect will be even stronger when teachers arouse students’ interest, lead them to apply their skills and knowledge to solve problems, and encourage them to selfregulate their learning. In this research, we hypothesize that students focusing on the aspects of problem-based learning variant with self-regulated learning would gain more development on the skills of application software than students studying the task without these co-existing treatments. We also hypothesize that learning effects of PBL and non-SRL group or non-PBL and SRL group are better than non-PBL and non-SRL group. That is, highest increase of development in skills of applying packaged software is expected in conditions wherein students are confronted with the situation of simulated problems and with self-regulated

or self-directed learning style without teachers’ pressure. Therefore, we propose the following: in a Web-enabled learning environment, the effects of PBL and SRL intervention on students’ skills of application software are positive, and higher, than those without the combined intervention.

Methods Participants Participants in this study are 106 fresh students taking a compulsory course of ‘Packaged Software and Application’ in an institute of technology in Taiwan. None of them major in the field of information or computer technology. However, in an institution for technological/vocational education, practical applications of technology are guiding principles (Tai, et al, 2003). Students are expected to spend more time and efforts in mastering a variety of technological skills, as compared to those in universities in Taiwan.

course setting The course under study is a semester-long, twocredit-hour class, targeted at first-year college students from different majors. Students solve a series of authentic tasks by applying Microsoft Office (including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

experimental design and Procedure In this study we explore whether students in the “Packaged Software and Application” course enhance their skills of application software via e-learning. Based on feedback from earlier research, we have re-designed the course and conducted a series of quasi-experiments to examine the effects of web-enabled PBL, SRL, and their combinations. The experimental design is a 2 (PBL vs. nonPBL) × 2 (SRL vs. non-SRL) factorial pretest-

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Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

Figure 1. Expected effects of variation in instructional methods

Figure 2. Schedule of three modules and skill tests

Word Module (8 weeks)

Week 1: Participants are divided into 4 groups and pretested

Week 3: The course is completely moved to the website

Excel Module (5 weeks)

Week 8: A Word Test

post-test design (see Figure 1). Students from four groups solve the same task but in different learning conditions. Participants are randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions in such a way that each condition contains 24 to 30 students. The PBL and SRL group (C1, n=30), PBL and non-SRL group (C2, n=25), non-PBL and SRL group (C3, n=24) are experimental groups, while non-PBL and non-SRL group (C4, n=27) is the control group. The sample size in this study is large enough to be tested in statistics. The course design in the present study consists of three subsequent modules: the Word module, the Excel module, and the PowerPoint module. A skill test is administered after the completion of

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Week 13: An Excel Test

PowerPoint Module (3 weeks)

Week 16: A PowerPoint Test

each module. The first test is held during midterm examination (eighth week). The second test is held in the 13th week and the final one in the 16th week. A schedule of teaching of modules and skill tests is depicted in Figure 2. In the beginning of a course, students are encouraged to adapt and learn via a course Web site. Teaching during this period is through a traditional classroom. A teacher records every session of the lecture first and then converts these lectures into a HTML file with flash, video, and voice. These HTML files are then loaded into the course Web site. Students can preview and review the course sessions on this course Web site. After three weeks, most of the coursework is moved onto the Web site. We help

Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

students to adapt to learning through the net and try lessen down a feeling of isolation. Within these three weeks, we adjust students’ learning gradually and smoothly.

PbL treatment A teacher creates interesting, challenging, and authentic problem situations. In the first Word module, students are required to apply for a job as Marketing Assistant in an online-game company. They are required to design and then build autobiographies and resumes by applying skills of application software that they have just learned. In the Excel module, students play roles as if they are employed by this same software company, and a marketing manager asks them to compare expenses resulting from different distribution channels. They have to survey and then complete a worksheet with some graphs to contrast differences between channels. Additionally, they must come up with a recommendation regarding the best combination of channels. In the last module of PowerPoint, they are promoted as Marketing Managers of higher rank. They are asked to develop a business proposal for a new online game. They have to present this proposal with visual aids to convince the managing director to enter in to a market. Therefore, a persuasive PowerPoint presentation is built at this stage. A teacher demonstrates first how they could approach the situation and solve the problem with the help of a Web-based multimedia application. In addition to the teaching of skills of application software, similar situations and related applications are also discussed in the class. Latter, the teacher guides students in constructing their own models of problem-solving.

srL treatment There is a SRL group in each class. Two SRL groups from the PBL class and non-PBL class are gathered in a classroom and a two-hour lecture is

delivered discussing how to manage study time and regulate their learning. The lecture is given in an after-school course. Content of this SRL course is composed of following four processes addressed by Zimmerman, Bonner and Kovach (1996), that is, • • • •

Self-evaluation and monitoring, Goal-setting and strategy planning, Strategy implementation and monitoring Monitoring of the outcome of strategy.

Students are taught how to implement these four processes to become more regulated learners. In addition to the two-hour lecture, students in SRL groups are required to prepare and read the textbook regularly before classes, and to review or practice the skills of application software they have learned after school. They are also required to record their learning behavior every week. Data is recorded on the course Web site instead of their notebooks in order to prevent falsification of records. A teacher cursorily examines students’ records. Treatments in four groups are illustrated and compared in Table 1.

Measures To examine levels of change manipulated by variations in experimental conditions, we first measured students’ skills of application software as a baseline before they entered the class. In the first week, students complete three Word documents as a pretest. We choose Microsoft Word for the pretest because almost every student in Taiwan learns Word before he learns any other software package. The pretest grades show that computer skills of almost all are low. None of the participants are able to answer any of the pretest questions

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Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

Table 1. Teaching and learning activities in different experimental groups Group C1

Teaching Activities A teacher…

Learning Activities Students…

• demonstrates how to solve au-

• take on authentic tasks and learn by problem

thentic problems and discusses its

solving.

potential applications.

• practice SRL and record learning behaviors every

• teaches SRL skills and urges

week.

students to study regularly. C2 C3

Teaching activities are the same as

Students experience authentic situations and solve the

C1 but without SRL lectures.

problems without extra requirements of SRL.

A teacher…

Students…

• converts his traditional way of • receive traditional computer software course teaching without any modification through internet. into an online format.

•practice SRL and record learning behaviors every

• teaches SRL skills and urges

week.

students to study regularly. C4

Teaching activities are the same as

Students experience traditional style of teaching and

C3 but without SRL lectures.

do not deal with extra requirements of SRL, although teaching is conducted via Internet.

correctly. This confirms that all participants in the four groups had a little knowledge or a skill of software package. The difference in students’ skills of application software at the beginning stage among the four groups was not statistically significant. Therefore, we assume that the students have equal or no computer skills before they take this course. In addition, none of them had any experience in taking a Web-based course. We then evenly and randomly divided the students into the four experimental groups. Later, skill tests are administered at the end of each module. In this study, we applied two practical and authentic teaching methods. It is very important to measure students’ practical skills in problem solving rather than the memorization. In this regard, the lecturer simulated practical problems for students to solve to evaluate their enhancement of skills of application software. For example, students are required to complete a worksheet with some graphs and tables to compare the market share with all competitors. They have

516

to apply several functions to compute the numerals and sort them. Students’ grades come from their correctness and completeness of problem solving, and the artistry of their designs. Students will get high grades if they completely solve the problems with exquisite designing. Before testing, students are assigned random seats. All students are tested at the same time. Every test consists of five to seven questions. A teacher grades and records the results immediately after each test. A surrogate representing skills in application software is averaged from the scores of these three tests. Finally, the enhancement of skills in application software of a module is the result of one’s grade minus pretest grade. We test differences in the enhancement of the skills of application software under different conditions.

results To examine levels of change manipulated by variants in experimental conditions, we first

Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

Table 2. Independent samples t-test: Improvement of grades Word Excel PowerPoint Average

N

Mean

S. D.

F

t-value

df

P

PBL

55

64.29

11.063

2.604

3.147

104

.002**

non-PBL

51

56.84

13.269

PBL

55

64.98

17.948

24.992

3.809

104

<.001**

non-PBL

51

46.43

30.943

PBL

55

72.00

11.617

.029

2.186

104

.031**

non-PBL

51

66.98

12.016

PBL

55

67.09

9.779

5.430

4.722

104

<.001**

non-PBL

51

56.75

12.673

**P < 0.05; *P < 0.1

Table 3. Independent samples t-test: The improvement of grades N

Mean

S. D.

F

t-value

df

P

SRL

54

63.11

11.647

.102

2.018

104

.046**

non-SRL

52

58.21

13.325

Excel

SRL

54

62.37

23.770

2.483

2.554

104

.012**

non-SRL

52

49.50

28.021

PowerPoint

SRL

54

72.54

12.462

.222

2.649

104

.009**

non-SRL

52

66.52

10.831

SRL

54

66.01

11.305

.769

3.473

104

.001**

non-SRL

52

58.08

12.195

Word

Average

**P < 0.05; *P < 0.1

measured students’ skills using application software as a baseline. The pretest confirmed that all participants from four groups had a little or no knowledge and skills in packaged software. The difference in students’ skills of application software at the beginning stage among four groups was not statistically significant. In addition, none of them had any experience in taking a Web-based course. We then randomly divided the students into four experimental groups. Independent sample t-test was used to compare improvement of grades between PBL and nonPBL teaching methods. As shown in Table 2, the improvement in students’ grades for Word, Excel and PowerPoint modules in PBL class (67.09) was on an average higher than that in the non-PBL class

(56.75). This is also true if one takes the test scores of each module into account separately. Therefore, effects of Web-based PBL on students’ skills of application software are positive, and higher than those who do not receive PBL. Results from Table 3 show that the average grade for Word, Excel and PowerPoint modules in SRL group (66.01) is higher than that in the non-SRL group (58.08). This is also true if one takes test scores of each module into account separately. Thus, the effects of web-based SRL on students’ skills in using application software are positive, and higher than those without SRL intervention. Finally, data from Table 4 shows that combination of PBL and SRL intervention a group results in the highest grades among four groups. The im-

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Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

Table 4. One-way ANOVA (Analysis of Variance): Average of the improvement of grades. De pendent

Mean Difference

Variable Average

Scheffe

(I) Group

(J) Group

(I-J)

Std. Error

Sig.

1

2

5.862

2.910

.262

3

8.436(*)

2.943

.047

4

17.064(*)

2.851

.000

1

-5.862

2.910

.262

3

2.574

3.071

.872

4

11.202(*)

2.983

.004

2

3

4

1

-8.436(*)

2.943

.047

2

-2.574

3.071

.872

4

8.628(*)

3.015

.048

1

-17.064(*)

2.851

.000

2

-11.202(*)

2.983

.004

3

-8.628(*)

3.015

.048

* The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

provement of skills using application software in C1 is significantly higher than C3 and C4, and also higher than C2, though insignificant. Therefore, we conclude that the effects of Web-based PBL and SRL intervention on students’ skills in using application software are positive, and higher than those who do not receive PBL or/and SRL. For those teachers who wish to stick to traditional methods of teaching, directly transforming their teaching material into electronic form may not be a fruitful approach. Students from the controlled group (C4) received lowest grades among four groups, and differences in grades among them are significant (see Table 4). It is suggested that teachers should redesign their courses and then adopt new instructional methods and technologies to fully exploit benefits of deploying Web-based learning environments.

dIscussIon This study provides valuable insights and sheds some lights on new, effective practices that can be

518

used by schools (particularly vocational schools), scholars, and teachers planning to implement or presently engaged in implementing e-learning environments. The implications of this study consist of three-fold: Firstly, the PBL teaching method was found to play a consistently positive role in enhancing students’ skills of using application software (see Table 2). There are significant differences between PBL and non-PBL classes, either in case of individual module tests or in an average of the three module tests. It was demonstrated that PBL is good for computer software education in general and e-learning in particular. Teachers could redesign their courses by simulating meaningful and interesting business situations, and, thus, engaging students’ imaginations and interest to solve challenging problems. Secondly, evidence also supports that the second teaching method based on SRL also enhances students’ skills of using application software (see Table 3). There are significant differences between SRL and non-SRL groups on three tests and in average. Interestingly, as we focused on the variation of P-value related to each module, it became

Enhancing Skills of Application Software via Web-Enabled Problem-Based Learning and Self-Regulated

clear that the effects of SRL increased over time. This suggests that the effects of SRL among low achievers can be significantly improved, even by a limited amount of intervention, such as two-hour lecture regarding SRL at the beginning of teaching program and later by students’ monitoring their own learning. Finally, this study found some support for the effectiveness of a combination of instructional methods. As shown in Table 4, results show that the effects of a combination of PBL and SRL intervention on students’ skills of application software are positive and higher than those who do not receive PBL or/and SRL, although the difference between C1 and C2 is not statistically significant. This study contributes to e-learning practices in three different ways: (a) this study specifies how teachers can engage students in improving learning under authentic conditions. At the same time, teachers help students to regulate their learning by applying PBL and SRL instructional methods in a Web-based learning environment; (b) this study is one of the first attempts to explore learning effects of various combinations of PBL, SRL, and Web-based learning; and (c) this empirical study provides evidence that skills of low academic achievers, for using application software can be improved through e-learning. Teachers face tremendous challenges in implementing e-learning among relatively low academic achievers. For example, Internet addiction is common, and it is not immediately clear how to focus students’ attention and improve their learning in a Web-based environment without teachers’ on-the-spot monitoring. This study proposes an effective approach in this kind of e-learning environment.

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This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 6, Issue 3, edited by Q. Jin, pp. 69-84, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Section III

Tools and Technologies

This section presents extensive coverage of the technology that informs and impacts Web-based education. These chapters provide an in-depth analysis of the use and development of innumerable devices and tools, while also providing insight into new and upcoming technologies, theories, and instruments that will soon be commonplace. Within these rigorously researched chapters, readers are presented with examples of the tools that facilitate and support the emergence and advancement of Web-based education. In addition, the successful implementation and resulting impact of these various tools and technologies are discussed within this collection of chapters.

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Chapter 3.1

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course C. Candace Chou University of St. Thomas, USA

AbstrAct

IntroductIon

This study explores student views of various ELearning tools as teaching and learning media in an online course for pre-service and in-service teachers. This chapter also examines the pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools in an online course. The capabilities of a system that allows meaningful interaction, reflection, personal identification, and a sense of community play a key role in the degree of social presence. This study highlights some key findings regarding the efficacy of E-Learning tools from student perspectives and make recommendations for future pedagogical practice.

The utilization of both synchronous and asynchronous communication systems has been a common practice in online instruction. While the majority of distance education is conducted over asynchronous communication mode, the introduction of E-Learning 2.0 tools such as Weblog, podcast, wiki have opened a new door for more learner-centered and interactive instruction. The introduction of ELearning tools has enabled learners to take more control of their learning. E-Learning 2.0 tools are characterized as tag-based, participatory, playful, social networking, and collaborative editing through tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasting, flickr,

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-788-1.ch026

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Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

del.icio.us, and wikipedia (O’Reilly, 2005). As these tools are being utilized in classroom or online learning environments, educators are also seeking research-based evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of E-Learning tools. They are especially interested to know what are the student views on the effectiveness of these tools for online learning? In what ways can the new E-Learning technologies be effective pedagogical tools for online instruction? The purposes of this chapter are twofold: compare indicators of social presence with various E-Learning tools and examine the changes in degrees of social presence during the course of an online class. Blog, podcast, Breeze, and Blackboard Discussion Board are the four tools chosen for comparisons from an online graduate course in a teacher education program.

LIterAture revIew Many models have been proposed to explain frameworks and important components of learning environments. A review of these models will provide a better understanding of how to achieve effective online learning.

bransford’s Model of Learning environment Bransford, Brown, Cocking, Donova, and Pellegrino (1999) proposed a model for designing effective learning environments. The learning environment should be learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered as shown in figure 1. An effective learning environment must be learnercentered so that the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs of the students are taken into consideration by the instructors. Learners often use their current knowledge to construct new knowledge. In a learner-centered environment, instructors would attempt to understand what students think,

discuss their misconceptions, and integrate instructional strategies that can help learners to acquire new knowledge. Bransford et al. (1999) stated “Overall, learner-centered environments include teachers who are aware that learners construct their own meanings, beginning with the beliefs, understanding, and cultural practices they bring to the classroom” (p. 124). The teacher is the bridge that helps learners build new understandings. An effective learning environment is knowledge-centered. It is not sufficient to only teach thinking skills and problem-solving skills. These abilities require well-organized knowledge that can be retrieved for the appropriate context. A knowledge-centered learning environment focuses on curriculum design in which students are expected to achieve desired learning outcomes. The curriculum should “help students develop interconnected pathways within a discipline so that they learn their way around in it and not lose sight of where they are” (Bransford et al, 1999, p. 141). Good learning environments should also be assessment-centered so that students can have many opportunities to receive feedback for improvement. Assessment must reflect the learning goals. Assessment can not only help the students to improve their learning but also the instructors to revise their instructional approach. Finally, effective learning environments should be community-centered, which share norms and value high standard learning. The norms include ways for learners to interact, receive feedback, and learn. These guidelines provide a clear pedagogical framework for designing effective online learning environments. These principles are well-supported in the literature. However, for higher education distance learning, the role of the instructor is not clearly defined in this model. In addition, the attributes of technology are missing. The community of inquiry model by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999) does address the roles of instruc-

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Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

Figure 1. Perspectives on learning environments (Adapted from Bransford et al., 1999, p.122)

tor, students, and learning in distance learning environments.

the community of Inquiry Model Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999) proposed the model of critical thinking and practical inquiry to demonstrate how learning takes place through the interaction of three core elements: social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence. These three elements are crucial in providing a successful higher education learning experience. The researchers examined the transcripts of textbased asynchronous computer conferences and analyzed indicators that occurred in a computer conference. Cognitive presence means the extent to which a student can construct meaning though sustained communication. Cognitive presence reflects an important element in critical thinking. This element also represents a process and an outcome for achieving learning goals in higher education. Social presence is defined as “the ability of participants in the Community of Inquiry to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other par-

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ticipants as ‘real people’” (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999, p. 89). Social presence can play a key role in supporting cognitive presence in which it indirectly facilitates the thinking process by the community of learners. Cognitive presence can be easily sustained when social presence is established (Garrison, 1997; Gunawardena, 1995). Teaching presence refers, primary to, the responsibilities of the teacher. It serves two functions: the design of the educational experience and facilitation of learning. A teacher is responsible for the selection, organization, and presentation of course content. In addition, a teacher designs the learning activities and conducts assessment. Teaching presence can support both cognitive presence and social presence for the purpose of attaining educational goals. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999) contend that the interplay of the three presences contributes to a better educational experience. Each presence has unique indicators to reflect the process of an online course (see table 1). These indicators help to identify the meaningful learning activities in online learning.

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

Figure 2. Elements of an Educational Experience (© 1999 The Elsevier Science Inc. Used with permission.)

Table 1. Community of Inquiry Coding Template (© 1999 The Elsevier Science Inc. Used with permission.) Elements

Categories

Indicators (examples only)

Cognitive Presence

Triggering event Exploration Integration Resolution

Sense of puzzlement Information exchange Connecting ideas Applying new ideas

Social Presence

Emotional Expression Open Communication Group Cohesion Instructional Management

Emotions Risk-free expression Encouraging collaboration

Teaching Presence

Instructional management Building understanding Direct Instruction

Defining and initiating discussion topics Sharing personal meaning Focusing discussion

Model of success Factors in online Learning environments Many factors contribute to the successful learner experiences in an online learning environment (OLE). To explain these factors, Bekele (2008) proposed a model of success factors based on a meta-analysis of 82 studies that were published

in major educational technology journals between 1995 and 2006. These factors include: human factors, course factors, leadership factors, technology factors, and pedagogic factors (figure 3). Bekele’s model represents the complex interplay of human, technology, pedagogy, and leadership. The human factors denoted the perceptions, understanding, and competencies of OLEs by

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Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

Figure 3. Model of success and success factors in Internet-supported learning environments (© 2008 Teklu Abate Bekele. Used with permission.)

the students and instructors. It is assumed that higher levels of motivation, information, communication and technology (ICT) competency, attitudes, and experiences in OLEs would result in a more successful online learning experience. The course factors referred to instructional design and organization of a course. A course needs to have clear goals and expectations, provide relevant information and challenges to students, and offer high quality of content. The leadership factors were linked to the roles by the administration in terms of technology provision, staff/student training, ICT support, and other logistics. The pedagogic factors referred to learning and instruction in OLEs. The use of collaborative, problem-based, and process oriented learning strategies could usually yield more successful experiences. The technology factors referred to the attributes of

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educational technologies. Learners need to have reliable access to a variety of technologies for various learning contexts. When multiple tools are available, online collaboration, interaction and communication can all take place. Through this framework, a more complete picture of factors contributing to successful online learning can be better examined. The model of success and success factors is further supported by a longitudinal study by Menchaca and Bekele (2008). They examined the experiences of students and teachers in distance education. Qualitative analysis and coding of survey data and focus groups have identified eleven major factors that are deemed important factors for success in online learning. The eleven factors are grouped in three categories. The factors are:

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

1.

2. 3.

Technology tools: multiple tools, technical proficiency, asynchronous tools, synchronous tools Pedagogy strategies: situated learning, faceto-face, change, faculty importance Programmatic issues: overall experience, enrollment, program difficulty

The findings indicate that both faculty and students responded favorably on the use of multiple interactive tools. Technology tools allowed reflection, meaningful conversation, and constructive feedback from peers. A mix of synchronous and asynchronous communication could enhance student experience. Student felt less isolated when there is a variety of ways to communicate with each other. Faculty in favor of multiple tools emphasized the advantages of addressing different learning styles. Menchaca and Bekele (2008) suggested the following best practices for online learning: • • • • • • •

Integrate multiple tools for different contexts; Promote a positive attitude toward technology and OLE; Incorporate a social and situated learning environment; Include some level of f2f interaction; Involve and rely on faculty at many levels; Help participants develop appropriate skills, experience, and training; and Provide sustained administrative support (p. 249)

The first model of learning environment points out how people learn and the essential elements for designing effective learning. The second model of community of inquiry offers the conceptual framework and tools for enhancing educational experience in an online learning community. The third model of success factors specifically examines the role of technology and the success factors

in online learning. One might wonder what the research evidence is. The following section will specifically focus on research in social presence and teaching presence.

social Presence and teaching Presence Social presence has been an important indicator of student satisfaction in online learning (Richardson & Swan, 2003; Hostetter & Busch, 2006). Social presence is originally defined as the “degree of salience of the other person in the (mediated) interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships” (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Short, William, and Christie (1976) have employed this concept to examine how users respond to different types of media. They hypothesized that users of communication media interacted differently according to the degree of social presence of each medium. Gunawardena and Zittle’s (1997) extensive research in social presence and computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems concluded that social presence could “be cultured” among different CMC systems. Their research findings have departed from the traditional views that social presence is largely an attribute of the communication medium. In a study that compared the degree of social presence of video-conferencing, audio-conferencing, text-chat, 3-D virtual Words, and asynchronous discussion Board, Chou (2001) has found that the frequency in using a communication medium can also enhance the degree of social presence. Recent studies have shifted the focus from media attributes to pedagogical applications of the media while examining the degree of social presence. Richardson and Swan (2003) found strong correlation between perceived social presence of various online activities and perceived learning satisfaction. Students who have more online course experience have a higher degree of social presence.

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The connection between social presence and community building has also being highlighted in recent research (Tu & McIsaac, 2002). Gunawardena (1995) postulated that “the development of social presence and a sense of online community becomes key to promoting collaborative learning and knowledge building” (p 164). She emphasized that collaborative learning is supported by learner’s sense of social presence and community. Hostetter and Busch (2006) found that student perception of social presence is similar for both online and face-to-face groups. They have also found that social presence is a more significant predictor for online courses than face-to-face courses. In short, in empirical studies, social presence has shown strong connection with quality learning. The roles of an instructor play a vital part in the success of online learning. Teaching presence is a term that best describes the multiple tasks of an instructor. Anderson et al. (2001) defined teaching presence as “the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (p. 5). With supporting evidence from the content analysis of asynchronous text-based conferencing transcripts, Anderson et al. (2001) asserted that teaching presence fall into three categories: (1) design and organization, (2) facilitating discourse, and (3) direct instruction. Online teaching starts with the design and planning of an online course. The activities involve building curriculum materials, planning student activities, and establishing communication etiquettes. For the second category of facilitating discourse, a teacher provides modeling to encourage participation, mediate between active and inactive students, and set the tone for student discussion. For the third category on direct instruction, an online instructor provides leadership in scholarly and intellectual activities. Teachers as the subject matter experts are expected to provide direct comments to students and organize activities to achieve the learning goals of the course.

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Teaching presence and social presence play equally important roles in online education. While many studies have devoted to the importance and effectiveness of social presence in online learning, Yang (2007) proposed a STEP model on the specifics of establishing social presence for online collaborative learning. STEP consists of four key phases: scaffolding, transactions, evaluation, and presentation. In the scaffolding phase, the instructor could present relevant materials, sequence instruction, and facilitate initial online discussion to ease student anxiety and reduce social distance among students. In the transactions phase, the instructor interacts with the students through both private and public channels. The private channel could be one-to-one connection such as email or a “private folder” in a course management system. The public channel could be posting answers and comments in the discussion area. The transaction phase serves the purposes of engaging students in active learning and reducing feelings of isolation. The teaching presence and student social presence will need to be delicately balanced to achieve a successful transaction phase. In the evaluation phase, two purposes are served: “to remind inactive students to contribute ideas and/or react to others’ contributions, and to reinforce interactive students continuing their journey on their knowledge and skills from emergent to mastery” (Jonassen, 2000, cited in Yang, 2007, p. 119). The presentation phase assists students in reflecting the learning processes and reinforcing student performance in an authentic environment. The STEP model contributes to the understanding of the complex processes of online teaching and provides specific suggestions for enhancing teaching presence and student social presence.

Pedagogical Applications Technology along cannot provide effective learning. The pedagogical models of an online course can provide a framework on how to maximize E-Learning tools. Pedagogical models refers to the

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

“views about teaching and learning. Pedagogical models are cognitive models or theoretical constructs derived from learning theory that enable the implementation of specific instructional and learning strategies” (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 164). For example, in a behaviorismbased pedagogical model, a strong emphasis of the learning environment will be on direct instruction and drill-and-practice types of exercises. In a constructivism-based pedagogical model, stronger emphasis will be placed on learner-centered instructional strategies. To be more specific about the pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools, a Web-based learning environment can be a venue for knowledge construction. Virtual worlds are ideal for simulation and role play. The audio can be used for one-way lecture broadcast or interactive feedback comments. Ice, Curtis, Phillips, and Wells (2007) found that the use of asynchronous audio feedback could enhance teaching presence and sense of community. Students showed higher rate of satisfaction when receiving embedded asynchronous audio feedback. Driscoll (2000) offered the following instructional design principles for utilizing technologies: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Embed learning in complex, realistic, and relevant context. Provide for social negotiation as an integral part of learning. Support multiple perspectives and the use of multiple modes of representation. Encourage ownership in learning Nurture self-awareness of the knowledge construction process. (p. 382)

Careful consideration of the pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools is necessary to foster a highly effective learning environment. The follow sections offer examples of the pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools and examine student experiences in an online course.

course bAcKGround And PedAGoGIcAL APPLIcAtIons oF e-LeArnInG tooLs Menchaca and Bekele (2008) highlighted the importance of multiple tools for facilitating successful online learning experience. The research study in this chapter focused on an online course that has utilized multiple synchronous and asynchronous communication tools for teaching and learning activities. The subjects for this research were students in an online graduate course titled “Use of Technology for Instruction.” Fifteen students, including six pre-service and nine in-service teachers, attended a six-week intensive summer course in 2007. The objectives of this course were to increase student proficiency in technology integration in the classroom with emerging technologies and to examine the social ethical aspects of technology applications in education. This course utilized a number of E-Learning 2.0 (e.g., Blog, podcast), multimedia-enabled communication system (e.g., Breeze), and text-based communication system (e.g, Blackboard discussion board). Instructional activities were carried out in both synchronous and asynchronous modes. The assignments and activities for each communication system are summarized below: Breeze: Students were required to meet through the Breeze video-conferencing system, a Flash video application that allows multiple simultaneous video connections. Four one-hour Web-based seminars (Webinar) were scheduled over the sixweek course. Students were encouraged but not required to use a Web cam to interact with each other. In the first week, there were four students using web cams, three using microphones, and nine students using text chat. By the second meeting, thirteen students were using a Web cam and two students remained on the text chat. The instructional activities over Breeze included: course orientation, student introduction, guest

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Table 2. Examples of pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools to establish a Community of Inquiry in online education CMC tools

Social presence

Teaching Presence

Breeze Video-conferencing

• Student presentations • Small group discussion in breakout rooms

• Instructor presentation on courserelated topics • Instructor-facilitated class discussion • Trouble-shooting

• Archived videos for review • Multimedia presentation with PowerPoint, polling, whiteboard, Q&A

Weblog

• Peer feedback • Student-generated knowledge base

• Teacher comments on student works • Instructor organization of topic categories

• Student reflection on trends, issues, and course topics • Student master skills through hands-on practice

Podcast

• Student-generated podcast • Peer feedback

• Podcast/Webcast for social greetings and course lectures • Increased teacher-student contacts via voice and sound • Feedback on student projects

• Instructional video tutorials for reviewing course materials or learning new topics

Asynchronous Discussion Board

• Student sharing of course projects • Peer feedback on course projects

• Instructional organization • Facilitating discourse

• In-depth reflection of course topics

lecture on copyright issue, demonstration of blog creation, and student final project presentation. The pedagogical objectives were to familiarize students with synchronous multimedia-mediated communication system and gain competency in utilizing this tool. Weblog: Students were required to use the Blogger.com service to create their own blogs to reflect on emerging technologies for teaching. A minimum of three Weblog entries was required of each student. Students used Bloglines (http:// bloglines.com) to aggregate their classmates’ blogs. Students had the choice of a blog topic. Each student had to comment on at least two other Weblogs. The pedagogical objectives were to (1) encourage students in the integration of blog in their own teaching, (2) evaluate emerging technological tools, and (3) reflect how instructional strategies can be enhanced with the emerging technology. Podcast video: A class blog with RSS feed was set up to provide podcast video tutorials to assist students in the following topics: instructor’s greeting, course overview, and application demonstration such as Inspiration, PowerPoint, Excel,

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Cognitive Presence

blogs, and other tools. The pedagogical objective was to provide video-on-demand instructional materials so that students could master the software applications utilized in the course. Blackboard Discussion Board (Forum): Students posted their technology projects and brainstormed about various ways to integrate technology into the K-12 classrooms in the weekly Forum discussion in Blackboard. There were a total of 13 Forums with different topics. Students were required to provide at last two comments to others’ postings in each Forum. The pedagogical objectives were to (1) encourage student participation in online activities, (2) showcase mini-projects and receive feedback from peer, and (3) reflect on the trends and issues in technology integration in the K-12 classroom. The Community of Inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999) has provided the framework in determining how the E-Learning tools can be employed to enhance social, teaching, and cognitive presence. Table 2 summarizes learning activities for each tool that has been utilized to facilitate social, teaching, and cognitive presence in this online course.

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

Methodology Research Questions To examine student perceptions toward E-Learning tools and the degree of social presence associated with each tool, this study asks the following research questions: 1.

2. 3.

What is the perceived social presence among Weblog, podcast, Breeze, and forum? And Why? Is there a significant change in the perceived social presence at the end of a course? What are the perceived benefits and satisfaction for learning by each communication system?

Method This study is based on a case study that utilizes surveys and email communication as the main source of data.

Participants Fourteen out of fifteen students completed the survey. Eight were females and six were males. The students were all graduate students at the School of Education. Nine of them (64.3%) had never taken an online course before and five (35.7%) of them had taken at least two online courses.

Instrument A web-based anonymous survey with ten Likertscale items and three open-ended questions was sent to the students through the instructor’s email announcement. The pre-test was conducted at the end of the second week and the post-test was conducted at the end of an online graduate course. The pre-test was conducted at the second week so that all students would have used each of the tools at least once and had some knowledge of

the tools. The questions used a five-point response scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree) and prompted students to indicate the degree to which they agreed with each statement. The open-ended questions were about their perceptions of benefits related to the communication systems in terms of their learning and satisfaction with them. The survey instrument was originally developed by Gunawardena and Zittle (1997) and then revised by Richardson and Swan (2003). This survey is based on the version by Richardson and Swan (2003) with minor changes on the wording to make it more suitable for the course in this study. Instead of comparing the social presence between different online activities as in previous research, this survey asks the participants to compare the degree of social presence among blog, podcast, Breeze, and discussion board.

Data Collection Quantitative and qualitative data were both collected. Quantitative data were collected from the Web-based survey and then analyzed in SPSS. Qualitative data were collected from open-ended questions in the survey and follow-up emails with participants.

data results and Analysis Degrees of Social Presence by Communication Systems Table 3 summarizes the mean scores of perceived social presence (SP) indicator by the communication systems that were employed in the online course in this study. The overall means that combine both pre-test and post-test are the same (M=4.1) for Breeze and Forum (Figure 4). However, the highest SP ratings vary from one tool to the other as indicated in the underlined cells in Table 3. For Weblog, learning quality (#1) and a sense of comfort with the tool to interact with other (#6 & #8) were the keys to higher degree of

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Table 3. Mean scores of social presence indicators by E-Learning tools (1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree) Social Presence Indicators

Weblog

Breeze

Forum

Podcast

1. The quality of learning with this tool was excellent.

4.4

4.1

4.1

4.2

2. I felt comfortable conversing through this medium.

4.2

3.7

4.1

3.9

3. Online or web-based education is an excellent medium for social interaction as demonstrated by the activities associate with this tool.

3.7

4.1

3.8

3.8

4. This tool and the associate activity enable me to form a sense of online community.

3.5

4.1

3.8

3.2

5. The instructor created a feeling of online community during this activity.

3.9

4.5

4.2

4.0

6. I felt comfortable participating in class activity or learning with this tool.

4.3

4.1

4.4

3.9

7. This tool was facilitated by the instructor.

3.9

4.7

3.7

4.6

8. I felt comfortable interacting with other participants using this tool.

4.3

3.8

4.3

3.4

9. My point of view was acknowledged by other participants when using this tool.

4.1

3.8

4.2

3.4

10. I was able to form distinct individual impressions of some course participants using this tool.

4.1

4.2

4.3

3.7

Means

4.05

4.10

4.10

3.78

Figure 4. Perceived social presence ratings of E-Learning Tools (1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree)

SP ratings. For Breeze, instructor feedback and facilitation (# 5 & #7) were deemed important in the use of Breeze. In the case of Forum, feeling comfortable with a tool (#6) and interaction with other (#8) and be able to identify classmates (#10)

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have higher ratings. For podcast, the fact that all videos are created and delivered by class instructor (#7) was considered an important factor. However, the lack of student interaction through podcast video has brought down the overall ratings.

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

Figure 5. Changes in perceived social presence by E-Learning tools

Change in Perceived Social Presence The overall SP ratings decreased for all tools except for Weblog. Students commented that Weblog was “creative,” “satisfying,” and useful for the K-12 classroom. The fact that the students could take ownership of the content and continue to build on what they have done in the class was a major accomplishment. A Paired Sample Test (Figure 5) has shown that Breeze has a significant difference in the pre-test and post-test means. The degree of social presence at the beginning of the semester (M=4.2, SD=.29) is significantly higher than the post-test (M=4.0, SD=.39), p<0.01. Responses to the open-ended questions in the survey, email correspondences, and conversations with students have indicated that novelty factor and technical glitches were the main factors in the decline of the SP ratings. Students were intrigued by the capability of the new technology. However, the fact that the instructor had to spend as least 10 minutes of each online session on checking with every student to make sure that the audio and video were working

properly might have turned the initial excitement into an inconvenience for some students. Students had suggested reducing the workload with Forum would allow more time for in-depth discussion. A lack of instructor involvement (#7) and a reduced sense of community (#4) could explain the decrease in the Forum SP ratings (Table 3). The decrease in the SP ratings for podcast was reflected in indicators 8 and 9 as a lack of social interaction due to the passive nature of the podcast videos. To improve the interactivity function of podcast, one suggestion is to add user ratings and learner-constructed content to increase a sense of community.

Perceived Learning Benefits and Satisfaction Based on the qualitative data from the responses to the open-ended questions and email correspondences on perceived benefits and satisfaction in utilizing these tools for learning, Weblog and Breeze were mentioned frequently by students with regard to the perceived learning benefits. Novelty factor and ownership may have explained

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the high frequency. All students were first time users of Breeze and many of them had written about how impressed they were with the system. Weblog is a tool that they can continue to utilize after this class so the learning does not stop when the course ends. The students “own” the projects and Weblog becomes an empowering tool in that regard. One student has commented on Weblog: ” I think the weblog has been the more beneficially [sic] because it is something that I could see myself using in class, it provides a great space to share links and it is really easy to connect to others or response [sic] other weblogs.” Another student commented on Breeze: ” This was the piece of technology that made the course a little more personable, in a lot of ways it was like being in class but not! The others were good but the BREEZE was just GREAT!” As for learning satisfaction, Weblog was mentioned more often than other tools. Students wrote about a sense of accomplishment and the future applications of Weblog in their classroom. Some liked Forum because they received most peer feedback from the Forum. One student put it: ” Breeze and Weblog are great tools, even though I was a little nervous to use them at first. I’ve been having a great time interacting in new ways and getting some fantastic ideas from others that I will be able to use in my classroom.”

discussion This study focuses on the pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools and student perceptions toward the use of multiple tools to support learning and community building. Social presence indicators were utilized to examine student perceptions of E-Learning systems. The discussions center on two main themes of this study. 1.

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Social presence of multiple E-Learning tools: As suggested by Menchaca and Bekele (2008), the appropriate use of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools can

2.

contribute to the success of online learning. Students expressed strong interest in all tools employed in the course. Students demonstrated favorable ratings for all four E-Learning tools employed in this study. Two E-Learning tools, Weblog and Forum, have received high ratings on social presence indicators such as “#8 comfortable interacting with other” and “#6 comfortable in participating in class activities.” These tools have worked well to encourage student-student interaction and reflection on course content. The connection between social presence and interaction is well supported in the literature (Gunawardena, 1995). Teaching presence: E-Learning tools (e.g., Breeze and Podcast) that were mainly facilitated by the instructor received consistently high ratings in social presence indicators (items 5 & 7) that focus on the role of the instructor. Students indicated that the organization of the course and the instructional strategies in utilizing Breeze and podcast have furthered their understanding of the course topics.

Students placed equal importance on social presence and teaching presence which are well supported in related studies (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001; Garrison, Anderson, Archer, 1999).

conclusion The interactive attributes of a communication system have the potential to allow a high degree of interaction in an online course. Nevertheless, the pedagogical design of a system plays an even greater role in facilitating interaction in an online community. This study has demonstrated that high degrees of social presence can be found in both text-based asynchronous Discussion Board and video-based synchronous Breeze systems. Students found it important to be able to identify

Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Applications of E-Learning Tools in Online Course

their classmates and be acknowledged for who they were, which are the keys to community building. Instructor feedback and smooth technology operation can also enhance a sense of social presence. In short, student perceptions of online courses based on the social presence indicators can be summarized as following: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Meaningful interaction: Students found it important to interact with peer in online courses. When they felt comfortable in utilizing a tool, they welcomed the opportunity to utilize the tool to interact with other students and instructors. Reflective learning: Students enjoyed sharing their reflections about the course topics and the pedagogical applications of the communication tools, for example, how they would utilize each tool to enhance student learning in different academic disciplines. Personal identification: Students welcomed the opportunity to know whom they were conversing with. Personal identification helps to reduce the virtual distance among students. A sense of community: When students felt that they are part of the online community, they were more inclined to interact with other.

In short, It is important to put pedagogy first and the functions of a technological tool second when it comes to the selection of educational tools for online classes. One should always start with what a tool could do to enhance the quality of online education, not how a tool can be used to excite the students. Although this study compares the social presence (SP) ratings over various E-Learning tools, the goal is not to make a judgment on which tools will enable a higher rating of SP. Rather, the goal is to provide a framework for discussion on the various factors that contribute to the different

ratings of SP. The results have furthered our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the E-Learning tools for building online communities. This study contributes to the understanding of Web 2.0 tools for online education by examining student perceptions of social presence associated with each system. This study is the first step in exploring the degree of social presence that is experienced by the students while using various Web 2.0 and multimedia-enabled communication systems. One major limitation is the sample size due to a small class size. A second limitation is that this study did not set out to evaluate the connection between social presence and course experience. In future research, a new variable on student overall course experience could be included to examine the connection between social presence and overall course satisfaction. Third, more qualitative data and online classes should also be included for a broader application of the study.

reFerences Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 1–17. Bekele, A. (2008). Impact of technology-supported learning environments in higher education: Issues in and for research. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Oslo, Norway. Bransford, J., Brown, A., Cocking, R., Donovan, M., & Pellegrino, J. W. (1999). How people learn. Retrieved December 16, 2008, from http://www. nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6160 Chou, C. C. (2001). Formative evaluation of synchronous CMC systems for a learner-centered online course. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 12(2/3), 169–188.

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Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.

Menchaca, M. P., & Bekele, A. (2008). Learner and instructor identified success factors in distance education. Distance Education, 29(3), 231–252. doi:10.1080/01587910802395771

Driscoll, M. M. (2000). Psychology of learning for instruction (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved June 22, 2007, from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/ news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Garrison, D. R. (1997). Computer conferencing: The post-industrial age of distance education. Open Learning, 12(2), 3–11. doi:10.1080/0268051970120202 Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87–105. doi:10.1016/S1096-7516(00)00016-6 Gunawardena, C. N. (1995). Social presence theory and implications for interaction and collaborative learning in computer conferences. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 1(2/3), 147–166. Gunawardena, C. N., & Zittle, F. J. (1997). Social presence as a predictor of satisfaction within a computer-mediated conferencing environment. American Journal of Distance Education, 11(3), 8–26. Hostetter, C., & Busch, M. (2006). Measuring up online: The relationship between social presence and student learning satisfaction. Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 1–12. Ice, P., Curtis, R., Philips, P., & Wells, J. (2007). Using asynchronous audio feedback to enhance teaching presence and students’ sense of community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 11–25. Jonassen, D. H. (2000). Computers as mind tools for schools: Engaging critical thinking (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

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Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students’ perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(1), 68–88. Shaffer, D. W. (2007). How computer games help children learn. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications. London: John Wiley and Sons. Tu, C., & McIsaac, M. (2002). The relationship of social presence and interaction in online classes. American Journal of Distance Education, 16(3), 131–150. doi:10.1207/S15389286AJDE1603_2 Yang, H. (2007). Enhancing social presence for online asynchronous learning. In R. Zheng, & S. Ferris (Eds.). Understanding Online Instructional Modeling: Theories and Practices (pp. 113-125). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Asynchronous communication systems: Technology tools that allow online learners to communicate with each other at flexible time at their own pace and space. Examples of asynchronous tools include Web-based discussion board, podcast audios and videos, weblogs, etc Cognitive Presence: The extend to which a student can construct meaning through sustained

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communication. Cognitive presence focuses on the importance of critical thinking and represents learning outcomes that meet the learning goals. E-Learning 2.0: E-Learning 2.0 tools are characterized as tag-based, participatory, playful, social networking, and collaborative editing through tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasting, flickr, del.icio.us, and Wikipedia Pedagogical models: Pedagogical models are cognitive models or theoretical constructs derived from learning theory that enable the implementation of specific instructional and learning strategies. Examples of pedagogical models include anchored instruction, problem-based learning, cognitive apprenticeship, situated learning, and computer-supported intentional learning environments (CSILE) Pedagogical applications of E-Learning tools: Pedagogical applications refer to the utilization of E-Learning tools that are based on pedagogical models, for example, the Web as the database for knowledge construction, the virtual worlds for role-playing, the Weblog for reflective learning, and video-conferencing for community building

Social Presence: Social presence is originally defined as the “degree of salience of the other person in the (mediated) interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships” by Short, Williams, & Christie (1976). Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999) later defined it as the ability of participants in an online community to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other participants as ‘real people.’ Synchronous communication systems: Technology tools that allow online learners to communicate with each other at the same time at their own space. Examples of synchronous communication systems include Breeze (a Web-based interactive video-conferencing system), Skype (an Internet-based audio-conferencing system), and Second Life (an Internet-based virtual world.) Teaching Presence: The design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in E-Learning: Issues and Trends, edited by H. Yang; S. Yuen, pp. 440-454, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.2

The Hybrid Course:

Facilitating Learning through Social Interaction Technologies Lorraine D. Jackson California Polytechnic State University, USA Joe Grimes California Polytechnic State University, USA

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IntroductIon

This chapter surveys the benefits and challenges of hybrid courses, which blend face-to-face instruction with online learning, and opportunities provided by the introduction of Web-based social interaction technologies. It discusses the pedagogical implications of various Web 2.0 tools: that is, asynchronous discussion boards, blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, e-portfolios, folksonomies, educational gaming, data mashups, and simulations. The authors argue that as hybrid courses continue to evolve to meet the needs of students, instructors, and institutions of higher learning, the integration of Web 2.0 applications in a hybrid model requires thoughtful course design, clear educational objectives, and carefully planned activities.

The traditional face-to-face classroom, in which an instructor lectures, demonstrates, and leads discussion, has been the primary method for acquiring an education in colleges and universities. However, advances in social interaction technologies have resulted in greater variation in educational experiences for online learning. A study by the National Center for Education Statistics surveying over 4,000 two and four year degree granting institutions found that 88% plan to increase or start offering courses using asynchronous computer based instruction as the primary mode of delivery (National Center for Education Statistics, 2003). Asynchronous instruction means that students and faculty are not required to be present at the same time (either electronically or in person) to participate in the class. Technology is clearly transforming the educational landscape.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-368-5.ch020

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Hybrid Course

On the continuum from fully face-to-face to fully online courses, hybrid or blended courses are centered somewhere in the middle merging the most desirable aspects of both approaches (So & Brush, 2008). In a hybrid course, students spend more time learning online through planned activities, tutorials, assignments, and discussion. To make time for online activities, the face-toface class meeting time is reduced significantly. Unlike the traditional lecture-based classroom (also known as face-to-face teaching), students have more flexibility regarding the time and place where learning occurs (Aycock, Garnham, & Kaleta, 2002). Some contend that this promotes students’ active engagement in their learning, typically called student-centered or constructivist learning. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (1999) argue that active, as opposed to passive, learners are better able to understand complex information, are more likely to transfer concepts learned in one setting to another, and are more likely to retain information.

bAcKGround As recently as the mid 1990’s, most students did not own a personal computer, used single function technologies (e.g., phone, camera, video player), and had irregular access to the Internet. Today’s students typically own computers, have multifunction mobile technologies, and use the Internet on a daily basis (McGee & Diaz, 2007). The technological environment continues to change for faculty as well. During the 1990’s the “technology” in the classroom originally consisted of chalkboards, overhead transparency projectors and VCRs. Classroom Internet access was not common. Additionally, faculty may or may not have had access to email from home, and if they did, dial-up service made home use of the Internet slow and sometimes unreliable. Today, more classrooms are equipped with various types of technology including Internet access, integrated

projectors for computers and DVDs, audio and video devices for distance learning, and document cameras, to name a few. Typically, faculty members have home access to campus computing resources using improved broadband connections. Learning management systems, sometimes called course management systems, are becoming more commonplace and are enabling communications, learning materials, assignments, and grading to occur online. Although face-to-face lecturing is still a mainstay of many professors’ teaching repertoire, emerging technology is shifting the methods used by faculty (Maloney, 2007). Educators are no longer solely lecturers, but are increasingly becoming designers and facilitators of learning environments. Along with changes in technology, advancements in learning theory also play a role in this paradigm shift. Educators are now advised to incorporate more constructivist pedagogy in which active learning is accomplished (Rovai, 2007). Instead of focusing exclusively on the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, educators are encouraged to find ways to motivate and involve students in the discovery and even the creation of knowledge. The expected outcomes of effective teaching are also changing. As educators move from a teaching-centered to a learning-centered model, student recall of information is not necessarily the preferred outcome. Student understanding, integration, and application become salient desirable outcomes. Indeed, changes in technology and learning theory are having an impact on how contemporary educators approach instruction. Many educators are beginning to teach in ways that differ from how they were taught when they were students (Hartman, Dziuban, & BrophyEllison, 2007). According to Burbules (2007), education needs to be understood in the current context of technological ubiquity. Although definitions of Web 2.0 vary, the term acknowledges development of web applications beyond read-only websites that now allow Internet users to increasingly become

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content providers as well as receivers. The earlier developments on the World Wide Web served to disperse information in a top-down manner. Today, the web has evolved to be more participatory with collective users building information from the bottom up or interacting with each other in real time or asynchronously. The web is also increasingly accessible and user-friendly. Web feeds or web syndications update relevant information automatically, harnessing the combined intelligence of users. Social networking and resource sharing sites have emerged rapidly and “students have turned these sites into the nexus of their social and even academic universe” (Hartman, Dziuban, & Brophy-Ellison, 2007, p. 66). The current uses of technology are blurring traditional spheres previously viewed as separate. Work and play, learning and entertainment, accessing and creating, and public and private areas are no longer demarcated with clear distinction (Burbules, 2007). This chapter reviews newer and emerging applications of technology, many of which are being used in education, particularly in hybrid courses blending traditional face-to-face teaching with enhanced technology. Learning management systems, user-created content, social networking, collaborative learning, podcasting, virtual worlds, and educational gaming are beginning to broadly affect higher education, and will continue to do so in the near future. The benefits and challenges of these emerging applications for hybrid learning are discussed.

hybrId courses And socIAL soFtwAre Courses taught in hybrid mode do not simply “add technology” to the existing curriculum, but should involve thoughtful course redesign in order to apply principles of good pedagogy fully augmented with outside-of-class activities enabled with technology. Bloom’s taxonomy describes several categories of learning. In the cognitive learning

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domain, instructional activities range from lower levels to higher levels of learning. For example, as one moves up the hierarchy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) the development of intellectual attitudes and skills become increasingly sophisticated (Bloom, 1956). Higher thinking rests on a foundation of lower order thinking. For most courses, hybrid mode is best implemented by having the students do preparatory work outside of class so the in-class activities can provide an opportunity for learning at higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy with very little traditional lecturing occurring. A Learning Management System (LMS) is an important component of most hybrid courses. It is a software application or web-based instructional technology used to develop, implement, and evaluate student-learning activities. Examples of learning management systems include Blackboard®, Webboard®, or WebCT®. Some faculty members create their own websites providing resources analogous to an LMS. An instructor may use the LMS to provide learning materials (e.g., readings, assignments, brief video, links to external websites, etc.) and social software applications (e.g., interactive chat, blogs, etc.). A typical tool embedded in an LMS is an asynchronous discussion board. According to Martyn (2003), the asynchronous discussion board lets the students post technical and content-oriented questions, clarify assignments, post and answer each other’s questions under the supervision of the faculty member, and build community. Gannon (2004) explains how she incorporated active learning into her course by giving students weekly online assignments, which included using the discussion board. Students were informed that their postings would be graded for quality and quantity, and Gannon observed that most students were motivated to participate and successfully completed the work. Likewise, a sample of 413 students in a hybrid setting reportedly found the discussion board tool more useful than in-class

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discussions because: (a) they could take their time to compose a response, (b) they were required to participate online as opposed to face-to-face where participation was not required, and (c) students who normally do not participate in class were less reluctant to participate online (AmreinBeardsley, Foulger, & Toth, 2007). There is also evidence that participation in online discussion can enhance engagement during face-to-face inclass discussions (Vess, 2005). Rovai (2007) provides a thoughtful synthesis of current techniques for facilitating online discussion effectively. Among his recommendations, instructors should provide forums for socio-emotional discussions as well as content and task oriented discussions. This serves to build a sense of community within the course. Similarly, instructors should balance developing a social presence in the virtual environment while avoiding monopolizing discussions. Additionally, instructors need to attend to social equity issues, and have an awareness of the communication patterns of culturally diverse students. The LMS can also be used to observe student participation online, evaluate student work, exchange material with students, hold virtual office hours or classes, manage groups or teams, anonymously deliver student evaluations and grades, and provide for wikis or blogs. One study found that students identified the online grade book and announcements as most useful (Amrein-Beardsley et al, 2007). In this study, students appreciated timely posting of assignment grades, found it helpful to monitor their progress, and felt more college instructors should use the tool. A web-based LMS should have the capability to link transparently to other web resources such as educational games, simulations, or other resources. Often a teacher will collect a number of resources in an organized fashion within the LMS, known as a learning module. The learning module enables students to accomplish one or more learning outcomes by performing a series of activities in an organized fashion. An LMS

may be open-source, purchased for a license fee, or developed by a teacher to meet specific course requirements. LMS developers are encouraged to adhere to standards by following the Shared Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) to enable compatibility between LMS (for more information about SCORM, see http://www.adlnet.gov/ scorm). LMS can have various Web 2.0 capabilities including: blogs, wikis, virtual classrooms, podcasting, Really Simple Syndication (RSS®), and e-portfolios, which are described below.

blogs A blog, short for weblog, provides the capability for the user(s) to post information about a particular topic or to maintain a diary with entries typically posted in reverse chronological order. Currently the fastest growing area of the web, blogs account for around 27% of all Internet use (Ramos & Piper, 2006). In March 2005 there were approximately two million blogs worldwide. Technorati®, a blog search engine, is now tracking over 70 million blogs, and notes about 120,000 new blogs are created worldwide each day. In academic settings, student blogs may be used to share information, to report on events, to practice writing, to develop argumentative and editing skills, and to engage in collaborative design. Students reading blogs may benefit from exposure to a variety of perspectives, values, and life experiences. Ramos and Piper (2006) argue that as the Internet becomes more accessible around the world, so do “the voices in the blogosphere, representing viewpoints from a diversity of cultures, and allowing glimpses into people’s lives that have never before been possible” (p. 571). Blogs can be authored by groups or individuals, and may be authored by instructors or students. Research on blogs has looked at their personal journal or storytelling function. Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, and Wright (2005) examined a random sample of blogs and found that more than 70% could be classified as personal journals. However,

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blogs differ from diaries in the sense that they are public and others can comment on blog entries. Stefanone and Jang (2007) studied the personality characteristics of bloggers and observed that individuals high in extraversion and self-disclosure tend to have larger online social networks with stronger ties. Furthermore, they found that rather than promoting isolation, blogs tend to enhance existing relationships. Research on educational uses of blogs is presently limited. Stefanone and Jang (2007) remark that the potential exists for studying the effects of public accessibility of personal information. Other potential research areas include: the strategic use of blogs by students, student decision-making on blog content, demographic and psychological factors affecting blog behavior, perceived student benefits of blogging, and faculty experiences with the use of blogs as an educational tool.

wikis A wiki is a writing space that is created and edited by a community of users (Saxton, 2008). Wikis provide the opportunity for educational collaboration where users may create text, link web pages, and edit their work. Wikis enable bottom-up editing where expertise is not limited to a few, but rather emerges from the combined efforts of the many (Ramos & Piper, 2006). Wikis and blogs can incorporate text, images, audio and video. They may be included in an LMS, or available as an open source product or licensed product. Wikis may be private to the class, often by authentication through the LMS, or open beyond the class. It is important to choose a wiki that meets the instructor’s educational objectives. Phillipson (2008) identifies several different types of educational wikis, three of which are presented here. For example, he describes the resource wiki as an assemblage of a collaborative knowledge base, much like the popular Wikipedia®. The presentation wiki, on the other hand, may aim to represent class content to the outside world, and

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may also highlight the process the class followed to assemble the information. A simulation wiki is an interactive environment where exploration, decisions, and branching pathways dominate. Phillipson (2008) describes how students involved in the Holocaust Wiki Project, used background information to invent a family. Then, using multiple actors, narratives and story lines, they were able to explore and study this historical event through participation in the wiki. Although these and other potential uses of wikis as an educational tool are just beginning to be explored, clearly, wikis have wide ranging potential in student learning.

Podcasts Podcasting, a term derived from the combination of Apple’s iPod® and broadcasting, involves transferring digital media files, such as audio and video, over the Internet for replay using portable media players and/or personal computers. The function of a podcast is communicative; it is useful for sharing ideas and information, and enables learning to occur in a convenient and portable format. Podcasts appear to have significant potential as a mobile learning tool. Evans (2008) explored the use of podcasts as a method for students to review material after taking a traditional lecture class, but prior to their final examination. In this study, podcasts were not used as an alternative to attendance, but rather as a supplemental method of review. The findings demonstrated that students were receptive to using podcasts and felt that podcasts were more effective than their own textbooks and notes in helping them to learn. Podcasting can also make material more accessible to diverse learners (Cebeci & Tekdal, 2006). Some have even converted entire lecture courses into podcasts, allowing class time to be dedicated to problem solving and group project sessions. However, McGee, and Diaz (2007) advise against transmitting entire lectures through podcasting; instead, they recommend selecting shorter, more pointed segments for transmission which they

The Hybrid Course

contend will result in more student use. Villano (2008) provides practical advice for designing better podcasts in areas, such as communication skills, sound quality, length, and editing, to name a few. Additional research is needed on the effectiveness of podcasting as a learning tool (Evans, 2008). Podcasts have the ability to be syndicated, or subscribed to using an aggregator, such as an RSS® reader.

really simple syndication (rss®) An RSS® reader receives feeds from content that is frequently updated, such as blog entries, podcasts, and/or news headlines. The reader or aggregator will frequently check the content of subscribed sites for updates and will display the new material. It will aggregate material from multiple sites into one location so that the user does not have to check multiple sites for updates. The RSS® reader may be incorporated in other educational tools, such as an LMS, wikis, or blog.

e-Portfolios E-portfolios are an integrated collection of webbased multimedia documents that may include curriculum standards, course assignments and corresponding student artifacts, and reviewer feedback to the student’s work (Gathercoal, Love, Bryde, & McKean, 2002). The evolution of web-based technology has made it easier to construct, store, and present evidence of academic work online. This, coupled with a shift toward competency-based education where students demonstrate what they have learned makes electronic portfolio development a growing trend (Johnson & Rayman, 2007). One example is the Digital Notebook project at Georgetown University. Students have an online space for learning, creating, collaborating, and storing the evidence of their work. Maloney (2007) explains: “Our hope is that the Digital Notebook will help students track how their thinking developed from their freshman

to their senior year, in part by giving them the tools to map connections between the pieces of information they have learned and to share those connections and knowledge with others” (B27). As a practical matter, it is important to choose an e-portfolio format that meets the instructor’s education requirements.

virtual classroom Another possible component of some hybrid courses is the virtual classroom. “Virtual office hours” are possible through synchronous interactive chat (the equivalent of Instant Messenger®). The virtual classroom also provides other resources, such as an online “whiteboard” which has the capability to project material onto a “shared” screen which can be viewed by students when they are online. These sessions may be recorded and made available so that students can view them at a later time.

Folksonomies With this capability, it is possible to add tags (keywords) to information providing the user with the ability to manage the information. This is also known as collaborativetagging and socialclassification. These tools make it possible to categorize and annotate content using tags and to provide the capabilities to associate tags with individuals. A folksonomy is user-driven and directly reflects the vocabulary of users. Folksonomies often arise in communities of web users, such as the Flickr® photo sharing site. It is anticipated that they will become popular because they place the responsibility of organization on the user. Folksonomies will likely become an important tool in student learning.

educational Games The video game market is currently the third fastest growing segment of the entertainment

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media market, and is expected to be a 48.9 billion dollar industry in 2011 (Scanlon, 2007). Two areas slated for growth are the so-called “serious games” which are used for non-entertainment or educational purposes, and the innovative attempts to begin combining gaming with the social networking features of Web 2.0 (Scanlon, 2007). These games (sometimes called Massively Multiplayer Online Educational Gaming) bring multiple players together in a goal-oriented activity that can be collaborative or competitive in nature. Educational games (edugames) typically involve role-playing exercises where player-learners work towards achieving educational objectives. For example, games designed to make business deals and build wealth help learners practice strategy and apply knowledge competitively (New Media Consortium, 2007). Another educational game might include virtual immersion (Multi-User Virtual Environments) in a foreign language or culture, where players read directions, travel, and interact with others to complete a quest. One advantage of these games is that learning may be accelerated when there is an emotional response involved, such as excitement or interest (Waters, 2007). Another advantage is that the virtual world may provide a safe environment for trying new skills and making mistakes. In the virtual world, player-learners often use avatars (a computer user’s one, two or three dimensional representation of himself or herself). These representations can enable player-learners to save face as they try to improve their skill (Waters, 2007). Research demonstrates that well designed edugames have the potential advantage of increasing intrinsic motivation and deepening learning (Moore, Fowler, & Watson, 2007). Although educational gaming is not heavily used today, the proliferation of open-source gaming engines will make it more realistic for developers to produce these tools for educational purposes.

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data Mashups According to Maloney (2007), mashups are websites that “take dynamically changing pieces of information from completely different sources and compile the data into an integrated user experience, one that continues to change and grow as the underlying information changes” (B26-27). For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has created a Google® Earth mashup that generates maps of the earth displaying air quality based on pollutants from businesses (New Media Consortium, 2008). It is anticipated that mashups will help educators show their students relationships between large data sets in ways that are meaningful. They can also be used for artistic and creative expression.

simulations Because it is impractical or too costly to execute some educational experiments or events, often simulator tools are used to represent key elements of a physical or conceptual system. Because of the complexity of many of these systems, it is necessary to limit the number of elements represented. The simulation may be used to represent such things as a scientific experiment, a business process, or an engineering system. There are tools available for creating simulations such as those developed by Carnegie Mellon University as a part of their Open Learning Initiative. As these and other tools are developed further, it is anticipated that hybrid courses will play an important role in the evolution of the educational landscape.

beneFIts oF hybrId courses Well designed hybrid courses have the potential to benefit students in a variety of ways. Students have access to multiple course resources, and are

The Hybrid Course

not limited to learning in a particular physical space. In many ways, hybrid courses shift the focus away from the instructor, and promote a more learner-centered model. The extended access to the materials allows students to learn at their own pace. Additionally, students typically participate in online discussion and networked shared learning. So and Brush (2008) found that students who perceived high levels of collaborative learning in their course tended to be more satisfied with their hybrid experience. Building community, having exposure to other points of views, expressing ideas, and giving and receiving peer feedback are important aspects of hybrid courses. Students also benefit from practicing technical and online skills they will need upon entering the workforce. Marcketti and Yurchisin (2005) emphasized that undergraduates preferred the hybrid format to traditional offline format, and to a course that had exclusively online elements. Some argue that a good hybrid design can result in better student learning of past course objectives and achievement of new objectives. DeNeui and Dodge (2006) observed a significant positive correlation between students’ usage of online components and their success in the course. In their study, those who used Blackboard® more frequently scored better on exams than those who used it less frequently. Furthermore, research using a blind review process demonstrated that students in well-designed hybrid courses completed projects that scored between 10-12% higher grades than those written by students in lecture format classes (Martyn, 2003). Also, well-designed hybrid courses add new learning outcomes, such as life-long learning and team-based learning skills. Institutions with increasing enrollments and limited physical space may find that reducing in-class time can lead to more effective utilization of classrooms and meet the greater demands for education (Olapiriyakul & Scher, 2006).

chALLenGes oF hybrId courses Developing new methods of teaching takes motivation and an investment of time. When considering hybrid courses and the use of social software tools, it would be worthwhile for educators to conduct a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the objectives of the project. This will provide an opportunity to consider the various factors that are either favorable or unfavorable. The results of the analysis will be unique to the faculty member and the course involved. There are several good models for moving to a hybrid mode on various university websites. Also, some learning modules have been developed by universities and are freely available for use by other universities. The efforts of Carnegie Mellon University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are noteworthy. Other modules are generally available on the Merlot.org website, and there are commercially developed products. In addition to the specific technical aspects of the LMS software and other technology, faculty may need training in pedagogical principles that apply to hybrid courses. Training may include understanding the impact of various learning styles and principles, creating learning outcomes, and designing appropriate online content, assignments and assessment methods. Faculty members need institutional support in the form of incentives or release time from teaching to take on the additional work that comes with converting a faceto-face course into one with an online component (Grosjean & Sork, 2007). They also need access to faculty development professionals who have technical and pedagogical knowledge, as well as awareness about how to facilitate compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Some of the other challenges that faculty and administrators should consider follow:

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1.

2.

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Faculty who are using hybrid mode will find it beneficial to explain to students how the use of this approach will help to achieve specified learning outcomes. In other words, explaining why they are participating in new educational activities is helpful. “Today making the transition from passive to active learners means engaging them [students] in the conversation from the beginning” (Moore, Fowler, & Watson, 2007, p. 52). Because this may be a new experience for the students, they will also need training and rules for professional behavior (“netiquette”) in this environment. The skills of research, critical thinking, and evaluation will be increasingly important to students who have unprecedented and instant access to user-created content of varying quality (New Media Consortium, 2007). Most student evaluations of teaching effectiveness instruments were designed to assess face-to-face instruction, focusing primarily on an individual instructor. In hybrid courses, a broad spectrum of elements shapes the learner’s experience (Grosjean & Sork, 2007). Some of these include the technology itself, the design of content, the organization and integration of materials, and even the faculty member’s ability to moderate an online community. Methods of evaluating instructors may need to be modified to assess the instructor as a designer and facilitator of an interactive learning environment. In this learning environment, teaching excellence is becoming more multifaceted (Hartman et al, 2007). Because faculty may be using the web and commercial products, they need to be aware of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements as well as copyright and intellectual property requirements when using the products of others, including the copyright and intellectual property rights of their students.

5.

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Hybrid courses emphasize more selfregulated learning on the part of students. Although this develops students’ active involvement, the research by Aycock and colleagues (2002) suggests that students’ poor time management skills can be an obstacle. Understanding student motivation, appropriately pacing workload, providing sequential tasks, and having discussions about students’ self-directed learning roles may be helpful. It is also useful when implementing new instructional methods to provide students with opportunities for regular feedback. Grosjean and Sork (2007) recommend that instructors should be prepared to change aspects of their hybrid course if something is not working as intended. Evaluation, feedback, and reflection are necessary to make adjustments to hybrid courses over time.

Future trends Although there is extensive research on students’ satisfaction and perceptions of learning, only a few empirical studies have examined the influence of hybrid course technology on objective measures of student learning (DeNeui & Dodge, 2006), and more outcome-based research is needed. As a result, professional conferences and workshops related to hybrid learning are increasing in number and quality, with the non-profit Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) as one of the leaders (http://www. sloan-c.org). Shih, Feng, and Tsai (2008) examined research and trends in the field of e-learning between 2001-2005 and concluded that studies related to instructional approaches, information processing, and motivation will likely be influential topics for subsequent research. They predict that an essential issue in future research will be “how to maintain and enhance students’ learning motivation and

The Hybrid Course

teachers’ teaching motivation in a constantly changing educational environment” (p. 965). Additionally, they contend there may be enhanced “personalization” of education, whereby increased variety in the ways in which teaching occurs can accommodate various learning styles. Many of the Web 2.0 tools now available have been developed with little thought about using them for educational purposes. It is anticipated that the future will bring seamless ties between these tools allowing them to be geared more towards educational applications. For example, although not used significantly in education currently, it is anticipated that social resources, such as Second Life®, will be incorporated as a learning tool along with social software networks that were developed primarily for industrial use. According to the most recent Horizon Report (New Media Consortium, 2008), as globalization increases, online collaboration webs and the tools that support them are also expected to increase. Collaborative webs are networking sites that interested individuals or groups can access to foster educational sharing capabilities. Some examples include San Francisco State University’s Digital Information Virtual Archive (diva.sfsu.edu) and Skoolaborate® (www.skoolaborate.com). As ubiquitous as the broadband mobile phone has become, the varied features of it have also become more common: e.g., music playing, recording, camera and video capability, and photo storage. It is anticipated that these portable multimedia features will also be increasingly used for educational applications (New Media Consortium, 2008).

concLusIon This chapter has discussed the benefits and challenges of hybrid courses that blend face-to-face instruction with online learning and opportunities provided by the introduction of web-based social interaction technologies. The best hybrid courses

are based on thoughtful design and utilize active learning, both in online education and interactive face-to-face meetings. The success of a hybrid course will be enhanced by: (a) effective planning and integration of the face-to-face and online activities to achieve the desired learning outcomes for the course; (b) choosing the appropriate tools to achieve the desired outcomes; (c) faculty preparation to enable the effective use of the new learning environment; and (d) developing a plan positioning students to understand their new role and how they can be successful in it. If a hybrid course is designed properly, the strengths are likely to be: (a) increased learning by students; (b) more engagement by students because the course can be designed to allow them to bear responsibility for its success; (c) more enthusiastic participation by the students; (d) an opportunity for faculty to participate in a completely new way of teaching by having student-centered activities; and (e) ultimately a course that is more organized. The use of technology and development of hybrid courses will continue to evolve to meet the needs of contemporary students, faculty, and institutions of higher learning.

reFerences Amrein-Beardsley, A., Foulger, T., & Toth, M. (2007). Examining the development of a hybrid degree program: Using student and instructor data to inform decision-making. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(4), 331–357. Aycock, A., Garnham, C., & Kaleta, R. (2002). Lessons learned from the hybrid course project. Teaching with Technology Today, 8(6), 1-5. Retrieved July 9, 2008, from http://www.uwsa.edu/ ttt/articles/garnham2.htm Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals: Handbook I. Cognitive domain. New York: Longmans, Green.

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Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Johnson, G., & Rayman, J. R. (2007). E-portfolios: A collaboration between student affairs and faculty. New Directions for Student Services, 119, 17–30. doi:10.1002/ss.246

Burbules, N. C. (2007). E-lessons learned. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 106(2), 207–216.

Lam, P., & McNaught, C. (2006). Design and evaluation of online courses containing media-enhanced learning materials. Educational Media International, 43(3), 199–218. doi:10.1080/09523980600641403

Cebeci, Z., & Tekdal, M. (2006). Using podcasts as audio learning objects. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, 2, 7–57. DeNeui, D. L., & Dodge, T. (2006). Asynchronous learning networks and student outcomes: The utility of online learning components in hybrid courses. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 33(4), 256–259. Evans, C. (2008). The effectiveness of m-learning in the form of podcast revision lectures in higher education. Computers & Education, 50, 491–498. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2007.09.016 Gannon, E. J. (2004). Bringing active learning into a hybrid course. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 8(4), 253–257. Gathercoal, P., Love, D., Bryde, B., & McKean, G. (2002). On implementing Web-based electronic portfolios. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 2, 29–37. Grosjean, G., & Sork, T. J. (2007). Going online: Uploading learning to the virtual classroom. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 113, 13–24. doi:10.1002/ace.243 Hartman, J. L., Dziuban, C., & Brophy-Ellison, J. (2007). Faculty 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(5), 62–76. Herring, S. C., Scheidt, L. A., Bonus, S., & Wright, E. (2005). Weblogs as a bridging genre. Information Technology & People, 18(2), 142–171. doi:10.1108/09593840510601513

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Maloney, E. (2007). What Web 2.0 can teach us about learning. [from Academic Search Elite Database.]. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(18), B26–B27. Retrieved July 9, 2008. Marcketti, S. B., & Yurchisin, J. (2005). Student perceptions of a hybrid course. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 9(3), 317–320. Martyn, M. (2003). The hybrid on-line model: Good practice. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 1, 18–23. McGee, P., & Diaz, V. (2007). Wikis and podcasts and blogs! Oh my! What is a faculty member supposed to do? EDUCAUSE Review, 42(5), 28–40. Moore, A. H., Fowler, S. B., & Watson, C. E. (2007). Designing change for faculty, students and institutions. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(5), 42–60. National Center for Education Statistics. (2003). Distance education at degree granting postsecondary institutions 2000-2001. Retrieved March 2, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/peqis/ publications/2003017/ New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2007). The horizon report. Retrieved March 11, 2007 from http://www.nmc. org/horizon/ New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2008). The horizon report. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.nmc. org/horizon/

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Olapiriyakul, K., & Scher, J. M. (2006). A guide to establishing hybrid learning courses: Employing information technology to create a new learning experience, and a case study. The Internet and Higher Education, 9, 287–301. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2006.08.001 Phillipson, M. (2008). Wikis in the classroom: A taxonomy. Wildwiki. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.wildwiki.net/mediawiki/ index.php?title=%E2%80%9CWikis_in_the_ Classroom:_A_Taxonomy%E2%80%9D Ramos, M., & Piper, P. S. (2006). Letting the grass grow: Grassroots information on blogs and Wikis. RSR. Reference Services Review, 34(4), 570–574. doi:10.1108/00907320610716459 Rovai, A. P. (2007). Facilitating online discussions effectively. The Internet and Higher Education, 10, 77–88. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.10.001 Saxton, B. (2008, Winter). Information tools: Using blogs, RSS®, and Wikis as professional resources. Young Adult Library Services, 27-29. Scanlon, J. (2007, August). Getting serious about gaming. Business Week Online, 10. Shih, M., Feng, J., & Tsai, C. (2008). Research and trends in the field of e-learning from 2001-2005: A content analysis of cognitive studies in selected journals. Computers & Education, 51, 955–967. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2007.10.004 So, H., & Brush, T. (2008). Student perceptions of collaborative learning, social presence and satisfaction in a blended learning environment: Relationships and critical factors. Computers & Education, 51, 318–336. doi:10.1016/j. compedu.2007.05.009 Stefanone, M. A., & Jang, C. Y. (2007). Writing for friends and family: The interpersonal nature of blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved July 8, 2008, from http:// jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/stefanone.html

Vess, D. L. (2005). Asynchronous discussion and communication patterns in online and hybrid history courses. Communication Education, 54(4), 355–364. doi:10.1080/03634520500442210 Villano, M. (2008). Building a better podcast. T.H.E. Journal, 35(1), 30–37. Waters, J. K. (2007). On a quest for English: Online role-playing games, which take players on explorations of medieval fantasy worlds, are showing the potential to be a powerful tool for ESL learning. [Technological Horizons in Education]. T.H.E. Journal, 34(10), 26–31.

Key terMs And deFInItIons Asynchronous Discussion Board: An online bulletin board where users may post and respond to messages in forums which are specific topic areas for discussion. Subordinate discussions within a forum are often called threads. Since users do not have to be online at the same time, they can enter the discussion board according to their own schedules. Avatar: A computer user’s one, two or threedimensional representation of himself or herself in a virtual space (See Multi-User Virtual Environment). Blog: Short for weblog, a blog provides the capability for the user(s) to post information about a particular topic or to maintain a diary with entries typically posted in reverse chronological order. Electronic Portfolios or E-Portfolios: An integrated collection of web-based multimedia documents that may include curriculum standards, course assignments and corresponding student artifacts, and reviewer feedback to the student’s work. Folksonomy: Also known as collaborative tagging and social classification, folksonomies make it possible to categorize and annotate content using tags (keywords) and to provide the capabilities to associate tags with individuals.

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Learning Management System (LMS): A software application or web-based technology used to develop, implement, and evaluate student-learning activities. Examples of Learning Management Systems include Blackboard®, Webboard®, or WebCT®. Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE): A virtual environment that enables simultaneous participants to represent themselves with avatars, interact with other participants and digital artifacts, and practice building skills or solving problems that have applications in real world contexts.

Podcast: A method of publishing digital media files for transfer to and playback on a computer or a portable media player. Web 2.0: An improvement in the application of the web infrastructure to support communities on the web and deliver services such as wikis, blogs, folksonomies, and other social interaction technologies. Wiki: Software that provides the infrastructure for faculty and/or students to collaboratively develop and link Internet web pages. Each wiki has its unique characteristics, but most have tracking of individual effort and recovery of past versions.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Social Interaction Technologies and Collaboration Software; Concepts and Trends, edited by T. Dumova; R. Fiordo, pp. 220-232, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System for the Successful Implementation of University 2.0 Soyoung Kim Yonsei University, Korea Minyoung Kim Yonsei University, Korea Junhee Hong Kyungwon University, Korea

AbstrAct University 2.0 is a collaborative way of constructing and sharing knowledge, based on epistemological and social technologies to amplify the effect of interaction and participation at higher education settings. In this case study, Web 2.0 social technologies were implemented to improve teaching and learning performances by integrating user-centered interactive platform, offline support strategies, and evaluation systems. The interactive web-platform is the essence of University 2.0 and enables the various interested parties to practice the 2.0 spirits of openness, sharing, and participation. In order to make learning based on the web-platform more effective DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch032

and efficient, offline supports such as learning cells, learning facilitators, and learning spaces should be supplemented. The CIPP model was employed to monitor all processes of the University 2.0 project, to guide developers to the next steps, to attract attention from faculty members and students, and to derive consensus among them.

IntroductIon When the term “Web 2.0” first emerged, it was not about technological abruptness. This generative concept was the result of empirical observation about the changes of doing economic activities and facilitating social interaction through web-platform in this

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System

knowledge-oriented global society. After “dotcom bubbles” burst, experts in Internet business started to realize that what made some Internet network companies successful was strongly related to increasing individual participation, amplifying the effects of knowledge sharing, and facilitating social interaction in more effective, efficient, and pleasant ways (O’Reilly, 2005). University 2.0 is an educational attempt to bring the successful 2.0 stories into our field of higher education. This chapter introduces a case study as an example of implementing Web 2.0 social technologies to an institute of higher education under the name of University 2.0. The purpose of this implementation is to improve teaching and learning performances by employing user-centered interactive platforms, offline support functions, and evaluation systems in an integrated manner. A private university located in southeastern Seoul applied University 2.0 to its College of Bionano technology, which was newly established in 2007. Bionano technology is a cutting-edge and highly interdisciplinary scientific field, encompassing a variety of science and engineering applications (Park, 2005). Bionano technology is a fusion technology that applies nanotechnology to biological systems (Borisova et al., 2007; Park, 2005). Combining biotechnology and nanotechnology has the potential to yield breakthrough advances in the area of science and engineering, such as the creation of new drugs, sensors, diagnostics, and fluidics tools (Park, 2005). Because bionano technology is multidisciplinary in nature and is changing rapidly, the traditional way of linear knowledge transmission from faculties to students was neither desirable nor valid. Therefore, students in this field need to improve self-regulated learning competencies to simultaneously understand all related information with collaborative activities. In order to improve students’ learning competencies in the field of bionano technology, University 2.0 learning strategies incorporate offline support, such as learning cells and learning facilitators, with an online platform

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consisting of open course ware, blog, user-generated contents (UGC), tagging, multimedia library, and podcasting services. The purpose of this chapter is to share the experience of implementing Web 2.0 at a higher education setting and to explain each component of University 2.0 in the categories of web-platform, offline support, and evaluation system. The focus is on how to design these components as a unified learning intermediary. The 2.0 web-platform is required to construct the University 2.0 environment; offline support tools should be designed to fully assist learners in using a web-platform; evaluation system works as a navigator to lead all members involved in this project to strive for the same goal, which maximizes the effects of 2.0 learning activities. According to Vygotsky, human learning and growth can occur in environments created by humans through sociocultural intervention (Moll, 2000). University 2.0 can become another such human-created environment, integrating virtual space and physical learning space in a more dynamic and effective way.

bAcKGround The concept of Web 2.0 indicates epistemological and social changes about how we create, distribute, and share knowledge through dynamic social interaction on interactive web-platforms. Managing knowledge and information through Web 2.0 platforms would become a legitimate way of handling the speed of knowledge expansion and embracing its advantages, particularly in educational settings. The necessity of 2.0 systems in handling information is becoming apparent. It was estimated that the total amount of human beings’ knowledge has doubled for 18 months from 2007 (Foray, 2006). This phenomenon implies that the life span of knowledge will be shortened and that uncertainty, along with knowledge in the knowledge-based economy, will be largely increased. The economic

Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System

feasibility of knowledge will need to be evaluated, which will incur expenses, and additional expenses will be required to trade information. Currently, the difficulty of handling the enormous increase of knowledge is faced by the fields of global business and politics, and that difficulty is starting to appear in the field of education. By facilitating the validation of knowledge through social legitimation and the distribution of information through social interaction, the Web 2.0 platform may increase their economic value dramatically. In detail, a web-platform is necessary to fulfill the Web 2.0 spirits of openness, participation, and sharing and to make possible the mutual engagement of activities such as tagging, blogging, UGC, and wiki (Barnes & Tynan, 2007; O’Reilly, 2005). With its implementation at universities, the Web 2.0 learning environment provides learners with great advantages in creating group knowledge and collective intelligence (Barlow, 2008; Barns & Tynans, 2007). In this project, a web-platform for the College of Bionano technology was developed as a collaborative cyberspace for interactive learning, and its primitive version was opened to the public in August 2008. Faculty members and students need time to become familiar with the new learning system with support from learning facilitators. Learning cell activities facilitate the dynamics of teamwork by increasing face to face interaction beyond cyberspace. Furthermore, the design and development of this web-platform reflects results from context evaluation, following the CIPP evaluation model. Online intervention becomes more effective when it is combined with face-to-face offline interaction (Michinov & Michinov, 2008). The face-to-face meeting allows students to get to know each other, which helps in team building, and social relationships. As the study by Derntl and Motsching-Pitrk verified (2005), in online environment, students searched for information, gathered resources, and discussed through a web-platform. Then, they composed their ideas and prepared for presentations with face-to-face

interaction (Derntl & Motsching-Pitrik, 2005; Michinov & Michinov, 2008). Furthermore, the University 2.0 environment demands learners’ active involvement in social dynamics, with the competencies related to media literacy to use functions in the 2.0 web-platform. In order to increase learners involvement, offline supports need to provide ways of facilitating individual involvement and social interaction. Offline learning strategies that are implemented include learning cell activities, learning facilitators, and learning spaces. With Web 2.0, the educational environment has become more learner-centered and collaborative (McNeil et al., 2000). More and more faculties are using group projects in classes and group learning enables students to help each other to achieve their goals (Slavin, 1995; Yamarik, 2007). It develops learners’ critical thinking, problem solving, and collaborative learning (Gokhale, 1995). In the University 2.0 project, each learning cell is composed of a small team of students, who share similar interest within the field of bionano technology. As research verified (Butler & Coleman, 2003), small groups are more interactive than larger ones. Members voluntarily share information and create content together as an offline activity. Afterwards, members upload their work to the web-platform in order to show it to others. In this project, the role of facilitators is different from that of teaching assistants. The role of facilitators is to make team learning and communication among individuals or group members effective, so that team efficiency is maximized (Schwartz, 2002). Using facilitators can reduce initial inhibiting factors, such as the fear of poor evaluation, the free-rider, and production blocking and can make the group productive (Oxley et al., 1996). The core roles of facilitators are to create a supportive environment, to give timely quality feedback, (Yao et al., 2005) and to make on- and off-line group activities efficient (Schwartz, 2002). The facilitators also need to have a high level of media literacy to assist with online activities and

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must possess a strong background and skills in the field of bionano technology. Based on the results of need assessment, the qualifications of facilitator were identified. In total, 8 seniors and graduate students were trained before the web-platform was launched, and 20 more facilitators would be trained at a later time, to fully assist approximately 50 students and 16 faculty members at the College of Bionano technology. This project employed the Context, Input, Process, Product (CIPP) Evaluation Model to design, develop, implement and evaluate the University 2.0 learning system in an integrated manner. The CIPP model, proposed by Daniel L. Stufflebeam in 1971, is widely used to successfully implement innovations and long term projects (Dick, 2002; Stufflebeam, 2003; Worthen et al., 1997). The more attractive aspect of this model is that it has been continuously revised and evolved by the developer, and the checklists and guidelines also have been open to other researchers (Stufflebeam, 2003). The University 2.0 learning system underwent three context evaluations: needs assessment identified the needs of students and faculty, environment analysis checked possible barriers, and readiness diagnosis tested the level of media literacy of bionano technology college members. Based on the results of context evaluation, the guidance for designing web-platform, offline learning cell activities, and facilitator training program were provided, and the necessity of redesigning the curriculum and evaluation framework for the College of Bionano technology was proposed. Input evaluation was conducted to identify the learning competencies and characteristics of students and the teaching competence of faculty, and to check the possible resources that would be available for this project. With the CIPP Model, the evaluation process is on-going and iterative, and provides an integrated way of putting all Web 2.0 components together. The integration of web-platform, offline supports, and evaluation system was intended to

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provide the best learning environment for the students and the faculty members at the College of Bionano technology, which is known to be one of the most knowledge-intensive fields in science. Indeed, the world-wide interdependence of the knowledge society is increasing with globalization through the power of social network technology. In this situation, individual authority of producing and delivering knowledge has passed onto the knowledgeable mass. Educational methodology is not much different. If something related to knowledge and education needs to be designed or made in this knowledge-oriented era, it has to go through the dynamic process of knowledge creation and delivery through social interaction. Under this circumstance, it would be very absurd for only one professor, department, or university to manage the process of knowledge transmission to the next generation. The function and system of the university in the new century, therefore, should be rebuilt not through linear updates, but through the 2.0 perspective of the world.

web-PLAtForM The social interactive web-platform is the essence of web 2.0 implementation. Due to the interactive webplatform, University 2.0 is differentiated from other technology-based interventions, such as e-learning or u-learning. University 2.0 has to incorporate the open platform for higher education settings, which enables the various interested parties to practice the 2.0 spirits of openness, sharing, and participation. By practicing the spirits of 2.0, the open platform would allow the smooth flow of large amounts of information into a university and the outflow of knowledge to the public. As a result, this virtual university, designed through the 2.0 methodology, is able to create collective intelligence and offers the necessary services needed for learning activities through educational interface open to the public.

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Table 1. Comparison of three major technological interventions Online Class

Open Courseware

University 2.0

Openness of the material

Limited

Open

Opens Possibility of participation

Media library existence

None

None

Exists

Characteristic of the offered material

Course material/ Video clip (20~50min.)

Course material/ Video clip (20~50min.)

Composition of separate course materials by various topics (5~10min.)

How material is shared

Typical board

None

WiKi system

Download of the material

Possible but limited

Impossible

Possible for all users

Users’ upload approval

Only for instructor

Only for instructor and administrator

Instructor, learner, and other users

Other users’ participation

-

-

Reproducing, scraping, recommending

university 2.0 Platform For the College of Bionano technology at K University, a web-platform named Babel 5 was built as an educational platform with an open user interface, which maximizes the interaction between instructors and learners, according to the basis of Web 2.0 technologies. The main functions of Babel 5 can be divided into “Courseware” and “Media Library.” Courseware is a collection of the materials related to classes offered by the College of Bionano technology, including open courseware from other universities and research institutions. However, Babel 5 is not limited to just presenting the materials in a passive way like the existing e-learning systems, online classes, or open courseware. The most different aspect of Babel 5 is that it is an interactive system that demands a high level of participation from users. Similar to open courseware, anyone can get access to course materials from Babel 5, but can also participate in group conversations, and even in classes. Furthermore, the learners are able to freely produce and enlarge the contents of learning with “WiKi solution.” The characteristics of Babel 5 can be summarized as complete openness and amplified interactivity. Babel 5 is equipped with fully open

courseware and interactive functions beyond the level of simply opening, and searching and recommending through the media library. While previous e-learning systems and open courseware offer video clips lasting 20 to 50 minutes and other materials, Babel 5 is designed for users to collect the materials based on their choice and to combine them together for further study. Above all, unlike existing e-learning systems and open courseware, which are limited to only offering contents, Babel 5 maximizes users’ participation by allowing users to reproduce and upload contents as well download and use them. Moreover, with Babel 5, learners can create the contents collaboratively through the WiKi solution. The WiKi system shows the characteristic of Web 2.0 in that users freely share their opinions, and group knowledge is created from individual thoughts. The Media Library enables all users to access a broader range of materials than coursewares, to reproduce and upload learning materials, and to present their own created contents. The learning materials are developed into the user participating library, which can be searched using tags, and get feedbacks on them including recommendations and replies. The course materials are fully open, and all users, including the instructor and the learner,

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Figure 1. Screenshot of the interactive web-platform

can upload multimedia materials in a variety of formats to the media library. In addition, the open material can be searched and downloaded without any special programs. Through the podcasting in the University 2.0 platform, the learners are able to study before and/or after class with an individual mobile device anywhere. For this purpose, the materials in the media library are encoded in a general format so that they can be downloaded and played on any device. University 2.0 has changed the process of knowledge construction and educational activities.

As a result, the university constituents, including the learners, instructors, and the university itself, can take advantage of University 2.0 systems as described below. For Student • • •

to be a self-directed learner, and an independent problem-solver to be a knowledge creator to build interpersonal skills through collaborative learning

Table 2. Babel 5 functions Menu

Contents

Syllabus

∙Introduction of the course such as course description and class requirement will be included.

Course Matrix

∙Easily structuralized series of the course in one lecture ∙Arrange the various icons of course contents and directly access the information

Learning Cell

∙Educational space operated by the team of students that take the course ∙Course cell within the courseware is usually operated privately ∙Interaction of the course cell is accompanied with on/off-line

Courseware WiKi

∙WiKi during the course ∙Assignment in the form of WiKi, Creation and operation of WiKi ∙User creation and enlargement space of knowledge regardless of topic ∙Making out one note by several users ∙All materials related to the required lecture: Bibliography, Link, etc.

Communication

∙Role of conveying news to the students that take the course ∙Free board for Q&A, suggestion, etc.

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Figure 2. Screenshot of interactive courseware in Babel 5

For Professor • • •

to be able to cooperate with other professors to attain abundant useful resources related to their courses and research to develop better teaching methods using plentiful materials For University

• •

•

to offer an effective learning environment to learners, and instructors to be differentiated from other educational systems, and to be a leader in a new learning system to be a hub in the knowledge-based network in the bionanotechnology field

oFFLIne suPPort The most difficult aspect of implementing University 2.0 project is that the 2.0 system demands user participation and dynamic social interaction. Moreover, it should be voluntary and spontaneous. In previous technological learning environments,

such as e-learning systems, learners’ motivation could be the key element of successful implementation; however, the 2.0 system cannot be sustained or even exist with a low level of participation and involvement. In order to increase learners’ participation and facilitate social interaction, offline support is necessary. Furthermore, to make learning based on this new platform more effective and efficient, offline support should be supplemented with learning cell activities, learning facilitators, and learning spaces.

Learning cell As Web 2.0 technology is applied to the field of education, the learning environment has changed dramatically (Ajjan & Hartshorne, 2008; Maloney, 2007). In a traditional classroom, teachers and instructors had the authority to deliver knowledge and skills as they chose. However, with the Web 2.0 environment, learners have access to more than enough Internet resources to gain knowledge and can learn by themselves (McNeil et al., 2000). Thus, the roles of instructors and learners have dynamically changed and sometimes, even reversed.

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The Web 2.0 learning environment provides an interactive learning platform in an excellent way. However, at a certain point, students still need face-to-face interaction with faculty members and other students. Even in an online learning environment, group projects are frequently incorporated to facilitate collaborative learning activities. Students learn together by searching for resources, sharing ideas, and building collective knowledge (McNeil et al., 2000). As a result, University 2.0 enables collaborative learning as well as self-directed and self-organized learning. In the College of Bionano technology University 2.0 project, the collaborative group activities are called as “learning cells.” A learning cell is a self-organizing, self-evolving, and collaborating organization, just like organic cells. To differentiate learning activities from typical group work, we call it “learning cell.” In practice, a learning cell is a small team that is composed of a group of students, instructor(s), and facilitator(s). Any class at the College of Bionano technology consists of several learning cells and learners are allowed to form learning cells depending on their interest. The members in a learning cell collect and share information, do group project together, and upload their own learning content (UGC) to the web-platform. In particular, University 2.0 provides wiki solution for learning cell activities. A Wiki is a web page enabling users to upload learning contents and to share their ideas. It helps students’ online collaborative activities and facilitates asynchronous online discussion. Through Wiki, no matter when or where they are, learners can participate in discussions, work with other learning cell members, and share knowledge. Through learning cell activities, users produce collective intelligence and collective knowledge greater than the sum of individual knowledge. The learners also learn how to express their idea logically and how to understand others’ points of view. Their learning output is also shared to others through the webplatform and is beneficial to other students.

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It is important to demonstrate and share the team’s goals, objectives, and action plans with all group members. In order to do that, the University 2.0 project offers a “learning cell statement,” which includes learning cell goals, objectives, roles, procedure and time plan, and ground rules. Using this learning cell statement, group members can be closely united and focus on their performance. The University 2.0 system is a collaborative learning environment through which learners can search information together, share ideas, and build collective knowledge. However, to amplify the effect of collaborative learning on web-platforms, face-to-face social interaction is required, in particular, in higher education settings (Michinov & Michinov, 2008). The wiki solution and the learning cell statement would be good tools for on- and off-line learning cell activities. In addition to learning cell activities, learning facilitators can help make collaborative learning more efficient.

Learning Facilitator According to the definition from Wikipedia (2008), a facilitator can be defined as an individual who helps a group of people understand their tasks and achieve goals without taking a particular position in group activities. Facilitation makes learning faster, maximizes group synergy effects, and improves individual self-regulation (Schwartz, 2002; Weaver & Farrell, 2000). Therefore, a facilitator is not a decision-maker, but assists in group work. In practice, facilitators cast questions to learners, rather than giving them answers. They connect people into a team, link people to resources, and help team members draw a consensus. In a computer-mediated learning environment, instructors use a method of collaborative group work, and it is considered a major part of course activities. However, as the interaction between students and students, students and teams, and instructors and students gets deeper (McNeil et al., 2000), the role of learning facilitators is necessary to encourage group learning and interaction among members.

Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System

Under this learning system, facilitators’ roles include guider, helper, and encourager (Hew & Cheung, 2008). Learning facilitators need to attract students’ participation by guiding students to participate in the class activities properly and keeping student’s learning process on track. In the University 2.0 environment, the role of the facilitator is more critical because they can help students overcome technical difficulties or observe how to use the learning platform and resources in the media library. The learning facilitator is also expected to create a desirable atmosphere for study, and to help learners get to their goals and produce learning output. The key to success of the University 2.0 project lies in the efficient combination between online learning and offline learning, and that depends on how properly the learning facilitators intervene in on- and off-line learning activities. For this purpose, the University 2.0 project developed its own facilitator training program. The competencies and qualifications of facilitators were drawn from the investigation of other cases (e.g., Florida State University, 2008; Seitz, 2006; Zachary, 2000) and the results of needs assessment as a part of context evaluation. The necessary qualifications were identified, including communication skills, conflict solving skills, and team building skills. The facilitator training program is composed of 5 parts; (1) understanding adult learners, (2) facilitation skills, (3) team building and problem solving skills, (4) understanding themselves and others, and (5) efficient communication skills. This program was designed as an activity-based program, and each part of the program lasts 3 hours and includes several games and activities. The first facilitator training program was held in March 2008, and 8 student facilitators were selected. Before the training program, training participants discussed their roles and duties to better understand the student facilitator in the web-based environment. A professional instructor with more than 10 years experience in this field was invited to give a lecture and to share his knowledge and experiences as a professional facilitator.

Since the facilitators were involved in course activities after the training program, the professors understood the learners’ situations and the problems of each learning cell, and gave appropriate advice to them. With the learning facilitator’s active involvement, professors felt that they connected to students more closely and that their interaction was smooth and active. Students also reaped benefits – the learning facilitator created an academic atmosphere that motivated students and let them feel free to communicate with professors and other students. These facilitation experiences were good for the learning facilitators themselves. They could fully focus on the course, and they were able to go one step further in preparing for the class and helping other students. Some student facilitators reported that they actually acquired a more active and positive attitude to self-directed learning. Trained facilitators can not only learn skills and knowledge, they are also able to change their attitude and behavior based on what they experience through these activities.

Learning spaces Through advances in the delivery system, learners can enjoy learning activities anytime and anywhere. However, that was in the 1.0 era. With the University 2.0 learning environment, learners need and want more. They do not want to just overcome the limitation of time and space, but they also want to be able to get together for face-to-face social interaction at the right place, at the right moment. Learners now perceive space as a change agent (Oblinger, 2006) in facilitating social interaction and learning activities. For efficient classroom activities, a new interactive multimedia classroom was built at the College of Bionano technology in April 2008. This classroom is designed to support distributed learning, on- and off-line learning cell activities, and individual or group learning. The classroom is equipped with hightech equipment, such as several beam projectors, two-side screens, and white-boards for teaching and group activities.

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The classroom has enough space to move around freely and the room was ergonomically designed. In particular, students are able to move desks and chairs flexibly for their purpose, to facilitate discussions and collaborative learning. Also, the desk can be used alone for individual learning activities.

evALuAtIon systeM As explained earlier, the University 2.0 learning systems include various tools and agents to facilitate social interaction and learning activities. However, it was very hard to make any progress in developing the University 2.0 system with so many gadgets and without a standard procedure that every developer must follow. Furthermore, with regard to this University 2.0 project, the developers were faced with new social network technology and issues that they were required to manage. The evaluation process naturally became the way of guiding developers to the next step, getting attention from faculty members and students, and deriving consensus among them. The evaluation activity in itself affects the teaching and learning process as well as the learning outcome in any educational situation (Bach-

man & Palmer, 1996; Saif, 2006; Worthen et al., 1997). Researchers have verified that appraisals and rewards can influence knowledge creation and knowledge sharing (Lee & Cha, 2007). How we are evaluated affect our way of doing things and the standards we are apprised by influence the priorities of our tasks. Due to this reason, evaluation is the best way of ensuing and changing the direction of educational intervention (Davies, 1968; Hughes, 1989). Furthermore, evaluation can become a navigator to guide the procedure of designing, developing, and implementing educational intervention with the function of auditing or managing quality control in a given situation (Worthen et al., 1997). Indeed, constant evaluation compels developers to understand a given context with insight. Unlike other evaluation models used to assess outcomes at the end of projects, the CIPP evaluation model is a process-oriented model, which can govern the actual procedures of designing and developing an educational intervention. The CIPP model helped educators realize that “evaluation is not something that we just need to do at the end of the project; rather, it is a process that should continue throughout the life of project” (Dick, 2002, p.148). CIPP stands for “Context” evaluation, “Input” evaluation, “Process” evaluation, and “Product” evaluation. These four phases lead

Figure 3. Interactive Multimedia Classroom for University 2.0

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evaluators through the entire process and outcome in a systematic way (Stufflebeam, 1971, 2003). According to Stufflebeam’s explanation (2003), context evaluation assesses needs, problems, assets, and opportunities to help decision makers define goals and priorities. Input evaluation assesses alternative approaches, competing action plans, staffing plans, and budgets for their feasibility and potential cost-effectiveness to meet targeted needs and achieve goals. Process evaluation assesses the implementation of plans to help staffs carry out actual activities and to judge program performance and outcomes. Product evaluation identifies and assesses outcomes in various aspects to help staffs keep focused on achieving important outcomes and ultimately to meet targeted needs. In this project, the CIPP model was employed to monitor the entire process of the University 2.0 project. Through the four phases, we expected to identify the needs of the faculty members and students, to encompass different perspectives and interests, to acquire consensus from the interested parties, and to improve the outcomes of projects consistently. Context evaluation and input evaluation were completed at the beginning of the project, but process evaluation and product evaluation was conducted during the project and will be continued for a while beyond the completion of the project. As a context evaluation at the very beginning of this project, needs assessment was implemented to identify what faculty members and students expected to get from this project, to determine if they were ready to use the University 2.0 webplatform, and to find any environmental issues at the College of Bionano technology. After conducting needs assessment through a focus group interview and an open-questioned survey, the possible problems and issues were identified. The input evaluation provides information regarding students’ achievement, professors’ teaching competencies, coursewares, learning cell activities, facilitators, and classroom environment.

After identifying problems and issues by context and input evaluation, the information gained helped developers find the appropriate way to revise the web-platform, offline support strategies, and the evaluation process itself.

FeedbAcK to the webPLAtForM And revIsIon Readiness. Through the evaluation process, it was identified that professors and students were familiar in using web materials for learning and research, however, both parties were apathetic about producing and uploading contents on the Web, and participating in blog communities. This shows that both students and professors are still stuck in the Web 1.0 system in contrast to their positive perception toward the 2.0 spirits. In order to overcome this problem, the facilitators were advised to lead students and professors into actively participating in online 2.0 communities. Motivation. Students’ motivation was pointed out as the biggest potential issue for the University 2.0 learning system, which is largely dependent on users’ participation. As students suggested during needs assessment, the issue of motivation for participation can be solved to some degree by systematically linking students’ evaluations with their level of participation. Media literacy. Media literacy was identified as a fundamental ability that students and professors should possess to make use of the University 2.0 system. Only when able to freely interact socially on the Web can individuals function in the University 2.0 system. In order to fulfill the needs about media literacy, the College of Bionano technology redesigned the curriculum to include a course to allow learners to acquire a necessary level of media literacy. Coursewares and learning materials. Based on the results of needs assessment for both faculty members and students, coursewares for the various levels of learners were collected within the field

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Table 3. University 2.0 evaluation system based on CIPP model Purpose of evaluation

1. University 2.0 to analyze and evaluate requests, circumstances, and achievements of the interested parties and the members with diversification and to offer continuous feedback 2. In the long run, University 2.0 to be settled into the achievement management system leading to the successful outcome of the Department of Bionanotechnology

Target of evaluation

Learner, Instructor, Department, University, Project

Aspect of evaluation

Function

Purpose

Action Plan

Tool

Analysis Data

Context Evaluation

Needs Analysis

To clearly understand the requirement of the interested parties

Learner ’s requirement analysis: Focus group

Focus group questionnaire

Recording group conversation

Instructor’s requirement analysis: Question

Questionnaire

Answering the questionnaire

Learner’s readiness: Question

Questionnaire

Answering the questionnaire

Instructor’s readiness: Question

Questionnaire

Answering the questionnaire

Acquire information through official and unofficial methods like observation, examination of the document

People in charge of project’s observation, various rulebooks, unofficial conversation with related group member

Various

Readiness Analysis

Context Analysis

To check readiness of members about the new educational methodology

To understand the suggested organizational, administrative, economic, and political conditions

continued on following page

of bionano technology. Also, the Babel 5 platform provides many video clips visualizing the invisible micro phenomenon, which students in the field of nano technology need to understand. A video clip is only 10 to 15 minutes long, to better hold learners’ attention. Other requirements for course materials were compiled by experts in the field of bionano technology. Intellectual property. From the professors’ perspective, the University 2.0 system, which advocates openness and making private contents public, can call for issues with copyright. Moreover considering the rapid change of technology in the bionano technology field, this can be a social and economic issue, not just an emotional one. Thus, even in the open University 2.0 system, consideration and support at a web-technology level is needed to protect the constituents’ research results.

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Feedback to offline support strategies and revision Administrative functions and school affairs. This case study of University 2.0 suggests that when applying artificially such a spontaneous system to an existent system of university, the establishment of an online web-platform is not enough. Actions need be taken offline as well to strengthen support systems, such as administration and school affairs. Above all, how conflicts can be solved among the new teaching and learning system, the existing administration and operation systems, and the existing school affairs and evaluations systems is the key to success of University 2.0. Facilitators. Students expect facilitators to be competent in all aspects of media literacy and have expertise in the field of bionano technology. Professors expect facilitators to aid in

Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System

Table 3. continued Input Evaluation

Educational Achievement Evaluation

To understand initial knowledge, attitude, motivation of learners and adjust them into the educational circumstance

Before the course starts, check the intellectual, cognitive, and emotional status of the course with a learner’s diagnosis

Diagnosis

Answering Diagnosis

Te a c h i n g C o u r s e Evaluation

To understand the teaching circumstance and contents, and the suitability, appropriateness, and quality of courseware

Developing and using the checklist to understand the teaching circumstance and contents, and the suitability, appropriateness, and quality of courseware

Check list

Results of the checklist

Support Strategy Evaluation

To understand facilitator’s function and power, to offer a guideline, and to carry out the training

Developing the diagnosis on the facilitator’s function and power

Diagnosis, Guideline

To build learning cell’s guideline and strategy and to share it with the learner and instructor

Developing learning cell’s guideline

Learning cell’s guideline

Examining vision, strategy, and supporting system of the Department of Bionano technology and university

Self-evaluating committee

Confirming and sharing vision, goal, strategy, and principle of the project

Self-evaluating committee

Project Evaluation

continued on following page

connecting the professors to students, and to alleviate their burden in preparing for lectures. Both needs were reflected in the training program for facilitators. Learning cell combined with learning spaces. To reflect the opinions of students during needs assessment, a classroom at the College of Bionano technology was redesigned to facilitate learning cell activities as well as individual learning. Additional matters. The results of the evaluation suggest that students and professors have different views regarding the University 2.0 learning system. The professors believe that they are center of knowledge delivery and evaluation, and are rather conservative in a learner-centered

paradigm. However, the students insist on the necessity of curriculum reorganization, show desire for a systematic change in school affairs and administration, decide what functions and contents should be provided by University 2.0 to aid with learning, and know how the evaluation system has to be changed for them to be active in the new learning system. In such an environment, how to evaluate the learning capability of the students, and how to facilitate this in a real learning situation are more of the challenges University 2.0 has to offer for us.

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Table 3. continued Process Evaluation

Educational Achievement Evaluation

To verify that learner’s course process is operated to increase educational achievement according to the principle of sharing, opening, and participating

Learner’s self-evaluation, peer-evaluation

Student-generated code

Te a c h i n g C o u r s e Evaluation

To verify that instructor’s course process is operated to accomplish the course goal according to the principle of sharing, opening, and participating

On-line & off-line monitoring

No structuralized format

Support strategy Evaluation

To recognize whether the role of facilitator is properly operated or not,

Attendance observation

Observation List

Contents of the observation list

To understand the function and effectiveness of the learning cell in the progress and to suggest improvements

Participation observation of the rate of participation in learner’s learning cell

Observation List

Contents of the observation list

To verify proper management of the strategy of the Department of Bionano technology and university

Self-evaluating committee

To verify proper management of the project’s goal and strategy

Self-evaluating committee

Project Evaluation

Open to student’s choice

continued on following page

Future trends Online/offline learning systems are very common these days in higher education. More and more faculty members and learners are using Internet resources and Web technology (McNeil et al., 2000). Through University 2.0, a learner-centered interactive system, learners can participate in class more actively, and interaction between faculty members and students can be maximized, while offline supports are still vital factors in making learning efficient. However, as Lanier (2006) criticized collectivism of Wikipedia as Digital Maoism, the

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collective knowledge is not always right and individual personality is obscured by the public (Lanier, 2006). Collectivism can be ignorant, because the multitude lacks authority and responsibility. Users, especially learners in University 2.0, may lose focus and direction due to the overwhelming amount of resources and constant changes (Tumlin et al., 2007). To overcome these problems of Web 2.0, users should have more accountability when dealing with resources. Also, people such as facilitators who can guide and monitor activities in web-platform are required. In the research aspect, the University 2.0 system can be analyzed based on the characteristics of

Integrated Design of Web-Platform, Offline Supports, and Evaluation System

Table 3. continued Product Evaluation

Educational Achievement Evaluation

To understand learner ’s satisfaction, confidence, course achievement

Understanding learner’s satisfaction, confidence, course achievement through questionnaire and diagnosis

Te a c h i n g C o u r s e Evaluation

To understand instructor, teaching contents, effectiveness of the courseware

Understanding teaching circumstance, teaching contents, utility and effectiveness of courseware from both learner’s and instructor’s viewpoints

Support Strategy Evaluation

To understand instructive effectiveness of facilitator, learning cell

Understanding the effect of facilitator and learning cell from both learner’s and instructor’s viewpoints

Project Evaluation

To u n d e r s t a n d achievement of the project relating to the department and university

Self-evaluating committee (Confirming changes in the department and university level)

Comparison before and after the project activated

Comparative analysis on achievement

To u n d e r s t a n d achievement related to the goal of the project itself

Self-evaluating committee / Achievement evaluation comparing to the goal

Achievement evaluation table comparing to the goal

Comparative analysis on achievement

interpersonal relationship and information flow by employing social network analysis methods. Social network analysis enables the drawing of a map of connectivity that explains structure and characteristics of resource flows or personal relation ties (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). It is a quantitative analysis method to examine interdependent actors’ behaviors and flows of resources. By applying social network analysis to the University 2.0 project, we can figure out the pattern of interaction. In terms of centrality in network, this analysis explains which or whose resources are central in the field of bionano technology. Also, it makes it possible to analyze relational ties of learning cell members, such as who often forms groups with whom and who is in the center of a relationship.

concLusIon At the current stage, the roles of social networks, dynamic relationships, and active participation are emphasized for the successful outcome of the University 2.0 project. Web 2.0 is a collection of social technologies that create a more participatory and dynamic network. In order to fulfill the needs of better learning with this socially interactive web technology, the integrated design requires a webplatform, offline support, and evaluation. Simply, University 2.0 can be explained as Web 2.0 applied to university settings. However, with the influx of more digitally literate students and the rapid change in academia, the traditional university system is in need of reform and University 2.0 learning environment can be an alternative option. University settings are designed to embrace collaborative digital media such as open courseware, multimedia

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courseware, wiki, podcasting and media library in order to adapt to Web 2.0 environments. Given the social characteristics of this Web 2.0 based platform, the chance of its successful implementation in teaching and learning is heavily dependent on how both faculty and students understand, recognize, and accept the user-centered technology and system in an integrated way. This case study shows that the response level of society in general on Web 2.0 is not necessarily in conformity with that of constituents of a university. Web 2.0 is a spontaneous social community, a system where sharing one’s knowledge and productions is possible with one’s free will. At the same time, it is still raising many questions of social discussions whilst being applied to social bodies within universities. Universities are conservative systems, well-maintaining its original form since the middle ages. To what degree and how the university would adopt this user-focused 2.0 system advocating openness, sharing, and participation, depend on how much additional effort the university puts in. Just as with all efforts for innovation in human society, the possibility for creation of mass intelligence through the 2.0 system at universities, is also dependant on such social factors.

Barns, C., & Tynan, B. (2007). The adventures of Miranda in the brave new world: learning in a Web 2.0 millennium. Research in Learning Technology, 15(3), 189–200.

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Key terMs And deFInItIons Web 2.0: Web 2.0 indicates epistemological and social changes about how we create, distribute, and share knowledge through dynamic user interaction on interactive web- platforms. This connotes the second generation of web-based communities including blog, podcast, RSS, wiki that enable to encourage participating, sharing and collaborating of users University 2.0: University 2.0 is an open learning platform amplifying learner interaction and facilitating knowledge-based learning activities. The open-platform enables various interested parties within higher education settings to practice the 2.0 spirits of openness, sharing, participation, and create collective intelligence Web-platform: Web-platform is a web-based system to support online activities such as tagging, blogging, UGC, wiki, and media library. A web-platform is necessary to fulfill the Web 2.0 spirit of openness, participation, and sharing, and to make possible the mutual engagement of activities among users

Learning Facilitator: A learning facilitator is an active and direct learning helper whose roles are to create an atmosphere for study, to help learners get to their goals, and to encourage social interaction among professors and students Learning Cell: A learning cell is a small team composed of a group of students, instructors, and facilitators. In the class, each learning cell consists of 3-4 students who have similar interests, and each learning cell members share their ideas and create learning materials together CIPP Evaluation Model: The CIPP evaluation model is a process-oriented model, which can govern the actual procedure in designing and developing an educational intervention. The CIPP model consists of four phases: “Context” evaluation, “Input” evaluation, “Process” evaluation, and “Product” evaluation Needs Assessment: Needs assessment is identifying what the interested parties expect to get from the process and outcome of an intervention.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by H. Song; T. Kidd, pp. 533-551, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.4

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning Dawei Hu University of Science and Technology of China, China Wei Chen City University of Hong Kong, China Qingtian Zeng Shandong University of Science and Technology, China Tianyong Hao City University of Hong Kong, China Feng Min City University of Hong Kong, China Liu Wenyin City University of Hong Kong, China

AbstrAct A personalized e-learning framework based on a user-interactive question-answering (QA) system is proposed, in which a user-modeling approach is used to capture personal information of students and a personalized answer extraction algorithm is proposed for personalized automatic answering. In

our approach, a topic ontology (or concept hierarchy) of course content defined by an instructor is used for the system to generate the corresponding structure of boards for holding relevant questions. Students can interactively post questions, and also browse, select, and answer others’ questions in their interested boards. A knowledge base is accumulated using historical question/answer (Q/A) pairs for knowledge reuse.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

The students’ log data are used to build an association space to compute the interest and authority of the students for each board and each topic. The personal information of students can help instructors design suitable teaching materials to enhance instruction efficiency, be used to implement the personalized automatic answering and distribute unsolved questions to relevant students to enhance the learning efficiency. The experiment results show the efficacy of our user-modeling approach.

IntroductIon Traditional educational approaches are usually teacher-centric, not student-centric, since they do not sufficiently take into account the differences of characteristics among different students (Angehrn et al., 2001). In order to enhance student-centric learning and instruction efficiency, instructors should know the implicit requirements of students so as to prepare and design their teaching materials. As a result, personalized support for learners becomes more and more important and, consequently, many researchers start to focus on this topic to increase the performance of the learning systems (Henze et al., 2004; Dolog et al., 2004). Moreover, knowledge accumulation and knowledge reuse are also important in collaborative e-learning (Millard et al., 2006), because they can be used to reduce the workload of the instructors and to enhance the learning efficiency. Up to now, Web-based learning has been regarded as an appropriate auxiliary method of traditional teaching methods to achieve higher learning quality, especially when e-learning takes place in open and dynamic learning and information networks. The advantage of Web-based learning is that the historical knowledge and the behavior and habit of the learners in different courses can be easily recorded for analysis. However, it is usually difficult to implement such an e-learning system, which can efficiently capture the students’ model

about the course content, such as knowledge background, interest, authority, and so on. In this article, we propose a personalized elearning framework using the BuyAns (BuyAns, 2005-2007; Wenyin, 2006) environment, which is a Web-based user-interactive question-answering (QA) system for users (or students) to interactively post and browse questions and answers. In BuyAns, users exchange their knowledge by posting their questions on related boards and browsing finding interesting/favorite questions to answer. The system records all the Q/A pairs and the historical activities all users, including browsing records, questions and answers. The main processes of our framework are as follows: when a new question comes, the system first tries to automatically find the suitable answer from the knowledge base. If the answer is found, the question is then distributed to suitable users. With the help of BuyAns, two main improvements can be done in our e-learning framework. Firstly, all of those historical data contain a tremendous amount of information about users’ personal information, such as interests, authorities, and so on. If the students’ interests and authorities about the course content are known, BuyAns can automatically and properly distribute relevant questions and answers to relevant students. Students’ interests and authorities can also be used to help instructors organize and design their teaching materials (Huang & Wenyin, 2005). Consequently, collaborative learning between students and instructors can be enhanced. Secondly, all the historical Q/A pairs can be accumulated to answer new questions automatically. Hence, the echo speed for answering new questions can be increased. Additionally, the personal information of the asker can be used to estimate whether the answer can meet his requirement. In order to obtain the personal information of the users, we propose a method to calculate users’ interest and authority about the course content. The capturing process is easy to implement, since only a topic ontology (or concept hierarchy) for

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

the course content needs to be defined by the instructor. After the topic ontology is defined, the corresponding board structure can be generated to allow students to interactively post questions and answer others’ questions.The topic ontology consists of topics, which belong to categories, and categories. With the accumulation of the historical data, we can build the association relations between Q/A pairs and the topic ontology. Based on the association relations the students’ interest and authority on the topic ontology can be computed. Experiment results show that the users’ model generated by our method reveals the students’ true background (interest and authority). Meanwhile, in order to implement the personalized automatic answering to reuse the historical knowledge, we propose an answer extraction algorithm in which a novel answer evaluation algorithm is used to estimate the correctness of the answers extracted from the knowledge base for a new question (Hao et al., 2007). The remainder of the article is organized as follows: Related work is presented, then the system architecture of BuyAns is shown. The personalized e-learning methods are then described; then the experiments and the analysis of the results are shown. Finally, concluding remarks including potential applications and future work are presented.

reLAted worK There are lots of research reports on personalized intelligent tutoring systems, focusing on knowledge reuse and personal information analysis, such as user authority analysis and user interest analysis (Angehrn et al., 2001; Guetl et al., 2005; Millard et al., 2006; Brusilovsky & Nijhawan, 2002). To reuse acquired knowledge in a QA system, the historical information of Q/A pairs should be stored and an answer extraction algorithm is needed to find the suitable answer to a newly asked question. Brusilovsky and Nijhawan (2002) propose a method to manually collect and reuse a distributed

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historical educational repository. Along with the process of knowledge accumulation, the size of knowledge base will soon become too large to be analyzed manually. As a result, Wang et al. (2006) propose an automatic answering method which uses repository-based QA system to search the suitable answer in the knowledge repository. If some user asks a new question, the most similar questions are first found from the historical Q/A repository and their answers are then returned to the user. This method is efficient except that it does not take into account the quality of each answer and the interest of the asker. However, the quality of the answers to those historical questions is also very important to be considered in the automatic answering system, and the interest of the asker determines which answer is preferred if many answers are extracted. Therefore, we propose a novel answer evaluation algorithm for personalized automatic answering which combines the user’s personal information, the weight of the historical questions, and the quality of the answers to the historical questions. In personal information analysis, machine learning is usually used to construct a student’s model for an intelligent tutoring system (Beck & Woolf, 2000), which can learn on a per student basis how long it takes for an individual student to solve a problem presented by the tutor. The model of relative problem difficulty is learned within a “two-phase” learning algorithm. In that method, data from the entire student population are used to train a neural network at first. The system learns how to modify the output of the neural network to better fit each individual student’s performance. A learning agent is constructed to model students’ behavior for a mathematics tutor in Beck & Woolf (1998), which determines how likely the student is to answer a question correctly and how long the student will spend to generate that response. The traces from previous users of the system are used to train the machine learning agent. This model is very accurate on predicting the time that a student needs to generate a response and is

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

somewhat accurate on predicting the likelihood the student’s response was correct. With the development and applications of Web technologies, modeling users’ behavior from the Web logs has also been an active research area (Kim & Chan, 2003; Sugiyama et al., 2004; Grčar et al., 2005; Pazzani & Billsus, 1997). The generalized method is to construct users’ profiles from their interest-focused browsing histories. A tree-like hierarchy of interests is proposed in (Kim & Chan, 2003), with the root node being the general interest of a user and leaves representing the domains that the user is interested in. The user-interest hierarchies are built using a form of hierarchical clustering on a set of Web pages visited by the user. A user profile is used to analyze the user’s browsing history and applied-for modified collaborative filtering techniques in Sugiyama et al. (2004). A naive Bayesian classifier is used for learning and revising user profiles and hence determining which Web sites on a given topic would be interesting to a user (Pazzani & Billsus, 1997). It can also incrementally learn profiles from user feedback on the interestingness of Web sites. Recently, user profiling for interest-focused browsing history has been proposed in Grčar et al. (2005), which presents a system incorporated into the Internet explorer to maintain a dynamic user profile in a form of automatically-constructed topic ontology. A subset of previously visited Web pages is associated with a corresponding topic in the ontology. By selecting a topic, users can view the set of associated pages and choose to navigate to the page of their interest. These existing approaches aim to mine a user’s model from a large-scale accumulated data set or a large training set. It usually takes a long time to accumulate sufficient data and the training method is usually complicated. In fact, the model about an individual including interest and authority may change after a long time. Hence, the existing methods for mining students’ models are not adaptive for student-centric instruction in the traditional classes. Hence, we propose a method to capture

students’ interests and authorities about course content from the historical data accumulated in BuyAns. In order to facilitate understanding our e-learning framework, we will briefly introduce the BuyAns system in the next section.

buyAns: A user-InterActIve QA systeM In this section, we briefly introduce the system architecture and some main features of BuyAns. Figure 1 shows the system architecture of BuyAns (BuyAns, 2005-2007; Wenyin, 2006), which contains the User Interface for users to interactively post and browse Q/A; the Content Analyzer; the Search module; the Answer Clustering and Quality Assessment module (enabling users to annotate the quality of each answer); the User Management module; the Pattern Database; the Current Q/A Database (storing all unsolved questions and their current answers arranged in different boards/ categories); the Accumulated Q/A Database (for historical questions with correct answers); and the Knowledge Base. A typical user scenario is as follows: a user uses a pattern (or not) to post a question (with an amount of money offered) for correct answer(s) using the User Interface. The Content Analyzer accepts the question and distributes it into the corresponding board in the Current Q/A Database. The user can also manually select a suitable board to host this question. At the same time, it also automatically sends this question to the Search module, which first tries to obtain an answer from the Knowledge Base by searching and inference, and, if it fails, tries to search for similar questions in the Accumulated Q/A Database and returns their associated correct answers. Those answers will be automatically associated with the newly-asked question and displayed in the corresponding board. All other users can visit the board and see this question, and, if they want, can manually post

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 1. System architecture of BuyAns Search Result

Search

Knowledge Base

Question Content Analyzer

Pattern Database

Board 2 …

Answer Clustering and Quality Assessment

Question Patterns

Current QA Database

Board 1

Formalization

Questioner User

Answer Patterns

User Management

Visit

Question

Answer

Board n

Answer Answerer User

Accumulated Q/A Database

their answers to this question, using the suitable pattern or not. Additionally, the question can be automatically distributed to the suitable user for answering based on his or her personal information, such as the interest and authority. The asker can browse all the answers (both automatically found by the Search module and manually posted by other users) to his or her question and select the first/earliest correct answer (or several correct answers) as the final correct answer based on his or her judgment. If there is no dispute, the money offered by the asker will be paid to the correct answerer(s) after deducting a corresponding commission fee for the system. If the correct answer selected was found automatically in the Accumulated Q/A Database, its previous provider can still earn the offered money though the commission fee to the system may be higher. The Answer Clustering and Quality Assessment module helps group similar/relevant answers into several groups and provides an overall quality for

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each answer and each group based on the capability, reputation, and timeliness of the answer and the group. The clustering and fusion result can greatly facilitate the asker to browse the answers and select the correct answer quickly. The question and its correct answer(s) selected by the asker are associated and stored in the Accumulated Q/A Database as a pair. Hopefully, those high quality Q/A pairs are converted and formalized into formal knowledge and stored in the Knowledge Base for future auto-answering. The User Management module is responsible for computing and managing users’ models, including their interests, authorities (capabilities and experiences), reputations, and financial transactions. It also includes functions of facilitating dispute settlement between askers and answers. In the next section, we will firstly present our elearning framework and then describe the capturing method of students’ models about course content us-

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 2. The personalized e-learning framework based on BuyAns

Answer

Personalized Answer Extraction Question QA System BuyAns

QA Pairs

Knowledge Base

Student Historical Data Course Content

Students Model

User Interest

Capturing Students’ Model

ing BuyAns. Finally, we will introduce the knowledge reuse method on the basis of the knowledge base.

Personalized e-Learning using buyans In our personalized e-learning framework, the QA system, BuyAns, is used as a component which provides all the QA functionalities and all the collected content, including the historical data, such as Q/A pairs and the user log of activities, e.g., browsing, asking and answering. The personalized e-learning framework is shown in Figure 2. Buyans is the key component of our e-Learning framework, in which students post, browse, and answer questions. The historical Q/A pairs are stored in the knowledge base and the historical activities data are used to capture the personal information of the students. With the help of the personal information, instructors can design suitable course contents for different students. Moreover, for each new question posted, the personalized answer extraction module tries to find the suitable answer from the knowledge base according to the asker’s interest. If there is no suitable answer in the knowledge base, BuyAns can distribute the question to a suitable user for answering based on his authority and interest.

Next, we will introduce two key techniques in our framework: the students’ model capturing method and knowledge reuse method.

capturing students’ Model on course content The Accumulated Q/A Database is an import component of BuyAns which stores all the Q/A pairs from different users. The Accumulated Q/A Database, as well as the user log of other activities, e.g., browsing, asking, and answering, are used as users’ historical data to capture students’ interests and authorities about course content in this article.

Framework of the Capturing Process Figure 3 presents the framework of the capturing process. The whole process includes the following main steps: 1.

Topic ontology (or concept hierarchy) definition: The topic ontology represents the structure of the course content and is defined by the instructor with suitable granularity and scale.

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 3. Framework of capturing students’ model about course content

2.

3.

User-interactive QA process: Based on the defined topic ontology, the system can generate the corresponding board structure in BuyAns. Within their favorite boards, students can post their urgent questions about the corresponding topic and browse and select to answer others’ questions. The BuyAns system can record and accumulate students' activities of browsing, posting and answering as historical data. User modeling: With the accumulated historical data, the system builds the association relations between the Q/A pairs and the topic ontology. Based on the association relations, it computes the students’ interest and authority about the topic ontology.

With the visualized information of the students’ model about the topic ontology defined, the instructors can adjust or redesign their course contents to satisfy the students’ requirements. Next, we will introduce the related technologies within the capturing process, including topic

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ontology, association space between topics and historical data, and the methods to compute the students’ model.

Topic Ontology Before capturing the students’ model, it is necessary to define the related topic ontology (or concept hierarchy), which presents the outline, or skeleton, about the course content. Firstly, we propose the formal definition of topic ontology. Definition 1: a topic ontology is defined as a directed, tree-like graph TopicOnto = , where: 1. 2.

The set of nodes TS = {term1, term2, ...termn} represents a set of terms. The set of edges R ⊆ (TS x TS) represents the binary relations on the set TS. If two terms satisfy one of Is_A, Part_Of, and Component_Of relations, then there is a direct edge between them.

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

In the topic ontology, a term can be the name of a chapter, a section, or a key concept in the course content, which is decided by the instructor. We do not consider all kinds of relations among the terms. Three kinds of well-known relations between terms in ontology, namely, Is_A, Part_Of, and Component_Of relations (Noy & McGuinness, 2001), have been considered since they are the most important to capture users’ model about course content. If term1 and term2 satisfy Is_A (term2, term1), Part_Of (term2, term1), and Component_Of (term2, term1), it means that term2 is a (part of, or component of ) term1 and there is a direct edge from term1 to term2 . A node is named as a leaf if its out-degree is zero. For example, “Software Design”, “Designing for Change”, and “Code Review” are three terms in software engineering. The relation between these terms should be Part_Of(“Designing for Change”, “Software Design”) and Part_Of(“Code Review”, “Software Design”), since “Designing for Change” and “Code Review” are two subconcepts of “Software Design”. The scale of the topic ontology is decided by the term set, which is defined by the instructor based on the course content. To capture the students’ model about the course content, each of the leaves of the topic ontology is regarded as a board in the BuyAns system and each of the non-leaves of the topic ontology is regarded as a category in the BuyAns system. Students can interactively post and browse Q/A within the corresponding boards.

Association Space We build the Q/A space from the historical data to describe the relations between questions and answers. The association space is defined and used to represent the relations between Q/A space and the topic ontology. Definition 2: A Q/A space is a five-tuple QASpace = , where:

1. 2. 3.

4.

5.

QS is the set of questions. AS is the set of answers. f B : QS → Z is a function from QS to Z, where Z is the integer set. ∀Q ∈ QS, f B (Q) is the browsing frequency (or, the number of times being browsed) of question Q and f B(Q) is nonnegative. f B : QS → AS is a function from QS to AS . For each question Q ∈ QS, fA(Q) is the set of answers of Q. fCA : QS → AS. For each question Q ∈ QS, fCA : (Q) is the set of correct answers of Q.

In Definition 2, it is obvious that fCA (Q) ⊆ fA (Q). We can use a directed graph to represent the relations between QS and AS. QS and AS are represented by different nodes, and there are directed edges from answers to question Q if |fA (Q)| ≥ AS. We illustrate the graphic representation in Figure 4. Based on the functions f B, fA, and fCA on QS, we give a classification of all the questions. Definition 3: Let QASpace = be a Q/A space. ∀Q ∈ QS. 1. 2.

Q is a hot question if f B(Q) ≥ δ, where δ is a threshold. Q is a closed question if |fA (Q) | ≥ 1.

Obviously, a hot question should be attractive to many students’ interests and be frequently browsed, while a closed question must have at least one correct answer. Different kinds of questions play different roles in capturing the users’ model about the course content. The hot questions are used to compute the interest of a class of students about the topic ontology. The threshold δ for hot questions is used to filter out unrelated or useless questions in the historical data. We assume that if the browsing frequency of a question is smaller than δ, this question is not an interesting one for the students and therefore it does not contribute to

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Figure 4. Sketch map of an association space relation between topics relation between questions and boards (topics) relation between questions and answers

Topic Ontology

Questions(Q) Q1 ,

Q2 ,

Q3 , … , Qn-1 ,

Qn

Answers (A) & Correct Answers (CA) (A1 , CA1) , (A2 , CA 2) , (A3 , CA3) , … , (An-1 , CA n-1) , (An , CAn)

the interest model of the students. The value of δ can be adjusted by the system administrator. The closed questions are used to compute the authority of a class of students about the topic ontology. If a question is closed with correct answers, it means that the students have probably mastered the related knowledge about the question. Given the topic ontology, we can build the association space to represent the relations between the historical data and the related topics. The formal definition of the association space is presented in Definition 4. Definition 4: An association space between the Q/A space QASpace = and the topic ontology TopicOnto = is a three-tuple ASpace = , where RATis the relation between QS and TS . If question Q is posted on the board corresponding to T, then (Q,T) ∈ RAT . We can use a directed graph to represent the association space between the Q/A space and the

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topic ontology. Figure 4 shows a sketch map of an association space.

Capturing Method The association space between the Q/A space and the topic ontology indicates the relations between the historical data (browsing activities, questions, answers, and correct answers) and the topic ontology. For each student, we can build his/her own association space between the Q/A space and the topic ontology to obtain his/her interest and authority. We can also capture the model about all the students in a class as an entire object using all the historical data accumulated for all the students. Next, we present the capturing method using the historical data for all the students in an entire class. First, we compute the interest and authority of students about every question, which are determined by the related parameters of each question including the browsing frequency, number of answers and number of correct answers.

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Box 1. 0  Interest (Q) =  arctan( f B (Q) − MeanB + f A (Q) − MeanA ) 1  +  2

0   Authority (Q) =  − 2arctan( | f A (Q) | ) | f CA (Q) |  

f B (Q) ≤ Otherwise

(1)

f CA (Q) = 0 Otherwise

(2) n

Weight j (term) =

∑Weight (Son ) i =1

Definition 5: Let ASpace = be the association space between the Q/A space and the topic ontology, where QASpace = is the Q/A space of all students. For any question Q ∈ QS , equation (1), shown in Box 1, is the interest of the students about the question Q , where δ is a threshold, MeanB and MeanA are respectively the mean of fB(Q) and |fA (Q) | of all questions, and θ is a linear transformation parameter determined by the system administrator to adjust the slope of the arctan function. fB(Q) ≤ δ means that Q is not a hot question. Equation (2), shown in Box 1, is the authority of students about the question Q. In Definition 5, we can see that the interest of the students about a question Q is mainly determined by the browsing frequency f B(Q) and the number of answer |fA (Q) |. The larger f B(Q) and |fA (Q) | are, the more interest the students have about the question. The authority of the students about one question Q is mainly determined by the ratio of

j

i

n

× log10 n

(3)

| f CA (Q) | | f A (Q) | .

A larger value means higher authority of the students about the question. Definition 6: ASpace = be the association space between the Q/A space and the topic ontology, where QASpace = is the Q/A space of all the students, and TopicOnto = is the topic ontology about the course content. For each term term ∈ TS, (j = 1,2), Equation (3), shown in Box 1, is the interest or authority of the students about term, and Soni(1 ≤ i ≤ n) is the son (term or question) of term term. For each term term ∈ TS, we denote that Interest(term) = Weight1(term) and Authority(term) = Weight2(term), respectively. With Definition 6, the interest and authority on each leaf term in the topic ontology are computed respectively by the interest and authority of all the questions on the corresponding board,

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Figure 5. Steps of the method to compute students’ model based on the topic ontology INPUT: Topic ontology OUTPUT: Student's model about the topic ontology Step 1: define the topic ontology TopicOnto = by the instructor Step 2: generate the board structure of BuyAns based on the topic ontology TopicOnto = Step 3: construct Q/A space QASpace = of all the students by asking them to ask and answer question in the corresponding board and to close their own questions if a correct answer is found Step 4: classify all the questions into the hot and closed questions based on functions f B, fA, and fCA Step 5:construct the association space AS = between the Q/A space and the topic ontology Step 6: compute the students' interest and authority about each question in the Q/A space QASpace = Step 7: compute the students' interest and authoristy about each term in the topic ontology bases on ASpace= Step 8: output (term, Interest) and (term, Authority) for all term term ∈ TS

where a question is also named as a son of the term if the question is in the corresponding board of the term. The interest and authority on each non-leaf term are computed respectively from the corresponding interest and authority of its sons. Figure 5 lists the steps of the method to compute students’ model based on the topic ontology.

Knowledge reuse To efficiently reuse the historical knowledge for automatic answering in e-learning, we accumulate each Q/A pair whose question is asked by the students in BuyAns to construct our knowledge base. Meanwhile, an personalized answer extraction method is proposed to automatically extract the suitable answer from the knowledge base for a newly asked question. Our personalized answer extraction method combines the weight of the historical question, the quality of the answer to the historical question and the personal information of the user. Next, we will describe the structure of our knowledge base and the answer extraction method.

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Knowledge base When a question is answered by some users and one of those answers is chosen as the correct answer by the asker, a correct Q/A pair is accumulated into the knowledge base for e-learning. The use table structures of our knowledge base are shown in Figure 6, in which two tables are used to store the historical Q/A data. In the QA pair table, each record stores one Q/A pair. The “Question” field stores the text of the question and the “Answer” field stores the correct answer to the question which is chosen by the asker. The “PID” stores the ID of the pattern which matches the question and “Board” stores the board which the question is posted in. “Quality” stores the the quality of each answer which can be obtained from BuyAns. The value of answer quality is between 0 and 1. The quality of an answer is determined by its post time and its provider’s reputation and authority. In the pattern base, each record represents one pattern. The “Pattern” field stores a pattern and the “PID” field stores its unique ID. The pattern’s definition follows the definition of semantic pattern in Hao et al (2007). A pattern consists of question target which is used to represent

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 6. Knowledge base structure Q/A pair Table Question

PID

Answer

What food is not so good to heart-attack patients?

45

What is the symptom of Anemia ?

2

…

Quality

Board

high sodium, high fat

0.08

Health

fatigue, shortness of breath, and malaise

0.25

Health

…

…

…

…

Pattern Table ID

Pattern

1

Who is [Entity\Person] ?

2

What is [Abstraction\Property]?

…

…

Figure 7. Example of our pattern is the [Abstraction\Property] of [Physical_Entity\Plant]?

the target of question, question type which is used to represent the type of question (e.g. what and when), concept which is used to label meaningful nouns in the question and event which is used to represent something happening or any specific behavior. For example, a pattern is shown in Figure 7. The question target, “Entity\Color”, indicates that the question is asked about a color. The two concepts, “Abstraction\Property” and “Physical_Entity\ Plant”, are two meaningful words. Moreover, the question type is “What”. On the basis of this knowledge base, we implement automatic answering using the following personalized answer extraction algorithm.

Personalized Answer extraction We use an approach called Pattern Matching and Answer Evaluation (PMAAE) to extract answers from the knowledge base. The reason why we use pattern matching is that the weight of each part in the

question can be precisely estimated on the basis of the pattern annotation (Hao, et al., 2007). The main steps of this approach are shown in Figure 8. From the algorithm, we can see that for a new question Q, this method firstly finds similar patterns by matching the main structure of the question from the pattern base. The IDs of those patterns are then collected to construct an ID set IDS and any Q/A pair in the Q/A pair base whose PID belongs to IDS will be retrieved to obtain a Q/A pair set QAS. With the help of pattern, a question Qi can be divided into QiT , QiY and QiC . QiT means the question target of Qi , QiY means the question type of Qi and QiC means the concept and event of Qi . At last, we propose an answer evaluation algorithm to calculate the score of each answer and return the top answers to the users. The answer quality assessment algorithm is mainly used to evaluate the answer scores according to the weight of questions, the quality of answers and the asker’s interest. The higher

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 8. Main steps of answer extraction Input: A given question X PMAAE processing: Step1: Pattern matching from the pattern table 1) Analyze the question type 2) Analyze keywords (nouns and verbs) 3) Obtain the main structure 4) Retrieve similar patterns Step2: Data (Q/A pair) retrieval from the QA database Step 3: Answer evaluation (for each pair of question and answer) 1) Calculate the matched parts 2) Calculate the weight of different parts of question. 3) Calculate the interest score 4) Calculate the answer score Output: Top Y highest score of answers

Box 2.

Weight (QiT ) = × Match(T) × Weight

(QiY

Weight

(QiC

)=

× Match(Y) × M -2

1 |M | 1 |M |

(0 ≤

≤ 1)

(0 ≤

≤ 1)

1

) = × ∑ (Match(Ci) × )(1 ≤ M , 0 ≤ |M | i=1

Interest (U (Q ), B (Qi )) =

(4)

where Weight (Qi) is the weight of Qi and Quality (Ai) is the quality of Ai. Weight (Qi) can be calculated using the following formula:

584

(7)

≤ 1)

1 × Interest ( B (Qi )) × (0 ≤ |M |

the score, the better the answer. The quality of answer is calculated in BuyAns. Given a Q/A pair set QAS = {{Q1, A1}, {Q2, A2}…{Qi, Ai}…{Qn, An}}, {Qi, Ai} means the i-th Q/A pair. N means the number of Q/A pairs, B(Qi) means the board which Qi is posted in and U(Qi) means the asker of Qi . We can calculate the score for each Ai (1 ≤ i ≤ n) using the following formula: Score(Ai) = WeightQi*Quality (Ai),

(6)

(8)

≤ 1)

(9)

Weight Qi = Weight QiT + Weight QiY + Weight QiC + Interest(U(Q),B(Qi)), (5) where, Weight QiT means the weight of QiT , Weight QiY means the weight of QiY, Weight QiC means weight of QiC and Interest(U(Q),B(Qi)) means how interested the new question asker is in B(Qi). The QiT , QiY , QiC can be obtained through matching Qi with its pattern. Assume the total number of all components of the pattern is M, i.e., M = |T|+|Y|+|C|+1 where |T| means the number of QiT, |Y| means the number of QiY and |C| means the number of QiC . The weight of each component and the interest value is calculated in Equations( 6), (7), (8), and (9), shown in Box 2, where Match(T) represents whether the question target

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 9. The topic ontology for the experiments software engineering Practice

software requirement specification

Prototyping

Joint Application development

software design

software testing

designing for change code review

testing techniques soft test Package test Plan & test cases test report & bug reports

is matched or not, which has two values, 0 means NOT matched, and 1 means matched, α represents the importance of matching the question target. Match(Y), Match(C), β, δ and χ are similarly defined. Interest(B(Qi)) is the interest value of the asker about term B(Qi), which is calculated by users’ model capturing module. We adjust those parameters to appropriate values according to a series of experiments. For example, given the question “What is the color of rose?”, its question pattern is “ is the [Abstraction\Property] of [Physical_Entity\Plant]?”. The interest value between the asker and “biology” is 0.8. We acquire all the historical Q/A pairs that use this pattern. For each pair of question and its corresponding answer, the system calculates its weight to obtain the score of the answer. For a question Qi, “What is the shape of rose?” which is posted in the board of “biology”, the number of concepts in its question pattern is 2. Hence, M = 1 (question type) + 1 (question target) +2 + 1 = 5. Assume α=0.77, β=0.36, δ=0.84, χ= 0.3, Interest(biology) and the original quality of answer is 0.7 (obtained from BuyAns), we can obtain the following:

Weight (Qi_T) = 0.77 *0 = 0 Weight (Qi_Y) = 0.36 / 5 = 0.072 Weight (Qi_C) = 0.84 *(0+1 /5) =0.168 Interest(U(Q), biology) =0.3* 0.8*1/5 = 0.048 Weight (Ai) = 0+0.072+0.168 + 0.048 =0.288 Score (Ai) = 0.288 * 0.7 =0.20 Finally, we obtain 0.20 as the score of this answer for the historical question Qi is. If the value is the highest, we consider this answer as the best one for the user’s question.

exPerIMents We have done experiments in BuyAns to evaluate the proposed user model capturing method using course CS3343, “Software Engineering Practice” at City University of Hong Kong. Before the experiments, we first define a topic ontology shown in Figure 9. The topic ontology contains three sections of the course, which are Software Requirement Specification (including two topics: Joint Application Development and Prototyping), Software Design (including two topics: Designing for Change and Code Review) and

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Table 1. Statistic information about each board Board Name

Number of

Number of Hot

Number of

Number of Closed

(Leaf-terms)

Questions

Questions

Answers

Questions

Prototyping

19

19

22

13

Joint Application Development

39

39

28

21

Designing for Change

34

34

24

17

Code Review

24

24

23

16

Testing Techniques

43

43

24

31

Soft Test Package

9

9

8

8

Test Plan & Test Cases

13

13

10

6

Test Report & Bug Reports

14

14

7

8

Software Testing (including four topics: Testing Techniques, Soft Test Package, Test Plan & Test Cases and Test Report & Bug Reports). There are 12 terms in the defined topic ontology, four of them (Software Engineering, Software Requirement Specification, Software Design and Software Testing) are non-leaf nodes, and other eight are leaf nodes. Hence, eight corresponding boards are generated on BuyAns. After these preparations, all of the students registered in the course are encouraged to post at least 5 urgent questions in their favorite boards. They are then asked to browse all the questions and select at least 5 favorite questions to answer. They are also asked to pay more attention to their own questions. They should close their questions if at least one correct answer is found based on their judgment. Otherwise, they will be complained by others. After the scale of the historical data is sufficient for the experiments (the data used for experiments are shown in Table 1, where the threshold for the hot question is δ = 3), we can easily obtain the statistic information of the topic ontology (the information of the leaf node can be directly obtained based on Table 1 and the information of the non-leaf node can be calculated through adding the numbers of its children nodes). Having these statistic information, the association space

586

between the Q/A space and topic ontology is built, from which, the model of all the students in the class about the topic ontology is computed. The interest and authority of the students of CS3343 about the topic ontology in Figure 9 are shown in Table 2, and their histograms are shown in Figure 10 and Figure 11, respectively. To evaluate the reliability of the model computed by the proposed method, we conduct an e-survey through BuyAns to collect the students’ real model by the feedback. Participants are limited to the registered students of CS3343 who attended the experiment. Each participant is required to provide their true opinions about the survey questions. The user interface and the e-survey questions about the students’ interest of the eight leaf terms in the topic ontology are shown in Figure 12. In the e-survey process, all the students are asked to select their favorite topics from the eight terms. The feedback data on the interest about the eight leaf terms collected from the students of CS3343 are shown in Table 3. In order to compare the computation result and the e-survey result, we compute the interest percentage of each topic in all eight topics. The comparison between the computed users’ model and the e-survey result is shown in Figure 13. With the histogram in Figure 13, we can see that the difference between the computed users’ model

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 10. The interest of the students about the topic ontology Interest

0. 9 0. 8 0. 7 0. 6 0. 5 0. 4 0. 3 0. 2 0. 1 0 #1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

Figure 11. The authority of the students about the topic ontology 0. 6

Authority

0. 5 0. 4 0. 3 0. 2 0. 1 0 #1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

Table 2. The users’ model about the topic ontology Interest

Authority

#1

# Prototyping

Term

0.656824829

0.404350536

#2

Joint Application Development

0.800441521

0.202653753

#3

Designing for Change

0.769930287

0.448449328

#4

Code Review

0.699843435

0.402084560

#5

Testing Techniques

0.819143459

0.301959706

#6

Soft Test Package

0.503029648

0.547475421

#7

Test Plan & Test Cases

0.575045662

0.260217096

#8

Test Report & Bug Reports

0.585603818

0.331952878

#9

Software Requirement Specification

0.728633175

0.303502145

#10

Software Design

0.734886861

0.425266944

#11

Software Testing

0.620705647

0.360401275

#12

Software Engineering Practice

0.694741894

0.363056788

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Figure 12. The interface of e-survey

Table 3. The e-survey result about the interest of each topic #

Term

Number

#1

Prototyping

13

#2

Joint Application Development

24

#3

Designing for Change

8

#4

Code Review

19

#5

Testing Techniques

21

#6

Soft Test Package

6

#7

Test Plan & Test Cases

18

#8

Test Report & Bug Reports

21

Figure 13. The comparison between the computation result and the E-survey result Computation Result

0. 2

E-Survey Result

0. 15 0. 1 0. 05 0 #1

588

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

and the e-survey result for most of the eight leaf terms within the topic ontology is not big. Hence, the proposed method can be used to find the true interest of the students. The authority result is not as easy as the interest result to be evaluated. The computed authority of the students about one topic is the evaluation of their historical behaviors about the topic. For the students themselves, it is difficult for them to know their own real authority about one topic, since they only compare their authority among several topics. One method to evaluate the reliability of the authority model is role-based multi-agent simulation, which has been used to evaluate the reputation model in BuyAns (Chen et al., 2007). We can define different agents to complete questioning and answering actions in the simulation system, acted as students with high, middle or low authority in the BuyAns system. The reliability of the authority model can be verified by the consistency of computed authority and predefined roles of all the agents. More discussion about the role-based multi-agent simulation to evaluate the reliability of the users’ model can be found in Chen et al. (2007).

concLusIon In this article, we proposed a personalized e-learning framework based on a user-interactive QA system, BuyAns. Two key techniques, which are users’ model capturing method and personalized answer extraction method, are used to enhance its efficacy. The user historical logs obtained from BuyAns are used to capture the users’ model, which can efficiently and properly be used in personalized automatic answering, distributing unsolved questions to relevant students to enhance the learning efficiency, and helping instructors design suitable teaching materials to enhance instruction efficiency. The experiments show good quality of the users’ models we captured.

Once the students’ interest and authority models and the automatic answering mechanism are proposed, there are many potential applications within BuyAns for adaptive teaching and collaborative learning. Some of them are listed as follows: 1.

2.

3.

Course Content Design. At the beginning of a semester, an instructor can use this method to capture the students’ model and then design or reorganize the teaching materials to satisfy the real requirements of the students to enhance the student-centric instruction efficiency based on their interest and authority. During the semester, the instructor can also check the instruction effectiveness using the same methods. Question Recommendation. When a new question is asked in BuyAns, it can be automatically sent to the students with interest and especially with high authority. Learning from Q/A pairs. After a correct answer is posted and chosen, the BuyAns system can send it with its question to the students with low-authority. The students can learn from the question and its corresponding answer to enhance their learning.

AcKnowLedGMent The work described in this article was fully supported by a grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project No. 7002137), the China Semantic Grid Research Plan (National Grand Fundamental Research 973 Program, Project no. 2003CB317002), and Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No.60603090). The author thanks the students enrolled in the CS3343 course at the City University of Hong Kong for their efforts in using and evaluating the system.

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Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

reFerences Angehrn, A. A., Nabeth, T., & Roda, C. (2001). Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active e-Learning Systems. CALT White Paper, http:// www.calt.insead.edu/Publication/albert.shtm. Beck, J., & Woolf, B. P. (1998). Using a learning agent with a student model, intelligence tutoring system. Proceedings of 4th International Conference (ITS’98), 6-15. Beck, J., & Woolf, B. P. (2000). High-level student modeling with machine learning. Proceedings of 5th International Conference Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 584-593. Brusilovsky, P., & Nijhawan, H. (2002). A framework for adaptive e-learning based on distributed re-usable learning activities. Proceedings of the 7th World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education (E-Learn’02) Canada, 154-161. BuyAns (2007). Retrieved from http://www. buyans.com/ Chen, W., Zeng, Q., & Wenyin, L. (2007). A user reputation model for a user-interactive question answering system. Dolog, P., Henze, N., Nejdl, W., & Sintek, M. (2004). Personalization in distributed e-learning environments. Proceedings of the 13th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW’04), NewYork. Grčar, M., Mladenić, D., & Grobelnik, M. (2005). User profiling for interest-focused browsing history. Workshop on End User Aspects of the Semantic Web (ESWC’05). Guetl C., Dreher, H., & Williams, R. (2005), E-TESTER: A computer-based tool for autogenerated question and answer assessment. Proceedings of 10th World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education (E-Learn’05), Canada.

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Hao, T., Hu, D., Wenyin, L., & Zeng, Q. (2007). Semantic patterns for user-interactive question answering. Journal of Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 20(1). Henze, N., Dolog, P., & Nejdl, W. (2004). Reasoning and ontologies for personalized e-learning. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 7(4). Huang, G. L., & Wenyin L. (2005). Using Web based answer hunting system to promote collaborative learning. Proceedings of International Conference on Web Learning (ICWL’05), 387396. Kim, H. R., & Chan, P. K. (2003). Learning implicit user interest hierarchy for context in personalization. Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI’03), Miami, FL: 101-108. Millard, D., Tao, F., Doody, K., Woukeu, A., & Davis H. (2006). The knowledge life cycle for e-learning. Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning: Special Issue on Application of Semantic Web Technologies in E-learning, 16(1/2), 110-121. Noy, N. F., & McGuinness, D. L. (2001). Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology. Stanford Knowledge Systems Laboratory Technical Report (KSL-01-05). Pazzani, M. J., & Billsus, D. (1997). Learning and revising user profiles: The identification of interesting Web sites. Journal of Machine Learning, 27(3), 313-331. Sugiyama, K., Hatano, K., & Yoshikawa, M. (2004). Adaptive web search based on user profile construction without any effort from users. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the World Wide Web(WWW’04), NewYork.

Using a User-Interactive QA System for Personalized E-Learning

Wang, C. C., Huang, J. C., Shih, T. K., & Lin, H. W. (2006). A repository-based question answering system for collaborative e-learning. Journal of Computers: Special issue on E-Learning, 17(3).

Wenyin, L. (2006). BuyAns—An incentive & collaborative platform for knowledge acquisition. Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Semantics, Knowledge and Grid (SKG’06), GuiLin

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 6, Issue 3, edited by Q. Jin, pp. 1-22, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.5

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student Learning: An Exploratory Factor Analysis Daria C. Crawley Robert Morris University, USA Barbara A. Frey University of Pittsburgh, USA

AbstrAct This research examines the relative impact of students’ in-class behaviors (i.e., attendance and participation) by assessing student perceptions of the value of instructional technologies, such as eCollege course management systems and instructors’ PowerPoint presentations. The results of the study through exploratory factor analyses revealed that 13 items were divided into three factors (electronic presentations, onlinecourse management, and effective classroom behavior) with 53 percent explained variance

in instructional technologies’ impact on student learning. ANOVA results indicated significant differences in online-course management and perceived impact of electronic presentations on students’ classroom behavior among respondents who used the online-course management system. Respondents who used multiple online-course management features viewed it more favorably and did not believe that it had a negative impact on classroom behaviors, such as attendance or class participation compared to those who used fewer features. Implications for construct refinement and future research are discussed.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

IntroductIon Over the last decade we have witnessed an increase in faculty using a variety of instructional technologies to share and deliver information, including video conferencing, electronic mail, faculty Web sites, and course management systems (CMS). In their 2005 report, Growing by Degrees, Educause reported that of the 890 responding colleges and universities in the United States and abroad more than 90 percent used a CMS. Over 65 percent of higher education institutions offering face-to-face courses also offered courses online (Allen & Seaman, 2005). As the interest in distance education and instructional technologies has grown, formats used to reach out to learners unable to attend traditional classes has also grown. Bates (1995) characterizes this growth as a four-generation process, moving from the basic correspondence course to high bandwidth, multi-media courses. Students have gone from interacting with their instructors and classmates via United States Postal Service paper-based mail and the telephone to interacting via Web-based chat, discussion boards, and audio or video connections which allow for both synchronous and asynchronous dialogues. These technologies provide the opportunity to enhance the learning environment in face-to-face courses as well as distance courses. This study explores the relationship between student learning, classroom behaviors, and the use of eCollege and PowerPoint in an upperlevel course required for all business majors. The course, International Business, introduces students to the fundamentals of global business operations. During the fifteen-week semester, the instructor and students meet for three 50-minute sessions each week. An interactive approach comprising a combination of classroom lectures, case discussions, and individual and group activities is used to introduce students to the course material. CMS technology is used to support student learning and deliver course content. According

to the report, Growing by Degrees, this type of course is considered “Web-facilitated” and delivers up to 29 percent of the course content online, but the course is essentially a face-to-face course (Allen & Seaman, 2005). Given the nature of the global marketplace, it is critical that the latest economic data (i.e., currency exchange, inflation, and stock market rates), cultural and business practices, ethics and social responsibility issues, trade agreements, and business decisions be provided for students in a timely manner. To fulfill this goal, updated material is regularly placed on the eCollege Web site used in this course. The CMS also includes PowerPoint files, readings, homework assignments, links to Web sites, and announcements. In addition to CMS instructional technology, lectures include PowerPoint presentations created by the textbook publisher, which the instructor regularly updates with current information. Presentations are delivered with the classroom lights on and the instructor moving around the classroom to engage learners. The PowerPoint slides are constantly evolving based on student and peer faculty feedback, best teaching practices, and current business developments.

course Management system Literature review Many of the same instructional technologies enhance both distance education and traditional classrooms. For faculty, using a CMS frees the faculty member from having to remember to bring additional handouts to class for students absent from the previous session or students from having to seek out a classmate to determine changes in course assignments. Using a CMS expedites many of the mundane administrative tasks of both instructors and students (e.g., posting grades, providing feedback, delivering assignments, and making announcements). Such effective, practical applications were identified as early as 1995 (Campus Computing Survey, 1995). Student

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Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

learning was enriched through online practice quizzes, links to additional Web sites, and reflective discussions about course concepts. From 1994 to 1995, colleges and universities across the United States reported a 12 percent increase in electronic mail usage and over 50 percent increase in commercial courseware, course management systems (Campus Computing Survey, 1995). These marked increases highlight higher education’s expanded use of instructional technologies and, in particular, technologies which enhance accessibility and promote synchronous communication. The adoption level of CMSs has increased dramatically. According to the 2004 Campus Computing Survey results, public university courses using a CMS rose from approximately 11 percent in 1995 to 43 percent in 2004. Private university courses using a CMS increased from 19 percent in 2000 to approximately 47 percent in 2004 (Green, 2004). The increased use of Web-based instructional technologies has resulted from the need to keep pace with technologically-savvy students with Internet access outside of the traditional campus computer lab. As these structural changes work to decrease the digital divide and instead create “digital unity” (Finn & Inman, 2004) they also create more opportunities for students to engage in learning outside of lectures, classroom walls, and specified class times. The time constraints of asking a question or adding a comment during a class period can now be avoided, being replaced by more thoughtful and relaxed online discussions. Additionally, this framework offers students the chance to engage in learning at the teachable moment when they are most receptive. As faculty strive to create rich, responsive learning environments, user acceptance of the classroom technology becomes a critical factor, especially when teaching technologically-savvy students. Management education researchers have used Davis’ (1989) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which addresses how users come to accept and use a technology to examine student

594

acceptance of various instructional technologies. One TAM construct, perceived usefulness, examines the user’s perception that the technology enhances performance (Davis, 1989) and the second construct, perceived ease-of-use, examines “the degree to which the user believes that a particular system would be free from effort” (Davis, 1989). Instructional technology research suggests that students’ perception of usefulness of CMS differed by the various features. Students using the Blackboard CMS found that course content features, including course documents, lectures, announcements, and quizzes were more useful than the course support features of the discussion board, external Web sites, faculty information, and e-mail (Landry, Griffeth, & Hartman, 2006). Additional findings indicate that individuals’ perception of the usefulness of the Web was positively related to behavioral intentions to use the Web (Liaw, 2002). These results highlight ways faculty positively impact student learning by extending the walls of the traditional classroom to a Web-based environment. Related to this extension is the role of computer-assisted technologies such as PowerPoint, which are used to convey the course content.

Presentation software Literature review Growing up with television, computers, and video games, many traditional students are used to and even expect technology to be a part of their learning experience. Faculties were continuously challenged with holding the attention of these highly-motivated learners from the high tech generation. With computer presentation programs (such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Asymetrix Compel, Adobe Persuasion, and Gold Disk Astound), faculty can create professional looking presentations to enhance student learning in lectures. Literature evaluating PowerPoint-assisted lecturing in higher education has increased as

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

instructor use proliferates throughout the college classroom. Ample resources are available to guide instructors and course developers in graphic design for presentation software (Bellamy & McLean, 2003; Using PowerPoint, n.d.; PowerPoint Tips and Techniques, 2002) but guidelines to enhance the instructional value are lacking. A review of literature on the instructional effectiveness of presentation software in the traditional classroom highlights a few studies which are characterized by the following results. One body of research investigating the efficacy of PowerPoint lecturing in undergraduate classrooms shows that PowerPoint presentations should not be viewed as a replacement for the chalkboard, but rather as an efficient auxiliary medium (Szabo & Hastings, 2000). Chang (2005) emphasized the learning benefits of PowerPoint for international students who struggle with English as their second or third language. Additionally, another stream of research examining the impact of PowerPoint lectures on student grades revealed that PowerPoint lecture groups achieved better grades than the traditional lecture cohort did (Lowry, 1999). Similarly, Harknett and Cobane (1997) reported that students felt that PowerPoint lectures benefited their learning. Some also felt that the visual emphasis in PowerPoint helped them recall the lecture material during exams.

research Questions Examining students’ perceptions of instructional technology features that impact their learning may assist faculty in determining how to use these tools to create an engaging learning environment. Faculty appreciation of the relationship between Web-based, computer-assisted instruction, and student learning may highlight the critical factors influencing learning. Hence, this study aimed to examine students’ perceptions of the impact of PowerPoint presentations and the eCollege course management system on their learning and classroom behaviors. This study examines student

learning by exploring how instructional technologies such as a CMS and PowerPoint influenced student attitudes and behaviors: •

•

•

What impact do PowerPoint presentations have on student attendance, attention during lectures, and class participation? What is the relationship between retrieving course materials via a CMS and class attendance? Do students prefer to access class materials via a shared university sponsored computer drive or a CMS?

MethodoLoGy Given that this research was in its exploratory phase, the sample for this study included students from one of the author’s classes. The instructor read a statement asking for student participation, which included the confidentiality and anonymity procedures. She left the classroom and a graduate assistant distributed consent release forms and the survey. Students interested in participating were instructed to complete the consent release form and the survey and return it to the graduate assistant. Students who chose not to participate were informed that they could leave the class. Of the 170 students, 134 chose to participate, resulting in a 78.8 percent response rate. Respondents were business majors in a required upper level International Business class, and 42.4 percent were female. Analysis indicated no significant gender differences between respondents and non-respondents regarding results.

survey The authors developed a 15-item Likert Scale survey examining student attitudes regarding eCollege, the University-sponsored course management system. Survey questions asked students to assess their (1) likelihood of attending class

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Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

when the professor posts PowerPoint handouts on eCollege, (2) satisfaction with eCollege, (3) comfort level with using eCollege, and (4) preference for eCollege over the University-sponsored shared computer drive system. The survey also asked students to assess the following elements regarding the impact of all the PowerPoint presentations they had attended in this course on the following: (5) attention to lectures, (6) classroom behavior during lectures, (7) preference for chalkboard or whiteboard lectures, (8) value of handouts for note taking, (9) classroom participation, (10) instructor organization, (11) slide format, (12) student recall of content, (13) student motivation to attend class, (14) identification of key points, and (15) attitude. These 15 items were rated on a five-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), with a middle score of neutral (3). A copy of these items is included in Appendix A. Additional information was collected based on students’ self-reported computer technology skills, experience using PowerPoint, and eCollege usage. We created the following independent variables: (1) PowerPoint Experience, (2) Computer Experience, and (3) eCollege Usage.

PowerPoint Experience Respondents who attended a PowerPoint training class and/or created a PowerPoint presentation were assigned to group 1 (n=54), and those who had these experiences and/or used animations, sound, or graphics while delivering a PowerPoint presentation were assigned to group 2 (n=79). Computer Experience: Respondents were divided into groups of moderate or expert users, where moderate users (n=42) performed the following tasks: e-mail, word processing, instant messaging, and downloading course materials from eCollege; and expert users (n=90), who performed the above tasks and also used Microsoft

596

(MS) Excel, MS Access, customized PowerPoint presentations with animation, and multiple eCollege features. eCollege Usage: The five-level eCollege usage variable was based on the number of tasks respondents performed with eCollege. Tasks included downloading class materials, checking course grades, turning in assignments, sending e-mail, and participating in a threaded discussion. Respondents performing one task were coded 1, those performing two were coded 2, up to code 5 for five tasks (Mean = 2.6; SD=1.5). The variable correlation matrix and means and standard deviations are summarized in Table 1.

resuLts Factor Analysis An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the 15 Likert scale items listed in Appendix A to determine if the observed correlations could be explained by a smaller number of factors. A principal components extraction was used with a varimax rotation. Using Kasier’s (1960) criterion to retain the components with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, a four factor solution accounting for 60 percent of the variance was obtained. The factor loadings exceeded 0.40 and, since items did not cross load, these results demonstrate discriminant validity of three scales. The following variables: (1) the visual images in PowerPoint help recall during exams and (2) preference for advanced PowerPoint with audio, video, or graphics over bullet-point and text only presentations, loaded on the fourth factor which only accounted for 7.2 percent of the variance. Despite high loadings, this factor was eliminated due to a low reliability coefficient (α.=.33) between these two variables. A three-factor solution explaining 52.7 percent of the variance was considered the best representation of the data. Table 2 lists the factor analysis results.

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

Table 1. Correlation matrix, means and standard deviations (n=134) PPT increases likelihood of inappropriate classroom behavior

Mean

Standard Deviation

Less likely to attend class when slides posted on web

Less likely to attend class when slides posted on web

2.13

0.984

1

Satisfaction w/eCollege

3.78

0.898

0.032

1

Comfortable w/eCollege

3.99

0.888

-0.016

.705**

1

Prefer eCollege

3.47

1.155

0.013

.573**

.538**

1

PPT holds my attention

3.92

0.798

-0.122

.271**

.175*

.253**

1

PPT increases likelihood of inappropriate classroom behavior

2.37

1.101

.178*

-0.021

-0.066

0.068

0.06

1

Prefer traditional lectures

4.02

1.004

-0.362 **

0.014

-0.017

0.049

.383**

-0.158

PPT helps w/note taking

4.3

0.835

-0.157

0.041

0.095

0.12

.213*

0.063

Increases classroom participation

2.26

0.904

.318**

-.215*

-.280**

-.241**

-.173*

.355**

Professors organized

3.92

1.045

-0.166

.222*

0.129

.233**

.495**

0.053

Prefer PPT w/text-only over those with audio, video or graphics

3.28

1.120

-.237**

-0.043

-0.028

-0.13

-0.035

-0.041

Visual images in PPT help recall

3.84

0.908

-0.003

-0.006

0.082

0.078

.348**

0.096

Less motivated to attend when PPT used

2.11

0.898

.452**

-0.034

0.02

-0.058

-.367**

0.147

PPT help emphasize key points

4.19

0.737

-.188*

0.143

0.105

0.17

.502**

-0.04

Positive attitude toward PPT

4.17

0.786

-0.169

.231**

0.17

.240**

.630**

0.046

Satisfaction w/eCollege

Comfortable w/eCollege

Prefer eCollege

PPT holds my attention

* Significant at the .05 Level (two-tailed) ** Significant at the .01 Level (two-tailed)

reliability The reliability dimensions determined from the factor analysis were determined by computing the internal consistency coefficient, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Nunnally (1967) advised that a magnitude of 0.5 to 0.6 for the Cronbach alpha statistic was sufficient in the early stages of basic research, but that an alpha of 0.8 is more desirable. Cronbach’s alpha levels for electronic presentations, online course management systems, and effective classroom behavior items indicated reliability; all three scales showed acceptable alphas

continued on following page

(.63-.81). High scores on the electronic presentation scale indicate respondents’ positive attitude toward PowerPoint, agreement that PowerPoint holds their attention, emphasizes key points. The scoresportray professors who use PowerPoint as being organized during their presentations, and note preference for PowerPoint over traditional chalkboard or whiteboard lectures. Respondents who scored high on the online course management system scale indicated their satisfaction and comfort using eCollege, and their preference for using eCollege to obtain course materials rather than the University-sponsored shared computer drive.

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Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

Table 1. continued

Prefer traditional lectures

Note taking

Decrease classroom participation

Professors organized

Prefer PPT w/ text-only over those with audio, video or graphics

Visual images in PPT help recall

Less motivated to attend when PPT used

PPT help emphasize key points

Positive attitude toward PPT

Less likely to attend class when slides posted on web Satisfaction w/eCollege Comfortable w/eCollege Prefer eCollege PPT holds my attention PPT increases likelihood of inappropriate classroom behavior 1 0.167

Prefer traditional lectures 1

PPT helps w/note taking

-.274**

-0.097

1

Increases classroom participation

0.428**

.294**

-0.049

1

0.129

0.086

-0.116

-0.025

1

.203*

.302**

-0.05

.273**

.206*

1

-.363**

-.267**

.410**

-.336**

-0.053

-.181*

1

.321**

.305**

-0.12

.432**

0.074

0.325

-.338**

1

.422**

.355**

-.226**

.490**

-0.021

.325*

-.365**

.514**

Professors organized Prefer PPT w/text-only over those with audio, video or graphics Visual images in PPT help recall Less motivated to attend when PPT used PPT help emphasize key points 1

Positive attitude toward PPT

* Significant at the .05 Level (two-tailed) ** Significant at the .01 Level (two-tailed)

Finally, the effective classroom behavior scale assessed respondents’ perception that PowerPoint presentations negatively impact classroom behavior by increasing the likelihood of inappropriate classroom behavior and decreasing participation, increasing students’ motivation to attend class, and increasing the likelihood to attend when the professor posts PowerPoint handouts on eCollege. Respondents who agreed that PowerPoint negatively impacted classroom behavior scored high on this item. Table 3 presents the means, standard deviations, alpha coefficients, and correlations at the construct level.

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comparison of Means A t-test was done to determine whether there is a meaningful difference between electronic presentation experience, online course management, and effective classroom behavior and respondents’ computer experience. We divided respondents into two groups based on their self-reported computer experience. Group 1, moderate users, indicated that they performed the following tasks: e-mail, word processing, instant messaging, and downloading course materials from eCollege; whereas Group 2, expert users, indicated that they performed these tasks and Microsoft (MS) Excel,

MS Access, customized PowerPoint presentations with animation, and multiple eCollege features. T-test results indicated no significant differences -.097 .469 4.061

Visual images presented in PowerPoint presentation lectures help me to recall content during exams.

Eigenvalue

2.159

.033

-.034

.139

.051

-.301

1.688

.169

-.233

-.177

.658 -.211

I prefer bullet-point text-only PowerPoint over more advanced presentations with audio, video and graphics.

.034

I am less likely to attend class when the professor posts PowerPoint handouts to the Web.

-.088 .593 -.510

I am less motivated to attend class when PowerPoint presentations are used during the lecture.

.730 -.093

PowerPoint presentations decrease classroom participation.

.002

.065

.174

PowerPoint presentations increase the likelihood of inappropriate classroom behavior.

-.070

.214

I prefer using eCollege over the RMU passouts system.

1.117

.582

.839

.098

-.019

.661

.026

I am comfortable with using eCollege.

.091

.038

.127

I satisfied with eCollege as a tool to access course materials.

.046

.133

.756

.562

I prefer traditional lectures using a blackboard or whiteboard to PowerPoint presentations.

-.061

-.0.89

-.060

.137

.810

I have a positive attitude towards PowerPoint presentations.

-.070

.340

.871

.094

.687

PowerPoint presentations help to emphasize key points during lectures.

-.038

.000

-.414

.152

.740

Professors who use PowerPoint presentations are more organized during their presentations.

-0.01

-.008

.072

.467

PowerPoint handouts help me to take better notes during classroom lectures.

-.023

Delivery Preference

.862

.163

.779

PowerPoint presentations hold my attention.

Classroom behavior

-.155

eCollege Preference

POWERPOINT preference

Survey Questions

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

Table 2. Exploratory factor analysis-recoded items are presented in bold

between respondents who classified themselves as moderate or expert computer users. To examine differences based on PowerPoint experience, respondents who attended a Power-

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Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

Table 3. Means, standard deviations, alpha coefficient and correlation matrix for all constructs (n=134)

POWERPOINT preference

Mean

SD

Alpha Coefficient

POWERPOINT Preference

4.07

.65

.79

1

eCollege Preference

eCollege preference

3.37

.83

.81

.244 **

1

Classroom Behavior

2.2

.67

.63

-.339***

-.102

Classroom Behavior

1

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). ** Correlation is significant at the 0.00 level (2-tailed).

Table 4. ANOVA Results Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

Between Groups

1.908

5

.382

Within Groups

54.308

127

.428

Between Groups

12.768

5

2.2554

Within Groups

79.465

127

.626

Between Groups

4.217

5

.843

Within Groups

55.710

127

.439

F

Significance

.892

.489

4.081

.002**

1.922

.095*

PPT Preference

eCollege Preference

Classroom Behavior

* Significant at the .10 Level (two-tailed) ** Significant at the .05 Level (two-tailed)

Point training class and/or created a PowerPoint presentation were assigned to group 1 and those who had these experiences and/or used animations, sound or graphics while delivering a PowerPoint presentation were assigned to group 2. A second t-test was performed examining the relationship between the dependent variables and respondents’ perceptions of classroom behavior. Results indicate a significant difference between respondents on the effective classroom behavior variable. More respondents with limited PowerPoint experience perceived that PowerPoint presentations negatively impacted classroom behavior than those who had more extensive experience (t=-2.994 df=131 p< .01).

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One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been conducted to test whether there is a meaningful difference between the dependent variables and respondents’ use of eCollege. ANOVA results, reported in Table 4, indicated a significant difference between respondents based on the extent of their eCollege usage and their online course management preference F (5, 132) = 4.081, p < .01). Respondents who performed more tasks with eCollege were more favorable towards eCollege than those who performed fewer tasks. Additionally, respondents who performed more tasks with eCollege disagreed that the PowerPoint usage led to negative classroom behaviors F (5, 132) = 1.922, p < .10).

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

dIscussIon The primary value of this research is the exploratory factor analyses examining the relationship between CMS, presentation software, and student learning. Factor analysis results suggested a three or four factor solution. The four factor solution produced the following factors: (1) Electronic Presentation component (2) Online Course Management preference, (3) Effective Classroom Behavior, and (4) Delivery Preference. We eliminated the fourth factor after reliability analysis indicated a low Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The final three factor solution offers preliminary support for the electronic presentation, online course management preference, and effective classroom behavior as significant factors when examining student learning. Although previous research examined the relationship between usefulness and ease of use of CMSs (Davis, 1989) and instructional use of PowerPoint on student learning (Harknett & Coban, 1997; Lowry, 1999; Szabo & Hastings, 2000; Chang, 2005) few studies investigate students’ classroom behaviors. The inclusion of the classroom behaviors construct provides an opportunity to explore the role of the student behavior component in concert with previously examined concepts. This research suggests a relationship between students’ preference for a CMS and their use of a CMS. Students who performed more eCollege tasks such as downloading course materials, checking grades, and e-mail viewed eCollege more favorably than those who performed fewer eCollege tasks. While previous research (Landry, Griffeth, & Hartman, 2006) highlights the usefulness of CMS content features, it is important to note that this study examines students’ perceptions of eCollege assessing their comfort, satisfaction, and accessibility by assessing their preference for using eCollege over the Universitysponsored shared computer drive. Faculty use this shared drive to upload course materials (e.g., notes and assignments) which students can only

download from computers on campus or by first loading a software program accessible from the University. Interestingly, we also found a relationship between extensive eCollege usage and classroom behavior. Extensive eCollege users disagreed that PowerPoint usage was related to a decrease in student classroom behaviors such as participation and attendance. This finding is particularly interesting given the anecdotal perception among some faculty that students avoid attending class if they obtain class materials such as handouts, PowerPoint slides, and assignments via a CMS. Our results, though preliminary, suggest that students who performed multiple tasks with eCollege did not perceive a negative relationship between PowerPoint lectures and classroom behaviors, such as attendance and participation. Future research should explore the differences between eCollege users further. Almost half of the students in our study indicated that they preferred using eCollege over the University-sponsored shared computer drive. For example, do students who perform fewer tasks with eCollege experience problems because they are unfamiliar with the CMS features? If this is case, then instructors using a CMS need to ensure that their students are familiar with the CMS features from basic login procedures through participation in threaded discussions. Another potential explanation is that students are unsure how to take notes during a PowerPoint presentation. It’s possible that students who bring a printed copy of the slides with them to class and simply follow the instructor from slide to slide without taking notes perceive that class attendance is not a priority or that they have nothing to share since the information is accessible without attending class. Instructors can adapt their PowerPoint presentation to encourage an active two-way dialogue with students with short case studies or slides with discussion questions. International business courses are especially adaptable in this realm given the dynamic nature of the global marketplace.

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Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

This study points to several key benefits in using presentation software, such as PowerPoint, and a CMS, such as eCollege, in resident university courses. Students responded positively to PowerPoint as an enhancement and supplement for the delivery of lectures. The handouts printed from PowerPoint files provided outlines for taking notes, identifying key points, and studying content for exams. Furthermore, students perceived the instructor as being organized because the PowerPoint files were developed and posted in the CMS before class. The PowerPoint slides provided an agenda and structure to the class. These results support the findings of Susskind (2005), who noted students attending his Introduction to Psychology course when PowerPoint presentations were used had more positive attitudes about the course and greater self-efficacy than when there were no PowerPoint presentations. In similar results, Harding (2005) reported his engineering students found PowerPoint slide-based handouts were a significant benefit for taking quality notes for later reference. The study did not reveal any deterrents that might discourage the instructor from using PowerPoint. Overall, student respondents did not consider PowerPoint a deterrence to their class participation or attendance. In terms of the design of the PowerPoint slides, a slight majority of learners preferred visual images over text-only content. They indicated that visual images helped them recall course content. This supports one of the principles presented in Instructional Message Design (Winn, 1993), “Pictures are usually more memorable than words, and are thus useful when information has to be remembered” (p. 86). The CMS was also positively perceived by students who indicated a high level of satisfaction and comfort in using eCollege. Currently, this university has a networked Passouts drive, where instructors can post handouts and documents. Unlike the CMS, which can be accessed anytime and anyplace, the Passout system via the University-sponsored shared drive can only

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be accessed from campus computer labs or after loading software obtained from the University. Apparently, the convenience of accessing files is more important to students than the free printouts offered in the computer labs. Students’ positive reactions support an earlier study conducted by Laudato and Nicoll (1999) at the University of Pittsburgh, which noted two-thirds of students (n=1850) commented on the ease of access to assignments, online materials, and communication through their CMS.

recoMMendAtIons For PrActIce The following recommendations are presented for instructors who are using CMSs in on-campus, face-to-face courses. Professors using instructional technologies such as CMS and PowerPoint may enhance the students’ learning experience by demonstrating these tools and explaining their learning benefits. Technology-savvy students do not necessarily have the specific knowledge and skills required for each course and type of technology. Instructors can set the instructional foundation for a course by providing basic training for students on how to use the CMS. Even if students have used the system in previous courses, most courses are organized differently. Students need to understand the structure of the online course materials, such as where to find assignments, announcements, handouts for class, and grades. In addition, students need to know how to print materials from the CMS. This foundation knowledge of the CMS empowers students to be self-directed. Most universities have a help desk, but students cannot ask questions about functions they don’t know exist. Online discussions can be especially challenging and unmanageable for students. They can quickly become disjointed and overwhelming. A practice discussion, such as posting student introductions, can orient students to the discussion process. Furthermore, faculty

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

can provide students with clear expectations as to when, how often, and how long postings should be. In a face-to-face course, instructors should integrate and refer to student postings so students know that their contributions are valued. In addition to being experienced users of the CMS, faculty should be knowledgeable users of the PowerPoint software. They need to consider how to organize slide presentations to engage students and enhance learning. Besides the instructional aspects, basic use of PowerPoint involves some technical skill to add images, charts, and video. In the first or second session of a course, instructors should instruct students on how to retrieve and use PowerPoint slides. In particular, students need to know how to print PowerPoint files as handouts and how to view the slides as a presentation outline. This is also a good time to explain the rationale for providing PowerPoint files and to advise students on how to use them for note taking and studying. Students should understand that these PowerPoint files supplement classroom lectures and activities; they are not a substitute for attending class. Reviewing the slides prior to class serves as an advanced organizer which helps students to prepare for class.

LIMItAtIons And Future reseArch New classroom technologies become available at a fast and furious pace. It is sometimes difficult for faculty to know which technologies enhance student learning and make them worth the substantial investment of time it takes to learn and use them. This exploratory study examines the value of the eCollege course management systems and PowerPoint presentations in a face-to-face, upper level business course, International Business. Future studies using the same dependent variables can offer support to the link between student learning and electronic presentations, online course management systems, and effec-

tive classroom behavior. Additionally, research should be conducted to refine the usage of visual images and animation in electronic presentation items which were eliminated from the analysis due to a low reliability coefficient. As technology continues to advance, inclusion of visual images and animation in electronic presentation will simultaneously occur. Investigation of the impact of these images on student learning is essential to fully understanding the relationship between student learning and electronic presentations. Finally, it would be valuable to determine if student learning differs based on the type of CMS used. Though eCollege shares similar features with Blackboard and WebCT, it is possible that students’ comfort level is affected by individual CMS features and/or system design. Overall, instructors who teach with these technologies need to ensure that students know how to efficiently and effectively use them to their full potential.

reFerences Allen, I., & Seaman, J. (2005). Growing by degrees: Online education in the United States, 2005. The Sloan Consortium. Atkins-Sayre, W., Hopkins, S., Mohundro, S., & Sayre, W. (1998). Rewards and liabilities of presentation software as an ancillary tool: Prison or paradise? ERIC Document Reproduction Service; ED 430260. Bartsch, R., & Cobern, K. (2003). Effectiveness of PowerPoint presentations in lectures. Computers & Education, 41, 77-86. Bates, A. (1995). Technology, open learning and distance education. London: Routledge. Bellamy, K., & McLean, D. (2003). The mechanics of PowerPoint (Electronic Version). Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine, 26( 2), 74-78.

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Campus Computing Survey. (1995). Retrieved May 9, 2006 from, http://www.campuscomputing.net/ Chang, Y. (2005). The use of PowerPoint as a learning aid for international students. Research Project Report Presented to the School of Education Indiana University, South Bend. Cox, J. (2005). Higher ed learns notebook PC lessons. Network World, Apr 11, 22(14), 25-26. Davis, F. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and user acceptance of information technology, MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340. DeBourgh, G. A. Simply elegance: Course management systems as a pedagogical infrastructure to enhance science learning. The Technology Source Archives. Retreived May 26, 2006 from, http://www.technologysource.org/article/ simple_elegance/ Eastman, J., & Swift, C. (2001). New horizons in distance education: The online learner-centered marketing class, Journal of Marketing Education, 23(1) 25-34. Finn, S., & Inman, J. (2004) Digital unity and digital divide: Surveying alumni to study effects of a campus laptop initiative. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 36(3), 297-317. Fleming, M., & Levie, W. (1993). Instructional message design: Principles from the behavioral and cognitive sciences (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications. Frey, B., & Kirby, D. (2002). Student perceptions on the value of PowerPoint. In D.G. Brown(Ed.), Faculty development programs that work. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Inc. Gates, K. (1998) Should colleges and universities require students to own their own computers? CAUSE/EFFECT Journal, 21(3).

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Green, K. (2004). Campus computing 2004:Fifteenth national survey of computing and information technology in US higher education. The Campus Computing Project, University System of Georgia. Hankin, J. (1999) Alice, the college teacher and the rottweiler in wonderland: The prospect and problems of distance education. Executive Speeches, 1492: 18-21. Harding, G. (2005). The students’ feedback: A survey of three approached to teaching with modern PowerPoint presentations. American Society for Engineering Education. Retrieved April 1-2, 2005 from,. Harknett, R.J., & Cobane, C.T. (1997). Introducing instructional technology to international relations. Political Science & Politics, 30, 496-500. Journal of Teaching in International Business. (n.d). Retrieved September 25, 2006 from, http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product. asp?sid=91D0P1HS6QEV Kaiser, H. F. (1960). The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 141-151. Kladko, B. (2005). Lectures have to compete with Web. RetrievedApril 16, 2005 from, http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dn F l Z U V FeX k z Jm Z nYmVsN2Y3d n F l Z U V FeX k 2Njg wNj U1Jn ly a X J5 N2Y3M Td mN3ZxZWVFRXl5NA Landry, B., Griffeth, R., & Hartman, S. (2006) Measuring student perceptions of blackboard using the technology acceptance model. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 4(1), 87-99. Laudato, N., & Nicoll, J. (1999). assessing the impact o n students of online materials in university courses. Retrieved October 3, 2006 from, http:// www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/edu9952/ edu9952.html

Examining the Relationship Between Course Management Systems, Presentation Software, and Student

Liaw, S. (2002) Understanding user perceptions of World-wide Web environments, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 137-148. Lowry, R. (1999). Electronic presentation of lectures—Effect upon student performance. University Chemistry Education, 3(1), 18-21. Martins, L, & Kellerman, F. (2004). A model of business school students’ acceptance of a Webbased course management system. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3(1) 7-26. Morgan, G. (2003). Faculty use of course management systems. 2. Retrieved March 16, 2006 from, http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0302/ rs/ers0302w.pdf Nunnally, J. (1967). Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Olsen, F. (2001) Getting ready for a new generation of course management systems.Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 48 (17), A25-A27. Retrieved March 16, 2001 from, http://reddog. rmu.edu:2065/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric &an=EJ639384 Susskind, J. (2005). PowerPoint’s power in the classroom: Enhancing students’ self-efficacy and attitudes. Computers & Education, 50, 2, 203215. Retrieved September 25, 2006 from, ACM Portal database. Szabo, A., & Hastings, N. (2000). Using IT in the undergraduate classroom: Should we replace the blackboard with PowerPoint? Computers & Education, 35, 175-187. Winn, W. (1993) Instructional message design. In. Fleming & Levie (Eds.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, pp. 55-119. Using PowerPoint. (n.d.).PowerPoint tips and techniques. Retrieved 2002. http://www.pitt. edu/~ciddeweb/fds/tech_presentation_software. htm

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APPendIx A. survey QuestIons Scale: Strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). 1. 2. *3. 4. 5. 6. *7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

PowerPoint presentations hold my attention. PowerPoint presentations increase the likelihood of inappropriate classroom behavior. I prefer traditional lectures using a chalkboard or whiteboard to PowerPoint presentations. PowerPoint handouts help me to take better notes during classroom lectures. PowerPoint presentations increase classroom participation. Professors who use PowerPoint presentations are more organized during their presentations. I prefer bullet-point, text-only PowerPoint presentations over presentations with audio, video, or graphics. Visual images presented in PowerPoint presentation lectures help me to recall content during exams. I am less motivated to attend class when PowerPoint presentations are used during the lecture. PowerPoint presentations help to emphasize key points during lectures. I have a positive attitude toward PowerPoint presentations. I am less likely to attend class when the professor posts PowerPoint handouts to the Web. I am satisfied with eCollege as a tool to access course materials. I am comfortable with using eCollege. I prefer using eCollege over the RMU Passout system.

*Italicized items were reverse scored

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 4, Issue 1, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 1-14, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.6

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning:

Theoretical and Empirical Analysis Klarissa Ting-Ting Chang Carnegie Mellon University, USA John Lim National University of Singapore, Singapore Yingqin Zhong National University of Singapore, Singapore

AbstrAct As an important avenue of the learning community, the Web has enabled interaction among learners and facilitated learning processes. This chapter posits that a well-designed user interface will capably address limitations of Web-based learning, and enhance team interactions and learning outcomes. It reports on an experiment that investigated the effect of interface elements on a set of interaction processes, attitudes, and learning outcomes. Availability of interface elements to engage and evaluate learning was found to promote participation, trust, and cooperation among learners. These process variables, as intervened by attitudinal factors, had significant impacts on outcome variables. Our DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-525-2.ch004

findings provide support to a theoretical model that causally links four sets of variables: input (interface elements), processes, attitudes, and learning outcomes. The chapter expounds on the implications of the findings, which have significant importance with respect to the emerging issues in Web-based learning.

IntroductIon Wed-mediated learning takes many forms, of which the emerging concept of virtual learning deserves intense research attention. Virtual learning environments are “open systems that allow for participant interaction through synchronous or asynchronous electronic communication” (Piccoli, Ahmad, & Ives, 2001, p. 409). The need to gain greater understanding

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

of the role of Web-based systems has led to the convergence of several fields of research toward a broader scope of information systems; some examples include educational psychology, communication, and social psychology. This chapter focuses on Web-based teams in virtual learning environments. The Web has increasingly become an important avenue of the learning community, and sometimes a learner’s sole interface with other team members. It can augment communication among instructors and learners by making interactions more accessible and continuous throughout the learning process. With the advent of networked technologies such as asynchronous learning networks (Hiltz, Coppola, Rotter, & Turoff, 2000), Web-based learning is a unique combination of temporal and spatial independent activities that will result in new pedagogical paradigms. Learning is fundamentally a function of the context, activity, and culture in which it occurs. Yet, most technological systems are generally opaque to social information. The new collaborative learning paradigm should ideally incorporate different configurations that restructure knowledge to meet the new academic demands. Research should not only focus on the technological systems, but also the socially based process of learning appropriation. This includes the opportunity for interactive processes to construct and maintain mutual understanding (Alavi, Wheeler, & Valacich, 1995). The characteristics of face-to-face communication change remarkably when we move into cyberspace interaction. Unlike traditional learning models, the Web lacks certain aspects such as physical interaction among learners. User interface with essential elements can potentially overcome some limitations of Web-based learning by engaging learners in their learning process. While studies have investigated the patterns of the use of Web-mediated systems (Kraut, Mukhopadhyay, Szczypula, Kiesler, & Scherlis, 1998), they do not address the processes through which teams make sense of their learning experiences.

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Web-based activities may be increasing at a phenomenal rate, but research on Web-based teams lags behind. Despite the growth of Web-based systems, there are few conceptual frameworks for interface design elements in facilitating group learning. This provides the motivation of the current study to examine how Web interface elements can influence group learning in terms of behavior and outcomes. Building on previous empirical and theoretical research on the use of distributed technologies, Web-based interaction is investigated in the context of higher level education. To gain a better insight into Web-based learning, we seek to address two key research questions: 1. 2.

Are interaction processes enhanced by the type of Web interface elements available? To what extent are (social and technical) attitudes influenced by interaction processes and how do these attitudes influence perceived learning outcomes?

The above questions are addressed by comparing the effectiveness of different elements of Web-based interface, and the consequent impacts of these elements on a set of group processes and outcomes. Drawing on literature in communication, pedagogy, and social psychology, this study explores the effects of interface elements on interaction processes such as participation, cooperation, and trust. We determine the impacts of these processes on social and technical attitudes such as cohesion, conflict, and media perceptions. The effects of attitudes are examined on learning outcomes such as perceived learning and satisfaction with the learning process. The research model and empirical results contribute to the conceptual body of research by integrating Web interface issues with communication and group theories as a mechanism to explain learning effectiveness in greater depth. The model can provide a rigorous theoretical vantage point from which further studies can perform on Web-based systems and group dynamics. This integrative analysis can

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

also serve as a guide to designers and educators in developing Web-based information systems for learning teams. In the increasingly complex and open environment, the challenge is to equip researchers and practitioners with the knowledge and skills for continual development of technological systems. In the following sections, we describe the interface elements of Web-based learning systems and learning outcomes. A model is then presented which incorporates important processes. Propositions are put forth on the linkages contained in the model. Following the conceptual expositions, aspects of the experiment are addressed and results of the data analysis reported. This is followed by a discussion of the findings and their implications for theory and practice.

web-bAsed LeArnInG systeMs And InterFAce eLeMents Web-based learning systems have revolutionized educational institutions by creating opportunities and challenges for educators to develop their courses in novel ways. Collaborative technologies have created communities of practice where people achieve joint goals in collective action (Qureshi & Zigurs, 2001). Instructional systems as a consequence of advances in networked technologies include Web-based systems that support groups of learners engaged in a common task or goal. Providing an interface to a shared environment, Web-based systems facilitate the conduct of learning activities. They play a fundamental role as a communication channel between stakeholders, which is especially critical for distance learners who are located in different time and geographical zones. Besides creating an environment that encourages knowledge pull, successful learning communities excel in creating, applying, and distributing knowledge on top of a vast storehouse of information. A Web-based interface can be viewed as an interaction and communication link between two

independent systems via the use of Web-mediated technologies. The design of the interface can impact navigation and affect a user’s interaction with others. Web interface elements refer to the facilities, features, components, and content used in Web-based systems. These elements can potentially affect group interaction via their ability to engage members and to evaluate learning. Research in interface design has concentrated on making technological tools intuitive and easy to manipulate, and include work on hypertext and navigation through information structures (e.g., Shneiderman, 1998; McDonald & Stevenson, 1998). Besides optimizing effort and speeding up performance of using these tools, the interface should also actively engage learners in conscious construction and reflection on the knowledge acquired. Media structures such as user interface and interactivity (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999; Zack, 1993) are possible contextual factors that influence learning in a Web-based environment. Interactivity facilitates learning by overcoming the difficulties of perception and comprehension. Hypermedia components such as audio, video, animation, and graphics play a complementary role to hypertext in enhancing interactivity. The literature has been dominated with media bandwidth theories relating characteristics of electronic media with group outcomes. These media-related perspectives, such as theories of media richness (Daft & Lengel, 1986) and social presence (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976), have largely influenced designers of Web technologies by delineating the importance of rich interface elements in supporting complex learning activities. A number of elements have been found to accelerate learning and make it more effective. One way to encourage effective learning is to engage learners in the process of problem solving by creating environments for involvement and motivation. Another way is to include interface elements to evaluate learning so as to offer feedback and reinforcement for learners to understand their progress (Bourne, McMaster, Rieger, & Campbell, 1997), and stimulate higher levels of reasoning (Dede, 1990).

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Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

Engagement in learning refers to the level of involvement and motivation in the learning process—that is, learners who are actively involved and highly motivated tend to learn and retain more knowledge. Intimacy and immediacy (Weiner & Mehrabian, 1968) play an important role in engaging learners in the interaction process. Web-based interfaces tend to be less intimate, and missing nonverbal cues must be deliberately compensated by explicit verbalization of expected norms. Social immediacy, which measures the psychological distance a communicator puts between himself and the recipient of the communication, is conveyed through speech and associated cues (verbal and nonverbal) (Short et al., 1976). Engagement can come in the forms of emotion, relaxation, and fun. These components motivate learners by evoking positive emotions that result in well-remembered experiences (Rose & Nicholl, 1999). A good collaborative learning environment should facilitate the creation of groups that stimulate reasoning, higher-order thinking, and cognitive processing among learners (Dede, 1990); these properties call for evaluative interface elements. Relevant feedback of information and positive reinforcement of beliefs are keys to effective learning. When provided with instantaneous feedback on performance, participants will exert greater effort to achieve their objective (Janz & Wetherbe, 1999). Simultaneous and concrete reinforcement may heighten informational feedback to make learning more effective.

LeArnInG outcoMes The conceptual foundations of pedagogical research have seen a shift in paradigms from objectivist to constructivist learning. The objectivists believe in the transfer of objective knowledge from the instructor to the learners. This is often known as the ‘traditional classroom’, which is instructor centered and ‘informates down’ (Leidner & Jarvanpaa, 1995). In contrast, the constructivists

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believe that the control of learning should be shifted to the learners. The electronic classroom ‘informates up’ and encourages active knowledge construction; the underlying philosophy is in line with collaborative learning. The advantages of collaborative learning as opposed to didactic teaching have been well promulgated (e.g., Alavi, 1994; Hiltz et al., 2000; Tyran & Shepherd, 2001). Measures of learning performance typically include perceptual dimensions; two key ones are perceptions of (collaborative) learning and satisfaction with the (collaborative) learning processes. Experimental evidence obtained from past studies indicated that instruction using technological tools was efficacious in terms of perceived learning. Self-reported learning is associated with learners’ perceptions of their learning process (Alavi et al., 1995). Generally, perceived learning refers to the learners’ perceptions of the amount of learning in factual material, of the ability to identify central issues, of the critical learning skills, and of their interest in the learning topic (Alavi, 1994; Hiltz, 1994). Satisfaction of the learning process is synonymous to process satisfaction in small group research, which refers to the perceptions of the relational as well as the procedural aspects of activities and contribution of individual members.

reseArch ModeL And ProPosItIons Figure 1 depicts the research model linking interface elements to learning outcomes, with two sets of intervening process variables. With recent positive findings for collaborative learning and recognition of group work, new technologies are designed to facilitate social interaction. Research issues have also moved towards in-depth analyses of group interactions to gain insights into learning processes, rather than studying their by-products.

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

Figure 1. Research model Interface Elements

Social and

Learning Outcomes

Cohesion

Perceived Learning

Processes

Elements to Engage Trust

Conflict

Elements to Evaluate

Media

with Learning Process

Table 1. Description of theoretical constructs Construct

Description

Supporting Research

Participation

The willingness to involve and take part in activities, express opinions, and communicate often with other team members

Hiltz et al. (2000); Oetzel (2001); Yoo & Alavi (2001)

Trust

The faith or confidence that team members will fulfill obligations set forth in communication

Chatman (1991); Jehn & Mannix (2001); Lipnack & Stamps (1997); Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman (1995)

Cooperation

The willingness to pursue collectively endorsed goals and activities, arrive at a consensus, and work together to resolve disagreements

Deutsch (1962); Hiltz et al. (2000); Oetzel (2001)

Cohesion

The aggregate of interpersonal attractions of individual group members to each other and to the group, and the degree to which members desire to remain in the group

Burke, Aytes, & Chidambram (2001); Chatman (1991); Chidambaram & Jones (1993); Jehn & Mannix (2001); McGrath (1984); Seashore (1954)

Conflict

The contradiction of values, perspectives, and opinions resulting from simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive tendencies which have not been aligned or agreed upon

Burke & Chidambaram (1999); Jehn (1995); Jehn & Mannix (2001); Rheingold (1993)

Media Perception

The attitude toward media for its ability to convey social presence, support communication effectiveness, and the perceptions of communication interface

Burke et al. (2001); Chidambaram & Jones (1993); Hiltz et al. (2000); Short et al. (1976)

Perceived Learning

The perceptions of the amount of learning, the understanding of course materials, and the interest and confidence in learning concepts

Alavi (1994); Fredericksen, Pickett, Shea, Pelz, & Swan (2000); Hiltz (1994); Leidner & Jarvenpaa (1995)

Process Satisfaction

The perceptions of the relational and procedural aspects of the activities, and of member contribution

Alavi et al. (1995); Burke et al. (2001); Chidambaram & Jones (1993); Green & Taber (1980); Witteman (1991)

Table 1 provides descriptions of the constructs depicted in Figure 1. The process variables will be explained in greater detail in the following discussions on the relationships in the model.

Interaction Processes The media richness theory and the social presence theory suggest that technology, having certain inherent constraints, would limit the performance

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Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

of the users. The limited channels of communication and absence of rich variety of cues may also cause groups to become more task oriented when compared to face-to-face interaction. One point to note is that these conclusions are derived from single-session studies and cannot be used to generalize the effects over the life of the learning teams. Web-based learners are constantly interacting and group processes are consistently evolving. Advanced communication media have been deployed to enhance and extend communication interactions among individuals (Yoo & Alavi, 2001). Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1990) conducted a systematic review of literature on group psychology and organizational behavior in a decisional environment. The underlying theory of their framework is that outcomes are influenced by a set of group process factors that explains the interaction and dynamics of members. In a Web-based learning environment, these interaction processes are elaborated in the perspectives of social interdependence. Group dynamics is one of the major streams of research in traditional models of group development focusing on the psychological and emotional aspects of group life, by looking at attainment of interpersonal goals in tasks. Examining group dynamics from the educational perspective, the social interdependence theory is a theoretical model to understand pedagogical mechanisms (Johnson, Johnson, & Stanne, 1985). The underlying premise for the social interdependence theory is that the type of interdependence in a learning situation determines how individuals interact with one another, which in turn affects the group processes in a learning community. There is positive interdependence when learners help one another, and the attainment of individual goals is correlated to the attainment of others’ goals. Success of learning depends on the success of the group. Under competitive conditions, there exists negative interdependence in which individuals work against one another to attain a goal that will be achieved only by a few. In a condition of

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no social interdependence, learning outcomes for an individual are independent of those for another. Whether cooperative, competitive, or individualistic, the social interdependence structure emphasizes interaction, in terms of participation, trust, and cooperation among learners.

Participation The family of collaborative learning models includes typical approaches such as problem-based learning which focuses on participation as a key perspective of learning. Learning can be viewed as processes of socialization and participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Participation is defined as the willingness of team members to involve and take part in activities, express opinions, and communicate often with others. It is a construct that represents the social basis of interaction. Having a familiar structure commonly understood by all learners, the traditional classroom has an advantage over a Web-based course as it facilitates active participation by requiring learners to meet at a specified time and place. Face-to-face communication enables ‘grounding’ of interaction, in which the learners attain a shared sense of participation. Communication technologies used by distributed teams may lack certain properties of face-to-face conversation, such as co-presence, visibility, and audibility. Web-based learning thus faces the challenge of encouraging participation. Importantly, anytime-and-anywhere learning does not equate to self-paced learning and participation. Facilities to engage learners are required to facilitate group participation. The re-establishment of a shared context is important in the social learning process, especially in a virtual environment where participation is a public behavior that provides members a group identity. Cohesion in established groups has been found to significantly correlate with task participation (Yoo & Alavi, 2001), which may provide opportunities for exploration, reflection, and articulation. Participation reduces feelings of alienation and improves communication, thereby

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

preventing potential conflict and playing an important role in determining the degree of consensus (Yoo & Alavi, 2001).

trust Trust is a critical component of group interaction and may be influenced by the available media structures. From a cognitive view, trust as a necessary element of interpersonal interactions refers to the psychological state of an individual’s intention to accept vulnerability based on the expectations of the behaviors of others. Collective trust refers to the common belief among team members that an individual will meet behavioral expectations, is honest, and does not take advantage of another given the opportunity (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996). Members who identify with their group tend to exhibit a favorable bias toward other members by regarding them as relatively trustworthy (Brewer & Kramer, 1986). From a social identity perspective (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), group members with a strong collective identification will be motivated to display positive evaluations of each other. A lack of trust between participants may hinder effective communication. In the learning context, the trust construct is defined as the faith or confidence that learners will fulfill obligations and positive expectations set forth in the learning process. Being an underlying psychological condition as a result of interaction, an atmosphere of trust is necessary in a Web-mediated learning environment where reciprocal relationships have to be deliberately maintained for successful knowledge sharing.

cooperation Many instructional strategies are applied to enable interaction at the level of cooperation. Concerns about the causes and effects of cooperative efforts arise because individuals often act in their own rather than the group’s interests. Knowledge is viewed as a social construct that is often facilitated

by peer cooperation (Johnson et al., 1985; Hiltz et al., 2000). Cooperation refers to the willingness of individuals to pursue collectively endorsed goals and activities. It entails learners working in groups or otherwise dividing up tasks. As the movement of one member towards the goal will facilitate the movement of others (Deutsch, 1962), cooperation is a group behavior having important advantages in problem solving (Clarke & Smyth, 1993). Synchronization for responses is important because cooperation may be jeopardized if members do not respond in time. Cooperation may support learning evaluation and feedback. If Web-based systems are structured for effective cooperation, then group dynamics may regulate interpersonal relationships of the learners towards their highest levels.

Proposed relationships between Interface elements and Interaction Processes It is difficult for learners to communicate or collaborate without establishing a social and shared context. The type of interface elements available may influence interactional activities. Learners are expected to acquire knowledge and skills through direct involvement with diverse learning situations (Peters, 1987). Early research on computer-mediated communication has led to the conclusion that technological systems are inherently impersonal and have less socio-emotional content than other forms of communication (Rice, 1984). This is accounted for by reduced social presence because relational information is usually carried by nonverbal cues (Walther, 1992). Deliberate inclusion of elements to engage and evaluate is expected to facilitate interaction. In a Web-based learning situation, participants are required to interact by having a common understanding of the task and meaning. Learners collaborate by engaging in high-level conversations that support personal reflection. Conversation is both an interactive intellectual process and a social

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Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

endeavor. During this process, learners refer to a common ground of established experiences and intellectual understanding, and socially convey messages to portray themselves to others. Upon engagement in the learning process, elements to involve and motivate learners may exude influence in encouraging positive interaction processes. Proposition 1: Group interaction processes (in terms of participation, trust, and cooperation) will be enhanced when interface elements to engage are available. Evaluation may occur with immediacy in feedback and consistent reinforcement of learning concepts. Moreover, in the context of technology, conversation can persist in the form of written text. Be it synchronous or asynchronous interactions, persistent communication provides the opportunity for past discussions to be searched, archived, navigated, visualized, summarized, and restructured. This capability is likely to enhance group interaction. The Web-based system can help to monitor and prompt for participation. Private messages can be sent to learners who are falling behind, or who are reading but not contributing (Hiltz et al., 2000). Media structures support several features with respect to equal participation (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). As discussed by the media richness theory in the continuum of communication media (Daft & Lengel, 1986), some electronic structures do not facilitate real-time communication and feedback immediacy. However, routine information can be presented by other components such as electronic mail which may reinforce learning (Alavi, Marakas, & Yoo, 2002). This suggests that better interaction processes may be evident when elements to evaluate are present in the interfaces of Web-mediated learning systems. Proposition 2: Group interaction processes (in terms of participation, trust, and cooperation) will be enhanced when interface elements to evaluate are available.

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social and technical Attitudes In earlier studies, attitudes refer to the psychological tendency expressed with some degree of favor or disfavor in evaluating a particular entity (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Attitudinal factors can be viewed as learned predisposition in response to a given object (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Group members inevitably form attitudes toward their group and the media used in the process. Recent studies indicate that the success of utilizing the Web depends upon attitudes in these activities (Lederer, Maupin, Sena, & Zhuang, 1999). Attitudes are derived from the social context and construction of information in the teams. Drawing from research on relational development, group attitudes are examined by social attitudes comprising cohesion and conflict, and technical attitudes comprising media perception. Empirical work on attitudes has been rooted in the perspectives of social information processing and construction. From a cognitive approach, attitudes are a consequence of informational social influence (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). The social context is important in supporting an individual’s understanding of learning (Brown & Palincsar, 1987). The mechanistic features of media do not reflect the social and contextual factors. Research in social construction perspectives (Orlikowski, 1992; Fulk, 1993; Ngwenyama & Lee, 1997) employs attitudinal factors to explain the linkage between interaction and outcomes. While little socio-emotional interaction was developed initially, communication cues could be sufficiently exchanged with time. Technology-supported groups generally take longer to develop relational intimacy, so adequate time taken to exchange social information may encourage strong relational links (Walther, 1992). Attitudes and outcomes would shift and improve over time as technological and temporal constraints of group interaction dissipate (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999). The recurrent use of Web-based tools could foster interpersonal communication and socio-emotional relations.

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

As learning occurs over repeated interactions, the understanding of social construction within teams helps to explain the attitudinal aspects of learning.

cohesion Cohesion, one of the critical factors influencing group effectiveness (McGrath, 1984; Chidambaram, 1996; Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998), refers to the resultant force that acts on the members to stay in a group (Festinger, 1950). It is the force that holds a group together and reflects its unity toward a common objective (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999). There are many definitions of the cohesion construct. We define cohesiveness as “the extent to which members are attracted to the group and to each other” (Chidambaram, 1996). Aggregating the interpersonal attractions of learners and the degree to which they desire to remain in the group, cohesion is a general indicator of synergistic interactions (Barrick et al., 1998). It is related to individual perception that common goals can be achieved through group action (Burke et al., 2001). Interdependence, level of comfort, interpersonal communication, and the feeling of belonging to the group are several factors that may influence cohesiveness (McGrath, 1984). Technology-mediated teams have shown greater choice shift and exhibited greater interpersonal influence (Kiesler, Zubrow, Moses, & Geller, 1985). Converging opinions may help to aggregate interpersonal attractions. Meta-analyses have also shown a relationship between group cohesion and performance (Evans & Dion, 1991). Non-cohesive groups are likely not to perform.

conflict The escalation of disputes during an electronic communication may be more salient than that in a face-to-face situation (Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994). Some distributed technologies lack properties such as cotemporality, simultaneity, and

sequentiality, which aid in ameliorating conflict resolution. Conflict is another factor that manifests the attitude of the group in collaborative learning. This construct reflects the contradiction of values, perspectives, and opinions resulting from simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive tendencies that have not been aligned. It refers to the discrepancies, incompatible wishes, and irreconcilable desires of members (Boulding, 1963). Understanding how groups manage conflict appropriately gains insights into the developmental process (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999; Miranda & Bostrom, 1993). Categorized into relationship, task, and process conflict (Jehn & Mannix, 2001), we examine conflict as a composite of the three categories in influencing the general social attitudes of learners.

Media Perception Technical attitude such as media perception reflects the attitude of the group toward the media. Characteristics of the communication media may impede information exchanges, and learners’ perception can potentially affect communication effectiveness. The major variables measuring how members perceive the media-imposed structures include perceptions of social presence, communication effectiveness, and communication interface (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999). Social presence refers to the extent to which warm and personal connections are established between people in a communication setting (Short et al., 1976). The degree of social presence varies with the types of cues exchanged; those that convey immediacy typically yield higher presence. Verbal cues convey vocal information, such as the tone, loudness of voice, and the rate of speech (McGrath, 1984). Visual cues provide visual orientation and facial expressions such as smiles, frowns, nods, and other types of body language. Textual cues embody information in written texts and graphics. The social information processing theory suggests that social construction (Carlson & Zmud, 1999;

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Walther, 1992) can help to raise the degree of social presence. In addition, learners may perceive their medium of communication in terms of its effectiveness and interface. Communication effectiveness refers to the extent to which shared understanding is fostered (Rogers, 1986). A poor fit between the medium and task will negatively affect perceptions of the medium (Chidambaram & Jones, 1993). As different media vary in their capacity to support communication, the ability to facilitate common understanding depends on the media characteristics and group interaction. The communication interface refers to the physical interface structures of the system that activate a communication channel to facilitate exchanges among team members (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999). Attitude toward the media interface and the perceived ease of use of the interface may affect the perceived outcomes.

Proposed relationship between Interaction Processes and Attitudes Social and technical attitudes may be influenced to a certain extent by the interaction processes of the learners during Web-based learning. Cohesion can be envisioned from an affective perspective of “interpersonal attraction to a collectivity,” hence potentially enhanced by positive interaction. The learning organizations are socio-technical (involve people and technology) in nature and may experience continual change in the level of participation and cooperation. Conflict resulting from poor interaction processes may be a restraining force in group dynamics. When one’s ideas and opinions are incompatible with those of another, conflict fosters cynicism and avoidance. This obstructs open communication and positive development of attitudes. Members who are distrustful or apathetic are not willing to commit to group decisions. A typical response of the lack of interaction would be the psychological or physical withdrawal from the group. A high level of interaction, in terms of participation, trust, and cooperation, may help to improve social attitudes in Web-based teams.

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Uninhibited remarks are easily generated in communication settings with low social presence (Kiesler et al., 1985). However, unique and highquality ideas have been produced when members work in dispersed communication settings (Valacich, Dennis, & Connolly, 1994). Despite the limitations of Web-based systems, adequate participation and cooperation may mediate the relationships of technology and technical attitudes. Positive interaction processes can help enhance perceptions of the medium by enabling shared understanding and communication effectiveness. The effectiveness of exchanging information is strongly linked to the ability of the environment to convey appropriate types of information (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Alavi et al., 1995). How learners perceive the communication interface is expected to be affected by the interaction developed in the learning process. Proposition 3: Groups with better interaction processes will have improved group attitudes in terms of greater cohesion, less conflict, and better media perceptions.

Proposed relationship between Attitudes and Learning outcomes Uncertainty and equivocality reduction occur at all levels of learning (Alavi et al., 1995). Process satisfaction is high when learning takes place in effective collaborative environments (Hiltz et al., 2000). Learners who have positive interaction with their peers report high levels of perceived learning, and those having adequate access to their instructors feel satisfied with the process (Alavi et al., 1995). Similar results in which there was no negative portrayal of computer-mediated communication were published (e.g., Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996). Group cohesion helps to build the consensus that is essential to the execution of decisions and problem solving. Constructive conflict may develop clarification of an issue, improve problem-

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

solving quality, and provide more spontaneity in the communication. On the other hand, destructive conflict may divert energy from the real task, polarize individual learners, deepen differences, and obstruct cooperative action. Dysfunctional conflicts arouse personal animosity and strain interpersonal relationships. With less conflict in learning, teams have the potential to synergize their thoughts and perspectives. Consequently, teams with positive attitudes often produce innovative solutions to problems that seem insurmountable to single individuals. Proposition 4: Positive (social and technical) attitudes will result in better learning outcomes.

reseArch MethodoLoGy An experiment with a 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted. Each type of interface element was operationalized as available and not available on the Web-based system; this resulted in the provision of four versions of the system containing: (1) all elements to engage and elements to evaluate, (2) only elements to engage, (3) only elements to evaluate, (4) none of the elements to engage and to evaluate. Each session involved a team of four members. A Web-based prototype was developed to cater to the four experimental conditions; subjects communicated solely using this system, which was password protected (i.e., subjects were each assigned a unique user-id and password to gain entry to the system). Activities of each session were logged by the system. The volunteer subjects were junior undergraduates with an average age of 20. There were equal numbers of males and females. These subjects had some experience working in teams and with the Internet. A total of 240 subjects divided into 60 groups were involved in this experiment. Each

experimental treatment involved 15 groups. The subjects were randomly assigned to the groups, which were randomly assigned to the treatments, to reduce confounding effects of individual differences. Course credit was given to motivate serious participation of the subjects.

Independent variables (Identification of Interface elements) A set of 43 elements was first identified from an extensive review of studies in information systems, human-computer interaction, psychology, and communication research (see Table 2). The number of elements was reduced by determining the essential ones using a survey that rated the importance of each item in the initial set of elements. A questionnaire was developed and pilot-tested by 30 subjects for the first round and 26 for the second round. Subsequently, the questionnaire was administered to 204 respondents to give a rating (between 1–least important and 5–most important) for each item. All items rated above “3” were taken as essential elements and included in the interface design for the experiment. These essential elements are marked in the right column of Table 2.

Measurement of Process and outcome variables Constructs were measured using tested items from previous studies to enhance construct validity (see Table 1). Additionally, the instrument was thoroughly validated based on a two-round sorting procedure of cards with items (Moore & Benbasat, 1991), with three judges in every round. There were a total of 34 items for the eight constructs (see Appendix). This questionnaire was administered to 58 subjects randomly to pre-test the instrument. No changes were made

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Table 2. Elements of Web interface design Elements to Engage I EN1

Hypertext links from content to relevant html pages

☺

EN2

Announcement page where prior, current, and future task directions are explicated

☺

EN3

Adaptive hypermedia for easy navigation

☺

EN4

Section for gathering information via content in class discussion forum

☺

EN5

Option to contribute to class discussion forum

☺

EN6

Display of task materials categorized in chapters

☺

EN7

Availability of online synchronous chat

☺

EN8

Option to e-mail individual team members

☺

EN9

Option to send extended working solutions to team members through mailing lists

☺

EN10

Option to compose and leave messages to individual members on the Web system

☺

EN11

Option to retrieve information left by team members online

☺

EN12

E-mail sent to individual learners when new materials added

EN13

Availability of search engine to search for external resources

EN14

Availability of digital library to search for internal resources

EN15

Recommendations of new readings for each new visit to Web site

EN16

Control over options to receive new announcements and updates

EN17

Presentation of information on learning objectives and goals

EN18

Section for gathering team’s contribution via content in discussion forum

EN19

Option to contribute to group discussion forum

EN20

Options to send or receive files

EN21

Visual aid and graphics such as emoticons to allow expression of emotions

EN22

Recommendation of users working on similar topics with the team

Elements to Evaluate EV1

Online quiz with immediate checking of solutions upon submission

☺

EV2

Availability of multiple relevant examples to working task

☺

EV3

Expert comments on course topics

☺

EV4

Availability of multiple exercises with solutions

☺

EV5

Resources such as frequently asked questions on bulletin boards

☺

EV6

Availability of online help

☺

EV7

Display of expert response to all learners in the team

☺

EV8

Facility for team to e-mail problems and queries to expert directly

☺

EV9

Section on ‘suggested solutions’ and ‘suggested explanations’ for team task

☺

EV10

Online glossary and explanation of terms in task

☺

EV11

Information on past history of actions by individual learners

EV12

Few clicks to reach solutions of online assessments

EV13

Storage of learners’ individual information which can be retrieved upon request

EV14

Personalized solutions to questions

EV15

Option to retrieve information of past discussion upon request

EV16

Paperless submission of assignments to and replies from expert

continued on following page

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Table 2. continued EV17

Section on individualized iterative feedback from expert

EV18

Tracking of history of members’ process of solving tasks

EV19

Display of a breakdown of scores

EV20

Provision of team performance via graphs and charts

EV21

Layout of discussion forum topics in a form of clear navigational taxonomy

i

Elements indicated with ☺ represent items that are rated essential in a survey conducted.

after verification with Cronbach’s alpha tests and correlation matrices.

Experimental Task The subjects were first introduced to the prerequisites of the learning content. They were given a case scenario related to electronic commerce and asked to prepare a group report describing the key managerial concerns that might affect the success of electronic commerce implementations. Items required in the report included a description of their company, the problem that they identified and investigated, the analysis methods, and the suggestions on implementation strategy made to the company. The choice of the task was to get a reasonable quantity of communication for observation on the learning process and communication patterns. This task invoked and reinforced learning by requiring the subjects to acquire the content and apply their internalized knowledge to derive a set of feasible solutions in the report. It fostered group learning by requiring the subjects to explore ideas as a team and integrate opinions of other members in addition to the assimilation of facts which might be influenced by the knowledge contributed by others in the interaction.

Experimental Procedures The different interfaces were randomly assigned to the subjects. All subjects received information containing the instructions of the experiment. They answered a questionnaire that elicited their

demographic information, experience in working in teams, and experience in working with computers. The description of the respective elements and their functionalities in the prototype Web-based system was given to them after they completed the questionnaire. They began their experimental session with a 10-minute tutorial on how to manipulate and navigate the system. Next, all teams worked on a warm-up task to alleviate problems associated with zero-history teams (McGrath, 1984). After the warm-up, members proceeded to solve their tasks with the respective interfaces. They could use any of the interface elements at any stage of their communication. At the conclusion of the task, the participants were asked to tick against a list of elements that were found on the assigned interfaces for our manipulation checks; only those who had accurately checked more than 90% of the elements were included in further statistical data analyses. The participants then answered a questionnaire pertaining to the research constructs.

dAtA AnALysIs And resuLts The relationships between interface elements and interaction processes were examined using ANOVA. Main effects of elements to engage are found on participation (F=185.11, p<.01), trust (F=712.52, p<.01), and cooperation (F=62.41, p<.01), in the expected direction. Similarly, in the expected direction, main effects of elements to evaluate are found on participation (F=45.33,

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p<.01), trust (F=29.08, p<.01), and cooperation (F=583.74, p<.01). Significant interaction effects were found on participation (F=112.72, p<.01) and trust (F=12.89, p<.01). We list in the following the four conditions in the order of participation level (highest to lowest): both elements (t=3.14, p<0.01), elements to engage (t=2.67, p<0.01), elements to evaluate (t=3.02, p<.01), no elements (t=0.85, not significant); and the four conditions in the order of trust level: both elements (t=3.20, p<0.01), elements to engage (t=2.82, p<0.01), elements to evaluate (t=3.55, p<.01), no elements (t=2.78, p<0.01).

Measurement and structural Models The hypothesized model was analyzed using the measurement and structural models in structural equation modeling. The measurement model assessed each construct in the model and linked the items to the construct they measure. In evaluating the measurement model, reflective items measuring the constructs were tested for convergent and discriminant validity. Convergent validity was assessed by the test of reliability of items; this was determined by a factor analysis of the items for each construct, where large and statistically significant factor loadings indicate convergent validity (Bagozzi, 1980). The value of 0.5 was used to ensure adequate reliability (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1995). In assessing internal consistency, performance of each of the items was correlated with total performance on the test. This was represented by a correlation coefficient measured by applying Cronbach’s alpha test to the individual scales and the overall measure (Cronbach, 1951). Composite reliability of constructs was also computed (Chin, 1998), and adequate reliability was indicated by the value of 0.8 (Nunnally, 1978). The results in Table 3 suggest that the research model met the criteria for convergent validity and internal consistency. In assessing discriminant validity, cross-loadings of an exploratory factor analysis of pooled constructs

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were examined (see Table 4) to ensure that none of the items were loaded higher on constructs other than the intended one (Thompson, Barclay, & Higgins, 1995). Parameter estimates were computed. Using the bootstrap resampling procedure, the direction and statistical significance associated with each path were indicated (see Figure 2). The structural model explained over 20.8% of the variance in the endogenous construct (dependent variable), which exceeded the recommended value of 10% as the indication of explanatory power (Falk & Miller, 1992). Cooperation and trust were significant predictors of cohesion, conflict, and media perceptions, and participation was not. While cohesion and conflict were significant predictors of perceived learning and satisfaction with learning respectively, media perception was not. Interaction processes and attitudes were investigated separately for possible correlations. Trust was found to be correlated to cooperation (r=0.32, p<.01). There were no other significant relationships detected between the interaction process variables, and between the attitudinal variables. The learning outcomes, however, were found to be moderately correlated (r=0.18, p<0.05).

dIscussIon The findings show significant differences between availability and non-availability of elements to engage and to evaluate on the interaction process variables. In particular, elements to engage resulted in higher levels of participation, trust, and cooperation. Elements to engage and to evaluate were found to have an interaction effect on participation and trust. Elements to evaluate resulted in higher levels of participation, trust, and cooperation. The results of the structural equation modeling reveal significant effects of trust on cohesion, conflict, and media perception, and significant effects of cooperation on conflict and media perception. Cohesion was in turn found to have significant

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

Table 3. Tests for convergent validity and internal consistency Constructs

Composite Reliability

Reliability of Items

Cronbach’s Alpha

Variance Extracted

Participation

PA1=.79;PA2=.78;PA3=.81;PA4=.85

0.88

0.852

0.80

Trust

TR1=.78;TR2=.85;TR3=.91;TR4=.88

0.90

0.889

0.87

Cooperation

CP1=.86;CP2=.82;CP3=.85;CP4=.89

0.92

0.901

0.86

Cohesion

CH1=.83;CH2=.79;CH3=.88;CH4=.89

0.91

0.890

0.89

Conflict

CF1=.92;CF2=.91CF3=.93;CF4=.89

0.97

0.952

0.93

Media Perceptions

MP1=.83;MP2=.91;MP3=.90;MP4=.79;MP5=.85;MP6=.87

0.92

0.902

0.87

Perceived Learning

PL1=.90;PL2=.94;PL3=.92;PL4=.92

0.98

0.955

0.94

Satisfaction

SP1=.91;SP2=.95;SP3=.84;SP4=.86

0.95

0.931

0.91

Table 4. Factor analysis of model constructs Construct

Interaction Processes

Social and Technical Attitudes

Item No.

Factor 1

Factor 2

Factor 3

Participation

PA1 PA2 PA3 PA4

0.77 0.75 0.80 0.84

0.03 0.11 0.01 -0.04

-0.01 0.04 0.02 0.13

Trust

TR1 TR2 TR3 TR4

0.02 0.03 0.01 0.08

0.75 0.83 0.89 0.85

-0.12 0.08 0.03 -0.04

Cooperation

CP1 CP2 CP3 CP4

0.01 -0.05 0.03 0.04

0.05 0.11 -0.01 -0.15

0.84 0.80 0.83 0.88

Cohesion

CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4

0.80 0.78 0.87 0.88

0.05 0.12 0.14 0.03

0.04 0.06 0.21 0.15

Conflict

CF1 CF2 CF3 CF4

0.11 -0.08 -0.06 0.07

0.91 0.90 0.92 0.87

-0.07 -0.06 0.08 0.06

Media Perceptions

MP1 MP2 MP3 MP4 MP5 MP6

0.14 0.16 0.13 -0.10 -0.01 0.05

0.04 -0.07 0.01 0.01 0.05 0.18

0.81 0.90 0.88 0.78 0.83 0.85

Perceived Learning

PL1 PL2 PL3 PL4

0.90 0.92 0.89 0.89

-0.07 0.01 0.03 0.10

Satisfaction with Process

SP1 SP2 SP3 SP4

0.13 -0.09 0.05 0.06

0.90 0.94 0.82 0.85

Learning Outcomes

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Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

Figure 2. Path diagram Elements to Engage

0.32**

0.04

Participation

0.11

Cohesion

0.16*

0.22** 0.04

0.21**

Trust

0.40**

Perceived Learning

0.08

Conflict

0.03

-0.33**

Elements to Evaluate

0.32** 0.36**

Cooperation

0.12

-0.26** 0.25**

0.21*

effects on perceived learning, while conflict was found to have significant effects on learners’ satisfaction with the learning process.

Interface elements and their Influence on Interaction When elements to engage are available, learners are more likely to participate in the learning activities. The elements to engage also foster a high level of trust among the learners and provide a conducive learning environment for cooperative efforts. These findings suggest that elements to engage help to improve fundamental interaction processes in Web-based learning. Elements to engage provide a mechanism to involve individuals in the learning process and a channel for communication with other learners (Hiltz et al., 2000). At the individual level, these elements may include direct hyperlinks embedded in the learning content (rather than having hyperlinks in a section elsewhere) and frequently updated announcement pages that engage learning by explicating prior,

622

-0.44**

0.35**

Media Perception

0.01

Satisfaction with Learning Process

0.12

current, and future task directions. Adaptive hypermedia is often used to engage learners by capturing their attention (Lave & Wenger, 1991). A discussion forum is used to gather information and express opinions. Elements to engage also include facilities to induce participation (Yoo & Alavi, 2001). At the same time, cooperative efforts are more distinct as these elements enable tasks to be conducted more effectively. The creation of a strong collective environment by involving learners in the activities also motivates them to positively regard their learning partners as trustworthy and honest (Brewer & Kramer, 1986). Elements to evaluate have significant results on participation, trust, and cooperation. The provision of immediate feedback and reinforcement (Shneiderman, 1998) is valuable in enhancing interaction. Learning media such as electronic books have offered individual feedback that caters to the different learning styles of young learners (Harasim, Hiltz, Teles, & Turoff, 1995). These properties help increase knowledge acquisition and retention, but impacts on social and affective

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

processes are less apparent (Ambrose, 1991). In the Web-based learning context, we propose that cognitive learning is contingent on elements to evaluate, which have directly affected the social interactions and interpersonal dimensions of learning. The above discussion highlights the main effects due to elements to engage and elements to evaluate. Interaction effects were also found on the level of participation and trust. For greater process gains, both elements to engage and to evaluate offer a better environment to build up participation and trust in Web-based teams. While the data analyses show very positive results of using these interface elements to enhance interaction processes, the results also suggest correlations between the interaction processes. Significant correlations were detected between trust and cooperation, implying that higher level of trust might induce more cooperation, and more cooperative efforts might improve the trust level among learners. The distinction between trust and cooperation is often blurred in the cumulative knowledge on behavioral-based trust, in which the term is sometimes used to refer to cooperation (Deutsch, 1962). In either directions of influence, the availability of the various Web-based elements creates a condition for positive interactions in socio-technical systems. The results prove to set a direction for further exploration on how participation, trust, and cooperation are enhanced by these interface structures.

Interaction Processes and Attitudes Learners may affect each other’s attitudes through the mechanism of participation. As reinforced by the social interdependence theory, participation and positive interdependence result in more cohesiveness and reduced intragroup conflict (Jonassen, Peck, Wilson, & Pfeiffer, 1999). However, the findings of this research suggest that the level of participation may not lead to better social and technical attitudes toward learning.

The attributes of communication technologies can promote participation (Harasim et al., 1995), but little is known about a learner’s participation in Web-based environments and its influence on other attitudinal factors. There are also very few empirical studies of the quality of interactions as a result of participation. Despite the importance of participation, its impact on attitudes was unexpectedly non-significant in this study. The findings show that the level of trust was significantly associated with cohesion, conflict, and media perception. Trust reflects the psychological state of an individual in accepting vulnerability of oneself to the behavior of others (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996), and his attitude based on perceptions, beliefs, and attributions to that other (Deutsch, 1962). From the research findings, this property of trust has proven to improve the level of cohesion within a group. Conflict is also reduced when there is more trust. Perceptions of media, in terms of the perception of social presence and communication effectiveness, are likely to be more positive with higher trust levels. These results open up the ‘black box’ of interaction and indicate the value of inculcating trust in Web-based teams (Mayer et al., 1995). Moreover, significant correlations between trust and cooperation also suggest the importance of increasing trust level to attain more positive attitudes in the Web-based teams. Cooperation was found to be associated only with conflict and media perception. Encouraging a higher level of cooperation among team members can potentially reduce conflict. The significant impacts of the interaction processes on group attitudes and the significant effects of interface elements on these processes suggest their mediating role on the association between interface elements and group attitudes. In order for interface elements to be effective on social and technical attitudes, it is essential to improve the interaction by encouraging more participation and cooperation, and creating a learning environment with a high level of trust among the members.

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Attitudes and Learning outcomes Several attitudinal factors are related to perceptual learning outcomes. Cohesion was found to have a moderate impact on perceived learning, and there was no significant impact on satisfaction with learning process. This finding is contradictory to contemporary research, which proposes that cohesion significantly affects level of satisfaction (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999). The socio-cultural theory emphasizes that the concepts learned during a collaborative effort may eventually be used when a learner works individually, suggesting perceived learning to be higher as a result of cohesive collaboration. Members of cohesive groups, in order to avoid confrontation, will publicly agree even when they privately disagree (Chidambaram & Jones, 1993). In the literature, cohesive groups appear to buffer against stress, and members of cohesive groups do not feel isolated (Burke et al., 2001). One point to note is that the responses of learning were positive, which illustrated the extent to which confidence, enthusiasm, and expertise have increased. The results add support to the current research, highlighting the importance of cohesion in affective relationships. Significant impacts of interaction processes on the set of attitudes suggest the interplay of social and technical attitudes in influencing perceived learning and satisfaction with the learning process. More conflict appears to cause learners to feel less satisfied with their learning process. When members have interpersonal problems, they may work less effectively to produce sub-optimal products. The anxiety associated with relationship-oriented conflict tends to inhibit cognitive functioning in processing complex information and thus affects individual performance (Burke & Chidambaram, 1999). Task-related conflicts may also cause tension and antagonism (Rheingold, 1993). Groups with lack of consensus are unable to move into the next stage of productive work (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). In the context of Web-

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based learning teams, satisfaction will decrease if the conflict level is high. Media perception did not have any significant effect on perceived learning and satisfaction with learning process. The perception of the social presence and communication effectiveness of the technology did not influence the perceptual learning outcomes. This contradicts the results in previous studies, where technical attitudes affect satisfaction with process (Chidambaram & Jones, 1993) and satisfaction with outcome (Burke et al., 2001). For further investigation, no significant results were found between the attitudinal variables, but a moderate correlation between the learning outcomes suggests that perceived learning and satisfaction with learning have some associations between each other. Hence, the attitudes that have influenced learning outcomes are, in a way, critical in improving both perceptual learning outcomes. This warrants research to understand the ramification of the current findings and previous empirical results in redressing a convergence on various theoretical perspectives.

concLusIon Despite the benefits of Web-based learning, the Web has brought unique challenges of learning in a distributed environment where learners are physically dispersed. Besides the conceptual human dimension, the design dimension is also a fundamental determinant of virtual learning effectiveness (Piccoli et al., 2001). This study investigated the impacts of Web-based elements on a set of interaction processes and outcomes. The availability of interface elements to engage and evaluate may affect group interaction, which has consequences on attitudes and learning outcomes. Prior to concrete implementation of future instructional systems, a reflection should be undertaken to ensure the appropriate development of Web-mediated teams. Besides promoting cultural

Web-Based Interface Elements in Team Interaction and Learning

diversity in the teams, future research should aim at understanding team dynamics via Web-based interfaces. Technological tools for capturing, retrieving, and disseminating information have been commonly used in corporate organizations in the form of knowledge management. In a learning environment, understanding how learners create and transfer knowledge would be valuable in implying causal relationships between interaction and outcomes. Evaluation of Web-based interfaces and the nature of interactions could take into consideration the effects of task characteristics (DeSanctis, Snyder, & Poole, 1994) when replicated in other settings. For instance, more crosscultural studies can be conducted concerning the applicability of the research model under different institutional and task conditions. Complementary research methods such as content analysis could be employed to study the interaction processes with more qualitative support. There is increasing interest in applying Webbased technologies to learning, with the role of the Web as a platform for searching, communication, and interaction. Web-mediated learners do not get the same experience as those who meet physically in traditional classrooms. The findings of this study help to advance understanding of the important issues in Web-based interaction by illuminating the impacts of interface elements on interaction and learning outcomes. With these theoretical directions, our research model tested with empirical results will hopefully prove to be instructive to subsequent studies, while cautioning researchers and practitioners against blindly embracing Webbased systems in the educational milieu.

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APPendIx: vArIAbLe MeAsureMent scALes Participation (Oetzel, 2001; Hiltz et al., 2000) 1–7 Likert scale with anchors “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree” PA1: I participated actively in all activities. PA2: I expressed my opinion freely and enthusiastically. PA3: I was actively involved in the discussion. PA4: I communicated very often with my group members. Trust (Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Chatman, 1991) TR1: I had faith that my group members would complete the task according to the requirements. TR2: I felt comfortable delegating to my group members. TR3: My group members were truthful and honest. TR4: An atmosphere of trust existed in our group. Cooperation (Oetzel, 2001; Henry, 2000; Hiltz et al., 2000) CP1: When disagreements occurred, my group worked together to resolve them. CP2: Even though my group didn’t have total agreement, we did reach a kind of consensus that we all accept. CP3: I preferred group experience to individual experience. CP4: All members in my group were cooperative. Cohesion (Burke et al., 2001; Chidambaram & Jones, 1993; Seashore, 1954; Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Chatman, 1991) CH1: I felt that I was really a part of my group. CH2: If I had the chance to do the same kind of work in another group, I am reluctant to move to a different group. CH3: The way my group members worked together was much better.

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CH4: My group was very cohesive. Conflict (Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Jehn, 1995) CF1: There was very little conflict of ideas in my group. CF2: There were very little disagreements within my group about task responsibilities. CF3: There was very little relationship tension in my group. CF4: Disagreement about who should do what in my group did not happen very often. Perceived Learning (Alavi, 1994; Leidner & Jarvenpaa, 1995) PL1: I learned a lot of factual material. PL2: I was able to identify central issues in my field. PL3: I improved in the ability to integrate facts and critically analyze written material. PL4: I gained more interest in the subject. Process Satisfaction (Burke et al., 2001; Chidambaram & Jones, 1993) 1–7 Likert scale with anchors “very dissatisfied” and “very satisfied” SP1: My group carefully considered whether each alternative idea would make for a better quality decision. SP2: My group carefully checked the validity of members’ opinions and assumptions. SP3: The behavior of my group was goal-directed. SP4: I was satisfied with the learning process.

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Media Perceptions (Chidambaram & Jones, 1993; Short et al., 1976) Ratings of bi-polar adjectives on a semantic differential scale from 1 to 7 (negative to positive perceptions) 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

MP1:

Impersonal

Personal

MP2:

Dehumanizing

Humanizing

MP3:

Inexpressive

Expressive

MP4:

Insensitive

Sensitive

MP5:

Constrained

Free

MP6:

Complex

Simple

This work was previously published in Web-Based Education and Pedagogical Technologies: Solutions for Learning Applications, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 56-87, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.7

Opportunities for Open Source E-Learning Fanuel Dewever IBM, Belgium

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

E-Learning is often conceived as a single product. In reality, however, the market offering is very heterogeneous with a large product variety. Think of learning management systems, virtual classrooms, authorware, test and assessment tools, simulators, and many more. Each of these e-learning applications is available from multiple vendors and middlemen. Next to more than 250 providers of commercial learning management systems, more than 40 open source LMS offerings can be identified. In this chapter, I discuss if open source applications for e-learning offer an alternative to commercial offerings today, specifically in the context of education. The lessons drawn here also apply to other (public) organizations and applications.

Public authorities are under pressure and scrutiny to provide best value-for-money public services (Sanderson, 2001) and have increasing performance accountability (Faucett & Kleiner, 1994) within strict budgetary boundaries and guidelines (Colley, 2003). Today, there is a growing number of policymakers who see open source software as a viable alternative for use in government IT systems (Colley, 2003; Preimesberger, 2004). In several cases, this view has been translated into policy, legislative, or other initiatives (e.g., research funding) that promote (e.g., Extremadura, Spain) or mandate preference to (e.g., Italy) the use of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) (Hahn, 2002).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-525-2.ch014

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Opportunities for Open Source E-Learning

In education, e-learning is emerging as the focal point of rising interest in open-source applications (Wheeler, 2004a; Yanosky, Harm, & Zastrocky, 2003). Coppola and Neelley (2004) documented some of the most compelling drivers for use of open source software in education: •

•

•

•

•

•

•

Tight budgets have focused attention on software acquisition costs and total cost of ownership. Growing resentment of vendor power, particularly in the wake of price increases and licensing changes that many institutions felt powerless to reject. Lack of innovation. Learning technology has not lived up to its potential to improve learning. Collaboration technology has made largescale collaborative work across institutional, geographic, and cultural boundaries more effective. Software design patterns, development technologies, and standards have evolved in a way that facilitates modular, interoperable software components. Proven business models and educationfocused companies that embrace open source. Strong cultural appeal of open source in academia. (p. 5)

A distinct additional driver is, of course, the possibility of using open source software code and development for educational and research purposes, or, as Rajani, Rekola, and Mielonen (2003) conclude, FLOSS provides an environment of “unlimited experimentation and tinkering” and “collaboration and interaction with a community of programmers, coders and users around the world” (p. 78). Wheeler (2004b) clusters these drivers in two broader categories:

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Developing sustainable economics and advancing the frontiers of innovation are the dual challenges for application software in higher education. Sustainable economics means that an institution’s base budgets can support the licensing fees, developers, maintenance, training, and support required for application software. For example, it means that the viability of a course management system (CMS) is not dependent on the next grant or on a one-time budgetary accommodation. (p. 12) Thus, there is a strong drive for the use of open source, in general (Weber, 2004), and in education, in particular (Moyle, 2003). The challenge now is to keep the two business cases separate: •

•

Developing sustainable economics: elearning as enabling technology for the implementation of e-education a virtual campus, for example. Advancing the frontiers of innovation: elearning for use as educational purposes (e.g., training IT students) or as a research area.

If this specificity is not respected, it should be a cause of concern for governments, policymakers, and academia, as it has a direct and indirect impact on their performance and finances, for example: •

•

One solution may provide good value-formoney but may not be properly documented or may be too complex for educational purposes; or A migration decision that replaces an existing e-learning platform with a new, distinctly different one could adversely influence the educational aspects.

In a recommendation to the European Commission, the e-learning Industry Group (eLIG, 2004) has provided some guidance on how to

Opportunities for Open Source E-Learning

deal with that challenge of selecting e-learning applications when both open and closed alternatives are available.

interoperable ICT architectures, which are responsive, open to new technological developments and value-driven. (EICTA, 2004, p. 23)

When procuring software for education, public authorities should consider all software options, chosen on their merits and added value for the given particular learning environment and not on their model of development (i.e., open source or commercial software). (eLIG, 2004, p. 6)

All this demonstrates the need for an objective, development-model-neutral selection and procurement policy for e-learning applications in education, especially when open source software alternatives are available. I will discuss this further, specifically for e-learning used in the context of e-education or virtual campuses.

This addresses the performance and financial accountability challenges of government investments in education and can serve as a best-practice guideline not only for governments but also for academia, industry, small and medium-sized businesses, and others. It is a reminder that the adoption decision for e-learning always should be based on a measurable and objective business case, and it stresses that choosing an application based solely on its model of development is no alternative for a well-thought-through selection and procurement process. eLIG also recommends the following: Above all, public authorities should be encouraged to adopt software and applications based on open standards and interoperable systems permitting heterogeneous environments, incorporating software regardless of its development model. (eLIG, 2004, p. 6) EICTA (2004), the European Industry Association for Information Systems, Communication Technology and Consumer Electronics, adds the recommendation that governments should: Develop public procurement policies that promote interoperability, in particular by purchasing solutions compliant with open standards developed and supported by industry and thereby ensuring that government installations contribute to interoperability. Public administrations should aim to operate highly flexible, vendor independent,

BACkgRound Open source software also is referred to as FLOSS, or free/libre open source software, which gives users the right to freely read, redistribute, and modify the source code (Open Source Institute, 2005). Version 1.9 of this definition stipulates that “open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code” but also that it needs to comply with specific criteria for the distribution. Free in this context refers to the first criterion: Free redistribution. This means: The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. (Open Source Institute, 2005) Consequently, the definition of free/libre software does not limit the possibility to profit from the software, as long as the redistribution (and other) terms of the applicable license are respected. The implication is that open source applications can be available for free (at no cost) or at a commercial cost. That gives us a broad range of choice for e-learning applications (Dewever, 2004): • •

Custom-built applications Commercial proprietary applications

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• • • •

Shareware Freeware Commercial open source applications Non-commercial open source applications

The procurement model chosen will determine the total cost of ownership (TCO). The TCO depends not only on costs of software licenses but also on costs of hardware, personnel, services, training, and maintenance. The generally expected benefits of adopting open source software are (Wichmann, 2002): • • • • • • • • • • • •

Better access protection Better functionality Better price to performance ratio Hardware cost savings Higher number of potential applications Higher performance Higher stability Installation and integration cost savings Low license fees Open and/or modifiable source code Operation and administration cost savings Training cost savings

According to Wichmann (2002), out of the top 10 criteria for taking a decision in favor of open source software applications on the desktop (not of operating platforms or databases), half of the criteria deemed very important are related to IT cost savings. Four relate to technical criteria such as protection, stability, performance, and access to code. Better functionality is only ranked eight. From the perspective of a non-technical end user, it seems valid to question if that is sufficiently balanced with its user needs. The previous decision pattern probably can be explained in part by the demographics of the open source community itself, which is: • •

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Overwhelmingly male Predominantly Generation X

• • • •

Concentrated in the United States and Europe IT professionals Mostly college and high school graduates Part-time participation (Kim, 2003, p. 7)

In the terminology of Dewever and Husmann (2004), this is a driver community, which is both technically able and willing to engage in the application development community. These demographics posed no problems for the adoption of the first and second generations of open source platforms that reached maturity, respectively (Psychny, 2004): 1.

2.

Operating system kernels (Linux, BSD) Software development tools (GNU C, C++, Emacs, Perl) Network protocols and software (TCP/IP, Sendmail, Bind/DNS) Web servers (Apache, mod_perl, mod_php, OpenSSL), Databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Interbase), Desktop tools (GNOME, KDE, AbiWord, Mozilla)

There, the developers and the user communities were the same technically skilled people. For educational and research purposes, we could expect a similar community—willing to engage and technically able. For the third generation of open source software applications on the desktop, the picture is different. The end users of desktop applications, such as e-learning, often are not or are less IT-literate and are not willing to engage in the development of new or improved applications. Users, in that case, are driven by the possibility of using the available open software and reaping the benefits of its free availability. To assess the fitness of an available product, they often rely on internal consultants, external suppliers, or service providers to assist them on their path to adoption and growth. Their

Opportunities for Open Source E-Learning

decision patterns are based not only on software functionality and usability but also on long-term stability of the provider or its FLOSS counterpart, the developer community, the availability of services, or the availability of training. Research from Forrester (Schadler et al., 2003) shows that the biggest concerns for using Linux and open source software are: • • • • • •

Lack of support Immaturity of products Lack of applications Version splintering and lack of standards Unsecure Lack of skills Additionally, Fugetta (2003) concludes that:

•

Most claims associated to open source and the related development process apply also to proprietary software.

•

•

It is not proved that open source uniquely and necessarily causes software to be better, more reliable, or cheaper to develop. Many economic and business issues are not related to software being open or closed. (p. 88)

Apparently, since end-user concerns today often are not sufficiently addressed and since there are potential conflicts of interest, if the internal consultant also has an educational, research, or even business agenda, it is becoming increasingly important in the selection of applications for education, open or closed, to adopt a rigorous evaluation, selection, and procurement process that balances cost and technical criteria with nontechnical criteria of end users. In the end, the most likely scenario is an environment where applications from different development models are used together. For the successful adoption of open source applications also by the non-technical users, the procurement

Figure 1. E-Learning value chain

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process will need to be objective and relevant. To be able to manage this heterogeneous environment, it is pivotal to adopt software and applications based on open standards and interoperable systems.

SeleCTIon And PRoCuRemenT ConSIdeRATIonS E-Learning often is conceived as a single homogeneous product. In reality, the market is very heterogeneous with a large product variety, as demonstrated in the e-learning value chain (Elloumi, 2004; Stacey, 2001). e-learning software, in support of the implementation of e-education or virtual campuses, can refer to learning management systems, virtual classrooms, authorware, test and assessment tools, or simulators. There is a broad available supply of both open and closed source applications for education in order to guarantee an acceptable degree of freedom of choice and multiple possibilities of matching demand and supply. There are already more than 250 providers of commercial learning management systems. The Commonwealth of Learning (2003) identified 35 mature open source offerings on top of that. Some of the most well-known today are Moodle, ILIAS, eduplone, Claroline, and SAKAI1. Each of these e-learning applications is available from multiple vendors and middlemen. This wide availability of solutions has not led to broad adoption, however. Hilding-Hamann and Massy (2004) concluded that with regard to e-learning, “poor quality procurement practices (in all sectors but especially in the public sector) are a barrier to growth and adoption” (p. 7) and recommend the following: Policymakers should support the improvement of public procurement in relation to the purchase of e-learning. This could be done through the

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definition of standard procedures and competence development for personnel responsible for sourcing e-learning products and services. (p. 8) A selection and procurement process for open source e-learning software applications to address is listed in Table 1. Due to the apparent complexity of e-learning adoption, there is a clear need for the involvement of a knowledgeable and well-informed team member to be able to assess these criteria. If such a subject matter expert is available in the own team, she or he should help to carefully document all aspects of the decision process. Otherwise, it is advisable to consult an impartial e-learning expert.

FuTuRe TRendS It can be expected that policymakers and education institutes will continue to structure and formalize their IT strategies and the role that free/libre open source software has within it. The initial enthusiasm and self dynamic of the development process of open source e-learning applications is likely to continue in the near future. Disparate initiatives will consolidate, and new niches will be served. As the applications mature, smaller, disconnected, or redundant initiatives probably will dry up in favor of the more successful initiatives. At some stage in the middle to long-term future, the majority of the required functional requirements of the education sector will have been developed. That will probably diminish the attractiveness of further developing FLOSS e-learning applications: •

Users driven by developing sustainable economics will have maximized the benefits possible in the hybrid e-learning implementation.

Opportunities for Open Source E-Learning

Table 1. eLearning selection and procurement criteria and considerations Criterion

Considerations

1. The business and use cases for eLearning

What is the main driver for adopting eLearning? Is it clearly defined and distinct? Have you consulted a wide enough group of stakeholders? Do you have ‘executive’ sponsorship? Which other initiatives, that could reinforce or hinder yours, are ongoing or planned?

2. Projected life-cycle of expected future use of eLearning

What is the adoption and growth path you envision? What is your roll-out plan? Have you defined and agreed a roadmap for the future?

3. The functional and non-functional requirements of the eLearning solution

Which eLearning tools do you need? Simulation, course management, virtual classrooms, other? In which language? Have you considered accessibility and usability aspects?

4. The technical requirements

What are your hardware requirements? On which operating platforms or legacy databases should the application(s) run?

5. The longer-term availability of the solution

Is your provider financially stable? What happens when the funds for your development community dry up? Is your provider a take-over candidate? It your OSS solution part of a larger initiative? How does that impact you? How solid and dynamic is the developer community in the case of OSS? What is its growth ambition?

6. Application change dynamics and responsiveness to emerging requirements

What is the rate of change of the application? How soon are bug reported and fixes available? How well can it cater for your changing needs? How well are you equipped to make these changes yourself? What is the level of change readiness or resistance?

7. Skill and competence requirements and their availability.

What are the required skills you need to pool in your team? Which new skills will users need to acquire? What is the anticipated time and cost to develop these?

8. Availability of internal and external services such as integration, support, training, hosting.

Which support would you need from outside of your own team? Are there any foreseeable needs for integration support, training, application hosting, consulting? Are they available locally?

9. Integration needs, interoperability needs and supported standards.

Which legacy systems or databases need to be integrated with the new platform? Which content standards do you impose or use? Are these standards ‘open’? What is the impact of eventual incompatibilities?

10. Total cost of ownership

What is the total cost of ownership? Have you considered alternative solutions? What is your staffing policy and which relations do you have with established solution providers? Do you have sufficient funds or incomes to continue to support this platform? Have you identified ‘quick wins’ or ‘low-hanging-fruit’ that can help fund future investments or win broader support?

•

•

•

Users and developers driven by advancing the frontiers of innovation will move on to more challenging environments. Funds for joint development programs will no longer be available because of the lack of a business case The cost for maintaining and further developing the mature environment will grow as development resources become scarcer, new development needs are no longer

shared by a large group of users, and development teams are spun off as private companies. It is difficult to assess if the developments will have a similar profound impact on the private market for e-learning applications. Currently, there are no widely known, large-scale open source development projects tailored to the needs of that market, nor are there any funds pooled to do exactly that.

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Future research should explore further the current software selection practices in education, specifically where open source software alternatives are considered (or where proprietary alternatives are not) and to which degree the presented selection and procurement recommendations presented here are being applied and how they can be improved. The possibilities of use of the FLOSS e-learning applications developed for education in private markets and the impact that they could have is not sufficiently addressed today in research. A critical analysis (e.g., on the basis of game theory) of the possible scenarios of the future relative relevance of e-learning FLOSS (Wheeler, 2004a) could greatly enhance the possibility of taking informed procurement decisions.

ConCluSIon E-Learning as enabling technology for e-education and the virtual campus is emerging as the focal point of interest in open source application. The two main driver categories for e-learning adoption in education are developing sustainable economics and advancing the frontiers of innovation. When these drivers are not evaluated separately in the e-learning selection and procurement process, it can lead to an adverse effect on performance and value for money. Only when using a selection and procurement process unbiased toward its software development, open or closed, can the best fit be achieved. Rather, elearning applications should be selected, based on the merits and added value that it offers. The use of open standards, on the other hand, is a valid selection criterion in its own right. This chapter presented some good practices that should serve as minimal required elements in the evaluation process.

ACknowledgmenT A lot of the initial thinking was triggered by discussions with members of the e-learning Industry

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group and the position statement it formulated on request of the European Commission.

ReFeRenCeS Claroline. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www. claroline.net Colley, A. (2003). AU democrats take open-source legislation to Senate. ZDNet. Retrieved January 16, 2005, from http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ os/story/0,2000048630, 20275940,00.htm Commonwealth of Learning. (2003). COL LMS open source report [electronic version]. Retrieved December 12, 2004, from http://www.col.org/ Consultancies/03LMS OpenSource.htm Coppola, C., & Neelley, E. (2004). Open source— Opens learning: Why open source makes sense for education. The r-smart group. Dewever, F. (2004). Opportunities for open source e-learning. Proceedings of the e-learning Supplier Summit, Brussels, Belgium. Dewever, F., & Husmann, E. (2004). Open knowledge and evolutionary learning. Proceedings of the Digital Business Ecosystem Project Meeting, London. EduPlone. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://eduplone. net EICTA. (2004). EICTA interoperability whitepaper. Brussels: European Industry Association for Information Systems, Communication Technology and Consumer Electronics. e-learning Industry Group. (2004). eLIG response to eEurope 2005 questionnaire [electronic version]. Retrieved October 12, 2004, from http://www.elig.org Elloumi, F. (2004). Value chain analysis: A strategic approach to online learning. In T. Anderson, & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning (chapter 3). Athabasca: Athabasca University.

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Faucett, A., & Kleiner, B. H. (1994). New developments in performance measures of public programmes. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 7(3), 63–70. doi:10.1108/09513559410061768 Fuggetta, A. (2003). Open source software—An evaluation [electronic version]. Journal of Systems and Software, 66, 77–90. Hahn, R. W. (2002). Government policy toward open source software: An overview. In R.W. Hahn (Ed.), Government policy toward open source software. Washington, DC: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. Hilding-Hamann, K., & Massy, J. (2004). Study of the e-learning suppliers’“market” in Europe— Final Report. Market-Study Report submitted to the European Commission. ILIAS. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ilias.uni-koeln.de/ ios/index.html Kim, E. E. (2003). Introduction to open source communities [electronic version]. Blue Oxen Associates. Retrieved September 12, 2004, from http://www.blueoxen.org/research/00007 Moodle. (n.d.). Retrieved, from www.moodle. org Moyle, K. (2003). Open source software and Australian school education. Australia: Education.au limited, MCEETYA ICT in Schools Taskforce. Open Source Institute. (2005). Open source definition version 1.9. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php Preimesberger, C. (2004). Alabama latest state to present open source software bill. Retrieved January 15, 2005, from http://business. newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/02/27/232 9240&tid=110&tid=3&tid=31

Psychny, M. (2004). Open source workshop. Brussels, Belgium: IBM Belgium. Rajani, N., Rekola, J., & Mielonen, T. (2003). Free as in education. Significance of the free/libre and open source software for developing countries. Helsinki, Finland: Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Sanderson, I. (2001). Performance management, evaluation and learning in “modern” local government. Public Administration, 79(2), 297–313. doi:10.1111/1467-9299.00257 Schadler, T., et al. (2003). The Linux tipping point. Forrester Research. Stacey, P. (2001). E-learning value chain and market map. Accessed January 17, 2005, from http://www.bctechnology.com/statics/bcelearning.swf Weber, S. (2004). The success of open source. London: Harvard University Press. Wheeler, B. (2004a). Open Source 2007: How did this happen? EDUCAUSE Review, 39(4), 12–27. Wheeler, B. (2004b). The open source parade. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 68–69. Wichmann, T. (2002). Free/libre open source software: Survey and study. Berlin, Germany: Berlecon Research GmbH. Yanosky, R., Harm, M., & Zastrocky, M. (2003). Higher-education e-learning meets open source. Gartner.

endnoTe 1

For Web site references, see References section.

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APPendIx A: TeRmS And deFInITIonS • • •

•

•

• •

Free/libre and open source software (FLOSS or sometimes FOSS) is a hybrid term for both free software and open source software. Open source software (OSS) is software of which the software code (the source) is available. Free software is software that is distributed freely and gives users the right to freely read, redistribute, and modify the source code. This should not be confused with for-free software or Freeware. Open standard. A standard is considered open when (a) the evolution of the specification is set in a transparent process open to all interested contributors; (b) the technical requirements of the solution are specified completely enough to guarantee full interoperability; (c) there is a substantial standard-compliant offering promoted by proponents of the standard; and (d) fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory access is provided to intellectual property unavoidably used in implementation of the standard. (EICTA, 2004). Interoperability is the ability of two or more networks, systems, devices, applications, or components to exchange information between them and to use the information so exchanged (EICTA, 2004). e-learning refers to all technology that can support education and training. In the context of this chapter, it is the enabler of e-eduction or e-campus. Total cost of ownership or TCO refers to the sum of all current and future, direct and indirect costs incurred and anticipated. The TCO of implementing e-learning, for example, is not limited to the software licence costs or hardware but also includes the maintenance costs, switching costs, and costs for training.

This work was previously published in Web-Based Education and Pedagogical Technologies: Solutions for Learning Applications , edited by L. Esnault, pp. 252-265, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.8

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education: A Pilot Phase Application Nektaria Adaktilou University of Athens, Greece Costas Cartalis University of Athens, Greece George Kalkanis University of Athens, Greece

ABSTRACT The goal of this study is the presentation of a learning tool for satellite Remote Sensing. The target group of the learning platform is students of Higher Education Institutions in Greece. The purpose of this work is to use technology as a way to create an environment in which students can learn by doing, receiving feedback, continually refining their understanding and building knowledge. The learning environment is interactive and supports collaborative experiences. Evaluation

constitutes a key element of the entire work, as a means to investigate, provide evidence and make judgements about the tool’s effectiveness and benefits. A series of features characterizing the learning platform have been considered in order to assess its function and potential usability. The scores achieved showed that the platform’s design and structure were quite satisfactory and indicated its potential use as a good learning tool for the distribution of knowledge in the field of remote sensing.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

InTRoduCTIon Over the last decade the demand for higher education learning has increased dramatically throughout the world. On the one hand, there is a rapidly growing need for the widening of initial access to higher education. Globally the numbers of degree students are estimated to rise from 42 million in 1990 to 97 million in 2010 and 159 million by 2025 (West, 1997). Greece, a member country of the European Union is not at the moment able to accommodate the entire national demand for initial access to higher education. In fact, only around one third of the country’s students can find places in its public institutions. Other students have to go abroad or turn to foreign or private providers which operate in Greece (Patrinos, 1995). In quantitative terms, it has been stated that in order to keep pace with the growing demand for higher education in certain regions of the world, one new university would need to be established every week. The financial and logistical impossibility of this option became symbolic for what was called “the crisis in access to higher education” and formed the main argument for technology supported distance education as a cost-effective alternative (Daniel, 1996). On the other hand there is the increasing need for more diversified and flexible types of higher education. The widespread use of the internet has definitely been a catalyst in the course of events in higher education demand, since this facility opened up a whole new world of easy to use technology that gives the possibility to communicate, investigate and more importantly learn. The main goal and concern of instructors is to develop more attractive and efficient ways to communicate up to date scientific knowledge to students and facilitate in depth understanding of its concepts. According to the constructivist learning theory, students actively construct meaning from their experience, using their existing conceptual

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framework (Wubbels, 1992). Mental models of how the world works are unique to the observer and not always easily uncovered. Models may be inconsistent and students may be confused in what they believe and verbalize (Glynn & Druit, 1995), perhaps in response to facts they have memorized. Learners’ misconceptions can be very highly resistant to change and are likely to hinder the acquisition of scientifically correct conception (Novak, 1988). Conventional instruction often fails to establish in students’ sufficient understanding of the underlying scientific principles (Hennessy et al.,1995). Thus, science educators are challenged to develop teaching methods so as to help students make conceptual changes in their scientific thinking and acquire information that they are able to critically appraise and utilize in order to acquire knowledge. Computer assisted learning approaches seem to be very suitable to assist lecturers in this task in an effort to better meet the learners’ needs. There has recently been significant attention paid to the ways in which technology can be used to support students in Higher Education (e.g. Laurillard, 1993; Squires et al. 2000; Seale and RiusRiu, 2001; Seale 2002). As many new technologies are interactive (Greenfield and Cooking, 1996), it is now easier to create environments in which students can learn by doing, receiving feedback and continually refining their understanding and building new knowledge (Barron et al.,1998; Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1993; Kafai, 1995). eLearning in particular, understood as online learning, or web-based learning, has raised expectations as to what sophisticated multimedia technologies may contribute to learning and training. eLearning has been defined in the European elearning Action Plan, as the ‘use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration’ (elearning in Europe-Results and Recommendations, 2003, p.7). The European Union Lisbon, Stockholm and

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

Barcelona Councils called for a sustained action to integrate e-Learning in education and training systems in an effort to make the European Education and Training Systems a world- wide quality reference by 2010. CEDEFOP (Centre Europeen pour le development de la Formation Professionelle), the European Agency for Vocational Training, conducted in 2002 a European Survey on ‘Quality and eLearning’. The report was carried out in five European languages and asked European Training professionals their views on the quality of eLearning. As the results showed, all types of respondents were represented, including higher and further education teachers and trainers. It is worth mentioning that 61% of all respondents rated the overall quality of eLearning as ‘poor’. Only 1% rated it ‘excellent’ and only 5% rated it ‘very good’. The eLearning Group of the Thematic Monitoring under the Leonardo da Vinci Programme set up a work plan for 2003, which included the documentation of some 150 relevant projects and the execution of a study to promote a better understanding of the content, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of eLearning. The study highlighted that eLearning-related approaches have so far been too technology-and/or media-oriented; the recommendations point out that a strong focus on learning, on the learner and on teacher/trainer is necessary. It should also be mentioned that one of the main recommendations of the study was that ‘projects aiming at eLearning should regard evaluation as one of their most important tasks.’ Holistic approaches to eLearning have given new potential for its successful application. The issues to be resolved in future projects are not technological problems, but focus on eLearning’s three apparently main weak points which are learner orientation, training the teachers to benefit from the new medium successfully and evaluation.

Key concepts for the design and development of the Remote Sensing learning platform The goal of this work is the design, development and evaluation of a friendly to use and up-to-date learning tool for Satellite Remote Sensing and its applications at an introductory level in Higher Education. The platform may be incorporated in a face-to face- teaching module (a mixed-mode approach), but may be used to support distance learning courses, as well, after some adjustments that may be necessary. Remote Sensing has been so far taught in the Physics Department using traditional methods. So, an eLearning platform, providing up-to-date learning material and learning activities, as well as personalized information (progress tracking, teaching and exams timetables, course outlines, past exam papers) and class e-mail discussion lists and for a, could provide a number of serious advantages for students and staff. The study actually has four main directions of action, which are (not in order of priority): 1. 2. 3.

4.

The development of the learning material for Remote Sensing (Space science). The establishment of a learning platform (Informatics). The adoption of a pedagogically driven development schema characterised by the chain: Learner>Learning objective>Categories of learning>Learning Environment> learning media. (Pedagogy/Education). The evaluation of the learning tool as a means to demonstrate its effectiveness and ensure the quality of its academic practice.

The study attempts, for all four areas of action, to identify and use the best practice principles and to identify and use the means to support them. The guiding principle for the entire effort was taking the needs of the stakeholders into account:

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A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

Figure 1. The working concept of the study, aiming at its continuous evolution and improved quality

students, academic staff, teaching staff, as well as considering the strategic objectives in relation to the content and quality of knowledge acquisition for the specific thematic area. The working concept followed for each area and the project as a whole may be schematically represented in the following diagram (Figure 1). Critical issues for the design and development of the eLearning platform were that : • •

• •

The platform functions technically without problems across all users. The subject content for Remote Sensing and its applications is state of the art and maintained up to date. The learning tool has a high level of interactivity. The design principles are clearly pedagogic and appropriate to learning type, needs and context.

Individualisation, meaningful interactivity, shared experience, flexible course design, time and activities for learner reflection and quality scientific information are some of the practice principles that have been adopted to the targeted competencies as far as Remote Sensing and

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informatics are concerned. Learner’s autonomy combined with collaborative learning, project based learning and high level cognitive skills/ knowledge are the pedagogic practice principles that are being adopted in the study. Finally, the project’s targeted competencies as well as the pedagogy considerations shall provide the framework for the evaluation of the learning tool. The complete evaluation of the project is expected to give interesting outcomes that will assess its progress, allow to correct errors and support the learning strategies that prove to be appropriate.

learning material The development of web-based learning, the development of learning objects and the move to more learner-centered approaches are difficult tasks. Smith et al. (2001) interviewed 21 instructors of both online and traditional courses offered at state Universities in New York, California and Indiana to determine differences between teaching online and face to face courses. The study attributed increased preparation time in order to produce high quality and up-to- date material. Τhe preparation of an online course for Remote Sensing to the detail required to develop unam-

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

Figure 2. The remote sensing process (adapted from Jensen, 1996)

biguous material on the web requires increased effort, due to the fact that Remote Sensing is an interdisciplinary thematic area that combines principles from physics, chemistry, informatics, etc. and it is also a rapidly evolving technique with applications in numerous sectors. Remote Sensing may be considered as the acquisition and interpretation of measurements of electromagnetic energy reflected from or emitted by a target from a vantage-point that is distant from the target (Mather, 1999). Satellite Remote Sensing for Earth Observation refers to sensors mounted on satellite platforms, which record the amount of energy reflected from or emitted by the Earth’s surface. Satellite remote sensors are major sources of consistent, continuous data for atmospheric, ocean, and land studies at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Satellite sensor data analysis techniques have proven to be valuable tools for the identification of environmental attributes and the monitoring of physical and biological

processes relevant to global change research. Remote Sensing instruments have played a vital role in providing data concerning the impact of human activities on the environment, which is in turn needed to make informed decisions. Digital image processing allows a scientist to manipulate and analyse the image data produced by the remote sensors in such a way as to reveal information that may not be immediately recognizable in the original form. To understand the relationship of digital image processing to remotely sensed data, it is useful to have a clear concept of the steps involved in the remote sensing process. These steps are illustrated in Figure 2. The first step in remote sensing, as in any scientific study, is the definition of a problem. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, the problems that Remote Sensing can be applied to are numerous and diverse. In spite of this, the approaches to Remote Sensing can be categorized as being either scientific or technological in nature. Scientific approaches are driven by ‘curiosity or whim’

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Figure 3. The basic types of logic that can be applied to remote sensing

(Curan, 1987), while technological approaches are driven by human need. The methodology used to solve the problem naturally depends upon its origin. There are three basic types of logic that can be applied to a problem; inductive, deductive, and technologic. The steps in each of these logic methodologies in Remote Sensing can be seen in Figure 3. Satellite Image processing is the transformation and exploitation of 2d data, that is images, in order to extract all the necessary information. In order to perform the required tasks students should be familiar with radiation and its interactions with matter and should learn theories of image processing and the application of image processing techniques. Remote Sensing requires techniques from a variety of disciplines and has a strong element of research training that makes it attractive to an increasing number of students over the years. The skills that are gained are also quite attractive to many industrial, commercial and governmental employers. The context of the Earth System Science in which much of the technique’s rationale evolves makes the course even more appealing to numerous students.

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From the authors’ experience at The Department of Physics of the University of Athens, many students who take the Remote Sensing course often struggle to comprehend in depth basic concepts of the technique, such as digital image characteristics, spectral signatures, image processing and image arithmetic, for example. Although they are able to answer questions in tests, students have significant problems when trying to apply the knowledge they have acquired and perform combined processes using satellite image processing software. This is to a great extent due to the fact that the learning material used, as well as the professional processing programmes are quite complex and often overwhelming for beginners and instructions are not tailored to their specific needs. The learning material of the platform created in the present study covers several topics of Remote Sensing. The modules contain detailed information about the physical principles, data acquisition techniques, satellite platforms and sensors, as well as information about how and where to obtain satellite images. Interest is focused on online catalogues maintained by the different

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

Figure.4. Processing techniques are presented in detail in a step-by-step logic, in order to allow students to become familiar with the processing software. The figure demonstrates the application of a method that reduces data dimensionality by performing a covariance analysis between factors.

data suppliers. Data analysis (such as visual interpretation, image enhancement techniques, image corrections, classification techniques) form a main focus of the learning tool. Each module consists of the theory part and the learning activities. The last module is an overview of applications in several selected fields and the presentation of case studies (coastal zone management, urban issues, climatology, industrial accidents, marine applications). Independent but consistent small segmented modules have been developed. Each chapter is divided into sub-chapters, which are again divided into several pages illustrating the logical context. Text, image and sound support the learning process. Interesting links with up-to-date information and applications on the topics covered are provided in the material. The content demonstrates how new knowledge and skill can be applied to real problems. For example, students may acquire information on environmental issues from different sectors of every day life, such as urban matters in their

home–town, environmental hazards in distant locations and several more. Web-based learning, as well as conventional learning is considered to be successful if knowledge is applied correctly. Testing the knowledge acquired is of fundamental contribution to the assessment of course participants. So, at the end of each module unity, the student finds the relative learning activities and is instructed on a step by step basis so as to perform the necessary processing. All the processing is performed with ERDAS Imagine (Leica), which is one of the most commonly used image processing software in Remote Sensing applications (Figure 4). The student’s knowledge is tested during the performance of the learning activities and the results of the processing are discussed and analysed. At the completion of each module, students are asked to fill an online questionnaire, in order to evaluate the quality and efficiency of the learning material. This process will provide information that is expected to be an important component of the evaluation process.

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The learning Platform In a knowledge–based society, there is a need for skills such as seeking, analysing and applying information, independent and life-long learning, problem solving, creative thinking and teamwork. Learners must be encouraged to analyze and criticize, to offer alternative solutions and approaches. This kind of learning may not be easily achieved in large lecture classes where students act as an audience (Bates, 2000).The main educational rationale for web-based learning is that it enables students to learn in a different way from traditional classroom teaching. The purpose of this study is to create an effective learning environment that may be embedded in the working practices of a Remote Sensing course for University students and offer a wide range of potential benefits to learners and instructors, by extending the possibilities of ‘old’ but still useful practices such as books and blackboards. The learning platform’s website was created with the Active Server Pages (ASP) technology and more specifically with the latest version ASP. Net 2.0 Microsoft with the use of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development platform. The programming language that supports these pages is Visual Basic’s latest edition (2005). New characteristics have been introduced in the ASP.Net 2.0 version, such as the ‘masterpages’ through which the maintenance of the uniformity of the site’s pages is facilitated. Another important element is the simplification of the user creation and administration process. The personal data of the users (including the usernames and passwords that they use to access the site) are saved in a Microsoft SQL Server or in the freeware MSDN version which is included in Microsoft Office 2003. The site may be installed in a Microsoft Windows Server or a Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system, where the Internet Information Server (IIS) version 5.0 (or

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more recent) and the Net Framework 2.0 must be installed as well. In order to access the learning platform, students need to fill a form with personal information. The platform’s administrator (that may be the course’s instructor) gives permission to access the material, providing students with a login and password. The Remote Sensing learning material described in the previous paragraph is naturally a central part of the platform. Other elements that are of significant importance for the holistic approach of eLeaning attempted are: • • • • •

Interesting links with resources for Remote Sensing . A forum where students may be able to exchange views on the course. Email contact with the course’s instructor. Announcements concerning the course (deadlines, results, etc). Announcements for relative seminars and conferences.

Content and navigation are not linear in design and allow the learner to reflect on, review and digest new learning and not just collect facts. The learning tool must be clear and self-explanatory to the learners. An unambiguous screen design is an important requirement for successful learning using the platform. The screen is divided into different sections. The left frame includes the table of contents. Its appearance may vary depending on the selected chapter and is modified when moving from one chapter to another. It is important to state that the work is not technology driven. Technology is used as a means to achieve the goals set for the learner. For example, the interactivity of the environment was a very important feature for the design of the platform, since interactivity makes it easy for students to revisit specific parts of the environment to explore them more fully, to test ideas and to receive feedback.

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

Another important element of the work is to connect students among them as well as with working scientists. These collaborative experiences may help students understand complex systems and concepts, such as multiple causes and interactions among different variables. It is worth mentioning that as instructors use technology, their own learning has implications for the ways in which they assist students to learn more generally, in the sense that they must be partners in innovation. Finally, it is important to state that an effort was made to utilize the teaching and learning principles that prove to work in traditional learning and apply them in the electronic tool in order to produce quality results. Thus, the purpose was not to recreate the classroom material and offer it in an online environment, but to exploit technological possibilities in order to create a learning tool that may support tutors and learners in their ways of working towards promoting expertise in the specific scientific field.

Pedagogical Frame Research has been extensively involved in scoping the possibility of modelling learning and eLearning in more systematic terms and providing some conceptual frameworks. Information and communication technologies allow various ways of adopting eLearning environments to individual learning approaches. The pedagogical frameworks that underpin these technologies, need therefore to be flexible in order to effectively support the individual learning of the target learners (Dimitrova et. al., 2004). eLearning offers new opportunities that are underutilised or ineffective when they have been appended to courses that are rooted in pedagogic models and practices with which they are not alligned (Kirkwood and Price, 2006). When considering online pedagogical issues, two questions need to be addressed (Chimar and Williams, 1996):

• •

What pedagogy should be used? Will the pedagogy work over the Internet using a variety of Internet delivery techniques?

The second question is subordinate to the first. The pedagogy should drive the choices of the instructional technology to be used. In this study an effort is being made to link the preparation of materials and resources for the teaching and learning, to the interaction of students with those materials and with their instructor. The structure of the learning activities has a totally different philosophy from the oneway flow of information and ideas from experts/ teachers to learners- encouraging opportunities for dialogue to take place. The learning tools’ design is therefore oriented at a different direction that the “Industrial Model”, adopted by many Universities applying eLearning, that focuses on the construction of materials rather than the processing of learning (early critiques by Harris and Holmes 1976; Northedge, 1976). Being able to identify which framework is best suited to the subject matter and learning context is a truly difficult task, requiring testing in the evaluation process. The philosophy of the present study was that effective teaching should be guided by seven principles (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) that have proven to work successfully independent of and beyond teaching and learning styles. These principles are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Encourage contacts between learners and faculty. Develop reciprocity and cooperation among learners. Use active learning techniques (online simulations, interactive tools, quizzes). Give prompt feedback (online tutorial, assessment).

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5.

6. 7.

Emphasize time on task (flexible course design, scheduling and completion, monitoring students’ progress). Communicate high expectations. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning (‘personalizable’ online environment).

Based on the above - mentioned principles, students are encouraged to work in small groups on collaborative tasks, where the Internet may be used to find information resources and conferencing or e-mail will be used as a means to communicate and construct joint projects, which will be assessed. The same means are used for frequent learner – instructor contact, which plays a vital role in learner motivation and involvement. In this way, the use of new technologies has a clear pedagogic role. A model lecture following the above mentioned philosophy will be video- taped and included in the material as guide for potential users of the platform. The pedagogy considerations discussed shall provide a framework for the evaluation process, which is expected to demonstrate the effectiveness of the selected approach for the support of the learning process.

‘the absence of a widely established and practiced methodology by which rigorously to evaluate eLearning, and through which to develop the secure body of knowledge on which to build learning technology as a discipline’ (ALT JIG, 2003). The learning situation in the present study involves a complex range of interacting factors, such as subject study, student motivation, tutor input, resource availability e.t.c. Any data collected will therefore give only a snapshot of a much more complex picture. However, if different kinds of data, at different points in the learning cycle and from different perspectives are collected, then the interrelated elements that make the whole picture are far more likely to be seen. Triangulation, as described above, is they key concept in the evaluation framework of this study. With regard to the value of triangulation, Breen et al. (1998) in their investigation of the IT learning environment in a large modern University suggest a number of potential benefits: • • •

evAluATIon

it helps to ensure adequate coverage of all aspects in the evaluation focus it can help to fill in gaps that might occur if relatively few methods are used findings from one method that may be difficult to interpret can often be viewed and resolved in the light of findings from other methods it can enhance the validity of findings (which is often the single quoted purpose).

evaluation Strategy design

•

There are many debates in the literature on appropriate methods and paradigms for evaluation (Guba and Lincoln, 1989; Calder, 1994; Hammersley, 1993, Draper, 1996; Oliver, 1998). ELearning is by its nature innovative: it introduces new modes of teaching, learning and assessment. A single model for evaluating eLearning is hard to define, since learning technology is still a fairly new field. Understanding the pedagogy that underpins the use of technology is constantly being revisited in the research community. Developing e-approaches is therefore compounded by

The evaluation strategy is being designed so as to encompass both the content of the course and the ability of students to understand the teaching, as well as the way that media has been used to communicate those teaching aims. The characteristics of the technology, the pedagogic design, the context within which learning takes place, students’ characteristics and their prior experience and learners’ familiarity with technologies involved are issues to be addressed.

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The evaluation process is planned to have two phases: the first - formative evaluation – has to do with the developmental testing required to establish that the pedagogy and use of media are robust. In the second phase, that is the summative evaluation, the entire course across its first year of presentation will be evaluated. The results will allow the project’s follow up in the second year, so as to validate the decisions made and provide useful data regarding student and faculty satisfaction levels. The plan is to collect data using a range of methods (questionnaires, interviews, dialogues and narratives), involving a number of stakeholders or evaluators (students, tutors, Remote Sensing experts, informatics specialists) and over a period of time (formative and summative evaluation) in order to overcome the problem of bias and present a more complete picture of the situation investigated. In the formative evaluation phase a relatively small number of people- compared to the estimated course numbers- will be engaged. Those people are willing to take this role and commit to properly studying the learning material and the platform. More specifically, nine students, all coming from the Physics Department will be involved in the process. Six of them are about to obtain their BSc, specializing in either education or environmental studies. One student is completing his MSc in environmental physics and two students are PhD candidates in the Division of Applied Physics and Meteorology. All students will attend an approximately thirty- hour course in order to get acquainted with the material as thoroughly as possible, so as to be able to evaluate its quality and effectiveness. The instructor will be the corresponding author, who has significant experience in the field of Remote Sensing both as a research scientist and as a tutor. The students participating in the process will be asked to complete a detailed questionnaire (Figure 5.a,b) concerning their experience in using new technologies in their studies and a

–hopefully- useful database shall be created. During the course, students and instructors will be asked to complete several online questionnaires concerning their level of satisfaction as far as the content and the functionality of the platform are concerned. During the course the students will be asked to complete more questionnaires that have been formulated and concern: • •

•

• •

Their satisfaction with the technical characteristics of the platform. The level of the contents of the learning platform for each one of the units that the students will be taught during the course in its pilot phase. The importance of interface elements such as e-mail, forum, easy navigation for certain interaction processes and social –technical attitudes, such as participation, cooperation, cohesion, etc. The students’ attitudes towards the practice of collaborative learning. The performance of the instructor in the specific learning environment.

The formative evaluation is expected to be the most useful tool for the learning tools’ reform. The evaluation’s objectives will be as follows: •

•

• •

•

to identify the strongest and the weakest elements of the platform from the perspective of use by the learners. to identify typical scenarios as far as the platform usage is concerned (time and place). to collect information on the elements of the platform considered most useful. to judge the value of the platform and to prepare guidelines and suggestions for the platform’s further development. to collect information about the practical integration of the computer technology into curricula.

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Figure 5a. Students specify the kinds of online facilities that they use in their studies

Figure 5b. Students explain in detail the use of new technologies in their studies

Some of the challenges we are prepared to face are: • •

• •

Computer illiteracy among prospective resource users Cost of implementation and maintenance (although there cost and time savings overall). Attitudes towards new technology. Institution constraints.

The summative evaluation will indicate whether the core aim of the project, which is to provide the higher education community with a useful application on the use of new technologies

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to enhance learning, has been fulfilled. We would not expect to make major changes to the course on the basis of the summative evaluation, provided that the developmental testing has gone well.

The First Stage of the Formative evaluation A series of features that characterized the learning platform have been considered in order to make a first evaluation of the function and potential usability of the learning platform, both from its pedagogical and technological aspect. The evaluation framework used, is a combination of evaluation model elements that have been

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

proposed by Colace et. Al.,(2003, 2006). These models have been used to make comparative evaluations of a significant sample of existing learning platforms. In the study presented the learning platform was first assessed for its system requisites on the basis of three parameters: a.

b.

c.

Web-based architecture (students may access the learning tool by using the web browser, without installing other software to the computer). Modular organization of the material (compatibility with standards that allows to import/export courses and adaptation of training paths to specific learning needs). Portability (the possibility for a platform to work correctly independent of the computer and the operating system on which it runs).

Table 1 shows the results, using the evaluation grids presented with it. Following this, an indicator was used to estimate if the platform makes available a satisfactory number of services. According to Colace et. Al. (2003), the services necessary for on-line training to be efficient are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

e-mail textual or vocal chat whiteboard discussion forum live or pre-recorded audio/video stream reproducer 6. virtual classroom 7. content research 8. application sharing 9. progress tracking 10. auto-evaluation tests 11. integration between progress record and didactic material delivery.

Table 1. System requisites System requisites Web-based platfrom Modular system Portable system Supported characteristic Partially supported characteristic Non-supported characteristic

Table 2. Results for the management index Remote Tool

Weight

Sensing

Progress Tracking

3

3

Course Management

2

2

Platform

Groups Management

2

2

Contents Management

1

1

Contents Sharing

2

-

Import Standard Contents

1

-

Import Contents

2

2

New Courses Management

1

1

Course Index

1

1

Report

2

2

Assessment

1

1

Courses Catalogue

1

1

Multiple Question Test

1

1

Assessment Report

2

2

On line Registration

1

1

User Management

1

1

Total

24

21

Index value

0.875

The Remote Sensing platfor m offers 1,2,4,5,7,9,10 and 11 and thus obtained 8 as a score, which was considered quite satisfactory compared to the majority of commercial platforms that were examined in the Colace et. Al. study mentioned earlier. Only 47% of the platforms

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Table 3. Obtained results for the collaborative index

Table 5. Adaptation of users formative learning path index

Remote Tool

Weight

Sensing

E-mail

1

Forum

Remote Tools

Weight

1

Progress Tracking

3

3

2

2

User Groups Manage-

Chat

2

2

ment

2

2

Whiteboard

2

-

Report

2

2

Streaming A/V

2

2

Assessment

1

1

2

2

Multiple Question Test

1

1

Assessment Report

2

2

2

-

Total

11

11

Virtual Classroom

3

-

Total

16

11

Platform

Contents Dow nload Application Sharing

Index

0.68

Table 4. Results for the management and enjoyment of interactive learning objects index Remote Tool

Weight

Sensing

Streaming A/V

2

2

Contents Download

2

2

Application Sharing

2

-

Virtual Classroom

3

-

Total

9

4

Platform

Index

0.44

examined in the study had scores equal to or greater than 8. A series of indicators, in the framework of the Colace et. Al. Models, concerning the functional elements of the platform were then examined, in order to get a more complete picture of its potential to best satisfy students’ training needs (Adaktilou et. Al, 2007). The first indicator was the ‘Management Index’ .This index proposed by Colace et. Al.(2006), aims to evaluate the number of services for the manage-

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Sensing Platform

Index

1

ment of students and their progress available in the learning platform. The weights assigned indicate the relative importance of each feature. Management Index= obtained value for the supported tools/max value The second index was the Collaborative index, which aims to evaluate how many collaborative services are available in a learning platform (Colace et. Al, 2006). That is, services that allow the interaction among students and/or teachers. Collaborative Index= Obtained value for the supported tools/Max value The scores obtained by the 4 platforms tested in the Colace et. Al study were: 1, 0.5, 1 and 0.47. The next index used was for the ‘Management and enjoyment of interactive learning objects’. Its title fully describes its aim and the index may be calculated (Colace et. Al., 2006) as: Management and enjoyment of interactive learning objects Index=Obtained value for the supported tools/Max value

A Learning Platform for the Introduction of Remote Sensing Principles in Higher Education

The scores obtained by the 4 platforms tested in the Colace et. Al study were:1, 0.22, 1 and 0.22 respectively. Finally, the ‘Adaptation of users formative learning path’ Index was used. This index evaluates how many services exist that allow the creation of personalized learning paths and the continuous assessment of students (Colace et al. 2006). Adaptation of users formative learning path Index= Obtained value for the supported tools/ Max value The scores obtained by the 4 platforms tested in the Colace et. Al study were: 0.818, 0.818, 1 and 0.818. The former constitutes a preliminary formative evaluation of the Remote Sensing learning platform, that allows the comparison of several of its features to the functions provided by existing, known and widely used platforms. The scores obtained show that the learning tool proposed may be considered quite satisfactory as far as the possibilities it gives for a successful on-line training are concerned. As described in detail in section 2.4.1., there are more stages in the formative evaluation process that have to do with students’ and teachers’ satisfaction with the learning tool and that will allow the identification of important elements for the function, usability and acceptance of the learning platform proposed. These are considered to be determining factors for the overall evaluation of the learning environment created and will provide the framework for all changes/ adjustments necessary.

ConCluSIon And FuTuRe woRk The use of Information and Communication Technology in education at a University level often reveals a discrepancy between expectations

and the results achieved. This discrepancy may be attributed to two problems: the tools’ inadequate didactical inclusion and the technical and organizational efforts involved. Experience proves that there is no simple and easy way to adopt eLearning practices, since the process is complex and there is no knowledge of doing it absolutely right.. The present study, which is still under development, proposes the use of technologies, and more specifically a learning platform, for the introduction of Remote Sensing principles to University students. Τhis learning platform aims to act as a centralized active digital “repository” that may simplify the learner’s work and boost learning efficiency through interactivity and live communication tools. Emphasis was put on the creation of a learner-centered environment that could prioritize the possibility to create personalized learning paths to support various learning styles and skills. The instructor will act as a facilitator who helps the students frame their experiences, encourages further exploration and removes potential obstacles. Since technologies do not guarantee effective learning, one of the main elements of the study is the evaluation of the learning tool. Its completion will allow the provision of evidence that will demonstrate whether learning in this scientific field has been enabled, enriched or enhanced through the tool’s use. The study is at its pilot phase; the material and the learning platform, as well as the tools for the formative evaluation have been completed. A first approach to the formative evaluation has taken place, on the basis of indices that aim to describe and characterize aspects and services provided by the platform created. The platform’s scores showed that its overall design and structure indicate its potential as a good learning tool for the distribution of knowledge in a computer assisted manner. The group of students who will perform the initial formative evaluation has been selected on the basis of their appropriate background in order to comprehend the tool and provide useful

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feedback. The first application of the learning platform will shortly take place at the Physics Department of the University of Athens. The evaluation of this experience will provide the material necessary for the platform’s workgroup to make the modifications and adjustments and follow it up in a next phase to validate decisions made.

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This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 2, edited by E. M. W. Ng; N. Karacapilidis; M. S. Raisinghani, pp. 43-60, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.9

eLearning in the Cloud Niall Sclater The Open University, UK

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

Elearning has grown rapidly in importance for institutions and has been largely facilitated through the “walled garden” of the virtual learning environment. Meanwhile many students are creating their own personal learning environments by combining the various Web 2.0 services they find most useful. Cloud computing offers new opportunities for institutions to provide dynamic and up-to-date Internet-based, e-learning applications while ensuring high levels of service, and compliance with institutional policies and legislation. The cloud is rapidly evolving in its architecture, the services offered and the logistics of deployment. It brings with it risks but also possibilities for learners and for educational institutions to reduce costs and enhance services. It is likely to severely disrupt the business model developed by existing vendors of VLEs who provide an integrated suite of e-learning tools, installed and maintained by the institution’s IT services department.

Of increasing importance to educational institutions for managing elearning content and functionality are their virtual learning environments (VLEs), also known as learning management systems (LMSs). There is no single definition of a VLE and the systems themselves are continuously evolving and adopting new tools such as blogs and wikis as these emerge on the Internet. Some VLEs incorporate eportfolio functionality, for example, while others keep this outside the conceptual boundary of the VLE. A major criticism levelled at VLEs is that they are not good at enabling the generation and storage of user-generated content or the fostering of social networks. Some educators bypass their institutional systems to avoid the restrictions placed on users. They find tools which are freely available on the Internet and provide more up-todate, “fun” facilities for students to collaborate and to create, store and share their own content.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

eLearning in the Cloud

In the context of formal learning this is arguably only possible with small groups of students, facilitated by educators with high levels of IT skills. There are also many problems with every student building their own personal learning environment (PLE), particularly where the elearning elements of a course are collaborative or assessed. One feature common to all VLEs (and not easy to replicate by piecing together various applications hosted elsewhere on the Internet) is the ability to provide specific content and functionality to closed groups of students who are taking a particular course for a defined period. This is necessary in the context of formal learning for a number of reasons as outlined in Sclater (2008). The institution may have invested substantially in the development of learning content and may feel that its market is threatened if it makes the content available freely to anyone on the Internet (though many universities report business benefits from their open content initiatives). Secondly, there are advantages to learning within a “walled garden” where a sense of community and common purpose can be developed with fellow students, keeping out spammers and disruptive users, which is particularly important if the learners are children. Thirdly, there are elements of the environment which the institution may wish to control for legal, ethical or business reasons such as accessibility for disabled learners, availability and robustness, security of personal data and branding. Finally, there are advantages in the institution owning user access data so that services and content can be enhanced, leading to a better learning experience and higher levels of student retention. If the institutionally-hosted VLE is at one extreme of elearning provision and the personal learning environment comprised of multiple Web 2.0 sites controlled by the learner is at the other, a third potentially disruptive model has recently emerged. Two companies, Google and Microsoft, have begun to offer services to university staff and students which replace or complement functionality hosted by institutional systems such

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as email, instant messaging, calendaring, the creation, storage, sharing of personal documents and Website creation. Google’s Apps for Education and Microsoft’s Live@edu systems package together a range of tools which can be customised and branded to some extent for institutions but are hosted externally by the companies in what has come to be known as “the cloud”.

The Cloud hoveRS oveR The eleARnIng lAndSCAPe Google’s cloud is a network made of perhaps a million cheap servers distributed in data centres across the World, storing numerous copies of the World Wide Web. This massive, distributed architecture makes searching extremely fast and provides a high degree of resilience, enabling individual servers to be replaced with faster machines after a few years with no impact on overall performance (Baker, 2007). Google and a few other companies with very large high speed distributed networks of computers, notably Microsoft and Amazon, realized that their computing resources were of value to other organisations and could be made available to them for a wide range of applications. As with the term “VLE”, Cloud Computing has various definitions. Vaquero et al. (2009) examined more than twenty of them and proposed the following: Clouds are a large pool of easily usable and accessible virtualized resources (such as hardware, development platforms and/or services). These resources can be dynamically re-configured to adjust to a variable load (scale), allowing also for an optimum resource utilization. This pool of resources is typically exploited by a pay-per-use model in which guarantees are offered by the Infrastructure Provider by means of customized SLAs. (p. 51)

eLearning in the Cloud

Apart from being able to benefit from economies of scale, providers of cloud computing are increasingly operating from locations where electricity is cheaper than in regions where organisations currently host their data centres. Prices vary dramatically between states in the US and elsewhere in the World – currently from 5.91 cents per kilowatt-hour in Idaho to 23.35 cents in Hawaii (Energy Administration Information, 2009). Situating a data centre next to a hydroelectric power station makes sense fundamentally because it is easier to transport photons than electrons, or data over fibre optic cables than electricity over high-voltage lines (Armbrust et al., 2009). If this location also combines the availability of skilled labour, low taxes and low property costs then the financial advantages can be even greater (Katz, Goldstein & Yanosky, 2009). There are three main categories of cloud computing services which utilize the distributed hardware infrastructure (Johnson, Levine & Smith, 2009). At the lowest level are computing resources such as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud where organisations can effectively run their own Linux servers on virtual machines and scale up usage as required extremely quickly. At the next level up developers can write applications for proprietary architectures such as the Google Apps Engine in the Python language. This is currently free to use though there are limits to storage and monthly traffic (Buyya, Yeo & Venugopal, 2008). The final type of cloud computing service, of most interest to educational institutions, involves applications which are hosted in the cloud and accessed through a Web browser. Not only is the data stored in the cloud, but the application is too, changing the computing paradigm to a more traditional client-server model where minimal functionality resides on the user’s machine. This leaves the responsibility for software upgrades, virus checking and other maintenance with the cloud service provider. It also means that because everything is accessed and held on the Internet, sharing, version management and collaborative

editing are much easier than when the applications and data reside on individuals’ computers. Additionally, it allows the vendor to provide applications on the platform of their choice (though they must still ensure they work on a variety of browsers) (Hayes, 2008). The primary attraction for institutions signing up for cloud services such as Apps for Education or Live@edu is because it is cheaper to do this than to provide the services themselves; in fact there are currently no charges at all. There is no longer any need for purchasing and maintaining in-house the hardware and software to run these services. Such facilities are inevitably underutilized anyway; server usage in data centres is estimated to range from 5% to 20%. However, for many services the peak workload is a factor of up to ten greater than the average (Armbrust et al., 2009). Such peaks can occur at universities for instance when exam results are released online. Cloud computing offers the illusion of infinite scalability, allowing rapid temporary escalations of usage for institutions. The idea is that the cloud is able to handle sudden spikes in usage by distributing the requests across its multiple servers. In the cloud organisations do not have to plan usage levels in advance to cope with rapid or longer-term increases or falls in levels of business. They simply pay for the computing resources used. This is likely to have positive environmental impacts as well which may add an ethical argument for a shift towards the cloud. Another claimed advantage of cloud computing is that organisations can mix and match the various components they require without being bound to a rigid computing infrastructures (Jigsaw Networking, 2009). In the educational sphere, a university may decide to use Google Apps for Education for hosting student email, but withhold the other features. At a later stage an institution might decide to provide Google Docs, the online word processor and spreadsheet application to students. Another major advantage of cloud computing is the reduction in staff costs and the removal of

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the requirement to support certain applications by the organisation or to maintain staff skills in that area. One university estimates a saving of $450,000 per year by decommissioning its self-hosted email system (Barlow & Lane, 2007). The conclusion reached by some commentators is that services of this sort will pave the way for commodified computing where organisations no longer host their own data centres with expensive hardware, power bills, rarely used computing power and staff salaries (Weiss, 2007). Costs are not reduced completely however as the educational institutions still need to maintain the systems which feed student registration data into the cloud systems. Universities retain control over the data, and are responsible for dealing with cases of misuse and frontline user support. One cloud application which has begun to embed itself in universities by stealth is Second Life. Few institutions are seriously considering hosting Second Life (or other virtual worlds) in-house when Linden Labs will maintain the hardware and software for them at minimal cost. So what are the advantages to Microsoft and Google of offering their services for free to universities? The services are offered advertisement-free so there is no revenue generated in that way. Software is generally heavily discounted for those in education so it is part of a long tradition. The companies hope however to increase brand awareness and if the students continue to use the services after graduation they are then presented with advertising. Google also offers Apps for companies so some alumni may consider introducing the services which they have become used to as students in their workplace.

A gRAduAl mIgRATIon oF eleARnIng SeRvICeS To The Cloud Email is likely to be the catalyst for an increasing shift of educational service provision from university data centres to the cloud. Many students

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opt to use their own email account already, often using Microsoft’s Hotmail or Google’s Gmail, so will be unaffected or may simply switch to a university account on the same cloud-based system they are used to. Already more than 1,000 educational institutions have signed up with Microsoft or Google to give their students an email account branded with the institution’s domain name (Carnevale, 2008). The companies also offer to host staff and alumni accounts for free and the case for moving these to the cloud as well may become increasingly compelling. Many faculty and staff at Arizona State University, for example, were keen to follow their students in moving to Gmail and take advantage of the other Google applications (Barlow & Lane, 2007). Email is a relatively easy service to make the case for migrating as it is a simple technology, standards-based, has minimal bespoke institutional adaptations, and incurs a variety of institutional costs. One institution reported 97% of email being spam or suspected spam and an “unquenchable” demand for additional storage by users (Sanders, 2008). The benefits of having experts elsewhere dealing with issues such as spam removal and software upgrades, and the large amounts of storage space available freely to users are clear. However, even the introduction of cloud-based email has proved difficult for some institutions. At the University of Idaho, students protested vehemently and inundated their help desk when Microsoft Live@edu email was introduced. They felt that the university was forcing them to use a particular product from a vendor which was not universally liked. The biggest complaint was the lack of access to email through POP or IMAP. Microsoft accelerated the development of POP functionality, and the release of this together with better communications alleviated the situation. A year later the majority of the students were finding the system easy to use (Kearney & Miller, 2008). Email is just one of a whole host of online services currently provided by the educational

eLearning in the Cloud

Table 1. Elearning services offered by different systems Blackboard

Moodle

Microsoft Live@edu

Google Apps for Education

Forum

•

•

•

Instant Messaging

•

•

•

•

•

•

Google Groups

Communications

Email Blog

•

•

•

Wiki / collaborative editing

•

•

•

Polling / surveys

•

•

On demand group collaboration areas

•

•

• •

•

•

Audio/video conferencing Shared whiteboards Assessment Quiz

•

•

•

Assignment upload

•

•

Gradebook

•

•

Group document storage

•

•

•

Personal document storage

•

•

•

Glossary

•

•

Newsfeeds

•

•

Content

institutions themselves. Table 1 shows some of the most common elearning services and under which systems they can be found. The table compares the two most widely used VLEs, Blackboard and Moodle, with Microsoft and Google’s educational cloud offerings. It also includes Google Groups, a system available to anyone which could easily be added to Google Apps for Education to provide spaces for group collaboration. It should be noted that this is a rapidly changing landscape and features are being continually added to all of the systems listed. Some of the tools such as personal document storage may not be part of the VLEs themselves but can be provided through plug-ins while others such as the synchronous facilities of videoconferencing and shared whiteboards are generally provided by commercial systems such as Elluminate or Webex. Also the different systems implement these facilities in different ways, VLEs tending to provide

• •

tools which are customized for education, while the cloud systems are for more general usage. What is interesting about the table is that the cloud applications already provide the majority of the functionality of a virtual learning environment. A notable exception however is around assessment. While Google Apps allows the creation of surveys which could be used for assessment – and the automatic collation of student input in a spreadsheet for the assessor – the system would have none of the sophistication of the quiz tools in Moodle and Blackboard which is required for any serious use of e-assessment. There is of course no gradebook functionality either in the cloud applications. This is hardly surprising as they have not been designed with education specifically in mind. However it is unlikely to be long before both Microsoft and Google begin to add education-specific applications to these suites. Educational users have already been suggesting to Google that the

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company builds a VLE together with Google Apps (Google, 2009a). If this functionality continues to be offered for free, the case for institutions to host their own copies of Moodle or Blackboard will become considerably weaker. In the meantime Google has introduced integration between Google Apps and Moodle, enabling single sign-on. This was developed by MoodleRooms, a company which, along with others, already hosts Moodle “in the cloud” for educational institutions who do not want the expense of internal hosting (Shanbhag, 2008). One educational application which may be a prime candidate for movement to the cloud is the eportfolio. There are some commercial eportfolio applications such as PebblePad and open source equivalent, Mahara, which integrate with Moodle. The concept of the eportfolio is still evolving but it is primarily a storage area, enabling the user to share content with others and compile different components of their work into collections of documents for assessment purposes. Eportfolio systems often commonly include learning journals and blogs. Boundaries between eportfolio systems and VLEs are fluid. Barrett (2009) shows how various Google applications can be combined to create an eportfolio system. Students can set up a portal using iGoogle with links to their files and applications. They can discuss their work with other students and their tutor using Google Groups. Textual documents, spreadsheets and presentations can be stored in Google Docs, while videos and images can be uploaded to other Google applications. Google Sites (one of the applications with Google Apps for Education) can be used to compile the various documents into a submission for assessment purposes. A current limitation of this approach is that there is no way to “freeze” a Google site at a particular point, something which may be necessary for assessments. If it was possible to submit an entire Google site to an assignment handling system that might be one way forward.

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The affordances of cloud applications (or lack of them) as with any system used in an educational context can have major implications for the design of learning activities and assessments, and the resulting student experience. A vendor may for example remove user accounts which have not been used for a specified period. If an eportfolio is to be potentially a record of lifelong learning then such a system would clearly not be usable in that context.

RISkS oF mIgRATIng To The Cloud Moving elearning services to the cloud is not without risk to the institution. While companies such as Google and Microsoft are unlikely to go bankrupt in the foreseeable future, leaving customers without essential services, there are risks in becoming heavily dependent on a single company. Both organisations offer a service level agreement to universities, lasting for several years. There is of course no guarantee that the service will remain after that period or that it will remain free of charge. Significant changes to the service could result in major costs for institutions who have relinquished control over the software, if not the data. Even minor upgrades to the cloud software which are released regularly could make documentation obsolete or subtly change a carefully crafted learning activity. It has already been seen how in one university there was resistance to the imposition of Microsoft’s Hotmail service. Google may in the future suffer from similar adverse publicity and associating an institution’s brand too closely with Google may be inadvisable. The “Googlization” of universities through increasing dependence on Google Search, Google Scholar, Google Maps and other Google applications could provoke a backlash among students. Issues such as Google’s submission to Chinese censorship laws and recent objections to the Google Street View camera car have impacted on the company’s image.

eLearning in the Cloud

Students and staff may have legitimate concerns about the storage of their data, particularly if it is located in the US where data protection laws are less strict than in the EU. Google however claims that European student data will be held in compliance with EU law. Both companies have privacy policies which state that student data is not shared with third parties or mined to gather information on individuals (Carnevale, 2008). Even Google and Microsoft with the vast resources and skills available to them are not immune from service disruptions such as denial of service attacks. The management of cloud computing by a single company is a single point of failure, even if the company is using data centres distributed geographically. This has led one institution to suggest that the soundest strategy would be to use more than one cloud provider (Armbrust et al., 2009), though the logistics of this in the context of elearning are currently daunting. More fundamentally, cloud computing is still a new phenomenon and technical implementation issues remain. There are concerns that existing networks may not be ready yet to handle the implied massively increased traffic and that client machines are almost useless when network access is unavailable (Weiss, 2007). Google Gears allows users to continue working in several Google applications when disconnected and it does seem likely that future applications will combine limited functionality on the client with computing power in the cloud. The Google and Microsoft systems do not function equally well on all browsers and recent tests at the Open University have shown that they are not fully accessible, particularly to users with screen readers. Usability remains an issue: operating systems based on multiple windows have been fine-tuned over many years and it is difficult to duplicate this functionality within a Web browser (Hayes, 2008). HTML still does not incorporate the ability to drag a document from the desktop to a Web browser window, for example, though this is promised in future versions of the language.

ConCluSIon Does the cloud offer a way forward in the debate between protagonists of personal learning environments and those in institutions responsible for hosting virtual learning environments? Cloud applications provided under service level agreements with reputable vendors will give university IT departments the reassurances they need about availability and robustness, protection of minors, accessibility and data protection. It will also mean that they retain access to valuable “clickstream” data, allowing them to monitor usage and enhance services accordingly. PLE advocates on the other hand want students and themselves to be able to select the best tools from the Internet to carry out their learning. They would like to be free from restrictive institutional policies and have flexible, highly available tools. Cloud-based elearning services are likely to be more up to date than those provided within VLEs and might satisfy some of the innovators’ desires for better user generated content creation tools and social networking software. Greater personalization is also possible with tools such as iGoogle. In fact Arizona State University built systems to feed course content, news headlines etc. to a Google Personal Start Page (Barlow & Lane, 2007). Google has opened up Apps for Education with an API allowing institutions to customize the applications and integrate other software. Even if Google does not create functionality specifically for learners, another provider may choose to develop elearning applications which effectively turns Google Apps into a VLE. Universities themselves are experimenting with making their services available as “pluggable objects” that can be incorporated in systems where students might prefer to be (Hermans & Verjans, 2009). The Open University has provided an application in Facebook which allows students to “find a study buddy” for example. One suggested way forward is for a flexible architecture where widgets (typically small HTML files incorporating JavaScript

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libraries) for services such as timetabling and tutor messaging are provided by the institution in their VLEs and also in the Web 2.0 application of the student’s choice (Wilson, Sharples & Griffiths, 2009). Both the VLE and the other applications may reside on the cloud but the widget would be delivered from the University’s internal systems. Google Wave (Google, 2009b), a collaboration system merging concepts from email, instant messaging, forums and social networking sites may prove to be a good model for such a widget residing in the cloud but integrated into various applications running on multiple platforms including mobile devices. From a university’s point of view the cloud enables certain parameters to be much more controllable than where students are pointed to the Websites of a variety of providers on the Internet with whom the institution has no contractual arrangement. The service level agreement offered by Microsoft and Google for several years guarantees a level of service that the institutions are unlikely to provide themselves. The Open University’s computing service for example aims for 99.5% availability of elearning services and sometimes does not meet that target. Google offers 99.9% availability for Apps for Education and anecdotal reports from the University of Westminster are that the service provided is nearer to 99.99%. The impact of service disruptions on students who rely on the VLE for learning and assessment cannot be underestimated. IT services departments can also hope that users who have their needs fulfilled from cloud applications will be less likely to set up an insecure server under their desk and that the overall complexity of university networks can be reduced. On the other hand, staff will find it increasingly easy to bypass central services and take decisions without reference to policies which have been designed to protect the institution (Yanosky, 2008). Will IT services therefore resist a movement to the cloud which may ultimately reduce the power and authority associated with controlling large budgets

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and numbers of staff? Goldstein (2008) suggests that the rise of the cloud could actually increase the influence of the chief information officer, moving the focus to how the institution can make best use of the technology rather than merely how to implement it. Younger staff (and students) who barely remember a world without Google search, broadband and Facebook may be considerably less resistant to embracing cloud-based services (Katz, Goldstein & Yanosky, 2009). Much has been written about the commodification of IT (e.g. Carr, 2003), drawing parallels with the infrastructure developed for railways and electricity provision. The case for moving low level computing infrastructure to the cloud is convincing. Generic applications in widespread use outside education such as wordprocessing, spreadsheets, image editing software and email also make sense to be delivered increasingly this way. It remains to be seen whether all educational applications can be made generic enough to be delivered from the cloud however. Many institutions have unique requirements due to their teaching methodologies, examination regulations, funding regimes and government policies, and national or regional legal frameworks. It is likely that large institutions with diverse or specific requirements will move to the cloud more slowly than smaller organisations (Goldstein, 2008). The inertia in higher education and previous financial commitments will also militate against a sudden paradigm shift to cloud computing (Jigsaw Networking, 2009), particularly for those with significant amounts of content and learning activities embedded in existing VLEs and large numbers of staff who have developed skills with particular elearning systems. The full costs of delivering IT services are rarely taken into account by universities and there are justified concerns such as avoiding adverse publicity which may mean a slower migration to the cloud than in industry. On the other hand, cloud zealots may underestimate the real costs of moving services outside the institution, both for the migration itself and any ongoing maintenance

eLearning in the Cloud

required (Katz, Goldstein & Yanosky, 2009). The vision of true commoditization for elearning services where institutions can switch providers with ease is unlikely to materialize as this would require universally agreed standards. The minimal interoperability between existing content and applications in learning management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle suggests that being able to move an entire university’s elearning provision from one system in the cloud to another would be a highly complex and expensive task. Implementations of Blackboard and Moodle are themselves increasingly likely to migrate to the Cloud. The question remains whether institutions will make use of integrations of these VLEs with other cloud applications or whether systems such as Live@edu and Google Apps for Education will adopt more specific elearning functionality and make the more traditional VLEs obsolete.

Carnevale, D. (2008). Colleges get out of e-Mail business. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(18).

ReFeRenCeS

Google (2009b). Google wave. Retrieved May 29, 2009, from http://wave.google.com/

Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R. H., Konwinski, A., et al. (2009). Above the clouds: A Berkeley view of cloud computing. University of California at Berkeley. Retrieved May 25, 2009, from http://www.eecs.berkeley. edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.html Baker, S. (2007). Google and the wisdom of clouds. Business Week, 4064, 49-55. Barlow, K., & Lane, J. (2007). Like technology from an advanced alien culture: Google Apps for education at ASU. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services (pp. 8-10). New York: ACM. Buyya, R., Yeo, C. S., & Venugopal, S. (2008, September). Market-oriented cloud computing: Vison, hype, and reality for delivering IT services as computing utilities. In Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications. Los Alamitos, California: IEEE CS Press.

Carr, N. G. (2003). IT doesn’t matter. [Boston: Harvard Business School Publication Corp.]. Harvard Business Review, 81(5), 41–49. Energy Information Administration (2009). Average retail price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector, by state. Goldstein (2008). The tower, the cloud, and the IT leader and workforce. In R. Katz (Ed.), The tower and the cloud (pp. 238-260). Boulder, CO: Educause. Google (2009a). LMS and Google Apps – first comes love… Official Google enterprise blog. Retrieved May 29, 2009, from http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/02/lms-and-googleapps-first-comes-love.html

Hayes, B. (2008). Cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 51(7). New York: ACM. Hermans, H., & Verjans, S. (2009). Developing a sustainable, student centred VLE: The OUNL case. Retrieved May 29, 2009, from http://dspace. ou.nl/bitstream/1820/1894/1/Hermans_Verjans_ ICDE2009_V4.pdf Jigsaw Networking. (2009). Cloud computing. Retrieved May 29, 2009, from http://www.jigsawnetworking.com/articles/cloud-computingfor-creatives.aspx Johnson, L., Levine, A., & Smith, R. (2009). The 2009 horizon report. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.

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Katz, R., Goldstein, P., & Yanosky, R. (2009). Demystifying cloud computing for higher education. Educause Research Bulletin, 19. Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2009. Retrieved November 1, 2009, from http:// www.educause.edu/ecar. Kearney, D. J., & Miller, D. C. (2008). VandalMail live: Bringing a campus into the Microsoft @EDU program. In Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services (pp. 107112). New York: ACM. Sanders, C. A. (2008). Coming down the e-mail mountain, blazing a trail to Gmail. In Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services Conference (pp. 101-106). New York: ACM. Sclater, N. (2008). Web 2.0, personal learning environments and the future of learning management systems. Educause Research Bulletin, 13. Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2009. Retrieved November 1, 2009, from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Shanbhag, R. (2008). Open source Moodle heads to the Amazon cloud. Retrieved May 29, 2009, from http://asterisk.tmcnet.com/topics/ open-source/articles/34257-open-source-moodleheads-the-amazon-cloud.htm Vaquero, L., Rodero-Merino, L., Caceres, J., & Lindner, M. (2009). A break in the clouds: Towards a cloud definition. Computer Communication Review, 39(1), 50–55. doi:10.1145/1496091.1496100 Weiss, A. (2007). Computing in the clouds. netWorker, 11(4), 16-25. New York: ACM. Wilson, S., Sharples, P., & Griffiths, D. (2009). Distributing education services to personal and institutional systems using Widgets. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Mashup Personal Learning Environments (pp. 25-32). Maastricht, Netherlands.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, Vol. 1, Issue 1, edited by M. Thomas, pp. 10-19, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.10

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0 Thomas Cochrane Unitec, New Zealand Roger Bateman Unitec, New Zealand

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm.

The term Web 2.0 was coined in 2005 (O’Reilly, 2005) as a way of characterizing the emerging interactive, user-centered Web based tools that were revolutionizing the way the Internet was conceptualized and used. These tools include: blogs, Wikis, image-sharing (e.g., Flickr), videosharing (e.g., YouTube), podcasting, and so forth. These Web 2.0, or “social software,” tools share many synergies with social constructivist learning pedagogies. Therefore many educators have harnessed Web 2.0 tools for creating engaging student-centered learning environments. This appropriation of Web 2.0 tools within a social constructivist pedagogy facilitates what has been termed “pedagogy 2.0.” Pedagogy 2.0 integrates Web 2.0 tools that support knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer networking, and access to a global audience with socioconstructivist learning approaches to facilitate greater

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

learner autonomy, agency, and personalization (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). mobile web 2.0 While there have been many attempts to define the unique essence of mobile learning (m-learning), most have either focused on the mobility of the device, the learner, or on the facilitation of informal learning beyond the confines of the classroom (Kukulsa-Hulme & Traxler, 2005; Laurillard, 2007; Sharples, Milrad, Sanchez, & Vavoula, 2007; Wali, Winters, & Oliver, 2008). Mobile learning, as defined by the authors of this article, involves the use of wireless enabled mobile digital devices (Wireless Mobile Devices or WMDs) within and between pedagogically designed learning environments or contexts. From an activity theory perspective, WMDs are the tools that mediate a wide range of learning activities and facilitate collaborative learning environments (Uden, 2007). M-learning can support and enhance both the face to face and off campus teaching and learning contexts by using the mobile wireless devices as a means to leverage the potential of Web 2.0 tools. The WMD’s wireless connectivity and data gathering abilities (e.g., photoblogging, video recording, voice recording, and text input) allow for bridging the on and off campus learning contexts, facilitating “real world learning.” It is the potential for mobile learning to bridge pedagogically designed learning contexts, facilitate learner generated contexts, and content (both personal and collaborative), while providing personalisation and ubiquitous social connectedness, that sets it apart from more traditional learning environments. Situating the Research This section briefly overviews a short history and critique of mobile learning research, indicating the research gaps that this study attempts to fill, and situates the research project within the context of

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current mobile learning activity. The twenty-first century has seen the consolidation and maturing of m-learning research (Traxler, 2008), while the increase in m-learning-focused conferences (e.g., MLearn, Handheld Learning, mICTe), research projects and briefing papers from organizations like JISC, and articles in educational journals like Educause, JCAL, and so forth, demonstrate a growing general interest in m-learning. Many early m-learning studies were relatively shortterm pilot studies, and lacked rigor in evaluation and epistemological underpinnings (Traxler & Kukulsa-Hulme, 2005), and many studies focus upon content delivery for small screen devices and the personal digital assistant capabilities of mobile devices rather than leveraging the potential of mobile devices for collaborative learning as recommended by Hoppe, Joiner, Milrad, and Sharples (2003). In recent years there has been a flurry of m-learning research and case studies, particularly from the UK. M-learning and Web 2.0 technologies have been identified as emerging tools to enhance teaching and learning (Anderson, 2007; Becta, 2007; Johnson, Levine, & Smith, 2009; McFarlane, Roche, & Triggs, 2007; McLoughlin & Lee, 2008; New Media Consortium, 2007, 2008; Sharples et al., 2007; Traxler, 2007; Trinder, Guiller, Marggaryan, Littlejohn, & Nicol, 2008), but are not usually explicitly linked together. Many recent m-learning research projects have focused on the informal learning environment, and often presuppose “self-motivated learners” like pre-service teachers (Cook, Pachler, & Bradley, 2008). Few studies have yet to explicitly bridge both the formal and informal learning contexts within “main-stream” tertiary education. One exception was the AMULETS (CeLeKT, 2009) project (Advanced Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning Environments for Teachers and Students), which explored “collaboration in context,” bridging indoor and outdoor learning experiences using mobile and location aware devices in both secondary and tertiary scenarios.

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

Several larger mobile learning projects have tended to focus on specific groups of learners, rather than developing pedagogical strategies for tertiary education in general. For example the “m-learning project” extended over four years, focusing on retention of at risk learners by using cell phone technologies (Attewell, 2005). The RAMBLE (Remote Authoring of Mobile Blogs for Learning Environments) mobile learning project (Trafford, 2005) investigated the use of mobile devices for blogging and accessing a VLE (virtual learning environment). However, the mobile devices (Palm OS PDAs) were not wireless capable, relying on desktop computers for synchronization to update the students’ blogs. Corlett, Sharples, Bull, and Chan, (2005) identified wireless connectivity as a key factor in the success of their implementation of a mobile learning organizer. Other examples of large-scale m-learning projects include: MOBILearn (Europe), MobilED (South Africa), and MoLeNET (UK). MoLeNET is possibly the largest m-learning research project undertaken so far. MoLeNET is UK based, focused on FE (Further Education institutions) and funded by the Learning and Skills Council. In its initial phase (2007 to 2008), the MoLeNET project included 32 FE institutions undertaking a variety of m-learning implementations. Now in its third year, MoLeNET has provided 12 million pounds of funded investment in m-learning in the UK to 115 Colleges and 29 Schools, involving around 20,000 learners and 4,000 staff. Many of the MoLeNET projects investigate the affordances of a variety of mobile devices loaned to students for accessing course related content. The MoLeNET project has a robust focus on developing a model of professional development and support for educators, and a rigorous evaluation process. A list of a range of current m-learning projects can be found on the International Association for Mobile Learning Web site (2008). The listed projects encompass a wide variety of m-learning implementations. M-learning projects with a focus on mobile web 2.0 tools and a social constructiv-

ist pedagogy include the work of Chan (2007), the JISC funded MORSE project (Andrew, Hall, & Taylor, 2009), and the m-learning projects at the University of Wollongong (Herrington, 2008; Herrington, Herrington, Mantei, Olney, & Ferry, 2009; Herrington, Mantei, Herrington, Olney, & Ferry, 2008). Chan is investigating the potential of mo-blogging to support work-based learning for apprentice bakery chefs. The MORSE project (November 2008 to October 2010) investigates the use of mobile Web 2.0 tools to support students away from the institution during fieldtrips and work placement (ranging from 1 day to 2 weeks duration up to 15 times per year). The University of Wollongong projects are a series of short-term (6-week-long) mobile learning projects based around the affordances of institutionally loaned Palm Treo smartphones and iPods in a tertiary education department. Pedagogy The underpinning pedagogy chosen for the project is social constructivism, focusing upon students on a Product Design course recording and documenting their learning collaboratively across multiple contexts using mobile Web 2.0 tools. Social constructivism can be contrasted with the more instructivist, content-driven pedagogies traditionally implemented in tertiary education. Herrington and Herrington (2007) argue that “the advances in philosophical and practical developments in education have created justifiable conditions for the pedagogical use of mobile technologies” based on newer learning theories that find their roots in social constructivism, such as authentic learning, communities of practice, distributed intelligence, distributed cognition, connectivism, and activity theory. Social constructivism focuses upon students being involved in learning environments as an explorative and social process. In general, education based on social constructivist pedagogies is interested in enabling students to develop creative, critical thinking, and collaborative skills,

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rather than focusing upon course content. The underpinning pedagogy of a course will determine how particular tools and technologies are used and integrated within the course. Therefore social constructivist learning environments prepare students for the types of graduate capabilities and characteristics that are required by successful Product Designers. McLoughlin and Lee advocate the exploration of the potential of the alignment of Web 2.0 tools and emerging learning paradigms based loosely upon social constructivism, the affordances of these technologies, coupled with a paradigm of learning focused on knowledge creation and networking, offer the potential for transformational shifts in teaching and learning practices, whereby learners can access peers, experts, the wider community and digital media in ways that enable reflective, self-directed learning. (2008, p. 649) Similarly, Herrington has proposed that mobile technologies can facilitate “authentic learning” (Herrington et al., 2008) based on social constructivist pedagogies. Web 2.0 social software provides tools for a learning and teaching environment that facilitates social constructivism beyond the bounds of institutionally managed e-learning systems (e.g., LMSs). Mobile Web 2.0 adds the extra dimension of context awareness, ubiquitous connectivity, and provides access to concept and content capturing tools in students’ hands wherever they are. Thus student engagement, collaboration and empowerment are facilitated. The connections between learning contexts, the WMD, and Web 2.0 social software is illustrated by an interactive mobile Web 2.0 concept map created by the researchers that can be viewed online at: http://homepage.mac.com/thom_cochrane/ MobileWeb2/mobileweb2concept2.htm. One of the key drivers for the introduction of m-learning into the course was the development of a flexible, context independent teaching and learning environment. The following is a quote

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from one of the Product Design lecturers at the start of a Community of Practice investigating the potential of mobile Web 2.0 technologies. What do I want to get out of this community of practice? The first thing that I would say would be ‘freedom.’ As somebody who has 2 or 3 offices around the campus sharing with other people because I move around the campus a lot, and somebody who works from home and travels around a lot for Unitec—I want to be able to speak with my students and members of staff and basically connect with Unitec and other people and institutions with ease and freedom. So being nomadic and being able to roam around and not have to be in one place to communicate with students on a daily basis is really important. And that is the primary reason for being involved in this community of practice— and I’m really looking forward to what happens (Course lecturer, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=jznHfb8dsvs). A recurring theme throughout the twelve m-learning projects conducted by the researchers from 2006 to 2009 has identified one critical success factor (of several) for integrating mobile Web 2.0 within tertiary education courses as the level of pedagogical integration of the technology into the course criteria and assessment. The case study reported here illustrates this by analysing attempts at the explicit pedagogical integration of m-learning into the course over a period of three years. Herrington and Herrington’s (2007) nine critical success factors in establishing authentic learning environments include: 1. Authentic contexts that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real life 2. Authentic activities that are complex, ill-defined problems and investigations 3. Authentic assessment that reflects the way knowledge is assessed in real life

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Laurillard (2007) also backs this up: “M-learning technologies offer exciting new opportunities for teachers to place learners in challenging active learning environments, making their own contributions, sharing ideas, exploring, investigating, experimenting, discussing, but they cannot be left unguided and unsupported. To get the best from the experience the complexity of the learning design must be rich enough to match those rich environments” (2007, p. 174). Expected student learning outcomes of the m-learning intervention included: • • • • •

Developing critical reflective skills Facilitating group communication Developing an online e-portfolio Developing a potentially world-wide peer support and critique network Learning how to maximise technology to enhance the learning environment across multiple contexts

Research methodology The research uses a participatory action research methodology. Yoland Wadsworth (1998) identifies the key characteristics of “participatory action research”: the researcher is a participant, the researcher is the main research instrument, it is cyclical in nature, involves action followed by reflection followed by informed action, and is concerned with producing change. This change is ongoing throughout the process, and the research is interested in input from participants and stakeholders. This allows for the continual development and improvement of the projects based on the feedback from participants at regular points in the projects. These reflective points were focused around the semester breaks, before which participant feedback was gathered via surveys and focus group discussions. Following this the researcher and the course lecturers spent significant time together critiquing the project implementation and modifying it for the follow-

ing semester period. The use of an intentional community of practice model for supporting the projects created a close relationship between the researcher, the course lecturers, and the students, who were all members and collaborators in the weekly community of practice sessions. Research Questions The research summarized herein is part of a wider research project investigating the potential of mobile Web 2.0 for enhancing tertiary education through a series of action research projects in a variety of disciplines. Each project is embedded within a different course and discipline context (Diploma of Contemporary Music, Diploma of Landscape Design, and Bachelor of Product Design), and each project utilizes a different WMD (smartphones: iPhone, Nokia N95, Sonyericsson P1i, Nokia XpressMusic 5800) with features that are most appropriate to each context. A comparative outline of the four mobile Web 2.0 projects can be found in the MLearn 2008 proceedings (Cochrane, 2008a). The variety of learning contexts covered by the project illustrates the transferability of the project’s approach to facilitating and supporting mobile Web 2.0 in tertiary education. This article focuses on the effect of mobile Web 2.0 on the pedagogical development of one of these projects (Third year Bachelor of Product Design), giving the viewpoint of the academic staff involved (Cochrane & Bateman, 2008b). The wider research questions are: 1. What are the key factors in integrating Wireless Mobile Devices (WMDs) within tertiary education courses? 2. What challenges/advantages to established pedagogies do these disruptive technologies present? 3. To what extent can these WMDs be utilized to support learner interactivity, collaboration,

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communication, reflection and interest, and thus provide pedagogically rich learning environments that engage and motivate the learner? 4. To what extent can WMDs be used to harness the potential of current and emerging social constructivist e-learning tools? Data gathering consists of: 1. Pre-trial surveys of lecturers and students, to establish current practice and expertise 2. Post-trial surveys and focus groups, to measure the impact of the wireless mobile computing environment, and the implementation of the guidelines. 3. Lecturer and student reflections via their own blogs during the trial. The blog is also an online e-portfolio facilitating the collection of rich media resources capturing critical incidents and providing a dynamic journal of student projects and tutor input (both formative and summative). The survey tool and focus group questions can be viewed in the appendix hosted online on Google Docs at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id= dchr4rgg_5478zdzbgw&hl=en_GB (Cochrane & Bateman, 2008b). A participatory action research methodology is used, creating a reflective research environment that continually seeks to improve the student learning outcomes based on regular student and tutor feedback. This article focuses on the aspect of pedagogical transformation by asking the academic staff involved to reflect on four related questions: 1. What potential benefits do you see for mobile Web 2.0 to enhance teaching and learning?

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2. Have you (so far) seen increased engagement in the course from students when using this technology? 3. What are the key issues for integrating this technology into your courses? 4. In what ways has (or will) your teaching approach changed by using these tools? Course tutors were asked to reflect on the impact of mobile Web 2.0 at several points throughout the trial, and used a variety of media to capture their reflections, including; posts to their blogs, VODCasts (video recordings uploaded to their blogs and YouTube), paper surveys, discussions, and brainstorms with the researcher.

BACheloR oF PRoduCT deSIgn (A CASe STudy) Bachelor of Product design Programme outline The Bachelor of Product Design is a level seven programme of 360 credits over three years of full time study. The programme is offered on a semester basis and aims to produce students who are equipped with theory and practice to contribute to the effective conception and delivery of robust, new ideas. In order to achieve this, students are required to be conceptually active and broadly informed but also sufficiently pragmatic to accept the importance of a thorough and systematic approach to realization. The programme was launched in 2003 and was borne out of a Bachelor of Design which had its roots in a traditional approach to design studio teaching that favored the Atelier Method (2008) or “private method” of instruction where an individual staff member works with a small group of students to progressively train them.

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

Table 1. Third year bachelor of product design major assignment 2006 Assignment Iteration 2006

Deliverables • A report summarizing all research undertaken and the key findings and insights. • All forms of prototype and test modeling i.e. 3D sketch models / ergonomic models / interface design wireframes / proof-of-concept working models, etc. • All drawings, sketches and CAD models.

Table 2. Third year bachelor of product design major assignment 2007 Assignment Iteration 2007

Deliverables • A report summarizing all research undertaken and the key findings and insights. • All forms of prototype and test modeling i.e. 3D sketch models / ergonomic models / interface design / proofof-concept working models, etc. • All drawings, sketches and CAD models. • A project plan for Part Two of the Major Project • A blog that runs throughout your major project. You should post to your Blog regularly • Use your blog to collate project information and reflect on your design process. Also regularly comment on each other’s blog posts – providing critique, feedback, and links to appropriate resources.

The standard studio environment of one communal space and one timetable is unlikely to offer the best support and learning opportunities for creative students. Design students probably more than other students are known to work at different paces and often redesign their projects just before the assignment is due to be handed in. Some students need to work with music playing whilst others require complete silence. Some students work in the afternoons whilst others prefer the mornings. The introduction of mobile Web 2.0 tools has facilitated significant flexibility for students to choose to work in virtually any context on and off campus. Collaboration The complexity of contemporary society is such that individual disciplines can no longer claim exclusive ownership of certain bodies of knowledge or areas of practice. Societies, organizations and individuals are progressively acknowledging the importance of collaborative endeavor. Specialists remain, but require additional knowledge, education and skills to allow them to work effectively as part of interdisciplinary teams.

The structure of the Bachelor of Product Design programme promotes the interconnectivity of core disciplines that are essential in design, development and innovation. The programme encourages students to view design holistically and acknowledge the contribution that the core disciplines make to the process The Bachelor of Product Design has a structure that is based around the principle of interconnectivity between core disciplines as essential elements of design, development and innovation. Key goals of the programme include: the gathering of knowledge; facilitating and implementing creativity; the development of essential skills including collaboration and communication; and the identification of personal strategies and interests. A social constructivist pedagogy facilitated via mobile Web 2.0 has close synergy and benefits for facilitating this collaboration. Methods of Programme Delivery Whereas the first and second year courses are characterized by elective courses, core courses and staff devised projects, the third and final year is predominantly self-directed. Students begin the year by choosing their projects from a set of open

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Table 3. Third year bachelor of product design major assignment 2008 Assignment Iteration 2008

Deliverables • A report summarizing all research undertaken and the key findings and insights. • All forms of prototype and test modeling i.e. 3D sketch models / ergonomic models / interface design / proof-ofconcept working models, etc. • All drawings, sketches and CAD models. • A project plan for Part Two of the Major Project • A VOX blog/eportfolio that runs throughout this phase and the rest of the year. You should post to your Blog at least weekly (preferably daily). 1. Use your VOX blog/eportfolio to collate the above, and reflect on your design process. Also regularly comment on each other’s VOX blog posts – providing critique, feedback, and links to appropriate resources. Your VOX blog/eportfolio should include the following: 2. An audio Podcast 3. A Video VODCast 4. Uploaded images (include geotags if possible – i.e. Google Maps links of image locations) 5. Text posts (Reflection, critique, process, summary, comments…) 6. Links to Web 2.0 multimedia site original content (e.g. create your own accounts on YouTube, Flickr, Google Docs, Slide.com etc…) 7. Use shared Google Calendars for course events/dates. • Electronic communication will be via GMail, MSN Messenger and RSS feeds (e.g. via Google Reader or Newsgator).

frameworks. The later part of the first semester and all of the second semester is taken up with a self-devised and self-directed “major project.” One of the distinctive features of the programme is its learning structure that seeks to foster “an environment of self-conscious reflection and analysis to ensure that student’s critical and analytical skills mature appropriately” (Programme Document). The student’s learning requires the student to speculate, question, and reflect on his or her own and design industries’ practice. This presupposes that design students have the ability to reflect and think critically about what they are doing. Historically students have reflected on their work and documented their reflections via sketches, reports and during tutorials with individual staff members. Importantly, in a bid to improve their own performance, we have noted that design students are becoming more interested in understanding design, however, documenting iterative project developments remains difficult for most undergraduate product design students. Over the last three years, we have been progressively devising and integrating methods to assist students to gather enough knowledge together

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to thoroughly reflect on the design processes they employ. A considerable part of designing has to do with integration, combining the needs of all the stakeholders into a design that addresses all aspects of the product. As a result of this, a major task for the tutor then becomes teaching and facilitating the students’ learning of the process of integration. Teaching staff annually face the problems of facilitating live projects where students work with external clients. We argue that to achieve successful integration within live projects, students must communicate their ideas and developments clearly and regularly with their tutor, client and peers in a student-centered collaboration methodology rather than a traditional instructivist teacher-centered methodology. Communicating clearly to others is a necessary aspect of studying design. But as Stuart Mealing (2000, p. 15) reminds us, even more important (than the need to communicate to others) is the need to be able to communicate clearly to oneself as part of the internal feedback process of problem solving and, in addition, because natural language is a necessary step towards understanding abstract concepts.

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Figure 1. Mobile Web 2.0 concept map

These are the key drivers for the implementation of pedagogical change within the programme. To illustrate the implementation of pedagogical changes in the course, the following sections outline the modifications to the third year major assignment between 2006 and 2008. The goal of this assignment is to help students to grasp and understand the complexity of the design process, facilitate social constructivist learning and improve the level of integration within student projects. The full assignment outline is available for viewing in the appendix and on Google Docs (Bateman & Cochrane, 2008), included here is a discussion of the key changes. Pedagogical Change from 2006 to 2008 First Attempts at Pedagogical Change in 2006 In 2006 a mobile learning trial was implemented within one project of the third year of the Bachelor of Product Design programme using Palm WiFi PDAs and social software such as Blogger.com and instant messaging. There was little course integration, limited buy-in from course tutors, limited campus WiFi coverage, and the results effectively illustrated how not to approach m-

learning. At the same time the researcher was developing a Community of Practice (COP) model for educational technology literacy in tertiary academics (Cochrane & Kligyte, 2007). Product Design course lecturers were invited to form an intentional Community of Practice to investigate the use of Web 2.0 tools within their teaching. This first attempt at establishing a lecturer COP was short lived; however, one lecturer was motivated to explore these ideas further in 2007. While there were no formal changes made to the traditional implementation of the major project in 2006 (see Table 1), reflections on these experiences merged to form the foundational concepts underpinning subsequent implementation and research into mobile learning. The 2006 trials were also used to develop and test the research questions and data collection instruments. Introduction of Web 2.0 Technologies and Tools in 2007 In 2007 the main third year major project course lecturer integrated the optional use of Web 2.0 tools like blogging (via Wordpress) into the third year course using student-owned laptops and desktops. This integration was achieved with regular technological support from the researcher. Table

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2 summarizes the changes to the major assignment in 2007. Significant advantages in moving to this learning environment were envisioned by the lecturer: Research shows us that there are “far more dyslexic Art and Design students than we ever realized” (Hercules, 2001) and that dyslexia raises many issues for studio- based teaching methodologies. By implementing the use of student reflective design journals as living, media-rich blogs it was hoped that these students would be engaged and empowered in their learning. This was achieved by modifying the core assessment of the third year programme that focuses upon three student defined product designs throughout the entire year. The impact of this pedagogical intervention on the teaching and learning environment are summarized by the lecturer below: Thinking about what for us as designers and training young designers - what is ‘real world learning’? Real world learning involves team-working, and blogs allow you to work in teams in a way that you can’t work if you don’t use them. We see the use of blogs as a way of being able to stay in touch in a kind of multilane highway – rather than a single stream. It’s something that’s allowed staff to engage with students in a way that doesn’t happen with email and so on. In terms of our profession its absolutely vital that we do this – and I’m keen to sit down with my colleagues and see how we can embed this into the programme rather than in a particular year of the programme – and we can get the students from first, second and third year interfacing with each other and their blogs (Lecturer, July 2007). This led to the re-establishment of a Product Design lecturer COP investigating the integration of Web 2.0 and mobile Web 2.0 into the course in the second half of 2007. It was hoped that by choosing to utilize a range of mobile Web 2.0 tools and software with the Bachelor of Product Design students along with a range of assessment

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criteria including PODcasting and VODcasting, those students who underperformed due to literacy problems would find a “natural” way to blog their projects. The lecturer COP was then used as a model for supporting students in a COP that would comprise the researcher as the technology steward (Wenger, White, Smith, & Spa, 2005), the course lecturers, and the students. Mobile Web 2.0 Trials in 2008 Starting in February 2008, a more explicit and integrated approach to mobile Web 2.0 within the third year course was established (Table 3). The focus of this trial was the development of group product design teams formed between the students and external client product manufacturers. Students were to develop a commercially viable product for their assigned client. Student blogs and e-portfolios (using http://www.vox.com) were used to record and reflect upon their design processes, and were made available to the client for comment and interaction. Two teaching staff and nine randomly selected students were initially supplied with a Nokia N80 WiFi/3G smartphone and folding Bluetooth keyboard (funded from a collaborative e-learning project), which was later upgraded to a Nokia N95 smartphone when additional research funding was obtained. The smartphones were pre-configured for the campus wireless network, and also a custom installation of mobile Web 2.0 applications. Participants were encouraged to personalize the smartphones and use them as if they owned them throughout the year of the course. Ethics consent forms and an acceptable use policy were signed by all participants. Participants were also expected to attend a weekly COP, comprising the researcher, the lecturers, and participating students. Moodle was used as a supporting tool, hosting tutorials and resource links for the use of the smartphones and Web 2.0 software. Moodle was also chosen because it renders well on small mobile screens without modification. Thus a blend of tools was

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

used (see Figure 1). The goal of the integration of the mobile Web 2.0 tools into the course was to bridge the formal (face-to-face) and informal learning environments, allowing for continuation of learning conversations between students and lecturers in multiple contexts. One primary activity included students using the smartphone for recording and uploading evidence of their design process and prototypes to their VOX blog and other online media sites such as YouTube for video. Students were marked on this evidence of the design process and reflection, as well as their critique and reflection on other students’ blogs via commenting. The smartphones were also used as a communication tool between students and with teaching staff for immediate feedback via instant messaging, email and RSS subscriptions. Students were responsible for paying for a voice call and text message account but were reimbursed the cost of a 1GB per month 3G data account. WiFi internet access on campus was free of charge. Feedback from the main course lecturer was very enthusiastic: It isn’t ‘easy’working in this way but it is immensely valuable and exciting. I think that it would be very hard to go back to traditional teaching only methods now I have begun to use blogging and mobile blogging. (Lecturer, June 2008) Without the mobile devices (as in 2007) blogging was confined to the studio using laptops, so mobile blogging has changed the nature and engagement level! Key therefore is the provision of the mobile devices. Also staff understanding is fundamental, staff have undertaken a learning process as well. Interestingly we assumed that students would know more about Web 2.0 technologies than they have! My teaching approach has changed in that I am now very tolerant of students using technology and not necessarily having to be in the studio as in the past, as they couldn’t be interacting with

me or other teaching staff. Students are learning on the move and the traditional walls have broken down. My teaching has changed to a balance between being in the studio and reading and marking student blogs. The traditional way of simply being available during the studio sessions has changed to almost being ‘on-call’ 24/7 because being involved in these blogs becomes quite addictive. Some staff are resistant to this, but using news aggregators is one way to manage this and allows a more flexible working environment. All in all it has been a fantastic experiment. We are looking forward very much to continuing the learning process and seeing how we can reshape the face of studio, art and design education. (Lecturer, August 2008) The two lecturers involved in the mobile Web 2.0 implementation in 2008 became technology “evangelists” to the rest of the lecturers in the course. Additional internal funding (US$10,080) to expand the mobile learning trial within the Bachelor of Product Design was successfully obtained for the second semester of 2008. Thus, in that semester, similar voluntary mobile Web 2.0 projects were established in both the first and second year of the course as well. Scaffolding the Learners A model for pedagogical and technological support for the integration and implementation of mobile Web 2.0 was developed using an intentional COP model. The projects are guided and supported by weekly “technology sessions” (COPs) facilitated by a “technology steward” (Wenger et al., 2005) who is the researcher and an Academic Advisor in e-learning and learning technologies in the Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation (CTLI) at Unitec. The project is a collaborative project between the researcher as the “technology steward,” the course tutors, and the students on the course. The institution’s Learning Management System (LMS) is used to provide scaffolding and support

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Figure 2. Participants’ previous use of technology

for both tutors and students. Tutors are encouraged to model the use and integration of mobile Web 2.0 in their own daily work-flows and to provide regular formative feedback to students via posts on their blogs and other media. There is an interactive online concept map illustrating this model available at http://ltxserver.unitec.ac.nz/~thom/ MobileWeb2/mobileweb2concept2.htm. A 10 minute video overview of the project process, including staff and student feedback (focusing on the Bachelor of Product Design trial) can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=8Eh5ktXMji8 (Cochrane, 2008b).

dISCuSSIon The following section provides an overview of some of the teaching staff reflections on the impact of mobile Web 2.0 on the course and the students, and brief examples of student feedback.

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lecturer Reflections on the Impact of mobile web 2.0 Product Design Lecturers were asked to provide reflective feedback on the impact of the m-learning interventions on their teaching practice and on their perceptions of the impact upon their students learning and engagement. These reflections were captured as VODCasts, and as written answers to the following four questions. Their responses are provided in the following sections. What Potential Benefits do You See for Mobile Web 2.0 Technologies to Enhance Teaching and Learning? The integration of mobile Web 2.0 has facilitated a shift away from the default Atelier “private method” of instruction to a new more fluid and dynamic pedagogical method. This project has deliberately disrupted the timetabled instructivist studio learning that is frequently used and placed the student group in a social constructivist framework. The chief benefits we have noted are:

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Figure 3. Third year student Blog activity 2008

1. Increased interaction, problem solving and sharing between students, increased interactivity in general. This has come in the forms of: encouragement, sharing of data and content, passing on of online material and the “hey you should know about this” comments. 2. Increased interaction from external commentators, especially when working on live projects. Clients have been able to track projects in the making and steer students if need be. At final presentations, clients have followed the projects over the duration of the assignment and can comment more closely on the projects’ outcomes and validity. 3. The development of student reflective journals. The blogs have effectively become online reflective rich media journals. Keeping an overview of a design project is difficult. Valuable time is taken up when standing back and assessing the state of the project. Reflecting on project work is difficult as the designer is often engulfed by the project. By introducing blogs to the students and requiring them to blog daily, we have created ‘natural’ times

when a brief overview of the design project can be created in a readily accessible and exciting form. This overview can serve to keep the project on track and act as a “call” for comments from peers and staff. 4. Designers often find it difficult to document their processes and methodologies and as a result of this find it hard to remember how they got to the end result. This project has created a “bread crumb” trail that students can go back to both during and after the project to check their working methods (staff can do this with their work too). Have You Seen Increased Engagement in the Course From Students when Using this Technology? The initial stages of the project saw a drop off in normal project activity as students explored the mobile Web 2.0 tools, including the setting up of the software and hardware and the fun students had exploring the new technology that was available to them. However as the tools became second nature and integrated into the students’ daily work-flows

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Figure 4. BDesign student VOX Blog tag cloud

a significant uptake in engagement in the course was observed. The increased engagement came from: 1. A sense of connectivity that is characterized by the immediate access to the Internet, photo sharing, instant messaging (IM), emailing and the usual voice and text messaging that the smartphones bring. Virtually any space is now transformed into a collaborative learning space. Students often group together looking at online material, send each other files and photos, URLs, and other digital information. Mobile video blogging has become a favorite activity and is an effective way to get out-ofstudio information across in a short space of time. 2. The use of mobile Web 2.0 provided a sense of current technology being embedded into the learning experience. In comparison, even though virtually all students in the third year course have access to their own laptop computers for use in the studio/class room, this is seen as standard these days. This project has facilitated a culture of mutual support, networking, and collaboration among students, which also enhances students’ skills in

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communication with their peers, academics and industry representatives. 3. Evenings see a sharp increase in student posts—often comments on each other’s blogs as well as end of day reflective posts. 4. Students’ editorial skills have increased due to the constant need to monitor the content of their blogs. A look over almost all of the blogs from the start of the project to today will show significant progression in what the students have learned about editing content and getting ideas across. What are the Key Issues To Successfully Integrating this Technology into Courses? 1. Assessment and staff participation. We ran a 2007 project that did not carry an assessment weighting and the uptake was lower than for this 2008 project where assessment of the blog was embedded. It makes sense that students want to receive credit for doing something that takes time, focus and commitment. 2. It is vital that staff participate in the blogging process and run their own blogs alongside the student ones. Students want to see that staff are visiting the blogs and commenting on

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Figure 5. Preference for further WMD use

posts as well as offering links to sites where students can pick up information that might assist them with their projects. This doesn’t mean staff are required to comment on all posts but reading the blogs is important as students will often ask “So what did you think of my last post then?” 3. This project allowed students to have the smartphones (and Bluetooth folding keyboards) and use them as if they owned the device, and they were also supplied with a 1GB data plan for the duration of the course. This ensured that participants had the tools they needed to work effectively. Therefore programmes need to provide the hardware or make it a compulsory course purchase to enable access. In What Way has Your Teaching Approach Changed by Using This Technology and Tools?

2. As a result of integrating and assessing mobile blogging technology tools into the programme, I have become far more tolerant of students working from different locations, something the class room/studio model struggles to cope with. 3. Putting time aside to read and comment on the content of each student blog is important and time during working hours needs to be allocated for this. By allocating time during the studio/teaching to work on the student blogs late night work at home can be kept to a minimum. 4. It isn’t “easy” working in this way but it is immensely valuable and exciting. I think that it would be very hard go back to traditional teaching only methods now I have begun to use blogging and mobile blogging.

1. Breaking down the walls! This encapsulates the thrust of this project.

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Figure 6. Mobile effect on quality of learning

Figure 7. Mobile learning was fun

Student Feedback Blog Analysis 2008 Students’ previous technology experience was established at the start of each m-learning trial via an initial survey. Figure 1 indicates that participants

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in the three 2008 projects had similar previous experiences of mobile and Web 2.0 technologies. While most participants were to some extent consumers of Web 2.0 media, the majority were not involved in regularly creating Web 2.0 content (e.g., regularly blogging, uploading videos to YouTube, etc.). The Product Design course has

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

Figure 8. Mobile usage contexts

established an ethos of student-owned laptops in second and third year; therefore, participant access to wireless laptops was relatively high, and cell phone ownership almost ubiquitous. Instant messaging usage was lower than expected, though this may be more to do with use within a learning context rather than social use. Although for the majority of students these projects were their first real experience of using Web 2.0 tools in their learning environment, their feedback indicated they have found it an enjoyable experience. They particularly valued the reflective and collaborative nature of blogging and the convenience of mobile blogging. While initially finding learning the various smartphone interfaces daunting, students integrated their use into their everyday lives. Students particularly valued the ability to capture and record ideas and content using the smartphone’s multimedia capabilities (Cochrane & Bateman, 2008a). Student mo-

blogging (mobile blogging) and content creation (photos, videos, etc.) increased significantly with the introduction of the N95 (June 2008), which was seen as a significant upgrade in performance over the often “buggy” N80 smartphones. A graphical summary of student blog activity is provided in Figure 2. Note that the mid-year break was during July. Students uploaded significantly more media (mainly still images) to their online e-portfolios than actual blog posts, providing evidence of critical selection of media. Several students preferred to VODCast (record and upload a video monologue) rather than post text based reflections on their blogs. Feedback from students clearly related their desire (and expectation) for regular formative feedback from their tutors on their progress at virtually any time or anyplace. Students also noted the time intensive nature of regular moblogging and peer commenting, but

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Table 4. Affordances of smartphones mapped to social constructivist activities Activity

Overview

Examples

Pedagogy

Video Streaming

Record and share live events

Flixwagon, Qik http://www.qik.com

Real-time Event, data and resource capturing and collaboration.

Geo tagging

Geo-tagg original photos, geolocate events on Google Maps

Flickr, Twitter, Google Maps http://tinyurl.com/5a85yh

Enable rich data sharing.

Micro-blogging

Post short updates and collaborate using microblogging services

Twitter http://tinyurl.com/2j5sz3

Asynchronous communication, collaboration and support.

Txt notifications

Course notices and support

Txttools plugin for Moodle and Blackboard

Scaffolding, learning and administrative support

Direct screen sharing

Video out to video projector, or large screen TV

Microvision Show http://tinyurl.com/celgot

Student presentations, peer and lecturer critique.

Social Networking

Collaborate in groups using social networking tools

Vox groups, Ning, peer and lecturer comments on Blog and media posts http://tinyurl.com/4uz6rj

Formative peer and lecturer feedback.

unanimously (in 2008) preferred this approach to producing an essay or other more traditional assessment. Least valued by students was the ability to access course content on the smartphones. This is a reflection on the underlying pedagogy chosen for the trials (social constructivism) where a conscious decision was made to focus on communication, collaboration, and user-generated content rather than re-purpose course content for small screens. Students who owned laptops used the smartphones to complement their use of their laptop computers. In some cases students replaced the use of their laptop for general Web and communication use with their easier to carry smartphone and Bluetooth keyboard. A graphical representation of the “tag cloud” (descriptive keywords) generated from BDesign students’ VOX blog posts during the first semester of 2008 illustrates students’ use of mobile learning within their course (Figure 3). The relative size of each tag word indicates its frequency of use. Student Survey Students were surveyed at the middle and end of the year to gain feedback on their experiences of the m-learning project. The following graphs

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(Figures 4–7) indicate student responses to several of these survey questions. Responses indicated that students enjoyed the m-learning integration within their course and were keen to experience further integration of m-learning into their course. The majority of students believed that the use of WMDs increased the quality of their learning experience, and students used the mobile device across a variety of contexts, making connections between these various learning contexts (both formal and informal) both convenient and explicit. Focus Group Feedback The feedback from both students and teaching staff on the 2008 mobile Web 2.0 trial within the third year Product Design course has been unanimously positive. Compilations of 2008 student and staff VODCasts (Online video recordings) are available on YouTube: 1. BProduct Design Year 1 (2008) http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=8QUfw9_sFmo 2. BProduct Design Year 2 (2008) http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=6jwAFXBZAz0

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

3. BProduct Design Year 3 (and Lecturers, 2008) http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=8Eh5ktXMji8 Transcriptions of example student focus group feedback and reflections on the impact of the m-learning intervention on their learning are collated below: 2008 The mobile Web 2.0 tools provide students with a flexible, personalizable, and collaborative learning environment. The quotes below indicate the variety of ways students appropriated these tools and what they valued. The connectivity, ability to capture events and ideas, and opportunities for formal and informal feedback from peers and lecturers feature highly in student expectations and experiences. These expectations have vital implications for the impact on lecturer integration of the tools and workload perceptions. (These issues are explored in other papers by the authors, see Cochrane, Flitta, and Bateman, 2009.) As a record keeping tool, these things (blogs) allow you to go back and see what you did last week, and you can constantly inform your decisions based on what you have done in the past. Whereas if you have it in a notebook that sits in a corner of your room you forget that stuff, but you look at your blog every day, and so from that perspective it makes things better. Traditionally when you write something down in a notebook a Tutor will only read it at the end of the project when they mark it, but with blogging you can write something down and tutors and other students can comment almost immediately, so you get more real-time feedback. (Student 1) VOX creates a dialogue in realtime, with students and staff being able to comment and have input … If you have an internet capable mobile phone you can get applications like Shozu, shoot something,

the application loads up the photo, creating like a visual diary online … Every iteration of my design I can document daily on my blog. I was at a lecture in AUT, and I found something interesting—I could take a video on my N95 straight away and upload it! It makes it easy for our lecturers to give us feedback and guidance no matter where they are … It’s a great way to organise your thoughts, ideas and media. (Student 2) I’ve been using the phone to check emails, send emails, take pictures and send pictures and take videos of what I’m doing, uploading media to VOX. I use the GPS a lot as a map, and browse the Web on the N95. (Student 3) Without the mobile technology I would have had to do a lot more writing, and because I don’t like writing I suspect I would have skipped out a lot of my ideas – I have a lot of ideas and then I either discard or include them, and that’s something I’m learning as a designer is to document my thought processes, it’s part of the design process so you can reflect on your decisions. So I found with the mobile technology, being able to pick up the phone, turn it on, video myself talking to it like it was a diary, sort of Captain Kirk style, that I can actually use the design processes that other people write, easier to do. (Student 4) In contrast to student 1, who valued the ability to compose and edit highly structured journal-like blog posts, student 4 valued the ability to capture moments of inspiration in a virtual flow-of-consciousness using the mobile Web 2.0 tools. Students’ shared learning experience was enhanced by; being connected, and being able to follow along and interact with each other’s learning journeys throughout the year. (This is illustrated further in the section below.)

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2009

example m-learning Scenarios

Below is some of the initial feedback gathered from students during the 2009 m-learning implementation in the third year of the Bachelor of Product Design. The comments indicate that initial reactions to the use of the smartphones centres around their multi-functionality and the convenience of an all-in-one device for personal productivity. The various m-learning projects implemented indicate that students take longer to integrate the collaborative affordances of the mobile Web 2.0 tools into their educational experience. Each group of students is unique and socially constructs the use of the communicative mobile Web 2.0 tools differently (e.g., the use of instant messaging, twitter, social networking, etc.).

Students used the mobile Web 2.0 technologies to blog their assignment posts from virtually any context. As an example, four of the students decided to go on a mid-term “research” trip to the snowfields of Queenstown, officially to test their prototype snow-kite harness designs. However, two of these students were scheduled to present their NPC (New Product Commercialisation paper) research to the class that week. These students therefore recorded their NPC class presentations on their N95 smartphones, and uploaded the virtual presentations to their Vox blogs for the rest of the class and the course tutor to view and comment on their presentations, almost in realtime. To “prove” they were in Queenstown they also blogged mobile videos of their campervan and Queenstown scenery. During the course of the year academic teaching staff attended conferences in three overseas countries: Japan, UK, and Spain as well as numerous New Zealand conferences in cities outside of Auckland. Staff used mobile Web 2.0 technologies to share these experiences and stay in contact with their student(s) from these countries and locations. The use of mobile Web 2.0 technologies allowed real time text, video and still images of the conferences, sites, design, and architecture to be easily and immediately uploaded to the staff member’s blog for students to see and share in. The use of instant messaging and blog comments allowed students to remark on the posts, pose questions and request further information on the conference before the end of the visit. The use of mobile Web 2.0 technologies allowed the staff member, his fellow staff members and students to stay in regular contact sharing comments and project concerns: in effect a “virtual studio situation” was created. Upon the staff member’s return, there was no need for time consuming catching up to take place and students were not significantly disadvantaged due to his taking time away from studio teaching.

I have taken the opportunity to embrace technology that I haven’t yet experienced. The Nokia N95 has so many functions and features that can assist and help enrich my project. I have already had benefits in time management in using the Web 2.0 functions and only having to carry with me one product as opposed to: a camera, a cellphone, an MP3 player, and a Laptop (for email, and surfing the net)! (Student 1) I’ve been using the n95 to Google on the Internet, to check my emails, and to do various other things— find places when I’m out & about—Google Maps is really useful. I’ve been taking photos—I’ve updated to a better camera now because I can use the N95 for snappy shots that I would have taken with my small camera, and use the bigger one for better quality photos. So that’s been really good, because it’s very useful just walking out with the phone and taking photos. I’ve been putting them up on Vox and then adding text using my laptop just because it’s easier. However, I have noticed in playing with iPhones and the Xpressmusic phones that their screens are so much better than the N95 – so looking forward to the N97 a lot. (Student 2)

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Plans for m-learning Integration in 2009 Tutors have noted that the integration of mobile Web 2.0 within the course has significantly engaged students and provided the basis for a flexible, context independent learning environment. Thus academic staff, with the help of the researcher (“technology steward”), are planning on integrating the use of mobile web 2.0 tools across all three years of the course for all students and staff in 2009. While it is believed that a studentowned smartphone model is the best approach, it may take another year of seeding the integration of mobile Web 2.0 into the programme before this is fully feasible. The cost of both the smartphones and mobile data have dropped significantly in the last year, and a variety of funding models will be explored for 2009. Following the enthusiastic response from the students and lecturers during 2008, internal institutional funding was sought, and approved, for extending these small projects to a major large-scale m-learning project in 2009 involving the use of 250 smartphones, and 200 netbooks. The third year Product Design course will be used as a “flagship” to illustrate the potential of the integration of mobile web 2.0 to the rest of the institution. The project is driven by asocial constructivist pedagogy. Focus group feedback from participating students in 2008 indicated that the coverage of mobile Web 2.0 affordances during the 2008 COPs was too broad. Students would prefer to focus on fewer affordances, and use them well. Therefore specific mobile affordances will be utilized as part of the third year Product Design course. (See Table 4, the tinyurls reference Educause “7 things” series of articles on each technology.) Students’ core activity will be situated around a reflective blog that is accessible via mobile. Students’ VOX Blogs will become reflective journals of their design processes and learning throughout the year, as well as building up a showcase of their Design capabilities, for example: their ability to critique as well as be creative; their ability to

communicate, collaborate, and convey ideas; and their ability to work with new technologies as part of the process (mobile Web 2.0 will be core in enabling this). VOX groups and tags will be used for specific group and team projects throughout the year: for example, there will be a Vox Shac09 group that will facilitate sharing and communication between the four departments involved in the project. A Ning (online social network) group will be used for discussing and collaborating on a wider national/international basis around the project. Students Vox blogs will also become a “hub” for aggregating (collating) Web 2.0 media from other sites such as Flixwagon, Qik, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and so forth. SHAC09 The Sustainable Habitat Challenge (ShaC09) is a national competition in the form of a collaborative project for teams around New Zealand to design, develop, and build sustainable housing in their local community (http://www.shac.org.nz). Unitec is well positioned to accept such a challenge due to the strength and capabilities residing in the Departments of Design, Landscape, Applied Trades and Communication (UATI); however, due to the breadth of the Shac09 challenges, it was identified early on that good project management, collaborative working, and cross-departmental communication would be vital to the success of the project. Overall responsibility and project management for the construction of the house lies with staff in the Unitec Applied Trades Institute and Unitec’s Research Office. Subject specific academic briefs have been developed collaboratively by Department lecturers in the Departments of Design, Landscape and UATI. Web 2.0 tools including Vox, Ning, and Flickr were used to develop the briefs and supplement in person meetings during the writing stage. As an example, a Shac09 building site introduction is available at http://www. flixwagon.com/watch/1537511.

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Designing successful products requires both extensive research and a high degree of communication and dialogue. Communication between all the stakeholders in any design projects is needed to identify the possible ramifications or potential consequences of the decision-making process, as well as the opportunities that an innovative endeavor carries. Whether such ramifications emerge due to issues with manufacturing technologies, intellectual property, or simply through conflicts with project timing, an open channel of communication is imperative if all parties are to move forward together. To this end Product Design students participating in ShaC09 will need to manage their internal (with Product Design staff) and external (with Landscape, Communication and UATI staff) communications rigorously. Traditional modes of communication (in person) will be augmented with the use of mobile Web 2.0 technology to enable real-time updating of project progress and issues. Product Design students will be working in one of five Product Design groups each of which is focusing on a specific ShaC09 design challenge however, the final designs they create and present will be arrived at individually and will be individually assessed. Students are required to carry out aspects of research in their group, sharing information via group meetings and Web 2.0 tools (see deliverables below). Project Deliverables for Product Design Students Working on Shac09 • An online report summarising all research undertaken and the key findings and insights. • All forms of prototype and test modelling, that is, 3D sketch models, ergonomic models, interface design, proof-of-concept working models, and so forth. • All drawings, sketches, and CAD models. • A VOX blog/e-portfolio that runs throughout this phase and the rest of the year. You should post to your blog at least every few

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days (preferably daily). Use your VOX blog/e-portfolio to collate the above, and reflect on your design process. Also regularly comment on each other’s VOX blog posts, providing critique, feedback, and links to appropriate resources. Your VOX blog/e-portfolio should include the following elements: • • • •

• •

Audio Podcasts, Video VODCasts Uploaded images, including geotags (i.e., Google Maps links of image locations) Text posts (Reflection, critique, process, summary, comments, etc.) Links to Web 2.0 multimedia site original content (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Google Docs, Slide.com, etc.) Evidence of Google Calendars for events/ dates. Evidence of electronic communication via GMail, MSN Messenger and RSS feeds (e.g., via Google Reader or Newsgator).

Nomadic Studio This year students will be required to undertake a regular ‘nomadic’ session where they work away from the studio, but continue collaborating and learning conversations via mobile Web 2.0 connectivity. Social software tools can be effectively integrated into both face-to-face and online environments; the most promising settings for a pedagogy that capitalizes on the capabilities of these tools are fully online or blended so that students can engage with peers, instructors, and the community in creating and sharing ideas (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008, p. 3). Throughout the duration of the final year of Product Design, students will be required to integrate Web 2.0 into their studio practice. To this end, the programme will be providing smart phones (Nokia N95) and a weekly community of practice meeting that will focus on understanding and experimenting with Web 2.0 tools and technologies. Throughout

Transforming Pedagogy Using Mobile Web 2.0

ShaC09, data sharing will be enabled through a range of software applications. Staff and students will make project work and resources available to the rest of the world online, via blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 applications. Moving further away from the Atelier Method environment and building upon the work carried out in 2008 our research focus for 2009 is focused on the seamless integration of Web 2.0 into the Bachelor of Product Design as well as augmenting the level of flexibility for students to allow them to choose to work in virtually any context on and off campus. Framework and Criteria for the “Virtual” or “Nomadic” Studio Session During the “nomadic” studio session students are expected to: 1. Be online via MSN or following their tutor and classmates on Twitter 2. Make at least one relevant blog post summarising their work 3. Upload some multimedia content capturing what they are doing—for example, a Qik or Flixwagon videostream, a recorded VODCast, geotag, or a photo upload to Flickr, and so forth. Implications of the Research for the Research Questions The implementation of mobile Web 2.0 tools within the Bachelor of Product Design course has provided rich data that informs the wider research questions. These are briefly explored below. What are the Key Factors In Integrating Wireless Mobile Devices (WMDs) Within Tertiary Education Courses? The pedagogical integration of the technology into the course criteria and assessment is critical. Lecturer engagement and modelling of the

pedagogical use of the WMDs is essential. These changes in curriculum design and practice (and student acceptance) take time, in the example case study given this time frame has spanned several years. Innovative practice must take a staged approach to implementation, and lecturers (and students) require significant pedagogical and technical support during this time. What Challenges/Advantages to Established Pedagogies do these Disruptive Technologies Present? Mobile Web 2.0 tools are “disruptive” technologies that democratize the learning environment, empowering students, and providing opportunities for social constructivist pedagogies. For many lecturers integrating a social constructivist learning environment will mean redesigning assessments and developing a new pedagogical “toolkit.” This takes time and commitment. Technological and pedagogical support for these paradigm shifts is critical. To what Extent can these WMDs be Utilized to Support Learner Interactivity, Collaboration, Communication, Reflection and Interest, and thus Provide Pedagogically Rich Learning Environments that Engage and Motivate the Learner? Mobile Web 2.0 can be used to facilitate collaborative, authentic learning within authentic contexts. The aggregation of a variety of mobile Web 2.0 tools facilitates metacognition and reflection. Students demonstrate increased motivation and engagement when using personal devices and personalized media-rich learning spaces. To what Extent can WMDs be used to Harness the Potential of Current and Emerging Social Constructivist E-Learning Tools? Since the first attempts at marrying the affordances of Web 2.0 and mobile technologies in 2006, mo-

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bile Web 2.0 has developed into a range of viable, user-friendly, rich-media, flexible, and contextindependent tools that can be used to bridge both the formal and informal learning environments, spanning both distance and time. As these tools develop further, so will their educational potential and richness.

ConCluSIon This article has provided a real world overview of the integration of mobile Web 2.0 technologies into a Bachelor of Product Design course and gives reflections from the teaching staff involved on the impact of this approach. The symbiotic relationship developed between the academic advisor (technology steward) the academic teaching staff and the students involved in each of the mobile learning trials has proven a rich environment for harnessing educational technology to design social constructivist learning environments relevant to the needs of these students. Significant changes in pedagogical approach and levels of student engagement have been realised. It is hoped the insights gained will be built upon to form a foundational model to fully embed mobile Web 2.0 tools into the entire Bachelor of Product Design curriculum for the future.

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Traxler, J. (2007). Defining, discussing, and evaluating mobile learning: The moving finger writes and having writ. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(2), 12. Traxler, J. (2008, October 8-10). From text to context. Paper presented at mLearn 2008, Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire, UK. Traxler, J., & Kukulsa-Hulme, A. (2005, October 18-25). Evaluating mobile learning: Reflections on current practice. Paper presented at mLearn 2005, Cape Town, South Africa. Trinder, K., Guiller, J., Marggaryan, N., Littlejohn, A., & Nicol, D. (2008). Learning from digital natives: Bridging formal and informal learning. Glasgow, Scotland: The Higher Education Academy. Uden, L. (2007). Activity theory for designing mobile learning. International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 1(1), 81–102. doi:10.1504/IJMLO.2007.011190 Wadsworth, Y. (1998). What is participatory action research? Retrieved May 3, 2002, from http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/ari/pywadsworth98.html Wali, E., Winters, N., & Oliver, M. (2008). Maintaining, changing and crossing contexts: An activity theoretic reinterpretation of mobile learning. ALT-J . Research in Learning Technologies, 16(1), 41–57. Wenger, E., White, N., Smith, J., & Spa, K. R. (2005). Technology for communities. Retrieved July 14, 2006, from http://technologyforcommunities.com

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APPendIx Focus group Questions The main purpose of the focus group is to provide critical reflective feedback on the design and implementation of the learning activities and enhanced communication facilitated by the Wireless Mobile Device (WMD) used in the “trial.” This feedback will provide valuable insights into the design of the following trial, and forms a critical reflective action research cycle of evaluation. 1. How would you rate the effectiveness of the WMD (N80 Smartphone) for accessing your/your students’ blogs? 2. How user friendly was the interface of the WMD? 3. How would you rate the effectiveness of the WMD for increasing communication: a. Between students b. Between students and tutors/lecturers? 4. How useful were the WMDs for accessing course content? 5. Describe how the integration into the course of the WMDs may be improved. 6. How would you rate the usefulness of the WMDs for your own teaching? (for tutors) 7. What level of interactivity did the WMDs provide? 8. What were the benefits of wireless connectivity? 9. What were the support requirements for the WMDs? 10. What other uses did you find for the WMD? 11. In what situations would the WMDs be most effective? 12. What do you think worked well, and what would you do differently another time? wireless mobile Study: end of Trial Questionnaire (Bdes2008 Students) QUESTION: (This is an anonymous questionnaire)

Your Answer: tick or circle most applicable answer(s), or write your answer in the space provided below.

1. What is your Student ID number? 2. What is your age? 3. What is your gender?

Male

Female

4. What has been your experience of group work facilitated by Blogs and RSS?

Very Good

Good

Not Bad

6. It was easy to use the smartphone (Nokia N95)?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

7. This mobile learning experience was fun.

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

8. Based on my experience during this trial, I would use a smartphone in other courses

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

9. I would be willing to purchase my own smartphone?

Yes

Neither Good nor Bad

Not Good

Terrible

No

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10. Where did you use the Smartphone? Circle all that apply.

a. At home b. At Unitec in class c. At Unitec not in class d. While Travelling e. On site while investigating or building your project f. Other (specify)

11. In your opinion, does mobile learning increase the quality of learning?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

12. Mobile blogging helped create a sense of community (group work)?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

13. Accessing your course blog was easy using the mobile device?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

14. Mobile learning increases access to education?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

15. Communication and feedback from the course tutor/lecturer was made easier?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

16. Mobile learning is convenient for communication with other students?

Strongly agree

Agree

Uncertain

Disagree

Strongly disagree

17. Rate the usefulness of the following applications using mobile devices? (0 = no use, 10 = extremely useful)

a. Email b. Instant Messaging c. Video d. Audio e. Web Browsing f. Document editing g. Document Reading h. Calendar i. Contacts/Address book j. Notes k. Accessing online course material l. Blogging m. File sharing n. RSS subscriptions o. Taking and uploading photos p. Text q. Phone calls

18. What factors would be most important in deciding upon mobile learning?

• Cost of device • Size of the screen • Size & weight of the mobile device • Phone integration • Wireless capability • The operating system: PocketPC, Palm OS, or Symbian • Availability of installable applications • A built-in camera • Ease of linking to your Blog • The cost of mobile data • Other

19. Do you have any other comments on the mobile project?

This work was previously published in International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, Vol. 1, Issue 4, edited by D. Parsons, pp. 56-83, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.11

Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education Anna Escofet Universitat de Barcelona, Spain Marta Marimon Universitat de Vic, Spain

ABSTRACT

new leARnIng FoRmS AT unIveRSITy: CollABoRATIve The dissemination of university knowledge has been leARnIng In The neTwoRk traditionally based on lectures to students organised in homogenous groups. The advantages of this method are that it can give a unified vision of content, guaranteeing equal access to knowledge for all students. The 21st century university must combine its learning and teaching methods and incorporate different strategies and educative resources, as well as seeking to advance individual learning and promote collaborative work. The relevance of Web 2.0 is clear in this university learning context as it enables collaborative work to be carried out using ICT. In this chapter, we will deal with the different possible uses of social software in university teaching. We will show that the proper use of Web 2.0 tools can favour collaborative learning and promote new ways of teaching and learning. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-826-0.ch112

University teaching has been traditionally focused on large group organisation. At one extreme this has meant grouping together students who learn in the same way at the same time and has brought with it a kind of teaching in which the group is considered homogenous, where the teacher has acquired a role in imparting the content in a unidirectional way and which has leant heavily on memorisation and the posterior verbalisation of what has been committed to memory rather than encouraging other aspects more related to the understanding of meaning. Despite the fact that it has been shown that large group organisation of this type is not always an efficient system –given that not all students start form the same level or have the same needs–, the arrival in the halls of the ideas developed by authors such as Décroly, Cousinet, Freinet or Freire, defending

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Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

the positive aspects which can be achieved by interaction among equals, has been neither easy nor homogenous. In spite of that, however, the present day university, with the adoption of the constructivist learning and teaching model, where the student constructs their own knowledge in an interactive process where the teacher acts as a mediator between student and content, allows us to consider group learning, making it possible for the students themselves to be the mediators in a collaborative way in their learning process. This kind of organisation of learning has been studied by different authors to show its potential. Jonhson and Jonhson (1991) attribute different basic aspects, amongst those which mention the favouring of positive interdependence, individual responsibility in tasks, the development of interpersonal and small-group exchange skills and the awareness of belonging to a group. Monereo and Durán (2001) indicate that interaction among equals can have a positive effect on aspects such as socialisation, the acquisition of social skills, aggression control, the relativisation of points of view and an increase in the aspiration and academic performance. Onrubia (2003) highlights the fact that students can become tutors to their peers and instigate their development thanks to the contrast between different points of view facing specific tasks that need to be solved working in collaboration, the need to express their point of view quite explicitly and the obligation to coordinate roles, the interventions to help each other and mutual control of the work. Harasim et al. (2000) highlight that collaboration has motivational and intellectual advantages: on a part, to work in collaboration introduces multiple perspectives about a same question; on the other hand, the learning nets allow a global and intercultural collaboration, which can help to fostering mutual respect, confidence and the capacity to work together. Adell and Sales (1999), affirm that the collaborative learning can be a good strategy to help students to being self-sufficient and to contribute to the collective construction of knowledge, since it favors the democracy and the solidarity on the

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group and the autonomy in the organization of the student’s learning. Crook (1998) indicates that these studies on collaborative learning underlines the cognitive advantages that stem from the most intimate exchanges that take place when students work together. According to the author, the problem consists of discovering how the discourse is mobilized to the service of the creation of a joint reference, in seeing how there is in use what has been created as platform for new explorations and in seeing how there can perform more or less favorable the material conditions of resolution of problems to the efforts to obtain this mutuality. In this process of joint construction of knowledge, the eruption of Information Communication and Technology –with computers initially and now Internet– has also been crucial as regards collaborative learning. In a well-known article, Salomon, Perkins and Globerson (1992) draw a distinction between the types of research centred on the educative use of computers. They make a distinction between the analysis of the effects with the technology and the analysis of effects of the technology. In the first case, the effects with the technology, the emphasis is placed on everything that the student can achieve with the help of the computer; in the second, the effects of the technology, they point out how the student changes their way of thinking thanks to the computer, in other words, their cognitive changes. As suggested by Kolodner and Guzdial (1996) it is quite clearly necessary to apply this distinction to the analysis of the possibilities of ICT in collaborative learning. In the case of the effects with the technology, we need to centre our focus on the organisational aspects, on the possibilities of improving collaborative learning situations, and in describing the activities and social grouping which increase the collaboration. Regarding the effects of the technology, we need to look at the possible changes of the students, at both an individual and group level, after the

Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

collaborative experience. Different investigations (Slavin, 1990; Natasi and Clements, 1991) have shown the benefits that collaborative learning has on individuals, in relation to the academic benefits and also the cognitive benefits in groups of differing ages and socio-economic composition, and also different academic disciplines. Regarding Álvarez et al. (2005), these benefits of the computer supported collaborative learning express two important ideas: •

•

The idea about learning in collaborative way, with other, in group. The student is in interaction with the other ones, sharing goals and distributing responsibilities to themselves as desirable forms of learning. The emphasis in the role of the computer as an element of mediation, giving support to the process and favoring the processes of interaction and of joint solution of the problems.

The fundamental question is related with the way of contributing the resources necessary for the construction of a shared knowledge object, that is to say, or, in other words, to the way that ICT can mediate some forms of activity which create communities of shared knowledge (Crook, 1998) All this can be encapsulated in these lines: the incorporation of ICT into university teaching brings advantages not only as regards the teaching, but also the learning process itself. And when the teaching/learning relations are based on a collaborative focus, then the social dimension becomes crucially important. This relevance of the social dimension is a characteristic of the so-called Web 2.01, which moves the centre of control to the users themselves, where they communicate, produce and publish their opinions, products, experiences and knowhow in a global manner, conforming to what has been called collective intelligence (Levy, 2004). Web 2.0 is based on the possibility of using software with very simplified and friendly inter-

faces, which helps to explain the high number of Web users and their active participation. The spaces Web 2.0 can offer are so rich in possibilities and content, and use synchronic and asynchronic communication tools (from the more traditional such as messaging, forums and chats to more recent ones such as group video conferencing, MySpace or Facebook); management tools (calendars, agendas, ...); publishing and diffusion tools (PhotoLog, YouTube, Flickr, WordPress, Blogger). In short, the potential of Web 2.0 lies in the creation of integrated environments which can facilitate knowledge exchange, collaboration and the creation of social networks. Various studies have shown the possibilities offered by the Web and the effect of the appearance of Web 2.0, principally due to its great educational potential. Prominent among those is the Horizon Report (2008) which identifies the challenges which educational organisations will need to face, reflecting the implications of the new practises and technologies in all areas of our lives, which modify our way of communicating and accessing information: •

•

•

•

Significant changes in teaching, teaching staff, creative expression and learning, which has generated a need for innovation and leadership at all academic levels. Higher education is faced with a growing expectation in services offered, content and audiovisual documents for personal and mobile devices. The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment. The academic world is faced with the need to provide formal instruction in computer, visual and technological literacy, and also creating valuable content with current tools.

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The Horizon Report identifies the significant tendencies which affect teaching and learning environments and creative expression: •

•

•

•

The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networks –combined with collective intelligence and massive amateur production– is changing teaching practices in a gradual yet inexorable way. The way in which we work, collaborate and communicate is evolving as frontiers are becoming more flexible and globalisation is increasing. The access to content, and its transportability, is increasing as we are using smaller and more powerful means. The gap between the students and the teachers’ perceptions of technology is still increasing.

And finally, the Horizon report highlights six emerging technologies or practices which will probably be in general use in educational institutions in the short, medium and long term: 1.

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Tools and software for recording, editing and sharing short video clips as a means of personal communication, such as the mobile phone used to record videos, pocket cameras, online tools for making and editing video clips (FixMyMovie, http://www. fixmymovie.com), video sites (YouTube, Google Video, Viddler o Blip.tv), sites with systems for instant reception of data by Webcam (UStream, http://www.ustream.tv), services to produce programmes collaborating with other producers and broadcasting live (Mogulus, http://www.mogulus.com), or services which allow us to construct social networks around their broadcasts (Stickam, http://www.stickam.com). All these tools and software have allowed us to reduce almost completely the production costs and distribution of videos, which has a considerable

2.

effect on its use in educational situations. Teachers can use all kind of devices to incorporate video into the classroom. The students are able to access a wide range of online educational video content, be they small fragments on specific themes or whole conferences. Academic tasks can also be carried out which consist in elaborating video projects about subjects of interest or develop a digital history as a way of investigating and developing ideas and transmitting their knowledge in a visual way that goes beyond the walls of the lecture hall. Tools for online collaboration. Thanks to a series of complementary developments in Web infrastructures, the social network tools, Web applications and collaborating work spaces, which have eliminated the limitations imposed by distance, the collaboration in projects with people geographically far apart and also among students form different campuses, have been improving to the extent that it has now become something habitual and inexpensive in online collaboration. One of these areas of development has tools which allows us to share and collaborate in the creation of content in an integrated way in its basic functions, with Web applications such as Zoho Office (http://www.zoho. com) or Google Docs (http://docs.google. com), which provide us with standard ICT office packets without the need to buy or install any kind of software. Another area of development is in work spaces for collaboration online, which allow us to create meeting points where a group of people can work together, share resources or information and even establish social relations, with for instance social networks like Ning (http://www.ning.com) or Facebook (http:// www.facebook.com). The main potential in the educational environment is that it allows us to configure spaces for work in virtual collaboration where we can share

Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

3.

4.

ideas and interests, work in joint projects and collectively monitor progress. Teachers can evaluate students’ work while it is being developed, being able to leave comments on these same documents. Students can collaborate with other students in an asynchronic way and access study materials from any computer. These tools can also be used to install a personal portfolio, where the student can show their work in any format and incorporate multimedia content in their work. Broadband, with ever increasing services for mobile and wifi networks. The services provided by mobile phones have increased enormously: today we can connect from any place with email, Web search engines, photos and videos, documents, searches and shops etc. Students who carry out field work can use their mobile phones to take notes and photos and send them straight to the course blog, or even access material when they have no access to a computer, or, combining social networks, collaborate from anywhere. In short, mobile phones are a portable tool which allows us to exploit all the potential of the Internet and all our social connections. Mashups or hybrid Web applications where data from different sources may be combined in one single tool. These are applications which collect data online, such as a collection of video and music clips, and which organise and show these in the way the author desires. An example of this kind of tool is the Google Mashup Editor (http:// code.google.com/gme/). An interesting educational practice which allows this tool to be used is geotagging, where you add geographical metadata like latitude, longitude or toponyms to images, Web sites and other media, in a way that we can mark information in the real world landscape. As these tools are being used by teachers and in learning, teachers can create mashups to illustrate

5.

6.

concepts and students can include these in their projects and work. These applications will change the way in which we visualise data, in such a way that we will be able to unite large amounts of data to perceive new conclusions or relations. Applications for collective intelligence, such as blogs or Wikis. This term is used to designate the ingrained knowledge in societies or large groups of individuals, who are widely distributed, for the simple reason that thousands of active users enlarge, modify, revise and update them continually. The information is not organised in a conventional way, which allows us to create and exploit in multiple and different levels. In the teaching and learning environment, these sources of collective intelligence give us excellent opportunities to practise the construction of knowledge, which is what will concern us in the following lines. Operative social systems, which allow the organisation of networks directed at people and not at content. An example is Facebook or MySpace, which provide a context to allow people to self define themselves, in an attempt to be able to interpret and evaluate the depth of their social connections. The diverse pilot projects are applications which unite information and services based on a contact. The problem is that the information we have available concerning the friends of our friends is still superficial and often more related to personal interests than professional activity. Besides, the social network systems are not conscious of the connections which we have not explicitly explained to them and very often there is little difference between a profound and a superficial relation. The fact of putting people and relations in the centre of informational space will have a great influence at all levels in the academic world. The way we relate information and knowledge, the way we investigate and

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evaluate credibility, the way teachers and students interact together and the way in which students become professionals in their chosen disciplines, is going to change. The diverse applications of these technologies have profound implications on education and the way teachers view the teaching and learning processes. Owen, Grant, Sayers and Facer (2006) analyse the interest of these technologies focusing on the interrelation between two key elements: one the one hand, the technological dimension, characterised by the continual progress made, more and more focused on the possibility of creating user communities where you share resources, collaborate and construct knowledge –social software–; and on the other hand, the educational dimension, with a growing need to provide help to the students not only to acquire information and knowledge, but also to develop resources and skills which will allow them to provide the answer to the social and technical changes in our society and carry on learning throughout their lives. In short, the most interesting aspect of these technologies is how they mediate the collaborative learning processes and pedagogical design. Anyhow, it is necessary to stress that some critical voices have started hearing in relation to the web 2.0 and its educational uses. Most of them are centered on the following problems (Cambra, 2008): •

• •

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Equitation of experts and supporters, since each person is empowered for exercising tasks formerly trusting to experts. In the educational area this is especially remarkable, since on-line learning converts the students into creators of contents. Cultural impoverishment as a consequence of the former point. Equitation of knowledge with opinion, since the qualified and non qualified voices are equaled in the generation of knowledge.

•

Loss of the power of the individual in the face of the collective power, since it is presupposed that the “collective intelligence” is superior and can manage to replace the individual.

Without obviate the weak notable points, the educational uses of Web 2.0 are potentially high in university teaching. To do this, in the first place, we need to emphasis that we are starting form the premise that any learning process implies the development of the capabilities of different senses: on the one hand, the student must become an expert in the application of methods, concepts and theories; and on the other hand, the student is immersed in a socialisation process as a member of a group. In this sense, we conceive learning as a fundamental social experience, emphasising its interpersonal dimension. The students acquire the necessary elements to gain knowledge through the interaction with their colleagues, teachers and material. This social learning component implies learning with other and from other people. In second place, it is important to highlight the importance of the mediating elements in the learning process. In this sense, the cognitive activity is not limited to simple repertoires of mental processes, limited and intimate, but also takes into consideration the effect of “exterior” resources on the person, which act as mediating elements; in fact, the learning is considered as a guided appropriation of mediating elements. In this way, the cognitive acquisitions are situated, in the sense of being linked to learning contexts, and contextualised in some type of social activity. Finally, we need to highlight the profound social nature of cognition, in two senses: the mediating elements are created and evolve in a socio-cultural setting, and these mediating elements are found habitually in the course of our interchanges with other people. We will now describe in more detail some of the emerging technologies and practices for

Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

facilitating and improving collective sharing and generation of Web based knowledge. In order to do this we need to distinguish between what are called collaborative digital tools on the Web and methodologies based on learning objects online (Wiley, 2002), understood as “curricular units digitally supported which can integrate in distinct curricular contexts supporting training programmes with distinct objectives and target users ”.

CollABoRATIve ReSouRCeS FoR weB 2.0 Among these collaborative tools based in the Web are the Wikis, the Weblogs and the forums.

wikis This is a type of Web which is developed in a collaborative way by a group of users, and can be easily edited by any user. The Wiki systems allow us to create interconnected documents quickly by group collaboration, whose members can add new pages or edit existing pages. The best known example of Wiki technology is Wikipedia, an open, free access encyclopedia, administered by the non-profit making foundation Wikimedia, in which anyone can contribute. One of the main inconveniences of this technology is the fact that users can, unintentionally or not, delete articles in Wiki. But in spite of the serious problem this represents, the solution can be found by the very own users of Wiki who are able to correct mistakes and rectify rapidly. Thus, the present tendency of Wiki users is to register as contributors, which often acts as a safeguard to bad or irresponsible use of this technology. Furthermore, one of the main characteristics of Wiki is that you can always recover any text written by other people which has been modified or deleted, as it has a record of changes.

In the educational environment, this technology allows us to consider constructivist ideas, as it is a tool for students to explore and construct their own content and to create their own meaning. According to Cych (2006), a Wiki environment differs from the traditional environment in that it encourages both the teachers and the students to learn together: “knowledge is no longer transmitted from one to the other, but each person shares a part of what they know to construct a whole – in effect another form of peer-to-peer constructivist learning”. Some teachers are beginning to use Wiki to back up educational projects which promote the interchange of ideas and collaborative writing. Baggetun (2006) presents some examples which implicate different forms of collaboration in education through Wiki: a)

b)

c)

Wikis as libraries for projects. This is the case of those Wikis which at first facilitate a shared space to create projects, and then remain once the course is finished. The new students can use this library to get ideas, whilst the old students can keep them up to date, establishing a learning exchange. Interclass Wikis. In this kind of Wikis, the students create an open content which can be used and inspected by anyone with the particularity that the access is not open, but restricted to the class students by a password. The results of one course are passed on to the following course, so that they can carry on working with it and updating and adding to it with new material. Wikis in educational institutions. The idea is that the students themselves use and add content to the Web site, as an opportunity to contribute and be involved in spaces with local information.

Other uses of Wikis as shown by Mader (2006) are:

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•

•

•

•

•

•

Creating simple Web pages. Given the simplicity of creation, the student can concentrate on writing content, and not so much on receiving training in order to be able to publish something on the Internet. Developing peer-reviewed projects. Given the simplicity of writing, reviewing and posting tasks related to projects, the educator and classmates can follow the progress of written work developed in the Wiki, and provide retro-feedback with suggestions for improvements, continually and not just at the end of the process. Group creation. Improve on the previous group collaboration. Wiki brings together members of a group in the same space to construct the document in the same Wiki, with immediate and equal access for all members of the group. Monitoring projects. Members of a group can see the evolution of a document or group project, and follow the investigation being carried out; one member can see the resources that another member has used or consulted as the Wikis allow you to have pages for the group document and individual pages for each member of the group where they can store consulted sources and rough written drafts. Data collection. As it is easy to edit, the Wiki can be very useful for collecting data of a group of students. Presentations: Although not designed for this task, there are individual initiatives which have used the Wiki format to make presentations on specific topics.

These and other examples show us some of the possible uses of Wikis in education, in the way that they allow innovative forms of collaboration.

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weblogs Weblogs or blogs are Web sites which compile articles chronologically from one or more authors, with the most recent appearing first. They usually collect daily, links, news and opinions with an informal and subjective style. The readers can add comments to any article and the author can respond. The Weblogs which are used for educational purposes or in educational environments are called edublogs. Weblogs are a means of collective communication which promote the creation and the consumption of original and true information, through personal and social reflection on themes of individuals, groups and humanity. In the educational environment, they have a highly motivational character. They therefore need to strengthen the analysis, reflection and at the same time share experiences, knowledge and content, in such a way that the student can go on creating a collective learning entity, while developing their postings, and taking control of their own learning process. Given their potential, Weblogs are becoming an extremely useful tool for educational use, as they are easy to use and cost hardly anything to publish periodically on the Internet. Gewerc (2005) highlights three advantages for using Weblogs in the educational environment: •

•

•

The tools for creating and publishing Weblogs are simple to use and one can learn very quickly how to use them. The design of Weblogs with predefined layouts makes it easy to use graphic design, which allows the students to concentrate more on the content and communication process. Weblogs offer a series of functions such as commentaries, trackback, file systems, internal search engines and permanent individual links of published material which adds an extra value to the production of content online.

Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

According to the author, Weblogs combine effectively different traditional Internet resources: they can be used as search engines, with specific links recommended; they seem like mail with their informal style; you can join discussion forums as the readers participate and comment; and they offer the possibility to create texts, publish them and debate them with other people. This interactive and participative capacity is probably what distinguishes this Web modality from all other virtual offers. As stated by Cych (2006), the use of blogs in education is more advanced in the United States, but it is still relatively new as a means of teaching and learning. More recently, multimedia variations of blogs have started to appear which can be particularly interesting in education such as: Podcast −a blog where articles are sound files recorded by the author−, Videoblog or Vlog −blog in video format−, Moblogs or mobileblogs −blogs with photos sent by mobile telephone to specialised Web sites–.

on the role of actively providing ideas, information etc. Harasim et al. (2000) propose some techniques that the teacher should bear in mind in order to develop the potential of the forums in university education: a)

b)

Forums The forum, also known as the opinion or discussion forum, is a Web application which facilitates discussions and opinions online among users who wish to exchange ideas and points of view on diverse topics established in an asynchronic way, and form a kind of common interest community. The discussions are usually moderated by a coordinator or motivator, who usually present the theme and stimulate participation. All users’ interventions are registered either chronologically or using a tree or nest diagram which makes it easy to follow the participants’ interventions. The educational potential of this application in university learning lies in the possibility of creating a participation structure among students which promotes the joint construction of knowledge based on a central theme. The teacher takes the role of moderator of the discussion and the educational interventions, while the student takes

c)

d)

Change the relation between teachers, students and the learning content. The construction of knowledge through the Web should be centred on the student with a different role for the teacher, more a helper-observer than the person in charge of giving lessons. Consequently, the emphasis is on collaborative learning and on the students’ own intellectual process, which is responsible to a great extent for the students learning. Prepare the stage. At the beginning of the activity, the teacher has to create a pleasant and inviting environment to attract the students into immediate active participation, by giving them clear instructions and support in order to build up their confidence and help them feel secure. The teacher must establish very clearly the kind of participation expected, give instructions to the participants, encourage them to answer amongst themselves, and stimulate a regular, active and considered participation. Supervise and stimulate participation. Supervising that all the students have commenced the activity and carry on doing so throughout the whole process is essential for the student’s progress, and to help those who have fallen behind or disconnected so that they may take part once again. Close the discussion, promoting metacognition and assessing the results.

These techniques can contribute to helping the construction of knowledge through the forum becoming a satisfactory and enriching social and intellectual experience for all those who take part. Onrubia (2005) adds that the teaching through the Web has a necessary component of “carrying out

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work together” between teacher and student: only in this way can a sensitive and contingent intervention be achieved which will really help the student to go even further with the content than would be possible with an individual interaction.

meThodologIeS BASed on leARnIng oBJeCTS Among the methodologies2 based on learning objects are WebQuest, MiniQuest and Treasure Hunt (or Scavenger Hunt or Knowledge Hunt), with their common and consensual psychopedagogical methodology which establish them as a formula for guaranteeing said objectives. As stated by Esteban and Zapata (2008), the design of these educational digital applications should be controlled by criteria or orientations which guarantee the requirements of quality derived form the principles and theories of learning and metacognition in general, and define the cognitive singularity of said learning objects, marked by a learning environment and appropriate style or styles.

webQuest This is a learning methodology which allows you to incorporate the Internet at any educational level, in a constructivist framework and as a cooperative work. It was created by Bernie Dodge, educational technology teacher at San Diego State University, who defines it in the following way: “A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing” (Dodge, 1995). As stated by Adell (2004), “a WebQuest is a kind of pedagogical activity based on constructivist concepts of teaching and learning, which is based on group work techniques in projects and research as basic teaching/learning activities”. It works in a simple way: the students organise

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themselves in small groups and are assigned a different role for each one to carry out along with a task. To do this they need to follow a well planned and structured process prepared by the teacher, in which they will need to carry out a series of activities which will lead them to the elaboration of a final product. These activities are based on information which can be obtained on the Internet by links which appear on the actual WebQuest, and which the teacher has previously selected as resources to facilitate carrying out activities. The students will need to carry out various actions such as reading, analysing and synthesising the information, to be able at a later stage to process, manipulate and organise it in line with the proposed task completion and learning objectives. Furthermore, the students will know beforehand the assessment criteria for the activity based on the known evaluation rubric, in which the process along with the product will be assessed, using a series of criteria graded up to excellence. In order to develop all these potentialities, the design of a WebQuest must be based on a structure which contains the following fundamentals: introduction, where the activity is presented in a motivating way through a challenge or discovery; task, where what the student has to do is described, in other words what the end product will be; process, where how the task is to be carried out is clearly detailed –types of grouping, roles to take, intermediate stages …–, and where a link to the Web resources required to construct the final product; evaluation, where it is made explicitly clear using a rubric, how they will be assessed and under which criteria; conclusion, to reflect on the work and collaborative experience of the student, such as the result achieved, bearing in mind the learning objectives. Furthermore, it is important that it contains other complementary sections such as: cover, with the name of the WebQuest, the author, date created and educational level aimed at; credits, where references used in the WebQuest are included along with possible collaborations; and didactic guide, with useful information for other

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teachers who also wish to use the WebQuest, such as objectives, content, methodological aspects, bibliography, complementary activities, etc. This last part is fundamental in guaranteeing the sharing of resources among teachers on the Web. Quintana and Higueras (2007) review the fundamentals of WebQuests, as methodological changes and the effect these have on teachers, not only in the planning stages –based on the specific WebQuest structure commented on previously– but also on roles carried out by the teacher and the learner –in a didactic approach focused on the development of the personal and professional competences of the student–. The relation established between the most distinctive characteristics of the WebQuests and the Merrill principles (2002), are especially interesting in order to be able to assess its effectiveness: (See Table 1) Merrill PrinciplesCharacteristics of WebQuestsProblems: the student has to be implicated in solving problems and situations in the real world.Task: linked to reality with real application content. Needs to be contextualised, relevant and as real as possible.Activation: activation of knowledge and previous relevant experience of the students, as a base for learning new knowledge and skills. Process: what the student knows and knows what to do. Demonstration: demonstrate exactly what has to be learned. Task: describe the final product that the student needs to produce,

not only conceptually but materially. Application: the student has to use and apply their new skills and knowledge. Task: the creation of content by the student, elaborating material and frequent public presentations. Integration: the student integrates the new skills and knowledge into their world. Task: linked to reality with real application content. Has to be contextualised, relevant and as real as possible. The official and fundamental site for WebQuest can be found at http://Webquest.org/, where you can access various examples in Search for WebQuests, at http://Webquest.org/search/. Other examples of the use of WebQuest in university teaching and other educational levels can be found at the site Best WebQuests by Tom March at http:// bestWebquests.com/. Quintana and Higueras (2007) have also compiled various links with collections of WebQuest, which show its viability in the university environment.

miniQuest Faced with the great development in Internet of WebQuest, MiniQuest, an abbreviated form of such a search activity on the Web, has much less of a presence. Nevertheless, we believe that it is a very flexible methodology and can be incredibly useful if its design responds to principles of knowledge building and collaborative development.

Table 1. Merrill Principles and WebQuest characteristics (Source: Quintana and Higueras, 2007) Merrill Principles

Characteristics of WebQuests

Problems: the student has to be implicated in solving problems and situations in the real world.

Task: linked to reality with real application content. Needs to be contextualised, relevant and as real as possible.

Activation: activation of knowledge and previous relevant experience of the students, as a base for learning new knowledge and skills.

Process: what the student knows and knows what to do.

Demonstration: demonstrate exactly what has to be learned.

Task: describe the final product that the student needs to produce, not only conceptually but materially.

Application: the student has to use and apply their new skills and knowledge.

Task: the creation of content by the student, elaborating material and frequent public presentations.

Integration: the student integrates the new skills and knowledge into their world.

Task: linked to reality with real application content. Has to be contextualised, relevant and as real as possible.

Source: Quintana and Higueras (2007)

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A MiniQuest is a learning activity based on a guided information search on the Internet. They are online instruction models designed by teachers for their students and promote critical thought and the construction of knowledge. They are inspired in the WebQuest concept and require only three steps, to overcome the limits of time and effort needed by WebQuest design. They can be built by teachers experienced in Internet use in just three or four hours. The students can do them completely in one class. They can be used by teachers who do not have a lot of time or who are just starting out creating and applying Webquest. We can distinguish three types of MiniQuest: •

Discovery. These are done at the beginning of a unit with the aim of presenting it to the student. Exploration. These are done during a unit, with the aim of learning the necessary content to be able to understand a concept in particular or complete a learning objective. Culmination. These are done at the end of a unit. These Miniquests sometimes need to use information obtained in carrying out another type of MiniQuest or by other traditional educational methods. The students who work on these have a “knowledge base” because they are able to respond to questions much more profound or complex which have as a final result the MiniQuest. These questions are known as essential questions.

•

•

The structure of a MiniQuest: •

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Setting. Present an initial situation through which the student can get themselves ready to be able to carry out the task. Put the students in a real role. Establish, as well, the essential question (formulated implicitly or explicitly) that the students need to answer.

•

•

Task. Present the work to be developed. Although it is not obligatory, it is advisable to formulate questions so that the student is aware exactly where to direct their investigations in order to answer the essential question (it is also possible to consider an activity based on fictitious identities or roles, following the principles laid down by Dodge for the WebQuest.). It needs to be well structured because the activity has to be completed in one or two class periods. Direct the students to specific Web sites (resources) which contain the information necessary to solve the questions in such a way that the acquisition of the “basic material” can be done in the established time and efficiently. Product. In this section we will try to offer a more detailed description of the work required to be carried out in order to answer the essential question posed. The students need to show understanding, which needs to be checked by the teacher through some means of evaluation of the product. The students have to develop a new way of looking at the problem. If the creation of knowledge is not promoted, then the activity becomes simply a worksheet online and not what it should be, a research activity. The product also needs to be real and reflect adequately the role assigned to the student.

Treasure hunt, Scavenger hunt or knowledge hunt A Treasure Hunt is a kind of very simple pedagogical activity which consists of a series of questions and a list of Web page addresses where the answers can be found or inferred. These types of activities include a “big question” at the end, which requires the students to integrate the knowledge acquired during the process. Adell (2003) proposes an interesting alternative for high level students, which is, instead

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of resolving them, to prepare themselves their own “treasure hunts” adopting the role of teachers. The hunts can be prepared in a group and then, each group can solve the hunt set by other teams. In this case and according to the author, the criteria for evaluating the hunt must include the representativeness, pertinence or relevance of the questions to the theme in question and to the available resources.

ImPlICATIonS oF weB 2.0 In The deSIgn oF CollABoRATIve leARnIng envIRonmenTS Design environments of collaborative learning in Web 2.0 needs to find the balance between the social interaction means directed at the cognitive processes –the educational dimension of the social interaction – and the medium of social interaction addressed at the underlying socioeconomic processes in the group dynamic – the social dimension of social interaction. As regards the educational dimension of the social interaction, Dillenbourg (2006) states that the different points of view in the social interaction bring about the socio-cognitive conflict. According to the author, for this conflict to be resolved, from the reformulation to the explanation, we need to understand the other perspective, which

will lead us to a richer and shared understanding of the field of knowledge. Concerning the social dimension of the social interaction, Kreijns, Kirschner, Jochems and Van Buuren (2005) consider that it is a fundamental factor which affects the collaboration, the group dynamic and its consolidation, as it favours social relations which allow an affective structure to be established, a social cohesion and a sense of community. In the author’s words, these are the attributes of a solid social space, in which the open community can benefit the collaborative activities and the relevant information exchange. Looking for this balance in the interaction, Garrison (2006) suggests that in the design of a collaborative learning process of constructivist character we need to consider the integration of the social presence and the cognitive presence in this process. In this way, the author affirms that the social presence reflects the ability to connect with members of the community of learners at a personal level, while the cognitive presence is the process of constructing meaning which is produced during the collaborative activity. These two elements go along with a third basic element, the presence of teaching, which allows us to structure and give support to the educational process, so that it can become a significant and interesting learning experience. In this way, there are three categories in the teaching presence –design, facilitation and

Table 2. Principles of online collaboration (Source: Garrison, 2006) Teaching presence Design

Facilitation

Instruction

Social presence

Establish a climate of confidence and pertinence which supports the interaction and creates a community of investigation

Sustain the community through group cohesion

Develop collaborative relations and give support to students so that they can assume an increasing responsibility in their learning

Cognitive presence

Establish a critical reflection and discussion which supports investigation

Foment and support progression in investigation in order to solve the task

Ensure resolution and metacognitive development

Source: Garrison (2006)

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Table 3. Learning sequence phases

Analysis and exploration of problem

Articulation of the solution

Reflection on results and experiences

Learning activities

Start of investigation Analysis of related cases Consultation of information sources Use of cognitive tools

Development of proposals Use of cognitive tools Project diary

Establishing reflection practice Individual and group reflection

Support technology

Data bases Links Simulators E-mails Forums …

Conceptual maps Wiki Chat Blog Forums …

Conceptual maps Wiki Blog …

instruction–, which identify a series of principles and directives from the ICT collaboration, as can be seen in the following table: (See Table 2) It is in the intersection of these three elements that a stimulating context is created, which can facilitate critical discourse and reflection in constructing meaning, and gives meaning to a community of educational objectives achieving a constructivist and collaborative learning experience. A good model of collaborative learning practice are the so-called authentic activities. The authentic activities should be based on projects, problems or cases and the students must be able to tackle, analyse and finally resolve them. To do this, and taking the project/problem/case as the centre of the learning activity, the learning environment mediated by technologies has to offer support and contextual support to the student. The social support is articulated through conversation and collaboration tools (forums, Wikis, chats,…) which allow the students to share–with the teacher and also all their equals– their ideas and interpretations, negotiate them and organise themselves in groups. The contextual support (databases, Web page links, …) is based on information sources, cognitive tools and other resources. The information sources allow us to develop an understanding of the relevant principles and concepts, the cognitive tools facilitate the representation of the problem, its knowledge and can automate certain simple tasks and other 712

resources – such as related cases, designed projects or solved problems – describe solutions to previous similar problems, which allows the students to design their own solution. The following table (based on Benett, 2004) summarizes the sequence of such a learning activity: (See Table 3) In short, the social software Web 2.0 allows users to communicate, publish and collaborate with diverse technologies and practices, which have profound implications in the academic world, especially in higher education. It is inherently social software, with its benefits fundamentally based on collaboration. In spite of the limitations related to the fact that the technologies will not produce educational innovative practices if they do not adapt in an opportune way, its value in education is clear: emerging practices based on these technologies allow us to configure learning and practice communities, where the people linked by a fixed affinity can interact and interchange ideas. In this way students have the chance to participate in global learning communities, way beyond their geographical or social community, exceeding limitations of age, prior knowledge or gender. Thus, the discussion forums are explicit attempts of social software to create construction and knowledge communities, and the Weblogs or Wikis show the benefits that can be obtained form participating in digital communities.

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ReFeRenCeS Adell, J. (2003). Internet en el aula: A la caza del tesoro [online]. Edutec, Revista Electrónica de Tecnología Educativa, 16. Retrieved from http:// edutec.rediris.es/Revelec2/revelec16/adell.htm Adell, J., & Sales, A. (1999). El profesor online: Elementos para la definición de un nuevo rol docente [en línia]. Retrieved on November 16, 2005, from http://tecnologiaedu.us.es/edutec/ paginas/105.html Álvarez, I., Ayuste, A., Gros, B., Guerra, V., & Romañá, T. (2005). Construir conocimiento con soporte tecnológico para un aprendizaje colaborativo [en línia]. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación (ISSN: 1681-5653). Retrieved on April 2, 2006, from http://www.rieoei.org/ deloslectores/1058alvarez.pdf

Dillenbourg, P. (2006). The solo/duo gap. Computers in Human Behavior, 22(1), 155–159. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2005.05.001 Dodge, B. (1995). Some thoughts about Webquests. [online]. Retrieved from http://webquest.sdsu.edu/ about_webquests.html Esteban, M., & Zapata, M. (2008). Estrategias de aprendizaje y e-learning. Un apunte para la fundamentación del diseño educativo en los entornos virtuales de aprendizaje. Consideraciones para la reflexión y el debate. Introducción al estudio de las estrategias y estilos de aprendizaje [online]. Revista de Educación a Distancia, 19. Retrieved from http://www.um.es/ead/red/19 Garrison, D. R. (2006). Online collaboration principles. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(1), 25–34.

Baggetun, R. (2006). Emergent Web practices and new educational opportunities [online]. TELOS, Cuadernos de Comunicación e Innovación, 67. Retrieved from http://www.campusred.net/telos/ articulocuaderno.asp?idarticulo=9&rev=67

Gewerc, A. (2005). El uso de weblogs en la docencia universitaria [online]. Revista Latinoamericana de Tecnología Educativa, 4(1). Retrieved from http://campusvirtual.unex.es/cala/ editio/index.php

Bennet, A. (2004). Supporting collaborative project teams using computer-based technologies. In T. Roberts (Ed.), Online collaborative learning: Theory and practice. London: Information Science Publishing.

Harasim, L., Roxanne, S., Turoff, M., & Teles, L. (2000). Redes de aprendizaje. Guía para la enseñanza y el aprendizaje en red. Barcelona: Gedisa Editorial.

Cambra, T. (2008). El Web 2.0 com a distòpia en la recent Internet [online]. Digithum, 10. UOC. Retrieved from http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/10/ dt/cat/cambra.pdf

Johnson, R. T., & Johnson, D. W. (1991). Joining together. Boston: Ally et Bacon.

Crook, C. (1998). Ordenadores y aprendizaje colaborativo. Madrid: Morata.

Kolodner, J., & Guzdial, M. (1996). Effects with and of CSCL: Tracking learning in a new paradigm. In T. Koschmann (Ed.), CSCL: Theory and practice of an emerging paradigm. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Cych, L. (2006). Social networks. Emerging technologies for learning. British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) ICT Research.

Kreijns, K., Kirschner, P. A., Jochems, W., & Van Buuren, H. (2005). Measuring perceived sociability of computer-supported collaborative learning environments. Computers & Education.

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Levy, P. (2004). L’Intelligence collective. Pour une anthropologie du cyberespace. Paris: La Découverte. Mader, S. (2006). Ways to use wiki in education [online]. Using Wiki in Education. Retrieved from http://www.wikiineducation.com/display/ikiw/ Ways+to+use+wiki+in+education Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction [online]. Educational Technology, Research, and Development, 50(3), 43-59. Retrieved from http://id2.usu.edu/Papers/5FirstPrinciples.PDF Monereo, C., & Duran, D. (2001). Entramats. Mètodes d’aprenentatge cooperatiu i collaboratiu. Barcelona: Edebé. Nastasi, B., & Clements, D. (1991). Research on cooperative learning: Implications for practice. School Psychology Review, 20, 110–131. New Media Consortium. (2008). 2008 horizon report. [online]. Retrieved from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/ ELI/2008HorizonReport/45926 Onrubia, J. (2003). Las aulas como comunidades de aprendizaje: Una propuesta de enseñanza basada en la interacción, la cooperación, y el trabajo en equipo. Cooperación Educativa Kikiriki, 68, 37–46. Onrubia, J. (2005). Aprender y enseñar en entornos virtuales: Actividad conjunta, ayuda pedagógica, y construcción del conocimiento [online]. Revista de Educación a Distancia, n II. Retrieved from http://www.um.es/ead/red/M2/conferencia_onrubia.pdf

Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S., & Facer, K. (2006). Social software and learning [online]. Opening Education, Futurelab. Retrieved from http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications_reports_articles/opening_education_reports/Opening_Education_Report199 Quintana, J., & Higueras, E. (2007). Les Webquests, una metodologia d’aprenentatge cooperatiu, basada en l’accés, el maneig i l’ús d’informació de la Xarxa. ICE de la Universitat de Barcelona: Quaderns de Docència Universitària, 11. Salomon, G., Perkins, D. N., & Globerson, T. (1992). Coparticipando en el conocimiento. La ampliación de la inteligencia humana con las tecnologías inteligentes. Comunicación . Lenguaje y Educación, 13, 6–22. Slavin, R. (1990). Cooperative learning. Theory, research, and practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. Wiley, D. A. (2002). Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy. The instructional use of learning objects. Bloomington, IN: Agency for Instructional Technology.

endnotes 1

2

The concept of web 2.0 was conceived for Tim O’Reilly1 in 2003. «What is Web 2.0», O’Reilly Media, Inc. Although the three methodologies were created in the Web 1.0, they assume all their pedagogic potential within the framework of Web 2.0 when they integrate the use of technologies based into the collective intelligence.

This work was previously published in Educational Social Software for Context-Aware Learning: Collaborative Methods and Human Interaction , edited by N. Lambropoulos; M. Romero, pp. 206-221, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global). 714

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Chapter 3.12

Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration Manolis Tzagarakis Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Nikos Karousos Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece Nikos Karacapilidis University of Patras, Greece

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

Much research has been performed on how computer-based technologies might facilitate awareness among cooperating actors. However, existing approaches in providing awareness services prove to be inadequate in data-intensive instances of argumentative collaboration. Moreover, they fail to address the needs of dynamic, Web-based communities. In this context, this article presents a list of awareness mechanisms that have been integrated in an innovative Web-based collaboration support tool, where the ultimate aim is to satisfy the requirements associated with the above remarks. The proposed mechanisms are described and elaborated with respect to various awareness types reported in the literature.

The concept of awareness has been extensively elaborated in the field of computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) (Carroll, Rosson, Convertino, & Ganoe, 2006; Schmidt, 2002). In this context, awareness can be defined as an understanding of the activities of others, which provides a context for one’s own activity (Dourish & Bellotti, 1992). Much research has been performed on how computer-based technologies might facilitate awareness among cooperating actors (i.e., members of a community). An important body of this work attempts to develop computational environments based on event propagation mechanisms for collecting, disseminating, and integrating information concerning collaborative activities

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration

(Schmidt, 2002). Generally speaking, awareness of past and current actions in such shared environments and over shared artifacts influences and guides actors’ decisions and courses of action. It allows them to have a general perception of the community’s activities, progress, and problems, as well as to have a perception about their progress compared to others. Some awareness-related services, offered by these environments, could also aid actors to find potential collaborators for exchanging diverse types of artifacts (which can serve as an instrument to generate and sustain awareness themselves) or asking for help. However, powerful awareness mechanisms are rather rare in argumentative collaboration environments. Moreover, existing approaches in providing awareness services prove to be inadequate in data-intensive situations (Carroll et al., 2006). Collaboration settings are often associated with huge, ever-increasing amounts of multiple types of data, obtained from diverse sources that often have a low signal-to-noise ratio for addressing the problem at hand. In turn, these data may vary in terms of subjectivity, ranging from individual opinions and estimations to broadly accepted practices and indisputable measurements and scientific results. Their types can be of diverse level as far as human understanding and machine interpretation are concerned. They can be put forward by people having diverse or even conflicting interests. At the same time, the associated data are in most cases interconnected in a vague or explicit way. Data and their interconnections often reveal social networks and social interactions of different patterns. These ideas about data bring up the need for innovative software tools that offer the appropriate awareness services in order to make it easier for actors and communities to capture, represent, and process big and complex volumes of data and knowledge during argumentative collaboration. Such services should shift in focus from the collection and representation of information to its meaningful assessment and utilization with

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the ultimate aim to facilitate and augment collaborative sense making. This can be seen as a special type of social computing where various computations concerning the associated context and group’s behavior need to be supported. In line with the above, this article presents a list of awareness mechanisms that have been integrated in a Web-based tool, namely CoPe_it! (http://copeit.cti.gr), that supports data-intensive argumentative collaboration. In the following sections, we sketch our overall approach and motivation, make a distinction of various awareness types, describe the proposed mechanisms and services in detail, and conclude with some preliminary evaluation results and future work directions.

Awareness in Argumentative Collaboration environments While awareness is critical in CSCW, it is a rather unexplored domain in the context of argumentative collaboration environments. Although many tools exist to support online discussion and deliberation, which range from simple discussion forums found on the Web to sophisticated and formal argumentation and decision support systems (Karacapilidis & Papadias, 2001), these do not consider awareness mechanisms as a focal point. Such mechanisms are usually considered a complementary (i.e., not a core) functionality of solutions addressing collaboration needs. The majority of these tools provide only simple awareness mechanisms that include user presence indicators and information related to the source of individual resources (i.e., who admitted a resource and when). One reason that these tools do not employ more sophisticated awareness mechanisms is related to the way these tools support the underlying collaboration. In particular, the majority of argumentative collaboration approaches enable only asynchronous collaboration between participants and limit the number of allowed discourse moves during the collaboration. In discussion forums, for

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instance, users may only post messages that may be sorted chronologically but disallow updating or further processing (such as explicit associating or aggregating) of existing posts. Similar limitations in discourse moves can be seen even in formal argumentation systems. The provision of a limited set of discourse moves, which lack the ability to update or recast existing collaboration items, prohibits these tools to cope with problems that arise during data intensive collaboration. One solution to this problem is to extend argumentative collaboration tools with knowledge management capabilities. Among others, such capabilities permit individual users to associate items of the discussion at their will and pace, tag individual items, or even aggregate a number of them into higher level abstractions; hence, they can tame the complexity of the collaboration space. Tools that expand the number of available discourse moves, such as explicitly associating items or aggregating them into larger structures, are usually designed to be used by a single person, as is the case with almost all IBIS-based tools (Conklin & Begeman, 1987; Conklin & Yakemovic, 1991; Shum, MacLean, Forder, & Hammond, 1993). In any case, for tools operating in such a setting, awareness services although helpful are not considered a critical issue. Argumentative collaboration environments, augmented with knowledge management services to cope with data-intensive collaboration, require a reconsideration of the status of their awareness services. This is because the more control users have over the items of a discussion in order to cope with data-intensiveness of the collaboration space, the more difficult it is for participating members to identify changes that occur due to the actions of their peers. This ultimately harms the user’s ability to follow the evolution of the collaboration and asses its current state. In such rich environments, awareness mechanisms are not simply a useful extension but a required functionality that can significantly sustain the effectiveness of the collaboration.

However, introducing awareness services into data-intensive argumentative collaboration environments is not without concerns. A number of issues need to be taken into consideration that deal, among others, with which awareness types are useful in a community setting that is supported by argumentative collaboration tools, how to unobtrusively deliver awareness information and how to deal with the asynchronous and semisynchronous nature of the collaboration space (Dourish & Bellotti, 1992).

Integrating Awareness mechanisms Awareness mechanisms are essential in cooperative and collaborative environments where people interact through task sharing and assets exchange (Gillet, Salzmann, & Rekik, 2006). However, and as previous research has proven, not all notifications are welcomed by users and they might end up having an adverse effect. As a matter of fact, many studies have shown that excessive unnecessary notifications might lead to undesirable effects such as a decrease in productivity (Speier, Valacich, & Vessey, 1997; Spira & Feintuch, 2005). For instance, in a learning community that includes educators, teaching assistants, and a considerable number of students, if every time a student comments on a document or an educator decides to change the rights assigned to a role in a specific activity, everyone is notified, information overload is unavoidable. Consequently, community members will tend to ignore all received notifications, some of which might be relatively important and require an immediate action. A way to avoid these adverse effects and successfully sustain collaboration is to provide context-sensitive, user-centered awareness services. In order to appropriately develop such services, three basic issues have to be addressed: (i) what information should be delivered? (ii) when should it be delivered? and (iii) how should it be rendered? (Greenberg & Roseman, 1996). In other words, the relevancy and importance of

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a notification to a specific user, its delivery and display means, and its time of delivery are the three intrinsic notification parameters that should be adapted based on the interests and notification preferences of the target user. At the same time, the notion of community in the context under consideration refers to a highly dynamic entity that evolves and changes during collaboration sessions and its lifetime; new actors can be added to a community or abandon it; some actors may be online and others not; different actor roles can be assigned (which might even change during a collaboration session), while the status of individual actors evolves in terms of their participation and expertise. In addition, actors may be members of different communities or work on multiple workspaces, where they may have different roles, be assigned to different tasks, and pursue different goals. Although expressive, such a highly dynamic environment may lead users to blur or even lose the mental image they have of their community (e.g., what goals are to be achieved, what task they are supposed to do, how others contribute to the community) and the knowledge items of a collaborative workspace. This compromises the ability of individual actors to align their actions during a collaboration session with the actions of their peers and hence threatens the group’s cohesiveness. Absence of such cohesiveness results in harming the ability of the community to solve problems efficiently. This situation is exactly the opposite of what the awareness mechanisms should try to achieve. To avoid the aforementioned problems, our attempts focus on controlling the consequences of such a highly dynamic and data-intensive environment. Hence, the proposed mechanisms provide features and functionalities with which the various events during a collaboration session can be timely captured, analyzed, and made visible to end users. Another important issue during the shaping of our approach concerned the awareness types to be supported. Related work from the CSCW

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field reveals that various sets of awareness types have already been proposed (Chen & Gaines, 1997; Gutwin, Stark, & Greenberg, 1995; Gutwin, Greenberg, & Roseman, 1996; Nutter & Boldyreff, 2003). These sets attempt to address different concerns in a collaboration setting. However, in the context of our approach, no single set of awareness types was able to address the abovementioned collaboration aspects and requirements. Instead, a synthesis of relevant awareness types found in the literature has been adopted. This set of awareness type permits addressing awareness issues at both the individual and the community levels, something that is critical for collaboration support services. The proposed list of awareness types to be offered in a data-intensive collaboration setting includes: •

•

•

•

•

•

Informal awareness: This form of awareness of a work community is the general knowledge of who is around and what he/ she is doing. It has been pointed out as an enabler of spontaneous interaction (Gross, Stary, & Totter, 2005). Presence awareness: It involves information about the status of users. This information indicates each user’s availability, aptitude, and willingness to collaborate with others. Task awareness: It involves information about the aim of a task, its requirements, and how it fits within a bigger plan. Social awareness: It concerns the information that a community’s member maintains about his/her peers in a social or conversational level. It includes issues like the degree of attention and the level of interest of a member. Group-structural awareness: It involves information about the members’ roles and responsibilities, their positions on an issue, and the overall community’s processes. Historical awareness: It concerns knowledge about how artefacts resulting from

Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration

•

collaboration have evolved in the course of their development. Workspace awareness: It concerns the upto-the-minute knowledge about others’ interaction within a shared workspace (Greenberg & Roseman, 1996). This includes knowledge about the collaborative workspace in general, information about other actors’ interactions with the shared workspace, and the artifacts it contains. Its difference compared to the informal awareness is that the workspace awareness is relevant only within the context of particular, shared collaboration environments. Informal awareness does not make such an assumption and considers a broader, systemwide context. Several elements are relevant to this type of awareness: presence (is anyone in the workspace?), identity (who is participating?), authorship (who is doing what?), action (what are the actors doing?), action history (how did that operation happen?), artifact history (how did this artifact reach this state?), and so forth (for a complete list, see Gross et al., 2005).

It is important to notice that the adopted awareness types are not considered as independent; rather, they overlap in a collaborative environment (Greenberg & Roseman, 1996). Hence, some awareness functionalities may be related to more than one awareness types.

Awareness mechanisms in CoPe_it! In this section, we present the mechanisms that CoPe_it! offers in order to deliver awareness information to a community’s members. For each mechanism, we discuss issues related to what information is available, how it is conveyed to users, how preferences with respect to desired awareness information can be expressed, and what cues are used to facilitate transparent delivery of this information. Before that, we briefly introduce some key concepts of CoPe_it! in order to sketch

the overall computer-supported environment in which the proposed awareness services function and better explain their purpose and role.

Short description of CoPe_it! CoPe_it! is a Web-based tool supporting argumentative collaboration within communities (Karacapilidis & Tzagarakis, 2007). The tool’s workspaces provide the ground where collaborative activities take place. Communities may have one or more workspaces where their members can upload diverse types of knowledge items such as notes, ideas, and comments as well as other artifacts such as files, images, and videos. In addition to operations related to sharing knowledge items, CoPe_it! provides also knowledge management means. Within workspaces, users can associate all knowledge types in arbitrary ways that suit their understanding of the domain. Moreover, they can freely change the type of the knowledge items (e.g., changing a note to an idea and vice versa) at any point during the collaboration. Furthermore, they can aggregate or specialize existing items, hence creating new items. Workspaces can be either public (shared by a group of people) or private. In CoPe_it!, the emphasis is on the place rather than on the time dimension. To support the evolution of collaboration in communities, CoPe_it! builds upon an incremental formalization approach, through which the emergent transformation of loosely coupled, informal, and unstructured workspaces to highly structured, formal workspaces is achieved. Alternative formalizations of a particular workspace are possible; these are supported by appropriate visualizations schemas. The collaboration environment of CoPe_it! brings in a new way of interacting with knowledge items in shared workspaces. This is attained by introducing a new set of operations that go beyond traditional operations found in contemporary collaboration environments, such as Web-based forums. These operations include, among others,

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Figure 1. Information on the status of individual users that belong to a community

changing the spatial position of knowledge items on the workspace, relating knowledge items using explicit relationships, aggregating knowledge items, changing the visual appearance of knowledge items or relationships, and changing the view of a workspace. Being a natural extension of the collaboration space, they do not make the tool more complicated; rather, they turn it to be a much more dynamic environment compared to traditional solutions. Within CoPe_it!, the notion of a community exists explicitly. Users may belong to one or more communities. Distinct roles within a community can be assigned; these determine and control the access of users to resources. In terms of user privileges, a hierarchical organization scheme is assumed. Every community has one or more administrators (moderators).

CoPe_it! Awareness mechanisms user Bar An integral part of the user’s main interface is the information that indicates the presence or not of a community’s members within CoPe_it!.

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The bottom-left pane in Figure 1 (entitled Quick Contacts) shows which users belonging to the same community are currently online. Special visual cues (called presence indicators) convey this status. A green bullet indicates a user that is currently online, while a gray bullet indicates a user not currently online. By hovering over a user in the presence pane, a window displays information on the user profile. This is the information that the users have decided to share. It gives the currently logged on user the ability to get in touch with his/her peers by either e-mail or chat. Hence, spontaneous and ad-hoc interactions can be possible. A special visual cue indicates users that have a particular role in the communities of which the current user is a member. For example, special icons will indicate users that are administrators/ moderators of a community or a particular workspace. It is noted that the list of users visible on the quick contacts pane are those that belong to the same community as the current user and not those who are working on the same workspace as the current user. This case is described in the context of another awareness mechanism.

Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration

Figure 2. Information on the mini map giving an overview of the entire workspace

mini map Every workspace in CoPe_it! is equipped with the ability to get an overview of the workspace in which a user is currently collaborating (Figure 2). Through the mini map space, the user is able to see areas of activity of that workspace that indicate which issues are being discussed by other community members. Due to the synchronous nature of the CoPe_it! workspaces, the mini map may also enable users to see where the most collaborative activity is happening. While the main display permits a user to focus on his own tasks, the mini map lets the same user glimpse the issues in which other members of the workspace are currently engaged. In different situations, this may also provide valuable insights that facilitate the coordination of collaborative actions within a workspace.

workspace head-up display (whud) Every workspace also provides a transparent area at the bottom of the display that will present

and report information about current events in which the user is currently working (Figure 3). This area is called the workspace head-up display (WHUD). This is the main mechanism through which events of the synchronous collaboration in a workspace will be perceivable by the user. In particular the WHUD will allow a user to: (i) get information about the users that are currently working in that workspace; and (ii) get notification on the actions other participants carry out in the workspace and on events related to individual artifacts, for example, artifact creation, deletion, update, and so forth. As with the online community users presented in previous section, services for initiating spontaneous interactions are provided via e-mail or chat.

workspace and Resource history At the workspace level, users are able to query what events happened in the past. Various filtering options are available so that they can see changes within a workspace. Changes may concern users, resources, or operations (e.g., what relationships have been added, what deletions and insertions occurred, etc.). As an alternative modal interface, such chronological information can also be ob721

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Figure 3. Workspace head-up display

tained by examining individual artifacts on the workspace. In addition to chronological information, visual cues indicating the access intensity of individual resources are supported. Figure 4 illustrates how “access intensity” is rendered visible to users. A usage bar is shown next to each resource that can take colors from white to red. A darker color indicates more frequent access by a larger number of users (than a lighter one). This aims at making visible which resources of a workspace are accessed the most (and which are not). This may give useful insights on which resources have not been taken into consideration.

workspace Teleporting CoPe_it! enables users to peek at other workspaces that may or may not be in their community and see what activities happen there without being noticed by the users that are currently working on that workspace. According to similar mechanisms that are available in CSCW (Gutwin et al., 1996), this is referred to as “workspace teleporting.” This functionality is achieved by assigning a special role to individual users and in particular the role

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of a “lurker.” Not all users have this role by default and assignment of this role to community members that in general do not have access to a workspace is controlled by the communities and workspaces administrator. Users that are able to lurk at other workspaces are made aware of this role by displaying special icons in their environment (e.g., binoculars next to the list of workspaces).

Statistics For each community, various types of statistical information is also provided. This gives insights on the participation level of the members in the community. These statistics include: •

• •

Number of log-ins by community members, where the number of members that logged on into CoPe_it! and how this number evolved over a time period are presented. Number of resources generated by the community during all collaboration sessions. Overview statistics on the activities within a community that may include the most active workspace, the most active members, and so forth (Figure 5).

Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration

Figure 4. Information about the usage of various artefacts in a workspaces (the red bar on the left indicates the access intensity; from left to right the figure shows artefacts in increasing usage intensity).

Figure 5. Statistics: overview report

Supported Awareness Types Summarizing the above mechanisms, Table 1 gives an overview of the awareness cues available in CoPe_it! and indicates to which awareness type they contribute. The awareness capabilities of CoPe_it! attempt to address the problems that originate from the highly dynamic environment that communities require and CoPe_it! provides. The available awareness mechanisms address a mixture of asynchronous and synchronous concerns. This is in contrast to the approach that

existing collaboration systems have with respect to awareness, as they target either synchronous or asynchronous issues of the collaboration. The awareness mechanisms of CoPe_it! cover a critical range of aspects ensuring effective collaboration, as they enable spontaneous and ad-hoc interaction between community members, easy comprehension of the events taking place within workspaces, as well as a meaningful assessment of a community’s activities and their evolution over time.

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Table 1. Overview of awareness cues in CoPe_it! and association of them to particular awareness types Display

Awareness Types

Indication of the users’ status

• When the user is online, a green bullet appears in the user bar next to her name • The names of online users working in a workspace appear in the head-up display.

Workspace, social, informal awareness

Indication of current activity in a workspace

• The mini map shows changes of the workspace due to the interaction of other working users. • Synchronously carried out operations are shown on the head-up display.

Workspace, social, informal awareness

Indication of past activity in a workspace

• Icon of clock marks recently changed items since the last user’s login. • Users can examine the history of the workspace and individual artifacts.

Workspace awareness

Indication of an item frequency of use

• Usage bar of the item appears in darker color.

Historical, workspace awareness

Indication of the rights over an item

• Ownership of an item—that in some situations may imply additional operations on that item—is indicated with an icon depicting a “star.”

Groupstructural awareness

Indication of teleporting to other workspaces

• Icon depicting binoculars next to all workspaces permitting teleporting is shown. • Binoculars are shown next to the current user’s name in her profile.

Social, informal awareness

Indication of the roles assigned to community members

• Administrators/moderators that belong to the same community as the current user appear in the user bar with an icon depicting a red gear (similar cues are used in the head-up display). • Administrators/moderators of workspaces where the user has access appear in the user bar with an icon depicting a green gear (similar cues are used in the head up display). • In the head-up display, community and workspace administrators are ranked first in the list of workspace users.

Groupstructural awareness

Indication of the activity within a community

• Statistics in the form of bars and charts are available to users.

Groupstructural, historical, social awareness

Awareness Cues

Adapting Awareness According to user needs Although CoPe_it! introduces a number of awareness services to address various aspects of the collaboration, their use may impose information overload to users. To avoid this situation, users have the ability to tailor and personalize them. More specifically, CoPe_it! enables users to activate or deactivate the available awareness services according to their preferences. In such a way, they may adjust the variety and volume of the related

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indicators received. These preferences can be directly set by users in the context of a selected workspace, a specific community that the user belongs to, or the entire CoPe_it! environment and are maintained in the user’s profile.

ConCluSIon The overall approach followed in the development of CoPe_it! is the result of action research studies (Checkland & Holwell, 1998) concerning the im-

Awareness Mechanisms for Web-Based Argumentative Collaboration

provement of practices, strategies, and knowledge in diverse data-intensive collaborative environments. Moreover, the research method adopted follows the design science paradigm (Hevner, March, Park, & Ram, 2004). CoPe_it! has been already introduced in multiple collaborative settings for a series of pilot applications. Preliminary results referring to the awareness services provided show that they fully cover the user requirements associated to the data-intensive nature of a collaboration setting, as well as to the dynamic nature of Web-based communities. In particular, users have admitted that these services stimulate interaction, make them more accountable for their contributions, while they aid them to conceive, document, and analyze the overall collaboration context in a holistic manner. Existing, broadly used Webbased argumentative collaboration environments, such as discussion forums, lack such awareness mechanisms, hence imposing serious limitations in data-intensive collaboration. Future work directions include the assessment of the effectiveness of existing awareness mechanisms, extension of the available notification support, and reconsideration of CoPe_it!’s architecture with respect to new awareness services. In particular, related to assessing the awareness mechanisms, extensive evaluation of CoPe_it! in diverse collaboration situations is currently being conducted, which is expected to shape our mind towards the development of additional awareness services required, as well as the experimentation with and integration of the associated visualization cues. Regarding notification support, future work will focus on including e-mail and SMS messages as an additional notification mean, emphasizing on how these can be deployed in a nondisruptive way. Finally, aiming at providing effortlessly new awareness services in the future, the conceptual architecture of CoPe_it! is reconsidered in order to treat awareness services as generic and expandable components.

ACknowledgmenT Research carried out in the context of this article has been partially funded by the EU PALETTE (Pedagogically Sustained Adaptive Learning through the Exploitation of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge) Integrated Project (IST FP6-2004, Contract No. 028038).

ReFeRenCeS Carroll, J. M., Rosson, M. B., Convertino, G., & Ganoe, C.H. (2006). Awareness and teamwork in computer-supported collaborations. Interacting with Computers, 18(1), 21–46. Checkland, P., & Holwell, S. (1998). Action research: Its nature and validity. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 11(1), 9–21. Chen, L., & Gaines, B. (1997). A cyber-organism model for awareness in collaborative communities on the Internet. International Journal of Intelligent Systems, 12(1), 31–56. Conklin, J., & Begeman, M. L. (1987, November). gIBIS: A hypertext tool for team design deliberation. In Proceedings of the Hypertext’87 Conference, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (pp. 247–151). Conklin, J., & Yakemovic, K. C. B. (1991). A process-oriented approach to design rationale. Human-Cumputer Interaction, 6(3/4), 357–391. Dourish, P., & Bellotti, V. (1992). Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces. In Proceedings of CSCW ’92, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (pp. 107–114). Gillet, D., Salzmann, C., & Rekik, Y. (2006). Awareness: An enabling feature for mediated interaction in communities of practice. In Proceedings of the TEL-CoPs’06 1st International Workshop on Building Technology Enhanced Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice, Crete, Greece.

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Greenberg, S., & Roseman, M. (1996). Workspace awareness for groupware. In Proceedings of the CHI’96 Conference (Companion), Vancouver, Canada (pp. 208–209). Gross, T., Stary, C., & Totter, A. (2005). Usercentered awareness in computer-supported cooperative work-systems: Structured embedding of findings from social sciences. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 18(3), 323–360. Gutwin, C., Greenberg, S., & Roseman, M. (1996). Workspace awareness in real-time distributed groupware: Framework, widgets, and evaluation. In Proceedings of the Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI’96), London, UK (pp. 281–298). Gutwin, C., Stark, G., & Greenberg, S. (1995). Support for workspace awareness in educational groupware. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning, Bloomington, IN (pp. 147–156). Hevner, A. R., March, S. T., Park, J., & Ram, S. (2004). Design science in information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 28(1), 75–105. Karacapilidis, N., & Papadias, D. (2001). Computer supported argumentation and collaborative decision making: The HERMES system. Information Systems, 26(4), 259–277. Karacapilidis, N., & Tzagarakis, M. (2007). Supporting incremental formalization in collaborative learning environments. In Proceedings of the 2nd

European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2007), Crete, Greece (LNCS 4753, pp. 127–142). Nutter, D., & Boldyreff, C. (2003). Historical awareness support and its evaluation in collaborative software engineering. In Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises. Schmidt, K. (2002). The problem with “awareness”: Introductory remarks on “awareness in CSCW.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 11(3), 285–298. Shum, S., MacLean, A. Forder, J., & Hammond, N. (1993, April 24–29). Summarising the evolution of design concepts within a design rationale framework. In Adjunct Proceedings of InterCHI’93: ACM/IFIP Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Amsterdam (pp. 43–44). Speier, C., Valacich, J. S., & Vessey, I. (1997). The effects of task interruption and information presentation on individual decision-making. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Information Systems, Atlanta, GA (pp. 21–36). Spira, J. B., & Feintuch, J. B. (2005). The cost of not paying attention: How interruptions impact knowledge worker productivity. New York: Basex.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 3, Issue 4, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 74-89, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.13

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques Yushun Wang Zhejiang University, China Yueting Zhuang Zhejiang University, China

ABSTRACT Online interaction with 3D facial animation is an alternative way of face-to-face communication for distance education. 3D facial modeling is essential for virtual educational environments establishment. This article presents a novel 3D facial modeling solution that facilitates quasifacial communication for online learning. Our algorithm builds 3D facial models from a single image, with support of a 3D face database. First from the image, we extract a set of feature points, which are then used to automatically estimate the head pose parameters using the 3D mean face in our database as a reference model. After the pose recovery, a similarity measurement function is proposed to locate the neighborhood for the given image in the 3D face database. The scope of neighborhood can be determined adaptively using our cross-validation algorithm. Further-

more, the individual 3D shape is synthesized by neighborhood interpolation. Texture mapping is achieved based on feature points. The experimental results show that our algorithm can robustly produce 3D facial models from images captured in various scenarios to enhance the lifelikeness in distant learning.

InTRoduCTIon In traditional education, face-to-face communication is natural among students and teachers. The situation in virtual education (Chang, 2002) and e-learning (Zhuang & Liu, 2002) is different, where facial interaction is not commonly used. Students using a computer-based learning system are likely to study alone with relatively little classmate support (Ou et al., 2000).

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Online interaction with facial animation over the network is an alternative way of face-to-face communication. 3D facial modeling is essential for building interactive virtual educational environments. In general, the use of facial modeling techniques in distance education mainly has three practical requirements. First, the method should be easily applied to new individuals. Second, it should require no exorbitant equipments and computation cost. Third, the results should be robust and realistic.

RelATed woRk The pioneering work of facial modeling for animation was done by Parke (1972). Currently, there are several main streams of available solutions: •

•

•

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Modeling by 3D scanners: Special equipments like 3D scanners can be used to capture the 3D shape of human heads. The data produced often need a lot of post-processing in order to reduce noise and fill the holes. Besides, in order to animate 3D scanned models, the shape must also be combined with an animation structure, which can not be produced by the scanning process directly. Physical-based modeling: (Terzopoulos & Waters, 1990; Kahler et al., 2002; Sifakis et al., 2005) One of the approaches to facial modeling is to approximate the anatomical structures of the face, that is, skull, muscles and skin. The animation from physical models reflects the underlying tissue stresses. Due to the complex topology of human faces, it requires tedious tuning to model a new individual’s face. Feature-points-based modeling: (Pighin et al., 1998; Lee & Magnenat-Thalmann, 2000) Starting with several images or a 3D scan of a new individual, the generic model is deformed by the extracted facial feature

•

points. Images are ubiquitous nowadays and a good source for facial modeling. In order to recover the 3D information, it needs orthogonal pair or more uncalibrated images. Example-based modeling: Blanz and Vetter (1999) propose a method named morphable model, which builds new faces by a linear combination of examples. Their work can be applied to reanimating faces in images and videos (Blanz, 2003; Vlasic et al., 2005). Supported by the examples, the input constraints can be released to only one image of the individual to generate plausible 3D results. The convergence process takes nearly an hour on SGI workstation, which limits its applications.

ouR APPRoACh The example-based approaches work well when there are a small number of examples. The iteration process converges and gets reasonable synthetic shapes and textures. However, as the number of examples increases, the structure of the 3D face space becomes more complicated and the global Euclidean distance measurement becomes invalid. The iterative optimization algorithms such as gradient descent need a lot of time to converge and easily get lost or trapped in local minimums. On the other side, in order to span a complete range of facial shapes, a large set of examples needs to be built. Due to the development of 3D scanners and the demand of realistic facial modeling and animation, the number of examples may increase dramatically. For instance, the facial animations of Gollum in the feature film The Two Towers employed 675 example shapes (Fordham, 2003). In order to solve this problem, we introduce nonlinear learning algorithm from dimension reductions (Roweis & Saul, 2000), which maps its inputs into a single global coordinate system of lower dimensionality, and its optimizations—

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Figure 1. 3D faces lie on a high dimensional manifold, where each 3D face can be reconstructed by its neighbors. The properly selected neighborhood will preserve the most salient features of the reconstructed 3D shape

though capable of generating highly nonlinear embeddings—do not involve local minima. The idea is based on simple geometric intuitions that the data points can be locally interpolated by its neighbors on a small piece of manifold patch. An n dimensional manifold is a topological space that is locally Euclidean (i.e., around every point, there is a neighborhood that is topologically the same as the open unit ball in Rn). The intuition is that if we can find the neighbors in the 3D face space for the given image, the synthesis process could be accelerated, as shown in Figure 1. Based on the analysis above, we present a fast and efficient methodology to exploit a single photograph to get an animatable face model in a virtual world. The approach falls into the category of example-based modeling, but also we extend this method by exploring the nonlinearity of 3D faces. Our algorithm efficiently finds the neighborhood for a given image in the 3D face space and synthesizes new faces using neighborhood interpolation.

Algorithm overview As shown in Figure 2, our system takes a single image as input, and outputs a textured 3D face. Our algorithm can be summarized into five steps. The first three steps directly relate to the nonlinear analysis, that is, locally embedding of the 3D face space, which provide a foundation for neighborhood interpolation. The latter two steps are about the synthesis of new faces: • • • • •

Step 1: Given a frontal face image, a set of pre-defined feature points is extracted; Step 2: Based on the feature points and a reference model, the head pose in the image is recovered automatically; Step 3: The image finds its neighbors in the space of 3D faces by our similarity measurement; Step 4: The 3D shape for the image is constructed by the neighborhood-based optimization; Step 5: Texture coordinates are generated on the basis of the feature points to produce texture mapping of the model.

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Figure 2. Overview of our 3D facial modeling system, which takes a single image as an input and gives a 3D textured model as output

The rest of the article is organized as follows. In the next section, we describe the locally embedding analysis of 3D face space. Then the neighborhood interpolation algorithm for the synthesis of new faces is presented, followed by the experimental results. Finally, we conclude this article and discuss some ideas for future work.

Figure 3. Standard-conforming feature points definition

loCAlITy oF 3d FACe SPACe In order to find the right position in the space of 3D faces for a given 2D image, a similarity measurement is needed. We employ the feature points on both images and face models as the input parameters for similarity measurement after an automatic head pose recovery.

Definition of Feature Points MPEG-4 employs 84 feature points (Facial Definition Parameters, FDP) (Ostermann, 1998) to define a head model. For creating a standard conforming face, the set of facial definition points used in our article are derived from the MPEG-4 FDP. We exploit 58 feature points, as shown in Figure 3, to define the frontal facial features. The

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feature points of a given image can be extracted manually or automatically. The 3D models used in this article are complete models with necks and ears besides the facial mesh. They are all preprocessed and in correspondence. The definition of the feature vertices on a reference model will also be made on other examples from their correspondence. The feature points define a bounding box in which the part of mesh is our volume of interest from the facial animation point of view. During the operations of facial modeling and texture mapping, only the mesh in the bounding box is rendered.

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Figure 4. Feature points used to estimate the head pose of the image (right) with a 3D face example (left)

head Pose Recovery The head pose of the image needs to be determined before calculating similarity. Various methods have been reported in the scenario of image sequences (Zhu & Ji, 2004) or range data (Malassiotis & Strintzis, 2005). This article proposes an efficient solution for pose recovery, which has three characteristics. First, with support of a 3D face example, we can recover the pose parameters from a single fronto-parallel image. The reference model employed here is the 3D mean face in our database for its generality. Second, similarity transformation parameters are used, that is, the parameters to be estimated are rotation R, translation t, and scaling s. Third, using least squares estimation, the similarity transformation parameters can be calculated efficiently by matrix operations. Our system chooses the feature points on eyes and mouth to estimate pose, for they are nearly on a plane. These 2D feature points on fronto-parallel images can be thought as on xoy plane in the 3D space. Then the problem of pose estimation is translated to the problem of similarity transformation parameters estimation between two point patterns, as shown in Figure

4. We use least squares estimation to minimize a cost function: C ( R, t , s ) =

1 n ∑ pi - (sRvi + t ) n i =1

2

(1)

where {pi = (xi, yi, 0)} is a set of feature points on image, {vi = (xi, yi, zi)} is a set of feature vertices on the 3D model, R: rotation, t: translation:, and s: scaling are the 3D similarity transformation parameters, n is the number of feature points and vertices. Minimizing the cost function in Equation 1 will give the transformation parameters. The estimated transformation parameters for Figure 4 are calculated and applied to the 3D model, as shown in Figure 5.

neighborhood Construction After the head pose estimation, the distance between the image and the 3D examples can be written as: D( I , M j ) =

n

∑ i =1

pi - projxoy ( sRvi + t )

2

(2)

where I is the input image, Mj is the jth example in 3D face space, and projxoy is a mapping function to choose (x, y) from (x, y, z).

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Figure 5. Estimated head pose parameters applied to the 3D face example

where the value of e can be chosen via validation by extra examples.

SynTheSIS oF new FACeS Once the neighborhood for a given image is found, optimization techniques can be used to infer the 3D shape.

Inferring 3d Shapes by neighborhood Interpolation

Once the distance function is determined, the only problem in the manifold analysis is how to choose the boundary of neighborhood. K nearest neighbors (k-NN) and e-neighborhood: Ne(I) = {Mj | D(I, Mj) ≤ e} are two strategies for selecting the size of local neighborhood. Our system combines k-NN and cross-validation to analyze and determine the value of k adaptively. We keep some 3D examples outside the database for crossvalidation. As shown in Figure 6, the image on the left is input to our system for 3D reconstruction. The reconstruction result is compared with the real 3D data and gets a validation error. By testing the relationship between the error and the value of k, the optimum value of k is determined adaptively, as shown in Figure 7. The reconstruction error falls to its minimum where the neighbors represent most of the given example’s salient features. As the number of k exceeds some value, the salient features tend to be smoothed out by averaging too many examples. Several such validation examples may be processed and the value of k is chosen by averaging these validation optimums. The properly selected neighborhood will preserve the most salient depth features of the individuals. This idea could also be applied to e-neighborhood,

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We construct a function that maps the 2D pixel positions P = {pi} to the 3D vertex coordinates V = {vi}. Constructing such a function can be regarded as an interpolation or approximation problem, which solves a problem of approximating a continuous multivari   ate function f(x) by an approximate function F(x, c)  with an appropriate choice of parameter set c where     x and c are real vectors (x = x1, x2, ..., xn and c = c1, c2, ..., ck). The family of radial basis functions (RBF) is well known for its power to approximate high dimensional smooth surfaces and it is often used in model fitting [9]. The network of RBF to infer the 3D shape of a given image is: vj

k i 1

c ji ( D( I , M i ))

(3)

where I is the input image represented by feature points, Mi is the ith 3D model in its neighborhood, D(I, Mi) is the distance function described in Equation 2, k is the number of k-NN neighbors, cji denotes the parameters to be learned , j represents the jth element in the output vector, φ(r) is radially symmetric basis functions. Examples of r ( ) basis functions are Gaussian functions φ(r) = e c , multi-quadrics φ(r) = (r 2 c 2 ) and thin plate splines φ(r) = r2 log r with a linear term added. Plugging the Hardy basis function into Equation 3 results in:

2

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Figure 6. Extra image and 3D shape of an individual who is not in the database for cross-validation

Figure 7. The cross-validation result to choose k adaptively

vj

Fj ( I )

k i 1

c ji D( I , M i ) 2

si 2

(4)

where si = min(D(I, Mi)) is the stiffness coefficient for balancing the scope of neighborhood. Substituting the k pairs of neighborhood   training data ( p, v ) into Equation 4 results in a  linear system of k equations, where p is the vector concatenating all the elements of projxoy =(sRvi + t)  and v is the vector concatenating all the elements of vertex coordinates on the ith 3D model. Solving the linear system yields:   c = H-1v

(5)

  c = (H + lI)-1v

(6)

where l =0.01 is a small disturbing factor determined empirically to decrease the impact of noise and I here is the identity matrix.

Texture Coordinates extraction Based on the feature points of the image, the texture coordinates can be interpolated to get texture mapping. Given a set of corresponding feature vertices on the 3D model and texture coordinates, the in-between vertices can get their texture coordinates via scattered data interpola-

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Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Figure 8. The 3D modeling of a traditional Beijing opera face painting

Figure 9. The 3D modeling of Mona Lisa

tion. We use the method similar to one in the previous subsection, except that the input of the RBF system is the 3D vertex and the output is the corresponding texture coordinates. t = F(v) =

n i 1

ci φ(||v - vi||)

(7)

where v is the input 3D vertex, viis the ith feature vertex, t is the texture coordinates.

exPeRImenTS The 3D face database was provided by the MaxPlanck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tuebingen, Germany. The 3D scanned faces in the database provide a good start point for our supportive database. We have aligned all the 3D models with an animatable model and reduced its vertex density. The eyes and mouth areas were excided for animation purpose. Besides, we added extra examples to the database by face modeling software. After that, the database consists of 200 heads each with 6K vertices.

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In order to test our techniques, we have implemented a prototype system using Visual C++ and Matlab. We have tested our system by modeling a traditional Beijing opera face painting (Figure 8). We also applied our method to paintings such as Mona Lisa by Leonardo (Figure 9). We reconstructed the face models from color images taken by us (Figure 10), black and white images from Cohn-Kanade (Kanade et al., 2000) facial expression database (Figure 11) or images taken under arbitrary unknown conditions (Figure 12). We manually marked the feature points and the system takes approximately one second to reconstruct the 3D model with texture mapping. Although reconstructing the true 3D shape and texture from a single image is an under-determined problem, 3D face models built by our system look vivid from the frontal viewpoint and natural from other viewpoints. Besides, we have implemented a prototype of the quasi-facial online learning system over college intranet, as shown in Figure 13. The 3D modeling techniques facilitate the quasi face-to-

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Figure 10. An example of 3D modeling of image taken by the authors

Figure 11. 3D modeling of a black and white image from an open face database

Figure 12. Another facial modeling example

Figure 13. Quasi-facial online learning system

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Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

face communications. The virtual instructor can perform facial expressions and oral communications, which will be supportive for an effective distant learning atmosphere.

Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Province (2005C13032, 2005C11001-05). Yushun Wang would like to thank Ming Zhao and Feng Liu for suggestions on revising the article.

ConCluSIon And FuTuRe woRk

ReFeRenCeS

This article proposes a novel approach to 3D facial modeling from a single image. In this algorithm, we measure the distance between the input image and the 3D models after estimating similarity transformation. Neighborhood interpolation is used to find the optimum of the 3D shape to preserve salient features. Furthermore, the image is mapped onto the synthesized model as texture. Vivid 3D models and animation can be produced from a single image through our system. Our algorithm only needs matrix operations instead of an iterative process to find optimums. Therefore, it is efficient for many applications, such as teleconference, digital entertainment and video encoding. The application in distance learning is very encouraging for supporting a vivid online learning environment. There are several directions of improvement in the future. The inner properties of the face space need to be further explored in order to synthesize new faces efficiently and accurately. Currently, the texture mapping just exploits the colors on the image that reflect the lighting conditions under which it was taken. Relighting techniques should be developed for integrating our facial model with the virtual environment. Furthermore, the wrinkles and detailed textures have not been properly tackled in the existing techniques. These problems ought to be considered in future work.

Blanz, V., & Vetter, T. (1999). A morphable model for the synthesis of 3D faces. Proceedings of The Siggraph 99 conference (pp. 187-194). New York: ACM Press.

ACknowledgemenT This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.60525108, No.60533090), 973 Program (2002CB312101),

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Blanz, V., Basso, C., Poggio, T., & Vetter. T. (2003). Reanimating faces in images and video. Computer Graphics Forum, 22(3), EUROGRAPHICS 2003 (pp. 641-650). Granada, Spain. Chang, S.-K. (2002). A growing book for distance learning. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Advances in Web-Based Learning (ICWL’02) (pp. 3-18). Hong Kong, China. Fordham, J. (2003). Middle earth strikes back. Cinefex, 92, 71-142. Kahler, K., Haber, J., Yamauchi, H., & Seidel, H.P. (2002). Head shop: Generating animated head models with anatomical structure. Proceedings of The ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Computer Animation (pp. 55-64). Kanade, T., Cohn, J., & Tian Y. (2000). Comprehensive database for facial expression analysis. Proceedings of FG (pp. 46-53). Lee, W., & Magnenat-Thalmann, N. (2000). Fast head modeling for animation. Journal of Image and Vision Computing, 18(4), 355-364. Elsevier Science. Malassiotis, S., & Strintzis, M. (2005) Robust real-time 3D head pose estimation from range data. Pattern Recognition, 38(8), 1153-1165. Ostermann, J. (1998). Animation of synthetic faces in MPEG-4. Computer Animation, 49-51.

Quasi-Facial Communication for Online Learning Using 3D Modeling Techniques

Ou, K.-L., Chen, G.-D., Liu, C.-C., &Liu, B.-J. (2000). Instructional instruments for Web group learning systems: The grouping, intervention, and strategy. Proceedings of the 5th annual SIGCSE/ SIGCUE ITiCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education (pp. 69-72). Helsinki, Finland. Parke, F. (1972). Computer-generated animation of faces. Proceedings of the ACM annual conference. Pighin, F., Hecker, J., Lischinski, D., Szeliski, R., & Salesin, D. (1998). Synthesizing realistic facial expressions from photographs. Siggraph proceedings (pp. 75-84). Roweis, S., & Saul. L. (2000). Nonlinear dimensionality reduction by locally linear embedding. Science, 290, 2323-2326. Sifakis, E., Neverov, I., & Fedkiw, R. (2005). Automatic determination of facial muscle activations from sparse motion capture marker data. SIGGRAPH 2005, ACM TOG 24 (pp. 417-425).

Terzopoulos, D., & Waters, K. (1990). Physicallybased facial modelling, analysis, and animation. Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation, 1(2), 73-80. Vlasic, D., Brand, M., Pfister, H., & Popovic, J. (2005). Face transfer with multi-linear models. ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 24(3), 426-433. Zhu, Z., & Ji, Q. (2004). Real-time 3D face pose tracking from an uncalibrated camera. Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (CVPRW’04), 5, 73. Zhuang, Y., & Liu, X. (2002). Multimedia knowledge exploitation for e-Learning: Some enabling techniques. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Advances in Web-Based Learning (ICWL’02), LNCS 2436 (pp. 411-422). Hong Kong, China.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 6, Issue 1, edited by S. Chang; T. Shih, pp. 67-78, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.14

Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista Alina M. Zapalska U.S. Coast Guard Academy, USA Dallas Brozik Marshall University, Huntington, USA

ABSTRACT The primary goal of this chapter is to offer reflections on various aspects of the use of WebCT Vista in online business education at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. The chapter argues that with the proper systems in place, including adequate technology and support and the cooperation of educational administrators, WebCT Vista can augment current educational systems in remarkable ways. The chapter also argues that the use of WebCT strongly contributes to the effectiveness of distance learning by improving the quality of students’ learning in the areas of critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, attention to detail, written communications, and organizational and analytical skills. The assessment tool presented in this chapter was used to obtain students’ feedback concerning their learning outcomes with and

without the use of WebCT Vista. In general, most students positively evaluated the effect of WebCT Vista on their learning within areas such as critical thinking, problem solving, decision making ability, oral communication, written communication, knowledge of information, and the ability to organize and analyze. As the results of this analysis indicate, almost all students benefited from using WebCT.

InTRoduCTIon Today, many college students can complete their education without setting foot onto the college campus (Hutchins, 2001; Lynch, 2002). Online education has become an effective and efficient pedagogical tool that can be integrated successfully into college curricula as the standard method of distance learning (Lane, 2001; Lu &

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

Chun-Sheng, 2003). Courses offered through the Internet using Blackboard, WebCT, and WebCT Vista allow students more flexibility to learn at their own pace as their schedules permit, reduce or eliminate travel time, and provide additional opportunities for reviewing course materials while being distant from in-class lectures (Kendall, 2001). WebCT or WebCT Vista (the most recently updated version of WebCT) open educational access to nontraditional and geographically distributed students and can improve the overall educational process by reducing time, labor, and costs (Lichtenberg, 2001). Numerous studies have been conducted and show that the rich environments of Blackboard, WebCT, or WebCT Vista: 1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

Promote study and investigation within authentic, realistic, meaningful, relevant, complex, and information-rich contexts (Hutchins, 2001; Wentzell, 2002); Encourage the growth of student responsibility, self-motivation, initiative, decision making, and intentional learning (Smith, Ferguson, & Caris, 2001); Cultivate an atmosphere of cooperative learning among students and teachers (Meyer, 2003); Generate learning activities that promote written communication (Lynch, 2002); Develop level thinking process (i.e., analysis, synthesis, critical thinking, decision making abilities, problem solving, experimentation, and creativity among many others) (McEwan, 2001; Scott, 2003); and Enhance the quality of learning by enabling students to take new and more active roles in their learning process. (Smith & Rose, 2003; Smith et al., 2001)

It is clear that these tools provide real educational benefits and can be a valuable addition to any portfolio of teaching techniques.

Marshall University is a state-supported university providing undergraduate and graduate programs at several locations throughout West Virginia. The enrollment at Marshall is approximately 16,000 students, including 4,000 graduate and medical students. A major goal of Marshall University is to create teaching excellence by enriching student skills in communication, critical thinking, and problem solving to ensure that all students receive the best possible instruction. The Lewis College of Business offers business and economics courses through traditional classroom delivery and distance education to students in rural communities in West Virginia. The distance education program is comprehensive in that it enables students to obtain undergraduate business degrees without coming to campus. The primary mode of course delivery, before introduction of WebCT Vista, was a satellite course or instruction based on an e-mail system. While these techniques allowed the delivery of courses to remote areas, each lacked certain features necessary for a comprehensive program. Marshall University introduced WebCT in beta format in the fall of 1996 as a test project. In the fall of 1997, the university officially adopted WebCT as its Web-based course delivery tool. Marshall University’s electronic course policy states that all e-course materials are to be housed and used on Marshall University’s WebCT server, so that the university can provide common support for course developers, instructors, and students taking courses from Marshall University. This university-wide standardization has facilitated a more efficient and cost-effective use of computers and distance-learning software. Marshall currently has more than 1,000 courses that use or have used WebCT Vista for curriculum delivery. Twenty-seven of these were fully online courses for the fall 2000 semester. Over 12,000 students used WebCT for the delivery of instructional material since 2000. Of this number, more than 3,000 were enrolled in WebCT courses for the fall 2001 semester. All online distance

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Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

education courses are offered via WebCT Vista, and about 20% of WebCT Vista supported courses are delivered online. The primary goal of this chapter is to offer reflections on various aspects of the use of WebCT Vista in online business education at Marshall University. The chapter argues that with the proper systems in place, including adequate technology and support and the cooperation of educational administrators, WebCT Vista can augment current educational systems in remarkable ways. This chapter also argues that the use of WebCT strongly contributes to the effectiveness of distance learning by improving the quality of students’ learning in the areas of critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, attention to detail, written communications, and organizational and analytical skills.

onlIne leARnIng PRogRAm All WebCT Vista users, both instructors and students, access WebCT Vista using a Web browser. Other than the browser, there is no special software needed to access a WebCT-based course. All that is required is that the user can access a computer that has a modem or is connected to a network. The instructor creates and edits the course and marks students’ work using WebCT tools. Students read notes, take quizzes, perform exercises, and communicate with the instructor or other students using a chat room. The program does require a general familiarity with the World Wide Web, but this is a skill that most students already have. Since specialized software or knowledge is not necessary, WebCT Vista provides a transparent and painless way to access educational resources. WebCT Vista provides structure, interactivity, and course tools. The instructor provides course content. Course tools are accessed through an icon from the course Web page. Examples of tools include a conferencing system, timed quizzes, grade

740

storage and distribution, e-mail between course participants, student self-evaluation, student presentation areas, a student annotation facility, student progress tracking, a course glossary, and an index. Progress tracking, student management, and access control tools are also available. WebCT Vista provides a robust, Web-based platform for discussions and document sharing and allows the students to work together via the WebCT Vista in groups. Students use the Web-based tools to discuss course concepts, to share work experiences, and to offer one another suggestions for carrying out assignments and improving learning. It is important to guide students as to what resources are available, pertinent, and accurate. WebCT Vista allows students to share ideas and exchange information and knowledge with each other while working collaboratively. Students can review their lessons and do exercises at their convenience. They must receive feedback from the exercises quickly so that they know where they need to focus, thereby saving traditional classroom time that otherwise would have been used to correct and review homework assignments. Students are encouraged to use the discussion area, and postings can be counted toward the student’s class participation grade. This helps assure that all students take part in this virtual classroom. Students also use the WebCT Vista quiz program to assess their knowledge of the topic before the actual exam. Ten questions are randomly selected from a database of approximately 100 questions per topic. Along with the grade for the quiz, each student receives corrected answers to all questions and is provided with specific advice concerning mastery of the subject matter. Due to the random selection of questions students can take the quiz a number of times before all questions are viewed, and students are encouraged to retake the quizzes until they master the subject material. Effective WebCT Vista-based education requires the same, if not more, faculty involvement as in face-to-face courses. In order to stimulate

Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

Table 1. Course delivery assessment Area

Positive Influence ----------------------

No Influence ----------------

Negative Influence ----------------------

Critical thinking

5

4

3

2

1

Problem solving Decision making ability

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

Oral communication Written communication

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

Knowledge of information

5

4

3

2

1

Ability to organize and analyze

5

4

3

2

1

critical thinking, activities must be provided throughout the course that included discussions, individualized attention to students who need more help, timely and thorough feedback of assignments, and ad-hoc problem solving. Web-based education must not be thought of as a machine assisted replacement for traditional teaching. It must be considered as a technology-augmented method of educational content that requires a dedicated effort on the part of the instructor to be successful.

PRogRAm evAluATIon The curriculum structure in the College of Business at Marshall University presented a unique opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of WebCT-based instruction. All business students are required to take a two-term sequence in economics. The students involved in this study had all taken their first economics course in the traditional classroom and took their second economics course using WebCT. These students were thus able to draw on their personal experiences to compare the two methods of delivery. A questionnaire was used to collect feedback from students to help the instructor gain an indepth perspective of the range of attained learning, as well as student competence. This type of assessment was beneficial because it allowed the evaluation of WebCT Vista and its effect on im-

proving the quality of students’ learning in areas of critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, communications, and subject knowledge. Forms were designed so that students were not required to identify themselves while answering the questions. Anonymous feedback offered the students the opportunity to make comments they might not ordinarily have made during face-toface or group meetings. The data were collected at the course’s beginning and conclusion. The questionnaire at the beginning of the course focused on the previous classroom course, and the questionnaire at the end of the course focused on the WebCT delivery method. Students were given the same questionnaire that evaluated how strongly, if at all, the method of instruction influenced each area of the students’ learning outcomes. Students had to rate the influence on a scale of one to five, with the most positive influence rated a “5,” no influence rated a “3,” and a completely negative influence ranked as a “1” (Table 1). The survey was conducted in the Principles of Macroeconomics course in the spring 2004 semester. Because all 55 students who were enrolled in the course participated in the survey, the survey data is not represented by a simple random sample. However, because all of the students who participated in our course were typical business students, there is no source of potential bias in a student sample, and this group of participants has been treated as a fair representation of stu-

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Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

Table 2. Frequencies of students who reported positive changes Number of areas in which student benefited

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Number of students

2

4

3

4

5

11

9

17

Table 3. Numbers and percentages of students reporting positive change for each area (A1-A7) Areas A1: Critical thinking A2: Problem solving A3: Decision making ability A4: Oral communication A5: Written communication A6: Knowledge of information A7: Ability to organize and analyze

dents who take Principles of Macroeconomics courses. Since the same seven questions were asked each time, the matched pairs data allowed the use of each participant’s differences to evaluate the impact of WebCT on the pedagogical performance. After converting the data into the “differences” representing the positive distance between categories selected on both occasions, the values ranged from –1 to 4. This implies that in most cases there was either a positive shift in categories selection (1 to 4) or no change noticed (0). Statistical analysis was performed with two goals in mind. First, by analyzing positive differences in student responses and looking for evidence of improvement, it could be determined how students benefited from the use of WebCTbased instruction. The distributions were then examined across the student group to see if most of the students benefited in a similar way or if there were groups of students who benefited strongly from WebCT-based instruction while others did not benefit as much. Second, all seven areas were examined to determine if the changes were similar, or if there were some areas where the improvement is more obvious than in the others. For each participant who reported an improvement in at least one of

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Number of Students

Percentages

36 48 37 37 41 40 31

64.6% +/– 13.2% 85.1% +/– 9.6% 66.3% +/– 13.0% 66.3% +/– 13.0% 73.2% +/– 12.2% 71.5% +/– 12.5% 56.0% + /– 13.7%

the seven areas, a number that represented the magnitude and the direction of the opinion shift was obtained, and based on these values the number of areas in which there was a positive shift for each participant was determined. The frequencies of positive shifts are presented in Table 2. Only 2 of the 55 students indicated no benefit in any area, while more than half of the students (42) benefited in majority (at least 4) of the seven areas (76.4% +/– 11.2%). The next step in the analysis was to identify the number of students who reported an improvement in each of the seven areas. Initially, the magnitude of the improvement was ignored and only the positive shift during the time period of the WebCT-based instruction was considered. The number of students reporting positive changes is reported in Table 3, with the 95% confidence intervals for the percentages provided in column 3. Since the confidence intervals overlap, there is no evidence that the true percentages of students who benefited from the WebCT Vista instruction vary across all seven areas. The observed differences could be random. To gain further insight, a comparison of the changes within all seven areas for all students was made. The change frequencies are reported in the contingency Table 4. As mentioned earlier, each

Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

Table 4. Classification of students according to their magnitude of the positive change Areas A1: Critical thinking A2: Problem solving A3: Decision making ability A4: Oral communication A5: Written communication A6: Knowledge of information A7: Ability to organize and analyze

change was recorded within the range of –1 to 4. However, because of many small counts in two outside columns, the two first and the last two columns were collapsed for chi-squared analysis to be valid. The chi-square analysis of homogeneity in distributions across all areas for the data in Table 4 yielded a p-value of 0.082 (chi-square = 26.831, 18 df) providing some, although not very strong, evidence of heterogeneity of the distribution of the magnitude of change across the seven areas. Frequency counts marked with stars indicate cells with standardized residuals –2.33 (count 7) and -2.08 (count 5). They indicate that the lack of homogeneity is mostly due to both counts being significantly less than expected for this contingency table. In area 2, there were fewer students than expected who did not benefit from the WebCT-based instruction. In area 4, the number of students who strongly benefited from the WebCT instruction is significantly lower than expected. Except for these two cases, the improvement is similar for all seven areas. Both the frequency counts and the statistical analysis imply that content delivery by WebCT resulted in better learning outcomes than traditional classroom delivery. Students were positively influenced by the use of WebCT in the majority of the areas examined. This indicates that a welldesigned WebCT course is not merely a technological feat but that it also results in improved student learning.

–1 or 0 1 2 3 or 4 19 7* 18 18 14 15 24

14 16 10 16 17 14 11

13 17 12 16 10 12 6

9 15 15 5* 14 14 14

Policy Implications The success of the use of WebCT Vista suggests that this method of teaching must be considered alongside traditional classroom techniques as a valid pedagogical style. It will be necessary for institutions to identify their overall attitude to this type of teaching, and if it is favorable assure that the necessary resources are made available. Institutions will also have to develop systems to evaluate both instructors and courses for their effectiveness using this teaching method. It will also be necessary for faculty members to develop the skills necessary to deliver courses using Webbased protocols. Individual instructors will need to devote the time and effort to master the courseware and develop appropriate course materials. It may be that those programs that prepare individuals for college teaching develop and require courses that teach the use of this type of technology.

lessons learned In traditional as well as online technology-based courses, there is a gap between what is taught and what is learned. Methods of assessing the teaching and learning experience that are generally used in college education are not sufficient to evaluate how well a faculty member performs in a virtual classroom. The assessment tool presented in this paper was used to obtain students’ feedback concerning their learning outcomes with and without the use of WebCT Vista. In general, most students positively evaluated the

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Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

effect of WebCT Vista on their learning within areas such as critical thinking, problem solving, decision-making ability, oral communication, written communication, knowledge of information, and the ability to organize and analyze. As the results of this analysis indicate, almost all students benefited from using WebCT. The percentages of students who benefited in a particular area are not significantly different across all seven areas. The extent of the improvement made in each area is fairly consistent with two exceptions: fewer students than expected did not benefit from the WebCT Vista technology in the area of problem solving, and fewer than expected students benefited strongly in the area of oral communication. It is also noted that by including content delivery assessment as part of the course evaluation student motivation has increased. This is possibly because the students realized that faculty were interested in their success as learners. The success of distance education requires encouraging learners to take an active role in the educational process. Students need to learn to rely on themselves to access and master the use of the technology. The careful, gradual introduction of Web-based technologies can guide and enhance learners’ transition from a traditional model of pedagogy to a model in which they take a full, active role in directing and achieving their own learning. New tools like WebCT Vista allow instructors to add a level of interactivity that makes students monitor their own progress in the class and concentrate on these areas that require improvement. This type of progress checking can lead to more specific and in-depth questions and more meaningful discussion during the lecture. Chat facilities have been implemented to promote communication similar to that found in traditional lecture classes. The use of WebCT Vista enhances students’ collaboration and cooperation. Students are able to work with one another more often because of enhanced communication. Barriers of time, place, and distance between

744

and among students are more easily overcome or eliminated. WebCT Vista also allows students to work together with simulations and “real life” projects. Learning activities can become increasingly real. Not only can instructors notify students of their homework or exam marks outside of class time, but instructional time is also saved because it need not be used to collect and redistribute assignments. Web pages within the WebCT Vista course deliver course content and give students feedback. WebCT Vista instructional technology can improve student learning by helping students use their time more efficiently. Students can learn at their own pace at different times of day. This analysis of teaching with the WebCT Vista courseware has identified several specific factors that should be considered. 1. 2. 3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

Proper use of Web-based teaching can enhance the student’s ability to learn. Improvement in educational outcomes can be seen in all areas of instruction. Students must receive ongoing training related to courseware and other support functions so that they can efficiently utilize the materials provided via WebCT Vista courseware. Effective use of WebCT Vista-based courses requires significant time and commitment to instructor training. Preparation and implementation of a WebCT Vista course requires the instructor’s commitment to continued training in instructional strategies for Web-enhanced courses. The technical training is critical to the implementation of Web-enhanced courses. University-based support for faculty, staff, and students is essential for successful distance and distributed learning. Technical support is necessary and must be integrated with changes in instructional methods and course design.

Online Learning with the Use of WebCT Vista

These factors indicate that Web-based instruction is not merely an extension of the traditional classroom. It requires a different approach to the educational process and can deliver a different level of educational results. The use of Web-based teaching technology, such as that offered by WebCT Vista, is not merely a technological extension of using computers in the classroom. It is an entirely new type of pedagogy that has demonstrated positive benefits for those involved in the class. As future developments continue to refine the methodology of Web-based instruction, it should become more widely accepted by both instructors and students. The power of the process cannot be denied, and the entire structure of higher education will need to adapt to accept this new way of delivering educational content.

ReFeRenCeS Hutchins, H. (2001). Enhancing the business communication course through WebCT. Business Communication Quarterly, 64(3), 87-95. Kendall, M. (2001). Teaching online to campusbased students: The experience of using WebCT for the community information module at Manchester Metropolitan University. Education for Information, 19, 325-346.

Lichtenberg, J. (2001). Going the distance. With the help of technology, correspondence courses evolve into electronic learning. Publishers Weekly, 25(4), 37-40. Lu, J., & Chun-Sheng, C. (2003). Learning styles, learning patterns, and learning performance in a WebCT-based MIS course. Information and Management, 40(6), 497-508. Lynch, D. (2002). Professors should embrace technology in courses. The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 18. McEwan, B. (2001). Web-assisted and online learning. Business Communication Quarterly, 64(2), 98-103. Meyer, K. (2003). The Web’s impact on student learning. THE Journal, May 20(10), 14-19 Scott, K. (2003). Online education expands and evolves. EEE Spectrum, May 40(5), 49-52. Smith, A., & Rose, R. (2003). Build and teach a successful online course. Technology and Learning, April 23, 16-19. Smith, G., Ferguson, D., & Caris, M. (2001). Teaching college courses online vs. face-to-face. T.H.E. Journal, April. Wentzell, C. (2002). Reaping the benefits of online learning. Benefits Canada, 26, 9-12.

Lane, K. (2001). Report examines shortfalls of distance learning. Distance Education, 14(3), 14-19. This work was previously published in Cases on Global E-Learning Practices: Successes and Pitfalls, edited by R. Sharma; S. Mishra, pp. 13-21, copyright 2007 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.15

On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning Steve Wheeler University of Plymouth, UK

ABSTRACT This chapter explores the use of the wiki and its role as a cognitive tool to promote interaction and collaborative learning in higher education. The importance of the software to enable student created content, storage, and sharing of knowledge is reviewed. This chapter provides an evaluation of some of the affordances and constraints of wikis to promote critical thinking within a blended learning context. It assesses their potential to facilitate collaborative learning through community focused enquiry for geographically separated students and nomadic learners. One particular focus of the chapter is the development of new digital literacies and how students present their written work in wikis. The chapter also examines group dynamics within collaborative learning environments drawing on the data from a study conducted at the University of Plymouth in 2007, using wikis in teacher education. Finally, the chapter highlights some recent key DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-384-5.ch028

contributions to the developing discourse on social software in what has been termed ‘the architecture of participation.’

The ImPoRTAnCe oF InTeRACTIon In onlIne leARnIng Interactive digital media are assuming an increasingly important role in all sectors of education, with many universities developing e-learning strategies. The importance of interaction in distance education has been strongly emphasised (Moore, 1989; Swan, 2002) and the use of technology to mediate communication between separated individuals is well documented (Shin, 2003; Gunawardena, 1990). Technology supported distance education can encourage and enhance collaborative learning processes (Jonassen, Peck & Wilson, 1999) where students actively seek out engagement with others because it is both useful and satisfying (Horizon Report, 2007). There is evidence that purposeful interaction can increase learner knowledge (Ritchie

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On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning

& Hoffman, 1997) but may be intensely personal and welcomed more by some students than others (Godwin, Thorpe & Richardson, 2008). The use of technology to support and facilitate interaction, if applied appropriately, tends to produce good learning outcomes, and new web based tools are increasingly available to the distance educator. The advent of Web 2.0 for example, has provided teachers with unprecedented opportunities. Web 2.0 based technologies are replete with rich social opportunities. For a growing number of teachers and students, social networking and social software have become fertile environments within which communities of learning can flourish and learn from each other (Wheeler, Yeomans & Wheeler, 2008; Ebersbach, Glaser & Heigl, 2006). There is also evidence that the practice of enabling students to generate their own content can encourage deeper levels of engagement with course content through the act of authoring, simply because the awareness of an audience, no matter how virtual or tentative, encourages more thoughtful sentence construction (Jacobs, 2003) and deeper critical engagement (Wheeler, Yeomans & Wheeler, 2008). Writing in blogs and wikis for example, compel students to carefully manage their impression (Goffman, 1959) encouraging them to think more clearly and critically about their arguments, and to articulate their ideas coherently and persuasively on a publicly accessible web space for an undetermined and invisible audience. Furthermore, there is a need to incorporate collaborative learning practices more deeply within all forms of education (Jonassen et al, 1999). Coupled with this need is a growing awareness that teacher roles need to be refefined in a new knowledge economy. There is an established trend toward a form of learning where teachers abdicate their roles as instructors, and adopt a more supportive role (Harden & Crosby, 2000; O’Neill & McMahon, 2005). There is a tension here. Teachers fulfil a particularly important role as without teacher support, students can flounder,

lose motivation, or even drop out of the course. At the same time, the reduction in tutor-led instructional methods encourages students to take more responsibility for their learning. A fine balancing act is thus required where teachers facilitate and support learner participation, intervening where necessary, rather than providing sustained instruction. Students are increasingly adopting new roles as producers, commentators and classifiers (Horizon Report, 2007) within Web 2.0 based learning environments. They are participating more in the construction and organisation of their own knowledge rather than merely reproducing content as exemplified in instructional practices (Jonassen, et al, 1999) and this occurs increasingly outside the boundaries of contiguous education. This shift in emphasis, although grounded in social constructivist theory, also has drivers in new technologies (Richardson, 2006), and a post-modernist belief that knowledge should be discursively constructed across a multiplicity of sites (Gale, 2003). Such an approach to pedagogy, although arguably no longer radical, none the less constitutes an important part of the essence of blended learning, and has implications for a growing population of younger learners who appear to have a natural affinity to digital technologies (Prensky, 2006). It is also apparent that younger learners are more often on the move than earlier generations, and tend to engage in a ‘patchwork’ or portfolio of careers, job hopping as the need or interest dictates. Students are also more physically mobile than their forbears, and use cell phones and handheld devices to connect to their network of peers. Such nomadic wandering demands a new range of flexible learning skills and consequently a new culture of educational provision.

leARnIng AS A nomAd Nomadic learning has been defined as ‘a form of learning in which a learner has continuity of service across different sessions and, possibly, dif-

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ferent locations’ (IEEE WG1, 2003). As a reworking of distributed learning, in which the learner’s study space has the same appearance regardless of location in space and time, nomadic learning must rely heavily upon ubiquitous information and communication technologies, pervasive digital services and adaptable, personalised software for its success. Nomadic learning in a more purist form could simply rely upon the student’s willingness to wander through unknown territory and to explore it with purpose. Baudelaire’s notion of the ‘Flâneur’ (Baudelaire, 1863) who wanders around a city to experience it. Baudelaire developed his concept of the Flâneur as someone who played an important role in understanding, and ultimately portraying the city. In a pedagogical context learners might stroll throughout a knowledge landscape, observing and enquiring where they may as they actually define it. This concept resonates within the new participatory and hypertextual territories constantly under construction across the social web. In contrast to early distance learning experiences, nomadic wanderings in digital worlds are rarely solitary activities and the opportunities for social contact and participation increase as one encounters blogs, wikis, social networking sites and massively multi-player online games. Students can freely develop their own knowledge content using a number of freely available social software applications, yet ostensibly they will seldom be alone within the architecture of participation known as ‘Web 2.0’ (O’Reilly, 2004; Barsky & Purdon, 2006; Kamel Boulos, Maramba & Wheeler, 2006). Social software such as weblogging, social tagging, picture and file sharing, and of course the increasingly popular freely editable wiki, are providing students with unprecedented collaborative and interactive learning opportunities. It also offers students the chance to personalise their own routes to learning and trajectories of study.

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There is a further connection to be made between social software and personalised learning. When mediated through the use of hypermedia, formalised education delivery begins to mirror the connective matrix of the human brain, assuming an infinite number of rhizomatic, non-linear forms (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), that branch out into new territories, as the student finds new directions for study. Rhizomes, by their very nature, have no centre and their boundaries are dictated purely by environmental constraints. They will continue to grow exponentially in any and all directions as conditions allow. In the same manner, learning through social software enables students to decentralise from institutional constraints and follow their curiosity in any direction they see fit to pursue. The idealism of ‘personalisation’, previously so elusive, may actually be realised for many students who are empowered to wander down their own pathways within a strange yet captivating digital terrain. Indeed there now appears to be an increasing demand for flexible and independent learning that can be accessed without the barriers of time and place (Koper & Manderveld, 2004).

The SoCIAl weB Interaction and collaboration are increasingly being mediated through the social affordance of web based environments. Social networking spaces such as FaceBook, Myspace, Bebo and photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa proffer unprecedented opportunities for students to share their ideas, celebrate and showcase their creativity, and receive immediate feedback from fellow networkers (Kamel Boulos et al, 2006; Richardson, 2006). Students around the globe are able to ‘swarm together’ (Rheingold, 2003), coalescing and co-ordinating their activities within rich and dynamic social environments, rather than wandering aimlessly through a socially

On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning

‘cold’ digital wasteland (Wallace, 1999). Whether through the sharing of useful bookmarks, holding real time conversations over Skype or voting in a poll to decide which idea wins the day, students can participate in a varied online environment that is rich in immediacy and social presence. Social networking thus encourages learners to participate in this digital milieu and brings them back regularly to repeat enjoyable and productive experiences. These are very desirable attributes for educational materials to exhibit (Horizon Report, 2007) and essential features for distance educators to exploit.

wIkIS And gRouP wRITIng Knowledge creation is assuming increasing relevance and importance for students living in a world of constant change. For researchers and scholars too, there is a need for quick and easy access to the latest knowledge surrounding any given subject. One social software tool - the wiki - is developing quickly as a popular means to create, store and share knowledge in many areas of teaching and learning (Horizon Report, 2007). The word ‘wiki’ (from the Hawaiian wiki wiki) is translated as ‘to hurry’, which is particularly apt, as wikis can enable rapid and easy authoring and publishing direct to the web. More recently WIKI has been interpreted as the backronym ‘What I Know Is’ – a reference to the facility to contribute, store and share knowledge freely (Answers.com, 2007). Wiki pages can be used by any or all to publish new content direct to the web, including text, images and hyperlinks, to edit existing content, and also, because the wiki is fluid and open to all, it can be used openly to publish text, images and hyperlinks directly to the web without the need to learn HTML or other programming languages. Students seldom need to study alone due to facilitation of participation in a technologically mediated social space. Wikis are conducive to

the formation of communities of practice (Kamel Boulos, Maramba & Wheeler, 2006). Moreover, wikis enable students to collaboratively generate, mix, edit and synthesise subject specific knowledge in an aggregative manner that often surpasses similar processes witnessed in traditional classrooms (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2009). The combined knowledge of the group – dubbed ‘the wisdom of crowds’ – is assumed to be greater than that of the individual, and content management is regulated by group members. Whilst this ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly, 2004) has obvious attractions to the digital generation, what is contentious is the extent to which lay-generation of digital artefacts is accurate and appropriate to professional education. Moreover, the problem some teachers wrestle with is whether student generated content can be legitimised or should remain as ‘lay knowledge’. Clearly, wiki activities are afloat upon a sea of issues. Such new writing spaces challenge our conceptions of the manner in which knowledge is created, used and shared (Kimber & Wyatt-Smith, 2006). Perhaps the most important issue for educators to address centres upon the potential problems student created content can engender. There are no guarantees for accuracy and veracity on a wiki, as has been highlighted in a recent critique by Keen (2007). However, a recent survey conducted through the journal Nature found that Wikipedia, one of the most popular wiki knowledge repositories, is at least as accurate as Encyclopaedia Britannica (Terdiman, 2006). Wikis are susceptible to vandalism and malware (virus) attacks (Terdiman, 2006) so those moderating their use must be vigilant. Although the open nature of wikis creates opportunities for the deliberate sabotage, Owen, Grant, Sayers and Facer (2006) point out that there is often a critical mass of users who have sufficient ownership of the wiki to quickly intervene and clean up unwanted postings and recover the site. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds alert community members to any changes that have been made to

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content, so that validation of the entries can be undertaken quickly and effectively. Ultimately, the ‘roll-back’ correction facilities built into most wikis can be used to quickly restore a page to its previous condition if required.

Some PedAgogICAl APPlICATIonS Teachers need to be convinced of the usefulness of any new technology before they feel justified in adopting it. This section details some of the useful applications of wikis in education that have already been documented in previous studies. A range of high level thinking skills and rich social activities could result from the use and management of wikis. A few teachers are already exploiting the potential of wikis to transform the learning experience into one in which student centred learning can be facilitated (Wheeler et al, 2008). In classroom learning, teachers will need to encourage all members to contribute, thereby fostering a sense of community, but it is inevitable that some students will generate more content than others (Trentin, 2008). Wikis offer appropriate environments within which students who are geographically separated from one another can develop and maintain social ties. Teachers can encourage distributed students to ‘draw together’ by allocating each physically dislocated member a specific section or ‘stub’ on the wiki to manage. Other students are then able to add to it over the lifetime of a programme of study. Individual students could be assigned the task of finding relevant and reliable websites they can hyperlink back to the main wiki. Each student could also be assigned a specific time period during which they have responsibility to ‘patrol’ the wiki to ensure it has not been sabotaged or defaced in some way.

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TAggIng And FolkSonomIeS Students can tag web sites they find particularly useful so that they are visible to search engines. Students can also make them available to others within one of the many free and highly visible social spaces such as Delicious or Digg. The practice of ‘social tagging’ replaces traditional, externally imposed hierarchies of categorisation (the taxonomy) with a knowledge organisation method that reflects the interest of the group, known as a ‘folksonomy’. Arguably, such folksonomies, because they are artefacts of the combined efforts of a community of interest, provide a more democratic and accurate representation of the current needs and aspirations of the user group (Owen et al, 2006) which can change in response to shifting interests (Kamel Boulos et al, 2006). Ultimately, the tagging of web pages makes their content more visible to a larger audience through an investment of semantic sifting by consensual decision making. Previous research has shown that larger audiences often encourage students to be more fastidious in their construction of wiki pages (Wheeler et al, 2008; Wheeler & Wheeler, 2009). One thorny issue emerging from the use of wikis in the classroom in one study was the problem of ownership and intellectual property (Wheeler et al, 2008). A large proposition of students strongly resisted the possibility that their contributions could be either altered or deleted by other group members. This seems to be less of a problem in user generated content sites such as Wikipedia, where contributors are relatively anonymous. In classroom contexts however, ownership appears to be an issue. For distance learners, where anonymity from the group is normally an issue, content generation within a wiki may prove to be less problematic. A recent social experiment by the publisher Penguin saw the creation of an online wiki novel which anyone was able to read, write and edit. More accurately, the community authored text

On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning

actually resembled 150 or so short stories which had tenuous or almost non-existent connections to each other. It was the evolving product of the imagination of thousands of predominantly amateur writers. A warning at the foot of each editing section declared: ‘Please note that all contributions to PenguinWiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you don’t want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then don’t submit it here’ (www.amillionpenguins.com) Although the experiment has now finished, it has raised important questions. It remains to be seen whether such a diverse and disparate group of authors can manage to coalesce their ideas into a coherent, unified and convincing fictional voice. As with any new technology or approach, the use of wikis in formalised education will accrue benefits for, and impose limitations upon all users. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the wiki as a tool to promote collaborative learning and to encourage independent forms of learning leading to critical thinking.

meThod In this study, a wiki was created using free software at wikispaces.com. Thirty-five undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in a teacher training programme were recruited as participants for the study. As time went by and the wiki content grew, the activities of students within the space were evaluated through an examination of the discussion group contributions by the four groups. Toward the end of the program of study, the researcher posted strategically placed questions to the wiki site and then collated responses and coded them. A qualitative approach to the analysis

of the discussion group postings was chosen in the expectation that students could elaborate on their experiences by writing their reflections onto the wiki discussion pages in response to questions from the researcher. All participation in the study was voluntary and all responses were anonymized. All the groups studied in a blended learning format, meeting once each week to attend face to face lectures, and then for the majority of their time studied away from the group. The groups used the wiki for one entire term as an integral part of their undergraduate teacher training studies (n=35). There were 26 females and 9 males in the sample, with ages ranging from 18 to 45 years. All were learning how to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as teaching tools, but none had previously used a wiki.

ReSulTS And dISCuSSIon There was an enthusiastic response from the participants, with all contributing to the wiki from the outset during classroom sessions. Initially students experienced some confusion and several expressed doubt over whether they could use the wiki effectively. Eventually, working through their confusion, students started to organise their activities by dividing tasks up and began to use it as a collaborative tool to support the learning of the entire group: ‘I was very skeptical about how the wiki could be used within this context. Immediately, we were confronted with utter confusion. However, we dealt with this well. Once we had delegated tasks to each other, I was much more happy to continue. […] Also, unless one person is in charge of the structure of the links, an unorganized set of pages may occur. Overall, a useful tool to develop one’s own and others learning’. (Second year male undergraduate)

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‘To begin with, this session was quite stressful and I feel we weren’t voicing our ideas very well therefore it took a while to get started. However having organized what everyone was doing I think it worked really well- it is simple to use and easy to find your way around’. (First year female undergraduate) During their programme of study, students not only self-organised their roles and responsibilities, but some also collaboratively organised their content generation, posting ideas about their joint projects, highlighting items of mutual interest, and soliciting help from each other. One student for example, offered advice on the creation of hyperlinks within the wiki: ‘Just a humble suggestion when creating links. It is better to use a normal English explanation in the title of the resource link, then the actual URL itself does not have to be (or need to be) visible to the User. It makes for much easier visual filtering of sites that may be of interest to the browser. Remember there is a box specifically for the hyperlink itself as opposed to the link name on the ‘insert link’ wiki editing page. Hope this makes sense’. (Male postgraduate) Students also participated in specially devised group activities which required them to contribute to the wiki content so that over the course of the module a repository of knowledge was established. Some discovered that apportioning specific tasks to group members enabled the whole group to more effectively collaborate in the construction and maintenance of their knowledge repository. Although this strategy avoided conflict, it also had the deleterious effect of compartmentalising individual or small group contributions, so that students tended to read very little of the content created by their peers. During knowledge creation, issues of another kind arose. Students discovered that the limited capacity of the free wiki software had a detrimental effect

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on multiple-user editing. When two or more students attempted to edit or add to shared pages at the same time, conflict sometimes occurred, because the software was confounded by simultaneous postings. Students voiced their frustration about this on the discussion board. When asked the question: Now you have had the opportunity to work on a shared space for the first time, what are your feelings? They answered: ‘Using a shared area is fun but can be annoying when the work you have just typed gets wiped because someone else is editing the page at the same time!!!! We worked in two teams and there was definitely competition’. (First year female undergraduate) ‘It is very difficult to share a page, as sometimes it can get deleted which can be very annoying!!!’ (First year female undergraduate) ‘…anger, as every time you type something and someone else is on the page, it will just delete everything you do. I believe that if you decide what to put on the page before you start typing, this will solve a lot of arguments’. (First year male undergraduate) This problem, it was observed, only occurred when students were studying face to face in the classroom, and ceased to be a problem when they were using the wiki off campus. Other questions were posted to the discussion group over the course of the 10 week module, including: To what extent has writing on the wiki helped you to improve your writing skills in general? There was a more positive response to this question from several students:

On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning

‘I think my writing has become more thought provoking. I’m now thinking at a higher level than I normally would’. (First year male undergraduate)

straight to the wiki. When asked: Has using the wiki limited any of your writing skills? Does it constrain you to do certain things in certain ways? One student felt that the wiki actually had constrained her writing:

‘It has made me consider how i need to write so that it is suitable for other people to read it and understand it whereas normally it is only me that will be reading it’. (First year female undergraduate)

‘I feel that it has limited my input, if I am unsure about something I won’t include it on the page. It has also made me more cautious with spelling etc’. (First year female undergraduate)

‘Writing on the wiki is a challenging activity which involves much thought about the length and structure of sentences as it is able to be read by anyone. The exclusion of a spellcheck also provides more challenges of careful thinking.’ (First year male undergraduate) One student recognised a change in his approach in which he adopted a more analytical style, and claimed that this was a direct result of reading the opinions of others on the wiki: ‘I think I am now developing a healthy critical and analytical writing style thanks to the wiki. Looking at other people’s opinions and findings has helped me to question what’s in front of me and I have found myself researching certain areas further to see if all opinions are the same’. (Second year male undergraduate) Such comments indicate that the students became more critically engaged as the module progressed, and began to think more carefully and analytically about the structure and content of their writing. Some also recognised their dependency on digital tools such as spellcheckers and agreed that this was a weakness in their academic armoury. Some admitted that they composed their contributions in a word-processor first, and then spell-checked before copying and pasting

Another thought that she was less free in her writing because she was aware of people reading her contributions. She became less willing to take risks: ‘I feel that I’m limited on what I write because I know other people that I don’t even know will be reading it. I will only write something that I’m sure about, and not things that I think might be wrong or questioned by other people’. (First year female undergraduate) Other issues emerged during the first few weeks of implementation including an observation that most students contributed toward the wiki only during face to face lessons. Those few who contributed outside the classroom usually did so in the late evenings, or over weekends, when they were not required to attend other classes. This is an issue relating closely to that identified by Ebersbach, Glaser and Heigl (2006) who suggest that if such tools are not integrated into a regular pattern of learning activity, the result is that one or two people usually do the writing and others merely read. Further, it was observed that students tended to read only pages in which they had ownership over the content, which tended to nullify the original objective of collaborative learning through content generation. In situations where content was jointly developed by small groups of students, more reading was undertaken across several pages.

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Initially, students tended to copy and paste items from sites such as Wikipedia directly into the wiki pages, instead of creating hyperlinks to those sites. After several sessions, students learned to write their own annotations and commentaries and were encouraged by teaching staff to include images alongside their text, and other media such as movies and sounds. At times however, ‘design’ issues tended to obfuscate the original aims of personal learning through research, due to the awareness of a potential, hidden audience.

ReCommendATIonS And ConCluSIon Students will need to develop new skills to enable them to participate in the knowledge based global economy of the 21st Century. These skills will include knowing how to evaluate information critically, how to work independently without close supervision and being creative (DfES 2006). Wikis provide the perfect tool for teachers to extend those skills for the students in their care. Initially students may feel naturally daunted by the prospect of ‘writing to the web’, and about the potential to receive criticism from their peers of from an unseen web audience may provoke some anxiety. Such anxiety could be assuaged through confidence building exercises using simulated shared writing spaces which are open only to the peer group, prior to live wiki use (Wheeler, et al, 2008). Students should also be fully apprised of the probability of their work being edited or extended by others, or even deleted if considered inaccurate, irrelevant or inappropriate. All contributors should be aware that content editing is a natural and discursive feature of the wiki, and that collaborative learning requires negotiation of meaning and frank exchange of ideas (Kamel Boulos & Wheeler, 2007). Students should understand that once the ‘send’ button has been pressed, the idea no longer belongs exclusively to the originator, but now becomes the property of

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the whole learning community. Wikis are always a ‘work in progress’ so the untidy and chaotic nature of the pages should not be considered a limiting feature. Although design issues encourage readers to explore pages, content accuracy and relevancy should be prime considerations. Time should be provided for students to discuss their feelings and perceptions about participation and the social and pedagogical implications of user created content. Collaboration, rather than competition, should be emphasised as a key aim of any wiki based activity. Students should also be encouraged to contribute to the wiki outside of classroom contact hours, and to share their thoughts, useful resources and discoveries as they generate them. When in class, wiki content creation should be an activity integrated into the fabric of lessons. Teachers should act as moderators rather than instructors, and may need to restrain themselves from direct action, in order to promote free and democratic development of content according to the principles embodied in the ‘wisdom of crowds’. Clearly there are opportunities to further investigate the use of wikis as a collaborative tool for learning. There are several key areas in which work can be done, including study of how to structure wiki activities to encourage better learner engagement, better integration of wikis and other social software tools into the classroom, and an examination of the many ways in which social software tools can be used in a variety of blended and nomadic learning contexts. As with many of the emerging social software applications, wikis have the potential to transform the learning experiences of students worldwide. The benefits appear to outweigh the limitations and there is clear evidence that when used appropriately, they encourage a culture of sharing and collaboration. For many students, wikis will be particularly appealing, providing instant, anytimeanyplace access to a dynamic and ever building digital repository of user-specific knowledge and a voice in a live community of practice.

On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning

ReFeRenCeS Answers.com. Wiki Definition and History. (n.d.). Retrieved on March 2, 2007, from http://www. answers.com/wiki&r=67 Barsky, E., & Purdon, M. (2006). Introducing Web 2.0: Social networking and social bookmarking for health librarians. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 27, 65–67. Baudelaire, C. (1863). La modernité, le peintre de la vie moderne, IV. Publisher unknown. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DfES. (2006). 2020 vision-report of the teaching and learning in 2020 review group. Nottingham: DfES. Ebersbach, A., Glaser, M., & Heigl, R. (2006). Wiki: Web collaboration. Berlin: SpringerVerlag. Gale, K. (2003). Creative pedagogies of resistance in post compulsory (teacher) education. In J. Satterthwaite, E. Atkinson & K. Gale (Eds.), Discourse, power resistance: Challenging the rhetoric of contemporary education. Stoke: Trentham Books. Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Emerging technologies: Blogs and wikis: Environments for online collaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 12–16. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Gunawardena, C. N. (1990). Integrating telecommunications systems to reach distance learners. American Journal of Distance Education, 4(3), 38–46. doi:10.1080/08923649009526715

Harden, R. M., & Crosby, J. R. (2000). The good teacher is more than a lecturer: The twelve roles of the teacher. Medical Teacher, 22, 334–347. doi:10.1080/014215900409429 Jacobs, J. (2003). Communication over exposure: The rise of blogs as a product of cybervoyeurism. Cited in J. B. Williams & J. Jacobs (2004), Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 20, 232–247. Jonassen, D. H., Peck, K. L., & Wilson, B. G. (1999). Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. Kamel Boulos, M. N., Maramba, I., & Wheeler, S. (2006). Wikis, blogs, and podcasts: A new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. BMC Medical Education, 6, 41. Retrieved on July 18, 2007, from http://www.biomedcentral.com/14726920/6/41 Kamel Boulos, M. N., & Wheeler, S. (2007). The emerging Web 2.0 social software: An enabling suite of sociable technologies in health and healthcare education. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24(1), 2–23. doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2007.00701.x Keen, A. (2007). The cult of the amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Kimber, K., & Wyatt-Smith, C. (2006). Using and creating knowledge with new technologies: A case for students as designers. Learning, Media and Technology, 31(1), 19–34. doi:10.1080/17439880500515440

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Koper, R., & Manderveld, J. (2004). Educational modelling language: Modelling reusable, interoperable, rich, and personalised units of learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 35(5), 537–551. doi:10.1111/j.00071013.2004.00412.x Moore, M. G. (1989). Editorial: Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1–6. doi:10.1080/08923648909526659 O’Neill, G., & McMahon, T. (2005). Student centred learning: What does it mean for students and lecturers? In G. O’Neill, S. Moore & B. McMullin (Eds.), Emerging issues in the practice of university learning and teaching. Dublin: AISHE. O’Reilly, T. (2004). Open source paradigm shift. Retrieved on July 18, 2007, from http://tim.oreilly. com/articles/paradigmshift_0504.html Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S., & Facer, K. (2006). Opening education: Social software and learning. Bristol: Futurelab. Retrieved on November 20, 2006, from http://www.futurelab. org.uk/research Prensky, M. (2006). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8–13. Report, H. (2007). Retrieved on March 2, 2007, from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf Rheingold, H. (2003). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Rheingold, H. (2003). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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Ritchie, D., & Hoffman, B. (1997). Incorporating instructional design principles with the World Wide Web. In B. H. Khan (Ed.), Web-based instruction (pp. 135–138). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Shin, N. (2003). Transactional presence as a critical predictor of success in distance learning. Distance Education, 24(1), 87–104. doi:10.1080/01587910303048 Swan, K. (2002). Building learning communities in online courses: The importance of interaction. Education Communication and Information, 2(1), 23–49. doi:10.1080/1463631022000005016 Terdiman, D. (2006). Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica. CNET News. Retrieved on January 5, 2007, from http://news.com.com/2100-1038_35997332.html Trentin, G. (2008). Using a wiki to evaluate individual contribution to a collaborative learning project. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. doi:.doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00276.x Wallace, P. (1999). The psychology of the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, P. (1999). The psychology of the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wheeler, S., & Wheeler, D. (2009). Using wikis to promote quality learning outcomes in teacher training. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(1), 1–10. doi:10.1080/17439880902759851 Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad, and the wiki: Evaluating student generated content as a collaborative learning tool. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(6), 987–995. doi:10.1111/j.14678535.2007.00799.x

On Using Wiki as a Tool for Collaborative Online Blended Learning

key TeRmS And deFInITIonS Blended Learning: Learning which takes place both on and off campus, usually mediated via technology Collaborative Learning: Learning which encourages teams and small groups to work together

Nomadic Learning: Learning on the move Social Software: software that encourages participation and collaboration, e.g. wikis and blogs Web 2.0: A term used to describe the participative and social elements of the World Wide Web Wiki: A website that can be edited by all those who have access

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Web 2.0, 3.0, and X.0: Technologies, Business, and Social Applications , edited by Murugesan, S., pp. 511-521, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.16

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students Jay Alden National Defense University, USA

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies with its emphasis on social networking has presented an opportunity for academic institutions to take advantage of new tools to support educational courses. One of these tools is a Wiki. This chapter discusses the merits and challenges of using a Wiki to support the activities of students during group projects. It shows the importance of student collaboration in online courses by fostering deeper learning, producing higher quality team products, and preparing students for today’s collaborative workplace. The chapter focuses on the best practices of faculty from setting up the Wiki at the onset through the final phase of evaluating the group product and the individual contribution of individual team members. It also discusses a number of ways in which Wikisupported collaborative activities can be introduced into online courses and the criteria for selecting particular Wiki products for an institution.

Since its inception, online education has been a solitary endeavor for students working on course assignments. Their link to classmates distributed around the country and the world has often been limited to discussion forums, a useful but somewhat awkward device for working collaboratively. Online discussion forums by themselves seem a poor substitute for in-residence students working interactively across a table constructing a team response to a group assignment on flip-chart paper. The distinction between collaboration in the classroom and collaboration online has been narrowing with the recent advent of social networking software. The purpose of this chapter is to show how one of these social networking software applications – a wiki – can be introduced into an online course in order to better support collaboration among geographically dispersed students. More specifically, its objective is to enable faculty and administrators to understand how student collaboration can facilitate deep learning into an online course and to decide if and how a wiki can support collaboration among distributed students.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-729-4.ch007

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

BACkgRound why Student Collaboration? Some, maybe even many, students express an intense dislike for working collaboratively on class assignments, especially in online courses (Payne and Monk-Turner, 2006). “It takes more time than doing it alone” they say, and they loathe having to make up for the burden of slackers on the team. “It is just not fair” they claim “that we all get the same grade even though our individual contributions are quite unequal.” In spite of these misgivings, several good reasons exist for requiring collaboration among students in online classes. In fact, in graduate-level education, collaborative activities appear virtually required. First and foremost, collaborative activities tend to foster deep learning. That is, the drive towards the consensus necessary to produce a single collective response to the group assignment demands multifaceted exploration and interaction among students. According to Warren Houghton, …deep learning involves the critical analysis of new ideas, linking them to already known concepts and principles, and leads to understanding and long-term retention of concepts so that they can be used for problem solving in unfamiliar contexts. Deep learning promotes understanding and application for life. In contrast, surface learning is the tacit acceptance of information and memorization as isolated and unlinked facts. It leads to superficial retention of material for examinations and does not promote understanding or long-term retention of knowledge and information. (Houghton, 2004, p.9) Experience suggests that superficial and uncritical acceptance of information does not typically occur in a group activity. New ideas are challenged for their underlying meanings and are perhaps modified to fit better into the cognitive structure of collective understandings. The dialog

in group activities aids students in investigating the underlying causal factors explaining phenomena rather than merely reporting the surface issues of who did what to whom. It should be noted that deep learning does not automatically happen merely when students are assigned to groups (Johnson, Johnson, and Rogers, 1998, p.31). A study by Vaughan (2008) determined that collaborative tools support deep approaches to learning “… only when the teaching strategies and assignments for a course are intentionally designed to facilitate and assess peer collaboration and self-reflection” (p.2863). Moreover, the students must be motivated both internally and externally to want more than just a passing grade from the course and to have access to a well structured base of knowledge related to the assignment. With these tenets of effective course design in place, the components of “activity” and especially “interactivity” with peers inherent in collaborative group assignments greatly facilitate deep learning. A second benefit for collaboration among students online is that the group response to the assignment is usually better than any of the individual student responses. Collaboration taps into the notion of the “Wisdom of Crowds.” According to James Surowiecki (2004), for certain types of problems, the solution posed by a group of reasonably informed and engaged people is almost invariably better than any single expert’s answer. Think back to the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game show that was so popular on television several years ago. When the contestant was stymied by a question, he or she could call on any of three lifelines – reducing the four choices to just two, calling on an expert by telephone, or asking for a poll of the audience. The first lifeline tends to produce the correct answer fifty percent of the time (sort of a flip of the coin); the expert provided the correct answer a respectable twothirds of the time; while the majority response of the audience - composed of a variety of people with diverse knowledge on the topic - was correct over ninety percent of the time. Of course, groups

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in online courses are not typically assigned the task of solving a problem where there is a single correct answer (i.e., a cognition problem) as in the Millionaire game. But, the concept of the wisdom of crowds has been shown to apply equally to problems that require aspects of coordination and cooperation. That is, the concept applies to problems where individuals have to figure out how to take a shared course of action and to do so in a way that yields mutual advantage among individual team members. These requirements precisely fit the type assignment that is the norm for group projects in online courses. The idea that the group response to a problem will be better than any of the individual team member solutions also depends upon the characteristics of the team and the way it functions. Surowiecki (p.10) suggests that the following criteria distinguish the wise crowd from the irrational mob: •

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Diversity: Team members are not all cut from the same mold. They have different opinions and perspectives. Independence: Team members are not easily intimidated by the opinions of their teammates. They can voice their disagreement. Decentralization: Team members can draw upon different sources of specialized information. Aggregation: A mechanism exists for individual team members to share their local knowledge and come to a collective decision.

Collaborative projects in online courses tend to satisfy these conditions so that the team response should lead to a product superior to one than if the members of the teams were to work totally independent of each other. By being exposed to the wisdom of the group, they learn more than if they had been assigned to work on the task individually.

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Lastly, collaborative projects prepare students for the Information Age workplace. The world of work has changed radically in the last decade or two. Rigid hierarchical organizational structures and an attitude of “if you want something done right, do it yourself“ do not seem to fit today’s business environment. There may actually be more activity going on in the white space between boxes in the organizational chart than in the vertical connecting lines (Rummler & Basche, 1995). After all, so much more information is available now than there used to be, the information is a great deal more complex, and it is distributed among many more people. It is a rare occurrence in the workplace where bosses know more about the units’ business specialization than the people working for them. Business activities typically require major contributions from technical specialists in a variety of organizational departments (Tapscott & Williams, 2007). Also, great pressure exists nowadays to obtain firsthand input from customers and users and maybe even involve them in decision making. Suppliers as well are often tied tightly into the organization’s knowledge base and are frequently consulted in planning activities. Further complicating the Information Age environment are the many partnerships that organizations enter into in order to gain competitive advantage. No, this is not your father’s workplace. Collaboration is now the name of the game. Committees, project teams, cross-functional teams, and communities of practice are all part of today’s business lexicon. And, they are often accomplished, at least in part, with online tools. Whatever the particular content of the course and whether or not students perceive the value of group projects at the onset, collaboration in online courses helps prepare them to succeed in the Information Age workplace. And, the process of collaboration leads to deeper learning by online students as well as team products that are a cut above the work of any one individual.

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

what is a wiki? A wiki is a type of social networking software that has evolved over the last several years. It has the potential for being an excellent tool to support the collaboration activities during student group projects in online courses. A wiki offers a shared online workspace where team members can contribute their individual pieces to a common document: editing, removing, or adding to what is already there. Even though each member can modify the document, all previous unedited versions are available and can be restored if deemed necessary. And, the direct contributions by each team member are clearly visible. The final agreedupon product in the wiki is the collective response of the online team to the assigned task. As an example, suppose five graduate students in an online business class are assigned the task of creating a set of five strategic goals for a hypothetical organization whose strategic direction (i.e., mission and vision) and competitive situation have been defined. Their final submission should offer the statement of these five goals and the justification for their inclusion in the organization’s strategic plan. •

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Phase 1 – Brainstorming Goals: Working under the guidance of a designated student team leader, each team member begins populating the shared workspace in the wiki with a variety of potential strategic goals. This phase of the task is comparable to brainstorming. The team collectively produces a total of twenty plus goals with some apparent duplication. Phase 2 – Eliminating Duplication: Using a separate discussion forum as a messaging medium, the team leader assigns individual team members the responsibility of combining particular overlapping goals to eliminate the duplication. The students revise the shared wiki page individually to reflect the combining of the goals assigned

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to them, resulting in 14 unique goals. Since the team members are working on separate goals, there is little chance for any conflicts arising in this phase. Phase 3 – Editing Goal Statements: The team leader then asks the team members to review all the goals against the given standards for effectively written strategic goals (e.g., broad in scope and dealing with highlevel issues relevant to the organization’s strategy for success) and to assure that a critical goal has not been inadvertently eliminated. They are asked to rewrite any deficient goals directly on the wiki page and to post comments with their rational for change. Although such a review and rewrite activity typically leads to a better product in a harmonious manner, there is potential for two or more students to disagree strongly as to the optimum wording of a goal. The disagreement may manifest itself as a series of alternate revisions or dueling comments. Matt Marshall (2006) coined the term “wiki war” to describe situations of this sort. The group should have prepared a team work plan in advance that would spell out how such conflicts would be resolved. For example, perhaps the designated team leader will choose the final wording of the goal as he or she sees fit after reading the comments posted. Or the team leader might ask the team members not involved in the conflict to comment or to vote. One way or another, the activity should result in a set of complete goals that are well stated. We’ll assume that the team now has a set of 14 unique and well-stated strategic goals for the hypothetical organization displayed on the wiki page. Phase 4 - Choosing Final Goals: The original task assignment was to create a set of five strategic goals, so it is now necessary for the team to reduce the 14 goals it had developed to a set of only the five highest

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priority goals. The team leader creates a new wiki page for each of the 14 proposed goals and, using the discussion forum, asks the team members to choose the five strategic goals they would prefer to retain and to post their rationale for assigning high priority to those particular goals. Let us say six goals are eliminated for further consideration since they were not promoted by any team member. The team leader polls the team on the remaining eight goals; a list of the five strategic goals with the highest number of votes is the result (the team leader breaks any ties). Phase 5 – Justifying Selected Goals: The last requirement of the group task is to prepare the justification for the five selected strategic goals. The team leader assigns each team member to one of the five goals for the purpose of combining the statements of rationale offered by the team members in the previous phase into a single coherent justification for inclusion of that goal in the strategic plan. The team members are then requested to visit the page of each goal and either indicate their acceptance of the statement of justification as a comment or make revisions. The team member assigned to each particular goal, who receives an email notification when his or her goal justification statement has been modified, has the final say so as to the final wording of the statement of justification and may choose to re-edit the statement or to revert to the previous wording. Phase 6 – Submitting the Final Response: The team leader then collects all five strategic goals and justifications from the five wiki pages and posts them as the final submission to the assigned group task.

This team project might have been completed more quickly by simply having each team member create and justify a single strategic goal that

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is combined into the final submission. But, by developing the response in a collaborative way using a wiki, the final submission is likely to be a much higher quality product with a deeper understanding of the concept of “strategic goals” by the students. And, they will be better prepared for the kind of work they will be doing in the Information Age workplace. To accommodate collaboration of this type among students, a wiki software application typically offers the capabilities described in Table 1. The best known wiki is Wikipedia (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). This site serves as an encyclopedia that is created, updated and self-managed by users. Wikipedia exemplifies all of the wiki capabilities listed above, but because of the immense volume of content, untold numbers of users, and the public nature of the site, some of these capabilities are not self-evident from a casual visit. A wiki used in support of a class collaboration project in an online course, on the other hand, embodies most if not all of these capabilities in a highly transparent fashion.

uSIng wIkIS To what kinds of Student Collaboration might a wiki be Applied? A wiki can be applied to a variety of group activities in online courses to enhance learning. Some involve collaboration among the entire class and others among small teams of students: •

Student Team Projects: A wiki can support the collaboration activities during student team project assignments - projects in which small groups of students collaborate to produce a product, conduct a case study, or answer open-ended questions posed by the instructor. The wiki can be used as a

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

Table 1. Wiki Capabilities Online Shared Workspace

Members of the student teams can each access the online pages and modify them. If one team member is in the process of editing a page, other team members may be blocked from opening the same page or a second version of the modified page is generated.

Automatic Index Creation

Each time a new page is created by the team leader or team member, the wiki automatically adds the title of the page to the index used to navigate around the workspace.

Workspace History

A view of all previous pages showing their date of creation, the author, and the specific highlighted changes is available to all team members via an historical index page.

Page Restoration

Designated members of the team have the ability to restore a previous page version in order to eliminate what is believed to be an inappropriate page modification.

Commenting

Team members can insert viewable comments and, perhaps, ratings on information posted by other team members.

Posting Notification

Team members may subscribe to a service that notifies them by email when a page they’ve identified has been modified by another team member.

Administrative Control

The faculty member can assign the level of authorization to different users as to their ability to edit, remove content or pages, or to restore previous versions of edited pages

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tool for both planning for the team and the creation of the final project product. Discussion Summary: A team of students may be directed to summarize a weekly discussion conducted in an online forum for use by the remainder of the class. Each week a different team is assigned the task of summarizing the weekly online discussion. The wiki could be used to make draft notes and reflections by individual team members, and to collaboratively construct the final summary document. The summary is then made available to all other students in the class for their review and comments. Course FAQ: A wiki can be used to create a “Frequently Asked Questions” page for the course. In this case, students would post questions concerning the conduct of the course and both students and the instructor can furnish and edit answers. Course Glossary: Borrowing the approach used with Wikipedia, students in a class can collectively construct a glossary of technical terms associated with a course. That is, students can offer definitions, examples, explanations, links to relevant research and

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references for a set of technical terms suggested by the faculty or the students. Knowledge Repository: An annotated bibliography of online resources for the course can be maintained in a wiki with both students and faculty able to add to and revise the contents. The posted information might include the title, an active link to the website containing the reference material, and a brief description of the contents of the document or website. Students might then be asked to post ratings and evaluative comments of the material.

what are the Role Responsibilities of the Instructor? The faculty member plays a vital role in assuring that the group project using a wiki runs smoothly and, in fact, leads to deep learning. Without the planning, ongoing monitoring, and occasional prompting by the instructor, the student group project can easily change from the initial promise of an exciting learning adventure using a wiki to a forlorn burden (Webber, 2005). The role of the faculty member can be organized into seven critical responsibilities:

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Set-up Wiki Software The wiki software has to be configured so that the teams of students have the appropriate access and authority to use the wiki for its intended purpose. Typically, this involves naming the wiki page, providing a description that will appear next to the name, choosing the options by which it will operate (e.g., will it automatically link to the course’s online grade book), assigning the particular students who can access the wiki pages, and defining what responsibilities each or all students will have (e.g., editing pages, commenting on postings by others, creating new pages, purging existing pages, reverting to previous pages and thereby eliminating edited pages considered inappropriate). Of course, different software products employ different means for setting up the wiki, but they invariably use a simple-to-use interactive worksheet where the instructors make their selections by checking off boxes and entering titles into formatted workspaces. In cases where the wiki has been institutionalized into academic programs, much of the set-up may be accomplished by the technology support group when the online course is initially created.

Create Framework for Wiki Pages It would be tempting to create a wiki composed of a blank page and turn it over to the students to use as they will. Perhaps, when the use of a wiki is as familiar to students as preparing a document on a word processor, this would be possible and maybe even advantageous. But, that time seems quite a ways off. A blank wiki page represents a formidable challenge to most students at this time. Instead, it is strongly recommended that the instructor prepare an initial welcoming page for students to view when accessing the wiki and any templates (i.e., formatted task pages) deemed necessary for student teams to complete the assigned task.

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Here is an example from one of the online courses conducted by the author – the course deals with measuring organizational performance. One of the weekly units involving a team project covers the topic of sampling. More specifically, the case requires that a sampling plan be developed to allow the military commissary system to demonstrate their ability save their customers money on a “selected market basket of food items when compared to prices at supermarkets in the private sector.” The team assignment at the completion of the unit’s instruction is shown in Figure 1. To help facilitate the use of the wiki, a template for the response was provided on the team’s wiki page as shown in Figure 2. In this way, the teams would merely submit their responses by checking off boxes and entering text into the form. They could then concentrate their deliberations on the week’s content on sampling, rather than on formatting a wiki page.

Develop Instructions for Students Written instructions should be provided to the students the first time they are directed to use a wiki in a team project. The instructions can indicate such information as how the wiki will be used in the course, how they can access it, and what kinds of activities they are expected to perform using the wiki. Exhibit 3 shows sample instructions used in one of the author’s courses. These instructions exclude directions for operations such as accessing the wiki, logging in, posting comments, and editing pages which also must be provided to students.

Encourage Editing of Other Students’ Entries Some students are reluctant to modify a classmate’s submission to the wiki even if they believe the modification would improve the product being developed. They are apparently concerned about alienating the feelings of the originator’s writing

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

Figure 1. Sampling Team Assignment

Figure 2. Pre-prepared Template for Wiki Page

or cultural influencers might make some students uncomfortable deleting the works by others (Pfeil, Zaphiris, and Ang, 2006). The alternatives to rewriting a section are to post the suggested change as either (1) an addition to the section on the wiki beneath the original material, or (2) a suggestion for change in the Comment section of the wiki pointing out the item to which the suggestion applies. Both these approaches are more awkward than merely rewriting the original item by incorporating the suggested improvements directly into the wiki and replacing the previous submission. The instructor should post an announcement or send personal email messages encouraging students to

overwrite previous postings if they believe that the project deliverable would benefit by doing so. Schweitzer (2008) believes that incentives such as extra grading points ought to be offered for students to edit each other’s work. One way or another, the idea should be promoted that everyone in the team develop a “thick skin” and not be defensive if a classmate modifies a section that he or she submitted. All team members must recognize that the shared goal is to produce a superior final product using a collaborative effort - everyone owns the team’s final submission. Students should be reminded that if their submissions are changed by teammates and they believe that the

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Exhibit 3. Written Instructions on use of the Wiki Here is how the Wiki is expected to be used in the class for team projects: 1. Each team will have a workspace for each project that only team members (and I) can access. Teams cannot access each other’s team’s workspace - they are private. You can access your team’s workspace by clicking on “Group Wiki” in the course menu and choosing “View” under your team’s name. 2. I will set up a template for the deliverable product in each workspace. 3. Each team will also have the usual Group Discussion Board capability that is part of the Group section of the online learning system. This discussion board should be used for communication among team members including such messages as the assignment of tasks by the designated team leader, the schedule of activities during the week, and suggestions for how the team project should be conducted. 4. The wiki workspace is used for the actual construction of the team’s final deliverable. As part of the team leader’s task instructions to the team, he or she will describe what elements of the template should be completed by each team member (different team members may have responsibility for different elements or all team members may be expected to contribute to the same element). 5. The team leader and each team member have the ability to add to, remove, or modify any of the content existing in the workspace. New sub-pages can also be added to each project workspace if that capability can help in the development of the final project deliverable. Any person with access to the workspace can also restore (revert to) an earlier version of the workspace page from the history file if a newer version is deemed inappropriate. 6. From a project management perspective, the responsibility for removing content and reverting to previous versions of a page should lie solely with the designated team leader. However, any team leader for a particular project may delegate that capability to team members if he or she deems such action appropriate. 7. It is hoped that everyone will adopt an experimental perspective on the use of the wiki and attempt innovative actions permitted by the software even though they are not covered in these instructions. 8. It is recommended that the Group Wiki be used directly for submission and improvement of the responses to the assignment and that the Group Discussion Board in the “Groups” area be used for messaging concerning project administration. 9. When the project deliverable has reached what is believed to be its final version as determined by the team leader, he or she should request comments from the team members that indicate their agreement or disagreement with the final draft response. Team member comments can be made either in the Group’s Discussion Board or using the “Comment” feature of the Group Wiki, at the discretion of the team leader. 10. Based on the team member’s comments, the team leader can modify the draft as he or she sees fit, copy it from the Group Wiki, and post it as the team’s submission to the Posting Assignment area of the Discussion Board for all class members to view.

modifications made the team’s product worse, they may again rewrite the material, building on the teammates’ apparent concerns and perhaps posting comments to help explain the change they feel necessary. In the unlikely event that a point of disagreement between two or more classmates deteriorates into a wiki war among the parties, the team leader has the responsibility to mediate or make the final decision.

Plan in Advance for Dispute Resolution Online team projects share some challenges with face-to-face team projects and add some opportunities for additional disputes. According to Millis (2006), team projects often involve “hitchhikers” (i.e., students who fail to carry their weight and have to be prodded for contributions of any kind) and “workhorses” (i.e., overachievers who contribute frequently and voluminously, more than is requested and perhaps even more than is desired).

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Such different and opposing working styles often come into conflict with each other and with the more moderate members of the team. Working in a virtual environment offers other challenges for communication during academic team projects. Without having eye contact with the originator of a proposal, it is easy to be candid, less civil, and maybe even rude, when expressing an opinion of someone else’s contribution (Follett, 2008). Other opportunities for disputes arise in online team projects involving wikis, especially in the case where one student overwrites the contribution of another. Student teams should be made to face the possibility of clashes arising in their teams before the group projects even begin. At the very least, they should be directed to references that offer guidance on preventing disputes and resolving them if they should occur. Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration offers such a reference in their “Surviving the Group Project: A Note on Working in Teams” (Wertheim, n.d.). The instruc-

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

tor can offer his or her own tips on managing team projects and perhaps open a discussion forum or even a wiki on eliciting student suggestions for preventing and resolving disputes. Some universities require that student teams prepare a plan for working as a group including their own process for conflict management. Exhibit 4 shows the plan developed by one team in a course taught by the author. Incidentally, a wiki is a useful tool for the development of such working plans.

Monitor Use of Wiki during the Course Experience indicates that in the vast majority of cases, a student team’s use of a wiki is smooth and effective. The teams are self-governing and require little or no intervention by the instructor. The instructor gives the team assignment at the start of the project and reviews the final team product when it is completed. The team leaders have things in hand during the project. But of course there are exceptions, especially during the initial team projects in a course. Some of these problems are common to student team projects in general, independent of whether or not a wiki is used:

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Time is getting short and the team is struggling with the assignment and does not seem to have any idea what to do. Right from the onset, the team has embarked on a path that is likely to be unfulfilling. A heated argument breaks out among members of the team, and the team leader is either unable to deal with the issue or is a participant in the dispute.

Other potential team problems may be directly related to the required use of a wiki. For example, the lack of fluency with a wiki or the fear of having to rewrite a colleague’s contribution might result in the wiki workspace remaining bare of content. All the team’s contributions may occur within the confines of the more familiar threaded discussion forum, as clumsy as that might be. In some cases, team leaders might reserve the right to themselves to post content to the wiki, with other team members restricted to merely suggesting content and posting comments in the discussion forum. And, occasionally, a wiki war might break out among two or more team members that is unresolved by the self-governance capability of the team. At the very least, the instructor should regularly

Exhibit 4. Team Conflict Management Plan Team Conflict Management Plan As conflicts are inevitable in the team development process, we, as members of Team APEX shall resort to the following guidelines and procedures to provide resolution when conflicts arise: Any conflict shall be handled in a constructive way and the project leader shall assist and direct the disputing parties to: 1. Identify the key issues and their position without making any accusations; 2. Lay out the advantages and disadvantages of each party’s position on the issue; 3. Look for other alternative options that will satisfy both parties interest and fulfillment the team’s needs; 4. Request other member’s opinions and views; and 5. Find the point of balance and work out a mutual decision between parties. However, if a mutual decision cannot be reached, the team leader shall seek assistance from faculty members to act as mediator to help the parties to reach an agreement. Every member should keep in mind that the purpose of team assignments is to give us the chance of learning and developing management skills in a cooperative and reciprocal setting while achieving a common team goal. Therefore, we should refrain ourselves from and to avoid unnecessary conflicts and disputes that would hinder or delay the team’s progress. The followings are some suggestions and rules that have been provided by members of Team APEX to assist the team in the avoidance of unnecessary conflicts and disputes: 1. Be certain that any suggestions and solutions are practical and achievable; 2. Encourage and welcome different ideas and opinions; 3. Be positive and sincere with your words; 4. Be conscious about your own part of problem; and 5. Before giving your own point of view, try to listen and understand others first.

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monitor each team’s wiki workspace for signs of potential problems. If some are found, the tough question to answer is whether or not to intercede. Sometimes the best reaction to a problem is no reaction; let the team handle it themselves (Follett, 2008). Often, all that is necessary is a personal email message or telephone call to the team leader, noting the potential problem and asking if assistance is required. If help is requested, then appropriate guidance should be offered to help steer team activities towards the fruitful use of the wiki for collaboration. If the team leader is at the heart of the problem or a party to a dispute, more assertive action may be required to defuse the situation. Intervention into team projects is a touchy issue and instructors have to learn to step back without stepping out of the picture entirely.

Evaluate Collaborative Effort Since group projects typically represent an extensive amount of effort by students in a class, general agreement exists among faculty that the team effort should be assessed, graded, and feedback provided. With some exceptions (Cohen, 1994), there is further accord that grading ought to represent both (1) the quality of the product developed jointly by the team as well as (2) the degree of participation and quality of contribution by each individual student involved in the group process. Different faculty and institutions might stress the relative weight of the common product and the individual contribution dissimilarly in the assessment, but both components are typically factored into each student’s grade. The assessment of the team’s final product tends to fall within the typical task requirements of most faculty. In virtually all ways related to assessment, a paper produced by a group is indistinguishable from a paper authored by an individual student. Faculty members are quite experienced in the application of stated project requirements or criteria and the use of grading rubrics to assign a score to the final group product. On the other hand, the assessment

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of each team member’s contribution to the final group product poses special challenges to the course instructor. The individual members of student teams typically contribute to the group project in a variety of ways. They post comments to discussion boards, send email messages, submit documents they’ve created, and take part in team chat sessions. They might participate in telephone conversations or teleconferences or even meet face-to-face with team members who are located in the same general vicinity. It is arduous for the faculty member to track down the sum total of contributions by individual students in order to assign a grade to their involvement in team deliberations. Possibly because of this difficulty, many faculty members rely on “peer assessment” to provide the portion of the group project grade relating to individual contribution. In peer assessment, each student team member is asked to evaluate the contribution of the other team members to the final group product (McCoy, 2006). The assessment, often anonymous, may be in the form of a ranking or graded score on such factors as taking responsibility, contributing ideas, and completing tasks, accompanied by justifying comments. The composite score from all team members for each student is factored into the group project grade for each individual member of the team. Some faculty members have qualms with the fairness of peer assessment. They feel that students are not trained to rate people’s performance and that the grades they assign may consider factors irrelevant to team contribution and might even be determined by collusion among some team members (Ohland, Layton, Loughry, and Yuhasz, 2005). The historical index feature of all wiki applications may enable a lower weighting of peer evaluation or possibly its elimination in the assessment of an individual’s contribution to the group effort. This feature allows the instructor to view exactly what each team member contributed to the group project. The page history file provides access to each version of the wiki page with the modification highlighted in color and the name

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

of the person listed who made the change as well as the day and time that the revision took place. The faculty member can conveniently determine the quantity and quality of contributions by each team member and rate that performance accordingly. Most faculty members are adept at rating student performance fairly and accurately, given direct access to their contributions. Moreover, just the knowledge that faculty will have easy access to their contributions may serve as an incentive for students to participate more actively and with higher quality contributions

By what Criteria Should the wiki Software Product be Chosen? Currently one hundred or so software products are available on the market that have the term “wiki” in their names or can serve the functions of a wiki. Which one is best for a particular institution? Several criteria might be used in the selection process.

Technical Performance Features and Cost If the choice is to be made purely on the basis of features and cost, the decision is not exceptionally difficult. Virtually all wiki software products offer common wiki functions that enable the basic essence of online collaboration: •

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Page Creation & Revision: The ability to enter or revise textual content on a shared workspace using a typical text editor. Page Index: Automatic creation of an index of page titles that have been created with built-in links to those pages. Page History: A means of viewing previous versions of the pages with indications of when the edits took place, the user who made the change, the specific changes that were made, and the ability to restore that previous page as the visible page on the wiki.

Higher-end wiki products offer some additional features that may not be found on the lower cost offerings: •

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Hyperlinking: The ability to easily insert links to other Wiki pages and pages available on the Web. Multimedia: The ability to insert graphical images, video clips, and audio files into the page. Attachments: The ability to upload and insert existing documents into a page. Email Notification: A subscription service in which users are notified by email when a wiki page they have identified has been modified by another user. Access Control: The assignment of different levels of authorization to different users as to the ability to edit or remove content or pages or to restore previous versions of edited pages. Commenting: The ability to insert viewable comments by users on information posted by other users.

The institution must first decide on the wiki features it deems critical for its application and the available budget for purchasing the software product. Several online tools are available to help shrink the number of potential wiki software offerings to a manageable set based on available features and cost. These tools include Wikipedia’s Comparison of wiki software (n.d.) and WikiMatrix’s Compare them all (n.d.). Wikipedia offers a large updated table listing differences among approximately 50 wiki software products on factors such as owner, release dates, cost, technical parameters, target audience, features, and installation requirements. It should be noted that Wikipedia’s tool is the creation of users so that the authenticity of the data is likely but not assured. WikiMatrix is an interactive website that enables users to choose or compare Wikis from among approximately 100 Wiki software products. Users can make use

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of a built-in wizard as an aid in the selection of a specific wiki software product that meets their particular needs. Or, users can choose two of the available wiki software products for a side-byside comparison on features, hosting and system requirements, security arrangements, usability, and other technical parameters. The website also offers a link to a discussion forum devoted to wikis where questions can be asked and comments made within a community of people interested in this collaborative software capability.

•

Institutional Integration Issues The choice of a particular wiki software product may very well involve factors beyond it purchase price and features. Two different institutions might have the same budget and need for the same wiki features for its collaborative application, but one product might suit one institution better than the other institution and offer significantly lower life-cycle costs than another product. The ease of integration of the wiki functionality into the culture and technology infrastructure of the institution ought to be of critical concern in the choice of software. •

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Usability for Target Audience and Available Support Services: Because of the programmatic thrust of its academic offerings, students in some institutions or departments might have more experience or greater aptitude with new software products. They therefore could be more skillful at some advanced wiki features and require less technical support. The WikiMatrix tool described above gives some indication of the ease of use of the various products based on available features (e.g., WYSIWYG Editing), but an actual trial of a product with targeted users would be worthwhile. The availability and cost of technical support services such as a 24/7 toll-free number call assistance should also be considered,

•

especially if the student body or faculty of the institution tend to be hesitant in adopting technology innovations. Integration with Existing Course Management System: The course management system used to deliver online courses at the institution might be home grown or purchased from a commercial software vendor (e.g., BlackBoard). In either case, a wiki capability may or may not be embedded in the course management system. And, even if a wiki is available as part of the course management system, its array of features might not be as rich as a wiki software product acquired as a standalone application. In spite of this drawback, heavy weight in the decision process might be awarded the criterion of course management system integration. That is, a wiki that has a similar look and feel to the software used to deliver the online courses greatly assists adoption of its collaborative features. A wiki with these characteristics gives the appearance of being merely an extension of the course management system rather an entirely new software product to learn. If the course management system does not incorporate a wiki, then consideration should be given to commercial software applications that can be readily customized to offer colors, layout, button shapes, and branding similar to the appearance of the current online course displays. Hosting: Most commercial suppliers of wiki software offer institutions the option of hosting the application on either the vendor’s servers or those of the institution. For some institutions, hosting is a critical criterion in the decision process. Hosting by the vendor probably has a higher lifecycle cost of ownership than the outright purchase of a software license by the institution that will host the software itself; however, vendor hosting may offer benefits

Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

that institutions with relatively small and unsophisticated information technology support units are unable to provide. These benefits include assurances for secure and private interactions during collaborative activities as well as the systematic and frequent back-up of data files. Because hosted services specialize in this line of business, they tend to offer fewer and less lengthy outages and may have the ability to switch to a back-up server if the primary server shuts down for any reason. The extra cost associated with remote hosting of the wiki might also lead to more timely updates of the software and more reliable support services for users. Each institution has to consider the cost-benefits of outright purchase of the wiki software versus paying the vendor to host the service.

FuTuRe TRendS According to Bill Venners (2003), Ward Cunningham created the first modern wiki, named WikiWikiWeb, in 1995. After more than a decade, wikis are just beginning to appear in academia, typically in support of student team projects. Using Gartner’s Hype Cycle curve (Linden and Fenn,

2003), the author would position the use of wikis in education on the upward slope approaching the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” (see Figure 3). That is, wikis are currently receiving positive hype from articles dealing with a limited number of first-generation academic applications that need extensive customization to work effectively. The use of wikis in education has yet to receive much negative press describing the likely failures by the second round of adaptors. But, criticism will almost certainly occur as faculty lacking the enthusiasm and technical aptitude of the early adaptors attempt to implement wikis in their online classrooms. They will find putting the current generation of wikis into practice challenging. Passing through the “Trough of Disillusionment” phase of the Hype Cycle to begin rising on the “Slope of Enlightenment” will require a number of modifications to the wiki software. First and foremost, a wiki must become an integral component of each institution’s course management system. A stand-alone wiki capability with a different look and feel than the standard online learning application and separated from administrative functions like the course address book and class assignment utilities is daunting to both students and faculty. A wiki should become the primary collaboration module of the course man-

Figure 3. Gartner’s Hype Cycle

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agement system and seem as common to users as the course discussion board. Second, the built-in facilities for editing, commenting on, and viewing previous page versions need to become integrated and make use of a more user-friendly graphical interface. In most current wiki configurations, these three functions tend to be accomplished in entirely different ways, complicating the mastery by users. Last, to speed up the collaborative efforts among multiple users, it would be helpful if changes to the common workspace were made immediately available on students’ mobile display devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants so that they could respond quickly if they wish. All of these modifications are quite likely to occur within the next few years as social networking tools become more universal.

ConCluSIon Current wiki software exists as stand-alone applications having some features similar to a word processor and other features offering unique capabilities for collaboration among distributed users. As such, it now represents a challenge for academic institutions to choose a particular wiki product and configure it for use in their online courses. Tight resources would have to be diverted to this particular emerging technology. Early adopters on the faculty must be willing to share their experiences and enthusiasm with their colleagues. It is tempting to just wait the few years necessary for this software capability to evolve further and become more integrated with the institution’s course management system. Yet, besides offering a challenge, the current standing of wiki software also offers an opportunity for farthinking academic institutions. These institutions are embracing the quickly evolving world of Web 2.0 with its emphasis on social networking. They see how such new capabilities as offered by a wiki can transform their online programs in ways unheard of just a few years ago. Their students, no

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matter how far removed from each other, can more readily collaborate on joint efforts. Yes, they still cannot read body language and facial expressions as can residential student teams sitting around a conference table (at least until video conferences or animated avatars are added to the mix), but they have the benefit of collaborating in group projects on their own schedule from any location while contributing relevant dynamic media resources that exist on the Web. These insightful institutions are taking advantage of state-of-theart wiki software to build more opportunities for student collaboration into their courses. By doing so, their students acquire deeper learning of the subject matter, produce a higher quality product that they can be proud of, and are being prepared to work effectively in today’s collaborative-based workplace. By not waiting for the next generation of wiki software to emerge, these far-thinking institutions are working their way through the “trough of disillusionment” in the Hype Cycle into the “slope of enlightenment” so that they can be the leaders in the “plateau of productivity” when the time comes in the next few years.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

ReFeRenCeS Cohen, E. G. (1994). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Compare them all. (n.d.). Retrieved June 30, 2008 from http://www.wikimatrix.org/

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Comparison of Wiki software. (n.d.). Retrieved June 30, 2008 http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software Follett, J. (2008). The rules of digital engagement. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://alistapart. com/articles/rulesofdigitalengagement Houghton, W. (2004). Learning and teaching theory for engineering academics. Retrieved October 23, 2008, from http://www.engsc.ac.uk/ downloads/resources/theory.pdf Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1998). Cooperative learning returns to college: What evidence is there that it works? Change, (July/August): 27–35. Linden, A., & Fenn, J. (2003). Strategic analysis report R-20-1971: Understanding Gartner’s hype cycles. Stamford, CT: Gartner Inc. Marshall, M. (2005). Wiki war born out of deal with Walt Disney. Retrieved October 23, 2008, from http://www.mickeynews.com/News/DisplayPressRelease.asp_Q_id_E_1195Wiki McCoy, S. (2006). Evaluating group projects: A Web-based assessment. In Proceedings of the 2006 Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium. Retrieved June 27, 2008, from http://www.micsymposium.org/mics_2006/papers/McCoy.pdf Millis, B. J. (2006). Using new technologies to support cooperative learning, collaborative services, and unique resources. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/ rmillis3.html Ohland, M. W., Layton, R. A., Loughry, M. L., & Yuhasz, A. G. (2005). Effects of behavioral anchors on peer evaluation reliability. Journal of Engineering Education, (July). 319-326.

Payne, B. K., & Monk-Turner, E. (2006). Students’ perceptions of group projects: The role of race, age, and slacking. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_/ ai_n26844266?tag=artBody;col1 Pfeil, U., Zaphiris, P., & Ang, C. S. (2006). Cultural differences in collaborative authoring of Wikipedia. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(1), article 5. Retrieved October 23, 2008, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/ issue1/pfeil.html Rummler, G., & Brache, A. (1995). Improving performance: How to manage the white space in the organization chart. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Schweitzer, H. (2008). Extending the online classroom with Wikis. In Proceedings of the 2008 Conference of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (pp. 2826-2830). Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds. New York: Doubleday. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2007, March 26). The Wiki workplace. BusinessWeek. Retrieved May 30, 2008, from http://www. businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2007/ id20070326_237620.htm?chan=search Vaughan, N. D. (2008). Supporting deep approaches to learning through the use of Wikis and weblogs. In Proceedings of the 2008 Conference of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (pp. 2857-2864). Venners, B. (2003). Exploring with Wiki: A conversation with Ward Cunningham, part I. Retrieved July 2, 2008, from http://www.artima. com/intv/wiki.html Webber, C. (2005). Making collaboration work. Retrieved June 16, 2008, from http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/articles/222381.cfm

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Wertheim, E. (n.d.). Surviving the group project: A note on working in teams. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from http://web.cba.neu.edu/~ewertheim/ teams/ovrvw2.htm

This work was previously published in Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking , edited by H. H. Yang; S. C. Chen, pp. 110-126, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 3.17

A Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning: Pedagogical Potential and Recommendations Hong Lin Oklahoma State University, USA Kathleen D. Kelsey Oklahoma State University, USA

ABSTRACT

BACkgRound

In recent years, Wikis, an open Web-based editing tool, have increasingly been used for collaborative writing projects in classrooms. Hailed as a collaborative learning and writing tool that is more powerful than blogs and e-mail, the pedagogical impact of using Wikis in the classroom is underrepresented in the literature. This case reviews the design and implementation of a Wikibook project for graduate students at a major land-grant university in the mid-South United States. Our findings challenge idealistic hypotheses that work using Wikis, without careful design and implementation, is naturally beneficial. The case also provides design recommendations for educators who are interested in using Wikis to enhance collaborative writing.

Wiki, as one of the Web 2.0 tools, provides Webbased features to co-write and edit. As such, Wikis have increasingly been used in classrooms to foster collaborative writing and learning in recent years. Emerging literature also documents studies on pedagogical effectiveness of using Wikis for collaborative learning. This case summarizes the design and development, students’ adjustment, and perspectives of collaborative learning in a Wiki environment. It also shares recommendations for educators who are interested in adopting Wikis in their classrooms. This case was conducted at a major public landgrant university in the mid-South United States. The university is a research extensive institution that offers degrees through the Doctor of Philosophy. The university is considered a traditional university, offering the majority of coursework face-to-face at five campuses. Distance education technologies and innovative technological teaching methods are a

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-880-2.ch010

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning

recent addition to traditional course offerings and constitute less than five percent of courses taught. By November 2008, the university offered over 650 online courses via its course management system Desire2Learn®. In addition to online courses, many distance education courses are enhanced by videoconference. CDs and DVDs are available to distant students as well. The university highly values teaching as a central mission of the land-grant university. University administration encourages faculty to adopt technology integration across the curricula and provides continuing support for pedagogical training and technological assistance as a result of the demand of online and blended instruction in recent years. At the course level, more faculty members are using emerging technologies such as Podcasts, Wikis, Camtasia, Google Apps, and Voicethread in their teaching and learning. Among these tools, Wikis have received increasing attention for collaborative writing, which often poses particular challenges for instructors and students alike in traditional writing classes or courses that aspire to improve collaborative learning. Prior to the initiation of this case study, Wikis were lauded in the literature as an emerging instructional technology tool that could be used to enhance collaborative writing in the classroom. This case study concludes with implications for design and implementation of technological tools to facilitate writing and collaborative learning. Overall, university administration and faculty see the need to reach both traditional and non-traditional students by providing quality educational experiences using a variety of media. To this end, instructional technology is used as a tool for increasing the reach of the university and improving instructional design and delivery. This case is a snapshot of how a faculty member used innovative technology to add value to the curriculum by using Wikis for collaborative learning in a graduate level course.

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SeTTIng The STAge Collaborative learning Collaborative learning is defined as “an instructional method in which students at various performance levels work together in small groups toward a common goal” (Coutinho & Bottentuit, 2007, p. 1787). Collaborative learning asks students not only to be responsible for their own learning, but also to be responsible for working with other students to co-create knowledge. In collaborative learning, knowledge transfer and creating is not a one-way transmission in which the instructor is the only source of knowledge. Instead, instruction is student-centered and knowledge is viewed as a social construct which is enhanced by both the instructor and peers (Harasim, 2000). As such, the concept of learning shifts from instructor-oriented instruction to student-oriented collaboration. Collaborative learning emphasizes that students and teachers are not simply engaged in developing their own information but actively involved in creating knowledge that will benefit others, hence, constructing knowledge for the community, not just the self, a concept presented by Holmes et al. (2001) and referred to as communal constructivism. There is a growing body of literature that discusses using new technologies, for example, blogs, Wikis, social networks, tagging, mash ups, and cloud computing, to foster collaborative learning. Some researchers note the advantages of using these technologies to create social and educational experiences beyond the classroom. Reigeluth (1994) and Romiszowski and Ravitz (1997) indicated that computer technology had changed the traditional instructional model to an information-age conversational model of learning where the learner is actively engaged in co-creating meaning and knowledge with peers. Jonassen, Peck, and Willson (1999) stated that new technologies make individualized learning more powerful and more important in that students participate in

Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning

conversation and collaboration, forming learning communities. Similarly, Fishman and Pea (1994) noted that “the network’s true power comes from the synergy of many dispersed minds working together to solve problems and discuss issues” (p. 26). Pea (2004) argued that computer technologies can scaffold complex learning that enables more advanced performances through interactive features that allow the learner to manipulate and participate in knowledge construction Gone are the days of teacher directed instruction where only the instructor can lay claim to new knowledge and control its dissemination. In this remix world, learners are now empowered to create, edit, collaborate, and construct new knowledge independent of the traditional instructional boundaries of the classroom. This case study elaborates on the theory of communal constructivism as the conceptual framework and explains how students come to a point of productive knowledge construction within a Wiki environment. In line with Holms et al.’s discussion, Wikis can be used to move learners toward a state of conversation and collaboration, where they are able to write, edit, version, and discuss next to the content in Wikis. The theoretical underpinnings and pedagogical promise of using Wikis as collaborative writing tools was the motive for asking students to create an online textbook using a Wiki interface and how the case was developed.

Communal Constructivism Communal constructivism is built upon the notion of social constructivism or social construction, which became prominent in the U.S. with Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s book, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, in 1966. Social constructivism considers how individuals and groups construct and develop their social reality as the theory argues that social phenomena developed within social contexts. In particular, individuals and groups

engage in an ongoing and dynamic process and therefore, reproduce reality as their interpretations and knowledge of reality are redefined constantly (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Communal constructivism is also situated within the theory base of knowledge building and was well-documented from 1990 to 2000. Scardamalia and Bereiter (2003) noted that knowledge building in collaborative learning is seen as creating or modifying individual and public knowledge, thus inhibiting continual idea improvement. Woodruff and Meyer (1997) indicated that community dynamics help foster and encourage knowledge advancement. Similarly, Bandura (1997) argued that people learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and the outcomes of those behaviors, known as vicarious interaction. Vicarious interaction is a powerful learning tool in social contexts such as university courses, especially when Web 2.0 tools are in use as students can observe a variety of interactions between teacher and student and student-tostudent, in a face-to-face setting, and by reading discussion board, blogs, and Wikis. In particular, Holmes and Gardner (2006) stated that the role of learners and the process of learning in a communal learning environment give people as follows: The opportunity to reinvest in learning environment as a form of communal construction, a process in which learners put their learning back into the community to benefit others, which will promote an evolution of learning and teaching… Everyone is constantly called upon to learn and create new knowledge, learn new ways of doing things and, at a deeper level, new ways of learning itself. (p. 17) While Holmes and his colleagues (2001; 2006) did not specify postulates for their theory, they made several assertions that if teachers create a communal constructivist learning environment, then students will demonstrate enhanced learning

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outcomes. They further suggested that the advent of new educational technologies warrants a new kind of educational theory, communal constructivism, to guide technology enhanced learning environments. In the following section, we take a closer look at Holmes et al. assertions and briefly examine how Wikis have the potential to situate themselves in the following assertions. In this case study, we tested whether these assertions situate in a Wiki environment. 1.

2.

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“If the student learning processes and their work could be captured, then courses might instead build on knowledge rather than simply repeat it” (Holmes, et al., 2001, p. 4). Student work in Wikis can be published in an open Web environment where future students continue to build knowledge. By asking students to write articles in an online textbook, that knowledge is archived and reusable. By asking students to edit each other’s work from semester to semester, students are constructing new knowledge collaboratively regardless of time or place. “To create an environment where students leave their imprint on the course, and the field, as an integral part of their learning not only benefits their own learning, the learning of their colleagues in their classes and those that will come after them but more importantly … provides a teaching apprenticeship for all those who come through the school system” (p. 4). Apprenticeships can be created by assigning groups to co-create articles and chapters in a Wikibook, also leaving an imprint of their work for future generations to use and edit for improvement, contributing to the discipline. Presenting students’ work on the Internet creates an expectation that their work is valued, reusable, and dynamic. Consistent with the apprenticeship model, an article created one year should be improved upon the following year by the next cohort. Students learn that their work is more than

3.

4.

5.

6.

just another assignment, only read once by the teacher for a grade. It is part of a larger creation that exists to teach others. “The communal constructivist approach requires that the course be dynamic and adaptive… the method of delivery must be capable of adapting to new information and new techniques as they emerge from within the course itself and from the discipline at large” (p. 4). The course syllabus and structure in a Wiki environment must be openended and flexible to allow for changing conditions. Students must believe that they have the ability to impact the curriculum through their intellectual contributions. By allowing students to create a rubric for grading the Wiki articles, students are able to determine quality expectations for peer’s work, giving ownership to the process as well as the product. Students must be allowed to “see themselves as producers and not just consumers of information” (p. 5) and to “become publishers… of information through the use of information and communication technology (ICT)” (p. 4). Wikis provide an open environment for co-creating content which is automatically published to the Internet when saved and is accessible (and editable) to future generations of learners, putting student produced work front and center in the curriculum Students must be “involved in the process of constructing knowledge and that construction is a communal affair” (p. 5). Group work in this case study required students to create a project-based Wikibook, a process which necessitated class discussions, peer-tutoring, mentoring, co-authoring and co-learning, all contributing to a communal constructivist course. Students were actively engaged in knowledge construction as authors. “Communal constructivism is about empowering the learner to allow them to reclaim a role in their own education. The advantage to

Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning

7.

the learner is in taking part in deep meaningful (activities) and allowing them to have a role in society throughout their formative years and not just after graduation” (p. 6). The Wikibook project in this case study constantly infused students with the responsibility to co-author and co-learn by creating original content for the Wikibook, resulting in civically engaged, lifelong learners. Learners challenged each other to put their articles in Wikipedia and monitor the number of hits received as a measure of quality. “Communal constructivism stresses that learners should be listened to and be important to others…They must be included and their work should be valued by others. Their learning tasks should be useful and recognized as such. They have a right to be needed” (p. 6). Using Wikis to create online books and other learning materials that are accessible by anyone with an Internet connection provides an opportunity for students to be seen and recognized by others. Reflective journals echoed the theme of realizing the importance of this assignment as student work was shared with the world, not just the teacher. Students reporting working more diligently on the Wiki articles knowing that they would become a part of the course knowledge base.

Overall, communal constructivism provides a framework for adopting Wikis in courses. Our educational goal was not only to provide a medium in which to store and make available the knowledge created by the learners, but also to promote one-to-one, one-to-many and manyto-many interactions within a Wiki environment that would tremendously magnify learning opportunities for learners themselves and for others in the community (Holms & Gardner, 2006). As such, the following section takes a closer look at literature concerning computer-supported learning environments in Wikis, pedagogical claims and applications of Wikis in classrooms.

wikis for Collaborative writing Wiki is a collection of interlinked Web pages (or articles) that allows users to create and present content collaboratively in a hypertext system using open source software. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (2005) notes as follows: Wikis permits asynchronous communication and group collaboration across the Internet. Variously described as a composition system, a discussion medium, a repository, a mail system, and a tool for collaboration, Wikis provide users with both author and editor privileges; the overall organization of contributions can be edited as well as the content itself. Wikis are able to incorporate sounds, movies, and pictures; they may prove to be a simple tool to create multimedia presentations and simple digital stories. (p. 1) In particular, because of its browser-based access in Wikis, passwords, permissions, special client software, and Web masters are unnecessary. For this reason, the learners can quickly create a Web-based page in Wikis, start to write on it and publish it to the Internet. In the Wiki environment, shared responsibility for the quality and accuracy of the content and building a reusable repository of knowledge are the goals of Wikis (Godwin-Jones, 2003). Since Wikis document page history, the learners can work collaboratively without worrying about losing documents and correspondence history. Lamb (2004) summarized the functionalities of Wikis that make collaborative writing and editing possible and easy: •

•

Anyone can change anything. Authoring software, permissions, or passwords are typically not required. Wikis use simplified hypertext markup. New users need to learn a few formatting tags, but only a few. Most Wiki tags significantly streamline and simplify their tasks.

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•

•

WikiPageTitlesAreMashedTogether. Wiki page titles often eschew spaces to allow for quick page creation and automatic, markup-free links between pages within (and sometimes across) Wiki systems. Linking to related pages is easy, which promotes promiscuous interlinking among Wiki pages. Content is ego-less, time-less, and never finished. Anonymity is not required but is common. With open editing, a page can have multiple contributors, and notions of page “authorship” and “ownership” can be radically altered.

In practice, there are emerging studies investigating the use of Wikis for supporting collaborative and inquiry-based learning. Engstrom and Jewett (2005) studied 400 students with 11 teachers who used Wikis for an inquiry-based project in a professional development teacherpreparation program. They found that students posted and edited insufficiently in their small research groups, which primarily reflected surfacelevel learning in the inquiry process and that the teachers did not model or facilitate an exchange of ideas, questions, or provide feedback to students required to build Wiki articles. Wang et al. (2005) investigated students’ editing behavior and their performance in Wiki. They explored the effects of students’ frequency of editing usage in Wikis on their final exam performance and found that students with low usage on the Wiki performed better than those with high Wiki usage on the final exam. Bold (2006) incorporated Wikis in a Masters online course to support collaboration. The study reported that Wiki allowed students to be in charge of joint posting, editing, reporting, and maintained work without burdening a single individual to serve as the project coordinator. Chong and Yamamote (2006) investigated a group of 20 people who had not met prior to the study, yet felt comfortable in exchanging ideas in a Wiki writing project. Their study suggested that

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anonymous writing gave students a private space; therefore, collaboration between strangers could facilitate independent thinking, clear understanding of the team members and contributed to high quality outputs. Similarly, Hewitt and Peters (2006) asked their 15 students to construct Wiki articles on an array of topics in a graduate-level distance education course. They found that the students considered building a knowledge base in a Wiki project was not only an authentic task for themselves but also a value-added activity for future classes. These studies laid the groundwork for this case study. However, literature about how students interact and collaborate in a Wiki is still underrepresented. Instead, speculative discussions focus on the functionality of a Wiki and its pedagogical promises. This case study addressed the gap in the literature regarding whether students can co-write using Wikis and whether the potential of Wikis – effective collaborative learning – can be realized.

CASe deSCRIPTIon Context of the Study The case study represents two years of data collection from two student cohorts who were involved in creating an online textbook using a Wiki interface. The course was Adult Education Planning and Evaluation and the Wiki project was All Things Adult Education Wikibook. Cohort one had five graduate students in the course face-to-face and cohort two had 13 graduate students online. Both cohorts were given the same directions and support for developing several Wiki articles in an online Wiki-based textbook called All Things Adult Education (http://adulteducation.Wikibook.us). The case was situated in a graduate level course about adult education, offered at a major land-grant university in the mid-south. The instructor built the shell for a Wikibook using MediaWiki® software (www.mediaWiki.org) and posted it online, purposefully public and accessible.

Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning

Table 1. Summarized the efforts of two cohorts Participants

Wiki Articles Required

Wiki Practice Page

Weekly Reflective Journals

Students’ Prior Wiki Experience

Students’ Prior Internet Experience

Cohort 1 (N=5, face-to-face)

5 (2 collaborative; 2 individual; 1 edited)

No

Yes

No

Yes

Cohort 2 (N= 13, online)

3 (1 collaborative; 1 individual; 1 edited)

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Students from cohort one (a traditional, oncampus course) were required to write five articles using Wiki as the writing and presentation tool. Students were to work individually to create two original articles, collaboratively to create two original articles, and were asked to edit another student’s article for the fifth assignment. In addition, students were given a detailed rubric for completing the assignments along with face-toface instruction about the project. Students could create an article under the instructor-defined headings or create a new topic. The teams were assigned by the instructor to increase heterogeneity in regard to culture, age, and discipline. The instructor met with students weekly to provide feedback on the article content and to monitor and support the cohesiveness of teams. In addition to creating Wiki chapters, students were required to submit their weekly reflective journals when working on the projects. The journals were graded by the instructor and provided immediate feedback for the improvement of the next Wiki article. After gathering feedback from the students in cohort one, the Wiki assignment was adjusted to better address the goal of collaborative writing for the second cohort. Students from cohort two (an online course) were required to write three articles using Wikis. Students were to create one original article solo, one with a partner, and to edit another student’s article. The instructor provided a handout containing the directions and coached the students via the discussion board on the assign-

ment. In cohort two the students chose partners, they were not assigned as with cohort one. Table 1 summarized details of two cohorts.

design and Implementation of wikibook Since the deliverables in the two cohorts were the same – Wiki articles, we will take cohort one as an example to demonstrate how students developed their Wiki articles. First, the instructor worked with the students to design a content menu as indicated in Figure 1, which serves as the Wiki-based textbook front page. On this page, the instructor provided 20 chapter topics to students. These topics were based on the goals of the course and the textbooks for the course. After the class designed a content menu indicated in Figure 1, students were asked to choose four topics in the menu and develop four Wiki chapters (two collaboratively and two individually) for the Wiki textbook consequently. Figure 2 is an example of an article co-created by two students. After two collaborative Wiki chapters and two individual Wiki chapters, students were asked to edit another student’s article. Wikis, as an open editing tool, not only keep an updated end product online, but also document the history of editing so that the student author of the article can reverse back to the original text. Figure 3 shows the editing history from a student on another student’s article.

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Figure 1. Image of the All Things Adult Education wikibook interface

Figure 2. Example of a team article in All Things Adult Education wikibook

As seen from the figures, Wikis, when compared with first generation Web tools such as e-mail and discussion boards, are considered superior to second generation Web-based social tools because of the increased capacity for collaborative work. Collaboration, however, did not automatically occur in this project for either cohort. After analyzing the data from four sources: the content of the Wiki articles, student interviews, students’

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reflective journals, and meeting notes taken by the researchers in the classroom, it is clear that students moved through three phases when learning to write collaboratively. The phases are described as series predicaments that eventually lead to comfort with true collaborative writing. This transition was not without challenges.

Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning

Figure 3. Example of editing history for peer work in a wiki chapter

Student use of wikis Phase One: In the first phase of the project where students were asked to co-write an article in Wiki, the majority of the students decided to divide the assignment into smaller parts, complete their part, then cut and paste the article together after it was written individually. The Wiki was used as a presentation tool rather than as a writing tool and the results were awkward at best. Participant 1 said (Excerpt 1), “At first, I didn’t really want to use the Wiki. It really intimidated me, and so I did everything outside of it and just cut and paste [my finished article into Wiki].” Participant 6 noted that (Excerpt 2), “You can feel the rough transition between each part because it was created as separate pieces and merged at the end. There’s not a good flow in the chapter.” In this phase, the participants did not use the discussion feature in the Wiki (see Figure 3, notice tab labeled discussion, which is a white space for writers to discuss their ideas before they are included in the article). Students indicated that they used e-mail and phone calls to communicate, and they had difficulty communicating with each other

in a timely manner. In addition, the participants felt territorial about their work and were not comfortable rewriting others’ work when presenting their content in the Wiki. In other words, Wiki was not used as a collaborative writing tool, rather a presentation tool. These findings do not support the literature that Wiki naturally encourages team writing and editing. Phase Two: When working on the second article, participants continued to test and adjust their relationship with their peers. In this manner, they became more familiar with using Wiki as a software tool and the collaborative writing process. As a result, they reported an improved experience with communication, writing, and collaboration. Participant 1 said (Excerpt 3), “Not understanding the Wiki, we wanted to get everything situated before we posted it. I guess it’s just the mentality that when you post it on there and that’s the final product, you get it done. As we’ve learned more about Wikis, we’re able to do everything in Wikis.” Participant 6 indicated that (Excerpt 4), “I do feel that working with a partner in Wiki allows for group collaboration on a more efficient level, and that I am able to brainstorm

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ideas more efficiently this way.” These comments indicate that when communication channels were open, writing was less stressful as collaboration was improved by knowing how to use Wiki more effectively and understanding the shared value of co-editing, improving each other’s writing for the sake of the article. Phase Three: After completing two articles, students were asked to edit another student’s article. In this phase, given the promise of Wikis for open editing and collaborative learning, the participants were asked whether they took full advantage of the Wiki to learn personally and collaboratively. Participant 3 said (Excerpt 5), “I think that it’s really better than in class because it actually forces you to choose a research topic. I think I learned a lot better because you are actually forced to go out there and search for materials and then by letting your classmates know via Wikis.” Participant 6 compared the unique collaborating experience in Wiki with other tools such as encyclopedias. She said (Excerpt 6), “The idea of cooperation in Wiki allows everybody else to read it online, and they are welcome to edit it. No other encyclopedias have this feature.” Two other participants pointed out that group collaboration helped generate ideas and enhance creativity. In addition, it was mentioned that different viewpoints and backgrounds were beneficial for learning. Participant 1 said (Excerpt 7), “In the group you’re going to have more ideas because

you have more people, different viewpoints, and different backgrounds. I think I tend to be less creative working on a project individually. I don’t spend as much time generating ideas. I just go with what I know.” Participant 5 said (Excerpt 8), “I thought it was great to see people from different backgrounds. It added new ideas.” Unlike the first and second phases, the participants used the discussion board feature in the Wiki to communicate in the third phase, as indicated in Figure 4. The findings suggest that using Wiki for collaborative learning became more productive and constructive for the participants over time as they learned how to use Wiki and the elements of a high quality article. The findings support discussions in the literature that networked learning fosters conversation and collaborative learning (Fishman & Pea, 1994; Reigeluth, 1994; Romiszowski & Ravitz, 1997). In this case, we certainly found that students moved toward a state of conversation and collaboration gradually as students practiced and gained confidence using Wiki as an open editing tool as well as a space for collaborative writing. If the initial phases of using Wiki as a collaborative tool were underrepresented in the literature, the last phase began to unearth the promise of writing in an open environment constructively. The promise demonstrated in this case is in line with Holmes et al. (2001) communal learning environment, where

Figure 4. Example of discussions among students working in wikis

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students were not simply engaged in developing their own information but actively involved in creating knowledge that will benefit others.

Students’ Perspectives of Collaborative writing in wikis As indicated in the previous section, students adjusted communications, writing, and collaboration in the Wikibook project. Regardless of the adjustment, of 18 students in two cohorts, the majority of them had positive experience with collaboration in the Wikibook project. The following quotes, which were from students’ interviews and reflective journals, provided evidence that students had not only positive feedback but also challenges in collaborative learning in Wikis. Students’ perspectives were framed under the assertions of communal constructivism (Holmes et al., 2001). 1.

If the student learning processes and their work could be captured, then courses might instead build on knowledge rather than simply repeat it.

Positive Feedback: “There is a wealth of knowledge available in our Wiki chapters and that will only continue to grow for future students when they take this course” (Excerpt 9). Challenge: “I had a problem with submitting anything to Wiki that I do not see as perfect, and when I work on an assignment over several sessions, I do not want the world to see anything till I am finished with it” (Excerpt 10). 2.

To create an environment where students leave their imprint on the course, and the field, as an integral part of their learning not only benefits their own learning, the learning of their colleagues in their classes and those that will come after them but more importantly … provides a teaching apprenticeship for all those who come through the school system.

Positive Feedback: “I found it very motivating mainly because other people were going to have the opportunity to see and edit my work. With traditional assignments you feel like you are just doing the work for the teacher; however, Wiki projects let me do the work for my peers, which in my case was very motivating” (Excerpt 11). Challenge: “I felt like I was one of those adult learners who were being subjected to a process that wasn’t applicable to what I am doing right now in my career, so it made the project more frustrating” (Excerpt 12). 3.

The communal constructivist approach requires that the course be dynamic and adaptive, the method of delivery must be capable of adapting to new information and new techniques as they emerge from within the course itself and from the discipline at large.

Positive Feedback: “I like that this is a work in progress and that it can be added to as more information is reported. New research is being completed all the time. The flexibility with the Wikibook is really amazing” (Excerpt 13). Challenge: “Although I really enjoyed working with a partner in Wikis, my schedule is very random at some times, and it is easier for me to work on my projects at my own pace because there are some days when I can sit down and have my project done, while my partner may or may not be on the same page as me” (Excerpt 14). 4.

Students must be allowed to see themselves as producers and not just consumers of information and become publishers… of information through the use of ICT.

Positive Feedback: “I like working on Wikis. It is a break from the traditional term paper or project that most classes push. You can go in, change and edit as you want” (Excerpt 15). Challenge: “I still find it amazing that anyone can assess the information in our Wiki project. 785

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Maybe that is why I never feel the project is complete. And I am concerned someone will read it and think that it does not make sense” (Excerpt 16). 5.

Students must be involved in the process of constructing knowledge and that construction is a communal affair.

Positive Feedback: “Doing a Wiki project is probably one of the best ways to help students to learn together and add up that knowledge to future students” (Excerpt 17). Challenge: “Collaboration was not easy. I think if I hadn’t had a reliable partner what was interested in the same subject or maybe assigned to do the work together, I’d like to work alone” (Excerpt 18). 6.

Communal constructivism is about empowering the learner to allow them to reclaim a role in their own education. The advantage to the learner is in taking part in deep meaningful (activities) and allowing them to have a role in society throughout their formative years and not just after graduation.

Positive Feedback: “I hope that my Wiki chapters will help others. I think this is a great project and one that I would like to add to my online classes that I teach” (Except 19). Challenge: “I have some reservations about Wikipedia and the use of it for education. Although most is documented information, there is still the chance that the information is just bogus” (Except 20). 7.

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Communal constructivism stresses that learners should be listened to and be important to others…They must be included and their work should be valued by others. Their learning tasks should be useful and recognized as such. They have a right to be needed.

Positive Feedback: “I think using the Wiki chapters are above and beyond any conventional teaching methods I have experienced. I enjoyed being able to relay my own thoughts and knowledge on a subject while combining peer-reviewed information into the document. I believe my peers thought the same about their projects” (Excerpt 21). Challenge: “What complicated the process for me was the fact that is was going to be considered a ‘working textbook.’ I put my name there and my fear is that it is open to the public, and they will be able to view it with my name on it. It is intimidating to offer my work up for criticism (even constructive criticism)” (Excerpt 22).

CuRRenT ChAllengeS Wikis are a new computer-mediated communication tool that holds much promise for collaborative writing projects in the educational setting. Even though students may have been exposed to other tools such as email, blog, course management system, and e-portfolio, we found that students experienced a steep learning curve and did not work effectively on the first Wiki article assignment. The learning curve included technical operation of the software as well as knowing how to truly write collaboratively (Brandon & Hollingshead, 1999). The students were anxious and uncertain about editing others’ writing initially, and required a paradigm shift in regard to working alone to working collaboratively to overcome their reservations about changing another author’s work. The instructor coached the students in Wiki ways of working, including open editing behaviors and striving for a high quality product regardless of individual authorship. Through coaching and rewarding open editing behaviors the students learned to trust that editing other’s work was desirable for producing a high quality article. Consistent with the literature on using Wikis (McKay & Headley, 2007; Qian, 2007), we sug-

Case of Using Wikis to Foster Collaborative Learning

gest that instructors design a practice article at the beginning of the course to teach students how to use the software and to encourage re-writing others’ text in an ungraded assignment. Many Wikis contain a sandbox, but further coaching may be necessary to resolve the student apprehension regarding editing other’s work as they have been long taught to not interfere with other’s words. A practice article will allow students to become familiar with Wiki functionality and will model the practice of interacting with peers within the Wiki. Instructors are also encouraged to model collaborate writing to prompt students’ critical thinking and decision-making skills (Engstrom & Jewett, 2005). During the writing process the instructor posted comments to the students in the Wiki discussion page to demonstrate a pluralistic presence in Wiki. The instructor occasionally edited the student’s work while in progress to role model the desired behavior and commented on the work in progress to encourage collaborative and interdependent writing versus the cut and paste practice of many team projects. Repeated Wiki article assignments were also necessary to obtain the benefits of collaborative writing in Wiki. Cohort one was required to write five articles, four original (two solo, two in teams), and one edited. The benefits of using Wiki as a collaborative writing tool were not realized until the third article assignment when the quality of the articles improved and students felt more secure about co-writing versus the traditional cut and paste style of working. Cohort two was asked to create three articles, and the benefits of Wiki work were noted in as few as three articles. It is recommended that instructors use several Wiki assignments to reinforce the skills of collaborative writing infused with feedback on quality expectations of the articles. While this case represents the first attempt with creating an online textbook using Wiki as the interface, future cohorts will be required to go back and edit previously created articles to teach

the skill of re-writing and co-writing, and quality control. The instructor has also adopted Turnitin. com® and requires students to submit the final version of their Wiki article to check for correct use and citation of other’s work. Students are required to edit another complete article and check for plagiarism and correct any found errors as part of teaching students about collaborative work and responsibility for a group project that is neither time nor place bound. Students are taught that All Things Adult Education Wikibook is a community construction that was created before they joined the class, will include their creations, and will continue to grow with future cohort creations and will serve as a resource for the public. The instructor practiced a pluralistic approach to creating the Wiki and framed it as a studentcreated project for other learners. Data are being collected from cohort three to strengthen the findings from the first two cohorts. Our initial findings for cohort three indicate a continued theme of pleasure in creating work that is shared publicly and reusable. The students reported being proud of their Wiki articles. Cohort three has adopted new criteria for measuring the quality of their articles. To enhance the notion of co-creating the learning environment, students in cohort three created a rubric for grading the Wiki articles. The rubric was used by the instructor to grade completed articles, and was found to be more rigorous than the instructorcreated rubric. In this case, peers held each other to greater account when evaluating their work than the instructor. In cohort three, one student suggested that after posting their article in All Things Adult Education Wikibook, they are to post the same article in Wikipedia.com and monitor the article to see how it fairs in that environment. The students report weekly on the status of their Wikipedia.com articles, if it was deleted or edited. This approach allowed students to experience an authentic assessment of their writing skills. Throughout the semester students would comment on the number

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of hits their articles received as a source of pride. Several months after the course was over, a student told the instructor his article had received over 1,000 hits on Wikipedia.com and he continued to edit his article.

ConCluSIon The case study investigated students’ experience of collaborative learning, working, and writing in a Wiki environment. Using communal constructivism as a framework, this case identified students’ adjustment and adoption of Wikis for collaborative learning. The data, which were collected from two cohorts of 18 students in a graduate course, indicated that Wiki work, without careful design and implementation, is not naturally beneficial for collaborative learning. In particular, before students adjust to a computer-mediated environment like Wikis, collaborative learning does not happen naturally even though Wikis provide tools for it. The case also presents some recommendations for teacher educators who would like to explore or adopt Wikis. As more educators explore and adopt the use of Wikis, we hope that this case lays the groundwork for further study on team editing behavior to advance the artifact evaluation of human interactions within a Wiki environment, other than its technical interaction. As Fishman and Pea (1994) noted: “Whatever the medium, learning must remain fundamentally personal, genuinely interactive, and indelibly humane” (p. 21). We believe that the Wiki work presented in this case study has met Fishman and Pea’s statement for enhancing learner’s networked learning and has encouraged learners to become self-directed lifelong learners through collaborative writing and public presentation of their work. Future empirical studies are needed to investigate whether the effectiveness of collaborative learning in Wikis is dependent on course level (introductory or advanced), nature of the learn-

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ing content (experimental or conceptual), nature of disciplines (social science or life science), or the role of instructor (instructor-led or instructorfacilitated).

ReFeRenCeS Bandura, A. (1997). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Bold, M. (2006). Use of Wikis in graduate course work. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 17(1), 5–14. Brandon, D., & Hollingshead, A. B. (1999). Collaborative learning and computer-supported groups. Communication Education, 48(2), 109– 126. doi:10.1080/03634529909379159 Chong, N., & Yamamoto, M. (2006). Using many Wikis for collaborative writing. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2006 (pp. 2188-2191). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Coutinho, C. M. P., & Bottentuit, J. B., Jr. (2007). Collaborative learning using Wiki: A pilot study with master students in educational technology in Portugal. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia e Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA), pp. 1786-1791. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2005, July). 7 things you should know about Wikis. Retrieved January 8, 2009, from: http://net.educause.edu/ ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf Engstrom, M. E., & Jewett, D. (2005). Collaborative learning the Wiki way. TechTrends, 49(6), 12–68. doi:10.1007/BF02763725

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Fishman, B., & Pea, R. D. (1994). The internetworked school: A policy for the future. Technos: Quarterly of Education and Technology, 3(1), 22-26. Retrieved November 15, 2008, from http://telearn.noe-kaleidoscope.org/warehouse/ A77_Fishman_Pea_94.pdf

McKay, S., & Headley, S. (2007). Best practices for the use of Wikis in teacher education programs. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 2409-2412). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Godwin-Jones, B. (2003). Blogs and Wikis: Environments for on-line collaboration [electronic version]. Language, Learning and Technology, 7, 12-16. Retrieved June 27, 2006, from http://llt. msu.edu/vol9num1/emerging/default.html

Pea, R. D. (2004). The social and technological dimensions of scaffolding and related theoretical concepts for learning, education, and human activity. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 423–451. doi:10.1207/s15327809jls1303_6

Harasim, L. (2000). Shift happens: Online education as a new paradigm in learning. The Internet and Higher Education, 3, 41–61. doi:10.1016/ S1096-7516(00)00032-4

Qian, Y. (2007). Meaningful learning with Wikis: Making a connection. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 2093-2097). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Hewitt, J., & Peters, V. (2006). Using Wikis to support knowledge building in a graduate education course. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2006 (pp. 2200-2204). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Holmes, B., & Gardner, J. (2006). E-learning: Concepts and practice. London: Sage. Holmes, B., Tangney, B., FitzGibbonn, A., Savage, T., & Mehan, S. (2001, March). Communal constructivism: Students constructing learning for as well as with others. Paper presented at the 12th International Conference of the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (pp. 3114-3119). Charlottesville, VA. Jonassen, D. H., Peck, K. L., & Willson, B. G. (1999). Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill/Prentice. Lamb, B. (2004). Wide open spaces: Wikis, ready or not. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 36-48. Retrieved January 4, 2009, from http://connect. educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/ WideOpenSpacesWikisReadyo/40498

Reigeluth, C. (1994). Learning communities through computer networking. In J. Greeno & S. Goldman (Eds.). Thinking practices: Math and science learning. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Romiszowski, A., & Ravitz, J. (1997). Computer mediated communications. In A. Romiszowski & C. Dills (Eds.), Instructional Development: State of the Art (pp. 347-379). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2003). Knowledge Building. In J. W. Guthrie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of education (pp. 1370-1373). New York: Macmillan Reference. Wang, Y., et al. (2005). Advanced Technologies (ICALT 2005), 155-157. Woodruff, E., & Meyer, K. (1997). Explanations from intra and inter group discourse: Children building knowledge in the science classroom. Research in Science Education, 27(1), 25–39. doi:10.1007/BF02463030

This work was previously published in Cases on Online and Blended Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices , edited by Y. Inoue, pp. 167-182, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global). 789

Section IV

Utilization and Application

This section introduces and discusses the utilization and application of Web-based educational systems around the world. These particular selections highlight, among other topics, online teacher training programs, the creation of online virtual laboratories, and current Web-based teaching practices from India to Japan to Brazil. Contributions included in this section provide excellent coverage of today’s online environment and insight into how health information systems impact the fabric of our present-day global village.

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Chapter 4.1

Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage: An Empirical Case Investigation Chengbo Wang Glasgow Caledonian University, UK & University of Bolton, UK

ABSTRACT For supporting the effectiveness and efficiency of the students’ learning and the educators’ teaching, as a favored approach in recent years, e-learning technology has been widely used in the academic institutes. However, with regarding to the students community, how much they use the e-learning technology, what types of e-learning methods are being mainly used by the students, as well as the barriers for enjoying the advantages of e-technology, remain interesting topics for the educators to explore. This article, by focusing on these issues, through an investigation among the students within a higher education institute, presents an understanding regarding the usage of e-learning methods, and the factors hindering the efficacy of their usage among the students, as well as a primary analysis on the usage dif-

ference between undergraduate and postgraduate students.

InTRoduCTIon E-learning, realized by the development of information technology and the network systems, as a type of information and communication technology (ICT), has become a very popular method in facilitating the educational processes (Siritongthaworn and Krairit, 2006; Bennet & Bennet, 2008) in many institutes. Academic instructors use e-leaning methods as a powerful complementary tool to enhance their class teaching effectiveness and the effect of students learning. Even further many institutes currently offer distance learning courses, heavily rely on the e-leaning methods as the teaching mechanism. Researchers have argued that the e-leaning methods have positive effect on learning pro-

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage

cess (e.g., Alexander, 2001; Bose, 2003; Duffy & Cunningham, 1996). However, according to the authors’ observation in their daily teaching, e-learning methods (hereafter simplified as emethods, referring to the concrete methods contained in the major e-learning systems currently applied in the academic institutes) seem having not realized the expected benefits to all the students. In order to understand the most frequently used e-methods by the students, and the frequency of these e-methods’ usage as well as the barriers for students using e-methods in their learning process, the authors conducted a survey among the students in an education institute. This article presents the findings from this research. The article is structured in the following way. Next section is a brief description of e-learning and its related issues; followed by the methodology employed in this research; after that is the investigation scenarios and the primary analysis; the conclusions and further research finalize the article.

e- TeChnology In FACIlITATIng leARnIng E-learning refers to that through the application and deployment of the network and digital technologies to facilitate and conduct the learning and communication process (Bose, 2003; Siritongthaworn & Krairit, 2006; Roffe, 2002; Henry, 2001) in different types of organizations. Among these organizations, educational institutes are the representative ones. With the advance of the information technology, the conduction of instruction has been improved (Shim, et al., 2007), which gives the education institutes a powerful approach in helping the students’ learning process. Within recent years, many higher education institutes have employed e-technology in their academic work (Siritongthaworn & Krairit, 2006; Bose, 2003; Alexander, 2001; Hadengue, 2005). The most

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popular e-learning technologies include (Qi, et al., 2009) WebCT, Blackboard and Moodle, etc. The e-methods, such as email, instant chatting, etc., commonly contained by them are the focused elements of this article. And in many institutes, e-methods are also used as a new strategy to enrich the learning effect obtained from former teaching approaches, namely face to face communication, etc. It has been argued by academics that emethods as a flexible approach (Bose, 2003; Siritongthaworn & Krairit, 2006) have advantageous aspects in enhancing learning effectiveness. By following the contention from Alexander (2001), Bose (2003) and Roffe (2002), the main benefits of e-learning methods include: 1) Better usage of resources like classrooms, teachers, etc., improvement of the quality of teaching and learning, as well as easing the access of the learners to a wider range of knowledge resources; meanwhile increase the cost-effectiveness ratio of education, namely reducing the cost in education operations and improve the productivity of the learning/teaching process; 2) Through e-medium instantly update course contents and provide recent development of knowledge within the course focused fields; with the opportunity to communicate with others internationally, to gain more insights in the relevant learning areas, and meanwhile increase the skill level and understanding of the application of ICT tools; 3) Indirectly promote the information communication technology (ICT)’s application and further development by deploying the relevant software/hardware and providing corresponding feedback for the ICT developers to make further improvement on their products; 4) Provide more flexibility to the learner regarding the availability of time and places of learning, which better suits for the various individual learners’ learning style and resource availability. And also improve students’ attitude towards learning more positively; 5) A strong approach to enhance and enrich the learning through face-to-face communication in the classroom lecturing, im-

Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage

prove the student-centred learning and teaching strategy, provides a complementary format of communication between learners and between learners and teachers. These advantages are not exhaustive, people can still identify more benefits of learning through e-technology. Even though the importance and usefulness of e-technology have been recognized, and it has also been widely used in higher education institutes, there are still existing challenging factors, if not properly considered and tackled, can hinder the full play of its function with regarding to the learners, these factors herein are termed as hindering factors. Following the understanding and comprehension from the contentions of the researchers like Alexander (2001), Hart & Rush (2007), Roffe (2002), Packham, et al. (2004), etc., the factors can be summarized as following: •

•

•

•

Speed (Anonymous, 2003): Low speed of the IT system. This is a common phenomenon existing in many institutes, which can be caused by network systems and computers’ CPU speed. Accessibility: Lack of access to the IT system. This is a frequently raised issue by the students, due to opening hours of IT facilities or insufficient facilities’ provision, can also be due to some students having part-time job which makes them not come to use the facility at the opening hours. IT infrastructure (Siritongthaworn & Krairit, 2006; Packham, et al., 2004; Hadengue, 2005): Low dependability of IT system. This problem can be caused by the issues related to updating and maintenance of software and hardware of IT systems. Technical support (Siritongthaworn & Krairit, 2006): Insufficient support from the IT administration department. This is mainly due to the staffing issue of the institutes’ IT department and can be resolved through management policy.

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Ease usability (Shim, et al., 2007; Roffe, 2002): Computer-user interface not designed user-friendly (uneasiness of usage). This is an issue of selection of appropriate package of e-learning. Appropriateness of content (Siritongthaworn & Krairit, 2006): Lack of usefulness/usability of the content. The elements within the e-learning system should provide the places to accommodate what are needed by the users (mainly students and educators). Course content attractiveness (Packham, et al., 2004): Lack of attractiveness of the content. This issue requires the educators using e-learning system to fully understand the function and carefully prepare the materials uploaded to the system. Time availability (Alexander, 2001; Packham, et al., 2004; Hadengue, 2005): Lack of the availability of time. This challenges the students themselves on how to manage their own schedule, to balance the study and other activities. IT skills (Packham, et al., 2004; Hadengue, 2005): Insufficient skill level for using the e-methods. Some students (also educators) have not grasped enough knowledge and skills to use the IT system in order to enjoy the benefits from it. Thus training is always a necessity. Buy-in of the technology (Alexander, 2001): Lack of recognition of the usefulness of the e-methods. This is a mindset issue, can be resolved through training and demonstration of the benefits of e-methods. Direct communication: need for face to face communication with the tutors/peer students. This is a necessary part in the teaching/learning process, can not be replaced by e-methods. However, the percentage of time taken by this direct communication, compared to e-methods is always an interesting topic to be argued.

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With the aforementioned advantages of e-methods in learning process, as well as the hindering factors affecting the learners’ usage of the methods in mind, the authors conducted a research, with the intention to investigate: 1) the most frequently used e-methods by the students and the reasons; 2) the factors currently affecting the thorough usage of e-methods, and 3) the factors potentially could hinder the full usage of e-methods by the students. The following sections introduce this research’s conduction and its outcomes.

ReSeARCh meThodology In order to achieve the research objectives, namely to find the most frequently used e-methods by the students, and the frequency of these e-methods’ usage as well as the hindering factors for students using e-methods in their learning process, this research followed three steps. Step 1, by investigating the relevant literature, and based on the findings and understandings from the literature, summarising the e-methods and possible hindering factors affecting the usage of them. Step 2, making a survey among current students, to find the most frequently used e-methods, and evaluate the hindering factors found from the literature through the users’ (students’) judgement. And a further interview with the students in the sample group was also conducted for a further comprehensive understanding and triangulation of the survey findings. Step 3, following the previous two steps, generalising the findings regarding the frequently used e-methods and the hindering factors of their usage. This investigation was conducted by asking the students filling in a questionnaire. Due to the resources limitation, this survey was implemented in only one selected institute in UK. This institute has a student population of around 16,000,

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including undergraduates and postgraduates. To facilitate learning and teaching, this institute has deployed Blackboard system as e-learning technology. The survey questionnaire has three sections, questions are based on the literature and the authors’ understanding from the practical daily application of e-methods, which was obtained through debriefing/discussion with a focus group of students/tutors during the design stage of the questionnaire: Section A investigates the main e-methods used by the students for facilitating their learning and the rate (percentage) and reasons of usage of the chosen methods, from a group of options: Email, Discussion area (forum/board) on Blackboard, Documents downloading site on Blackboard, Instant chatting. And they were also given the opportunity to specify their own methods if different from the provided options. Section B investigates the main factors which are currently hindering the students’ usage of the e-methods, from the multiple choices of: Low speed of the IT system (Speed), Lack of access to the IT system (Accessibility), Low dependability of IT system (IT infrastructure), Insufficient support from the IT administration department (Technical support), Computer-user interface not designed user-friendly [uneasiness of usage (Ease usability)], Lack of usefulness/usability of the content (Appropriateness of content), Lack of attractiveness of the content (Course content attractiveness), Lack of the availability of time (Time availability), Insufficient skill level for using the e-methods (IT skills), Lack of recognition of the usefulness of the e-methods (Buy-in of the technology), Need for face to face communication with the tutors/peer students (Direct communication). Section C based on the same multiple choices from Question B, but focuses on the main factors, which might not be hindering the usage of the e-methods currently, but potentially could become barriers in the future. The feedback in this section can give some in advance warning

Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage

Table 1. The main e-methods used Method used

Percentage of usage among the students

Reason (and its percentage of proposition) for using this method

E-Mail

100%

1) Up-to-date information; 2) Flexible, convenient and quickest for information communication; 3) Easy usage; 4) Easily available

Documents downloading site on Blackboard

80%

1) Lecture notes printing; 2) Relevant information; 3) Further info helping learning in lectures/seminars

Discussion area (forum board) on Blackboard

57%

1) Flexible for communication; 2) Support understanding of lectures; 3) Direct communication with relevant groups of people; 4) Check course information

Instant chatting

23%

1) Convienient/ relaxed communication; 2) Knowledge sharing

to the tutors to prepare certain countermeasures for prevention. To avoid biased understanding/finding from the research, based on the understanding gained through running the aforementioned focus group of the characteristics and the availability of the sample groups, the purposive sampling (Jankowicz, 2005) concept was followed to select the sample groups. The sample groups answering the questions in this questionnaire are from postgraduate and undergraduate students in business/ management and engineering related courses, who account for the biggest portion of the student population in this institute. These undergraduates and postgraduates have already well informed and familiarised with the availability and functionality of the e-learning methods in the university; majority of the undergraduates are British students, while the postgraduates are consisted of students from different countries. Due to the availability of resources, the sample group is rather small, however, as a primary stage exploratory study on e-methods, this research can provide insight and a fundament for a further wider scale investigation.

SuRvey ConduCTIon And ReSeARCh FIndIngS In total 41 questionnaires have been distributed to the students (25 postgraduates, 16 undergraduates) within the institute, with a total effective feedback

rate of 73% (postgraduate 72%, undergraduate 75%), which is a rather satisfied outcome for a survey study, based on the pre-condition that the students were informed that answering these questionnaires is not compulsory. The reason of such a return rate is due to the students’ enthusiasm to help the tutors on further understanding of the e-methods. In order to have a thorough understanding of the e-methods and their usage from the students, based on the descriptive summarisation on the collected data, the analysis focused on two aspects: the sample students as a whole, and a comparison between undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Findings from the Sample Group as a Whole Table 1 is the main e-methods used by the students, as well as the reasons for usage of the chosen methods. Based on the summarized outcome from the survey in this table, one can identify that students in the sample group all use emails, the reasons for using email include obtaining up-to-date information, convenient and quickest communication, ease of usage, etc. 80% of the sample group use document downloading function for obtaining lecture notes and relevant course information, as well as some further knowledge facilitating the learning in lectures and seminars. Around 57% of the sample group use the discussion board/forum, with the supporting arguments on choosing this method

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Table 2. Factors currently hindering the usage of e-methods Current hindering factors

Percentage of proposition from the feedback

Accessibility

73%

Speed

50%

Time availablity

40%

Direct communication

20%

IT infrastructure

10%

Technical support

10%

IT skills

10%

Buy-in of the technology

10%

Table 3. Factors potentially hindering the usage of e-methods Potentially hindering factors

Percentage of proposition from the feedback

Accessibility

63%

Appropriateness of content

3%

Speed

27%

IT infrastructure

27%

Course content attractiveness

27%

Buy-in of the technology

27%

Direct communication

27%

Ease usability

20%

Time availablity

20%

Technical support

10%

IT skills

10%

as: flexible for communication, facilitation to the understanding of the teaching content, direct communication with relevant people, etc. Around 23% of the sample group students use instant chatting function, they feel this method can assure them a convenient and relaxed communication, and provide a better chance for knowledge sharing. Table 2 illustrates the recognised importance level (reflected by the percentage of propositions among the sample group) of the factors currently hindering the usage of the e-methods. Table 3 illustrates the recognized importance level of the factors potentially hindering the usage of the e-methods. From Table 2, we can find that the majority of the factors have been proposed as more or less currently hindering the usage of e-methods, the

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leading factors include Accessibility (73%), Speed (60%), and Time availability (40%). Table 3 illustrates that all the proposed factors are considered by the sample group students having the possibility to affect the usage of the e-methods in the future, among them the leading factors proposed by more than 40% of the sample group students are Accessibility and Appropriateness of content.

Comparison Between the Feedback from Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students With consideration of that the concrete education programs in the university are mainly divided into two levels, namely undergraduate study and

Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage

Figure 1. Comparison of the e-methods’ usage rates usage rate of different e-methods

Usage rate (undergrduate) Usage rate (postgrduate)

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Email

Discussion area (forum/board) on Blackboard

Documents dow nloading site on Blackboard

Instant chatting

Other methods

Figure 2. Comparison on factors currently hindering the e-methods usage evaluation on factors currently hindering usage of e-methods Percentage of proposition from the feedback (postgraduate)

Direct communication Buy-in of the technology

Percentage of proposition from the feedback (undergraduate)

IT skills Time availability Course content attractiveness Appropriateness of content Ease usability Technical support IT infrastructure Accessibility Speed 0%

10%

20%

30%

postgraduate study, in order to have a further understanding on the difference and similarity of the e-methods’ usage between these two types of students, the data has been further summarized and sorted. Figure 1 is a comparison of the emethods’ usage rates by the two type of students; Figure 2 is a comparison on factors currently hindering the e-methods usage; Figure 3 visualizes the comparison on factors potentially hindering the usage. Meanwhile, the authors have tried to identify the underlying reasons for the difference, through further discussion/communication with the students.

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90% 100%

Due to the convenience and ease of usage, etc. of email, all postgraduates and undergraduates use it as an information obtaining and communication approach, compared with the other methods that have a difference on the usage rate between postgraduate and undergraduate students. For Discussion area (forum/board) on Blackboard and the Instant chatting, postgraduates less undergraduates by 17% respectively of the usage rate. For the usage rate of Documents downloading site on Blackboard, postgraduates have 33% less usage rate, with 100% usage rate from the undergraduates. It illustrates that the postgradu-

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Figure 3. Comparison on factors potentially hindering the usage evaluation on factors potentially hindering usage of e-methods

Percentage of proposition from the feedback (postgraduate)

Direct communication

Percentage of proposition from the feedback (undergraduate)

Buy-in of the technology IT skills Time availability Course content attractiveness Appropriateness of content Ease usability Technical support IT infrastructure Accessibility Speed 0%

10%

20%

30%

ates in general use the e-methods less than the undergraduates, due to the learning habit of some students; according to the observation, there are more postgraduates not preparing their lectures in advance through checking lecture notes and relevant information from e-learning system. For the factors can currently hinder the usage of e-methods, undergraduates only proposed Speed (100%) and Accessibility (83%) as the barriers to their usage of e-methods in learning. For postgraduates, they have proposed Speed (17%), Accessibility(67%), IT infrastructure (17%), Technical support (17%), Time availability (67%), IT skills (17%), Buy-in of the technology (17%), Direct communication (33%), namely majority of the factors can more or less affect their usage of the e-methods, with Accessibility (Lack of access to the IT system) as the leading one. This phenomenon is a reflection of student cohorts’ composition and relevant knowledge/ skill background. The undergraduates are all local students in UK, they have been using the e-learning system for years, while some of the international postgraduates are relatively new to this country and the e-learning systems, their skills, awareness, etc. of e-methods application need a further improvement. Meanwhile, some of the students have part-time jobs, which have

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40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

conflicts with the open schedule of the computer systems in the university, which cause less accessibility to IT facilities, especially to those having no network connections at home. For the factors can potentially hinder the usage of e-methods in the future, undergraduates have chosen less factors compared with that the postgraduates have selected all factors as potentially barriers. Undergraduates have chosen: Speed (42%), Accessibility (83%), IT infrastructure (42%), Appropriateness of content (83%), Course content attractiveness (42%), Buy-in of the technology (42%), Direct communication (42%). Postgraduates have a rather scattered choice reflected by the factors’ respective recognized importance level: Speed (17%), Accessibility (50%), IT infrastructure (17%), Technical support (17%), Ease usability (33%), Appropriateness of content (17%), Course content attractiveness (17%), Time availability (33%), IT skills (17%), Buy-in of the technology (17%), Direct communication (17%). Both undergraduates and postgraduates give the first priority to the Accessibility to IT system, this is a phenomenon can be observed in any institute with IT facilities shared by all the students. There are three possible means to resolve the problem: 1) increase the numbers of computers (with network connections); 2) extend the opening hours

Exploration on E-learning Methods and Factors Hindering their Usage

of the IT facilities; 3) from students’ own aspect, they need to have their computers and network connections at home. A very interesting point must be highlighted here is that no matter for factors currently or potentially hindering the usage of e-methods, the undergraduates have emphasized much more than the postgraduate on Speed. With regard to the background skills/knowledge foci, it seems that the undergraduates have a more critical requirement on the efficiency of IT system itself.

ConCluSIon And FuTuRe ReSeARCh With consideration of the main targets of this research, namely to find the most frequently used e-methods by the students in the case institute, the factors currently and potentially could impede the full usage of e-methods, through the survey, the primary conclusion can be reached on: The most frequently used e-methods include Email, Document downloading function, Discussion board/forum, due to their characteristics of convenient/quick support on communication, information and knowledge obtaining, and ease of usage. However, except the Email approach, postgraduate students have less usage of the emethods than the undergraduate students. Among the factors currently affecting the usage of e-methods, for the students as a whole, Accessibility, Speed, Time availability are the leading ones according to the proposed percentage from the students. However, except Ease usability, Appropriateness of content and Course content attractiveness, the rest factors have all been proposed, though not from a high percentage of the sample group students. For the factors potentially affecting the usage of e-methods, besides that all having been proposed from the sample group as a whole, Accessibility and Appropriateness of content are

the two leading critical ones being selected. Both undergraduates and postgraduates give the first priority to the Accessibility to IT system. There are three possible means to resolve the problem: 1) increase the numbers of computers (with network connections); 2) extend the opening hours of the IT facilities; 3) suggest students to have their own computers/network connections at home. The undergraduates illustrate a higher level of skills and appreciation on the e-methods usage. This provides a reminding to the educators that relevant e-learning technology training is necessary to increase the IT application knowledge/ competence of those students who do not have deep IT system application background knowledge. Reflected by the heavy emphasis of the undergraduates on Speed, it illustrates a phenomenon that with high level of e-technology application knowledge, students tend to place more critical requirements on the IT system itself’s performance. This research has provided a primary understanding of the main e-methods and the barriers of their usage in learning process; however, due to the limitation regarding the rather small sample size, there is still a need for further research to enrich the current findings and understandings. If time and resources are available, a further investigation at a wider scale of sample groups should be carried out, with more participants and more importantly with more institutes involved, to enhance and refine the findings regarding the previously described research objectives. A longitudinal study following a time series survey investigations could also be conducted, to follow up the possible changes on the main emethods used and the hindering factors of their application/usage. Meanwhile, a future survey study should also be conducted by focusing on the appropriate countermeasures for tackling the hindering factors, to assure an efficient and effective learning process.

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ReFeRenCeS Alexander, S. (2001). E-learning developments and experience. Education + Training, 43(4/5), 240-248. Anonymous (2003). Canon creates a successful blend with e-learningIgnoring the hype and focusing on the method. Development and Learning in Organizations, 17(1), 23-26. Bennet, A., & Bennet, D. (2008). e-Learning as energetic learning. The journal of information and knowledge management systems, 38(2), 206-220. Bose, K. (2003). An e-learning experience – a written analysis based on my experience in an e-learning pilot project. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 20(5), 193-199. Duffy, T., & Cunningham, D. (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and delivery of instruction. Handbook of research for educational telecommunications and technology (pp. 170-190). New York: MacMillan. Hadengue, V. (2005). E-learning for information literacy A case study. Library review, 54(1), 36-46.

Henry, P. (2001). E-learning technology, content and services. Education + Training, 43(4/5), 249-255. Jankowicz, A. D. (2005). Business Research Projects (4th ed.). Thomson Learning. Packham, G., Jones, P., Miller, C., & Thomas, B. (2004). E-learning and retention: key factors influencing student withdrawal. Education + Training, 46(6/7), 335-342. Qi, B., Lu, L., Oliver, S., Wang, C., & Zhang, R. (2008, March). Can ICT replace the traditional teaching and learning model?: a case study. ECS 2009, Wuhan, China. Roffe, I. (2002). E-learning: engagement, enhancement and execution. Quality Assurance in Education, 10(1), 40-50. Shim, J.P., Shropshire, J., Park, S., Harris, H., & Campbell, N. (2007). Podcasting for e-learning, communication, and delivery. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 107(4), 587-600. Siritongthaworn, S., & Krairit, D. (2006). Satisfaction in e-learning: the context of supplementary instruction. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 23(2), 76-91.

Hart, M., & Rush, D. (2007). E-learning and the development of ‘voice’ in business studies education. International Journal of Educational Management, 21(1), 68-77. This work was previously published in International Journal of E-Adoption, Vol. 1, Issue 2, edited by S. Sharma, pp. 23-35, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.2

Stories of Engagement with E-Learning:

Revisiting the Taxonomy of Learning Geoffrey Lautenbach University of Johannesburg, South Africa

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

I argue that although university lecturers delve into the “shallow waters” of e-learning, they do not do so in sufficient depth and resign themselves to the perpetuation of cognitivist, behaviorist, and objectivist forms of knowledge without discovering more about the medium that could possibly liberate their restricted epistemologies. In this article, I explore possible reasons for varying engagement with e-learning, assuming that these reasons are located within the dimensions of the unit of analysis of the study; namely, lecturers’ changing theories of knowledge and teaching in first encounters with e-learning. Using Lee Shulman’s table of learning (Shulman, 2002) as a heuristic, I use excerpts from personal narratives to highlight the epistemological and pedagogical transformation of nine lecturers as they engage with educational technologies in their work.

The concern of the larger study upon which this paper is based is the uptake and use of e-learning by lecturers in an education faculty at a university. Although e-learning forms only a part of the changing face of education, I identify the changing epistemologies and pedagogy of lecturers as a central issue in this process of transformation. According to Fullan and Stiegelbauer (1991), the successful implementation of learner-centered teaching depends to a large extent on development of the teacher (lecturers), which is not a top-down process but one in which the lecturer is very active; hence, the focus on the active participation of the selected lecturers in this study. To this end, nine lecturers of diverse technological ability consented to offer their stories about their engagement with e-learning in a number of narrative interviews.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Stories of Engagement with E-Learning

One would assume that the incorporation of technology into higher education arguably should be a main priority for higher education practitioners, yet despite the cognizance of this necessity, e-learning uptake has been slow. Lecturers’ limited engagements with e-learning were evident even in the early stages of the study. I now argue that the personal learning experiences and, to a degree, the teaching experiences of lecturers are directive indicators of their e-learning uptake. Moreover, I argue that these personal learning opportunities only become learning “events” for lecturers (and similarly also for the students) when they begin to fully engage with other lecturers, the larger community of lecturers using e-learning worldwide, the policies and strategies that guide them, and the divisions of labor that influence them as they engage with the tools of e-learning in order to ultimately change their inherent theories of knowledge and teaching (this is the activity system that is described in greater detail in the larger study). In this article, I see the lecturers’ experiences within this activity system as the building blocks of their epistemological assumptions. I suggest, furthermore, that lecturers can only make meaning of their initial engagement with e-learning and the subsequent changes in their ways of teaching and thinking about teaching in general when they see the broader picture of how engagement with e-learning is not only on a physical level, but also strongly related to their geographical, historical, and cultural context. I have also stated elsewhere that elements of lecturers’ resistance to or embracing of technology in education are found in personal experiences, and it is in the “narrative situatedness” of lecturers’ stories that I have found reasoning about their engagements with e-learning (Lautenbach & Van der Westhuizen, 2005a, 2005b; Lautenbach, Van der Westhuizen & Luca, 2006). Most faculty who embarked on a blending of online and face-to-face mediation and course presentation were doing so as novices at the time. By embarking on the study, I intended to capture temporally and spatially

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contextualized pictures of what happened in what has been, institutionally, a comprehensive adoption of blended learning. In telling their stories, lecturers exposed tensions within the activity system (Barab, Barnett, Yamagata-Lynch, Squire & Keating, 2002; Engeström, 1987, 1999; Kuutti, 1996; Leont’ev, 1978) that are critical to understanding what motivates specific actions within the system and, more generally, in understanding the dynamic nature (evolution) of the system in general (Barab et al., 2002). It is the description of this social interplay through lecturers’ narratives that best illustrates the intricacies of emerging or “fossilized” epistemologies that, in many cases, have led to changes in the way these people teach using technology.

The unIveRSITy AS A PlACe oF engAgemenT wITh e-leARnIng The uptake or adoption of e-learning is seen by university management and many lecturers as an essential component of what I call “professionalization of practice.” Despite this, imperative adoption of e-learning is typically characterized by nonuptake, adopt-and-abandon, and adoptand-sustain. I question the nature of the terms “adoption” and “uptake” and would rather, from this instant, refer to “engagement” as proposed by Lee Shulman (2002) in his table of learning. Rhem (2002) describes Shulman’s interest in presenting a new taxonomy as something that more clearly reflects recent advances in understanding—“the world where people work”—and especially the place of “engagement.” By using this new taxonomy, I resist the impulse to categorize or simplify the complex phenomenon of varying engagement with educational technologies, but at the same time, I make use of this heuristic to structure my findings. Shulman’s (2002) table of learning echoes the taxonomy of educational objectives devised by Benjamin Bloom (1956). In contrast, however, it

Stories of Engagement with E-Learning

posits that learning always involves engagement at some point. Shulman (2002) maintains that learning always begins with engagement, which in turn leads to knowledge and understanding. In Shulman’s own words: Once someone understands, he or she becomes capable of performance or action. Critical reflection on one’s practice and understanding leads to higher-order thinking in the form of a capacity to exercise judgment in the face of uncertainty and to create designs in the presence of constraints and unpredictability. Ultimately, the exercise of judgment makes possible the development of commitment. In commitment, we become capable of professing our understanding and our values, our faith and our love, our skepticism and our doubts, internalizing those attributes and making them integral to our identities. These commitments, in turn, make new engagements possible—and even necessary. (Shulman, 2002) This is a cyclic process where commitment and identity are followed by new engagements and motivations. The Shulman table of learning can be summarized briefly as follows: • • • • • •

Engagement and motivation Knowledge and understanding Performance and action Reflection and critique Judgment and design Commitment and identity

In using this taxonomy, I am in no way proposing that things always happen in this sequence. It is used simply as a heuristic to structure university lecturers’ stories of engagement with educational technologies or “pedagogical engagement.” In this article, I see pedagogies of engagement as those that not only initially grab lecturers’ interests in e-learning, but also those that maintain this interest. In other words, I see these as pedagogies

that lead to what Rhem (2002) calls “deep learning.” Engagement, therefore, cannot properly be understood as a means to an end; it is an end in itself. I believe that lecturers at the university, for example, do not try out these new technologies in order to merely increase their knowledge in the field of e-learning, but because they are engaged with what happens there. This is in line with the current focus on active learning and is based on the notion that people learn when engaged in worthwhile educational experiences. I, therefore, highlight lecturers’ stories of varying engagements with technology in their teaching, assuming that these stories are located within the dimensions of the unit of analysis of the study; namely, lecturers’ changing theories of knowledge and teaching in first encounters with e-learning. In problematizing the notion of lecturers’ engagements with educational technologies, I initially located the problem in three spheres: (1) lecturers’ theories of knowledge and teaching; (2) the individual lecturer; and (3) the setting where elearning must be implemented and sustained—the university and its related communities. Without knowing it at the time, I had stumbled across 3 major components that eventually formed part of the greater activity system described in the main study. In all three of these spheres mentioned previously, there were constraining factors, the most important perhaps being the unyielding epistemologies of lecturers. Thus, I argue, that although lecturers delve into the shallow waters of e-learning, they do not do so in sufficient depth and resign themselves to the perpetuation of cognitivist, behaviorist, and objectivist forms of knowledge without discovering more about the medium that could possibly liberate their restricted epistemologies. They may not have learned to change their way of thinking about teaching using educational technologies or learned to perform certain required skills, and they may not always act in ways consistent with the norms, values, and conventions of the profession. Many lecturers, for example, still see e-learning as

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a way to access information and not as a process of distributed engagement and learning. These restricted epistemologies limit their pedagogic vision and influence the way they teach.

meThodologIeS To exPoSe leCTuReRS’ vIewS oF PeRSonAl ePISTemologIeS And PedAgogIeS oveR TIme As a qualitative researcher, I am intrigued with the complexity of social interactions during engagement with e-learning, and the meanings that participants themselves attribute to these interactions. Within the natural setting of the university, I applied an interpretive and critical approach to the application of multiple methods of data collection and analysis. This research design was therefore pragmatic, both interpretive and critical, and grounded in the lived experiences of the participants. The specific genre of design for this inquiry can be seen as a triangular hybrid that included components of the ethnographic, the ethnomethodological, and the discursive tradition of qualitative inquiry (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000; Flick 1998; Henning, Van Rensburg & Smit, 2004). I contend that lecturers’ changing theories of knowledge and teaching in first encounters with e-learning were adequately highlighted from a variety of perspectives using this combination of methodologies. It is also my conviction that the three methodologies were complementary and provided optimal richness and variety of data. Conventional methods of interviewing did not provide me with enough viable options with which to record the multiple realities of lecturers and hence the incorporation of narrative interviews to supplement the ethnographic methods. All data analysis procedures in this inquiry searched for elements of the data that pertained specifically to narrative. For example, the ethnographic data reflected the life world of lecturers as identified from

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their observed behavior, practices, and activities, and also added to the development of the narrative portraits of the lecturers that showed how they constructed their preferred identities during their engagement with e-learning. Narrative analysis, therefore, featured as the common denominator in the process of data analysis. These narratives were analyzed performatively, as proposed by Langellier in 1989 (as cited by Riessman, 2002). I emphasize the performative approach because “a story involves story-telling, which is a reciprocal event between the story-teller and the interviewer” (Riessman, 2002). The storytellers’ preferred identity is revealed in the stories they tell. The identity of the storyteller can be seen to be situated and accomplished in social interaction and in no way should be seen as inauthentic. Some lecturers experienced real epistemological change as a result of their initial engagement with e-learning; these changes are evident in the narrative excerpts that follow.

nARRATIve exCeRPTS ReveAlIng ePISTemologICAl And PedAgogICAl ChAnge This section deals with the notion of lecturers’ changing theories of knowledge and teaching as depicted in their narratives. The way in which these lecturers made these changes (or not) is evident in the issues they describe in their stories in the quest for the development of a functional online pedagogy. Pseudonyms have been used for the nine lecturers, and the subtitles give the reader some idea of the type of story from which the extracts come.

david’s Story: The Conquering Crusader who lived to Tell the Tale David admits to a limited theory of teaching with e-learning in his early career, but credits

Stories of Engagement with E-Learning

his general knowledge of teaching to his early years of experience as a school teacher. Initially, David began to identify problems with face-to-face teaching and recognized colleagues perpetuating the type of teaching he had become accustomed to at the school level. At this early stage, he had already identified differences between online and face-to-face modes of teaching and his changing focus from technology to methodology. He soon progressed to integrate the two modes of teaching where he discovered the importance of sound theoretical and subject knowledge. From that moment on, David substantiated all of his activities in his online teaching with theory. He currently shows awareness of the latest available literature and most up-to-date research in the field of elearning and repeatedly stresses the importance of theoretical knowledge in his narrative. He had not only engaged with the tools of e-learning but had reflected on his actions. This is congruent with the notion that action without reflection is unlikely to produce learning. A further development of this theme is that David highlights the contextualization of theory and the adaptation of theory to the unique local situation. This is a concrete sign of David’s exercise of judgment and design. In the future, David aims to continue trying to find the best methodologies to improve his teaching, and his hands-on approach should lead to experimentation with various methodologies. He now sees learning activities as the main focus of his teaching with technology, and he professes to choose a specific pedagogy based on teaching goals for every activity in his courses. Commitment is evidenced in the internalization of sound educational values; his well-developed e-learning persona; and his willingness to commit himself to the larger e-learning community at the university, worldwide, and within the educational profession. In other words, he has taken the values and principles of the greater e-learning community seriously enough to make them his own.

Susan’s Story: The Chameleon who learned to Blend In Concerning her own emerging epistemology, Susan reveals her field of expertise to be human learning. She also professes not to have changed her teaching methods much over the past few years, and with regard to her pedagogy, she is still using the “same old principles” for teaching online. This seems to work for her because of her notion that “teaching must be seen as dialogue” and that it is a “process of collective inquiry in which students and the teacher explore together.” She ascribes this to the fact that the tools within the course management system support this co-inquiry. To this end, she claims to be “doing what she has always done” when teaching with technology, indicating that a well-developed personal epistemology and pedagogy is perhaps the secret to success when teaching online. She claims to understand the notions of teaching and learning with technology and bases her actions (her performance or practice) on this understanding. Although she seems to have reflected on her actions, Susan’s judgment and design is limited. Commitment is also not evident in this story.

Brian’s Story: The man who Found a new lease on life Regarding his personal theories of knowledge and teaching, Brian goes right back to his roots as a physical science teacher at the school level and elaborates on how his teaching has not changed much over the length of his career. He claims to have always been creative. He ascribes his general knowledge of teaching to his early career as a teacher and admits to having tried various ways of teaching in the past. He even admits to boredom with the way in which he taught certain concepts in the past and adds that he had not, until recently, even considered teaching using the tools of e-learning. At present, Brian tells of being able to find new ways to teach and of how

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he has improved his own subject knowledge by reflecting on the design of learning activities. He addresses the similarities between face-to-face teaching and teaching with technology, indicating a practical working knowledge of the basic theory behind each mode, but also expresses the desire to “do more advanced things in the future.” Brian already envisages using more interaction and more complex animations in his future teaching and speaks of complex online tutorials, the simulation of real-life activities, and online assessment in future courses. He does not speak of the implications for the design and development of such activities at present and does not elaborate on his role in this process. He seems to realize his limitations but has enough enthusiasm and theoretical knowledge of teaching with technology to dream of these activities becoming a reality.

mark’s Story: The Traveler who lost the urge to explore With regard to his own theories of knowledge and teaching, it is important to note that Mark sees elearning as a field on its own and even describes it as “someone else’s field.” Mark claims to have been initially uninformed about the use of e-learning in teaching and admits that his initial focus was on applying the technology. Based on a brief period where he was actively involved in online modules, he is now able to expose and discuss a number of topical issues related to e-learning and teaching in general. Even so, Mark expresses uncertainty about e-learning potential usefulness at present based on his observation of other lecturers. As an educator, he is aware that this is an example of “petrified pedagogies” or pedagogies that have not changed to meet the demands of a new medium. Mark’s awareness of the need to adapt his pedagogy to teaching online is evident from his discourse, but it is also clear that he has not yet personally attempted to do so. He does, however, indicate that he will seriously consider using e-learning in his teaching in the future if

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it can offer something that normal face-to-face teaching at the university cannot. He speaks of this as “value added.” Commitment, as the highest attainment an educated person can achieve, has not been realized in this story.

Ellen’s story: Finding the Foot to fit the glass Slipper Ellen narrates the story of how she initially wanted to directly transfer content from an existing course into an online version of the same course, and how she came to discover that this was not an effective and practical way of teaching online. She ascribes the demise of her first attempts to good course design but poor use of the technology. At present, Ellen is comfortable with the idea of teaching online and admits to having theoretical knowledge of good practice in this field. She admits to changing her whole way of thinking about teaching with technology and couples this with a change in her way of thinking about education in general. She is aware of her personal theories of knowledge and teaching, and uses the terms “epistemology” and “pedagogy” freely in her story, indicating that she is comfortable with these aspects in her career as an educator. She expresses knowledge of her own personal epistemology and admits to not having to change her epistemology when teaching online. Ellen stresses her advanced knowledge of teaching based on many years in education and tells how she is still exploring her e-learning pedagogy. The one thing Ellen professes to have gotten out of this process from a pedagogical point of view is the way in which she now can combine faceto-face teaching with online components of her courses. She clearly states that this is something that cannot be learned from books and that her online pedagogy is dependant on her practical experience in the field. She implies in her story that her current experience in e-learning has led her to change her pedagogy, which seems to impact everything else.

Stories of Engagement with E-Learning

hester’s Story: The lonely Path of the long distance Runner Hester is comfortable with what she does and is obviously well read in the field of education. As an educational psychologist, she shows her need for interaction and the formation of relationships online and also proposes infusing the theory of teaching into e-learning. She does not, however, speak about changing her pedagogy when teaching online. It appears in Susan’s narrative that a well-developed personal pedagogy is a major contributor to success online. Even though Hester and Susan do not say so directly, it may be easy to adapt existing theories of teaching for online teaching, whereas not having a well-developed pedagogy does not afford one this luxury in the first place. Hester ascribes her success online to keeping up to date with developments in the field of e-learning, using the tools available to her differently each time in order to see what works for her, and trying out different tools and activities all the time. She continually comes up with new uses of the Web that can be implemented in her teaching in the future.

Irma’s Story: The Professional woman keeping one Step Ahead Regarding her theories of knowledge and teaching, Irma tells the story of being comfortable with her own epistemology and repeatedly brings up the issue of striving to be the subject and knowledge expert. By reducing or even removing her technological concerns, Irma is confident that she then will be able to concentrate on remaining the expert in her field in the future. With regard to teaching, Irma speaks of projecting the self into the technology, indicating that she is consciously trying to address the issue of distance when teaching online as well as other issues like “giving heart to the technology.” She narrates the story of being conscious of her personality and teaching

style being projected through the online activities and of the student “being with her,” “hearing her voice,” and “interacting with her and not the technology.” Irma claims that using e-learning in teaching does not take much intelligence (i.e., IQ) but rather demands emotional intelligence (EQ), which simply involves a change in attitude toward teaching this way.

walter’s Story: moses Seeing the Promised land for the First Time Concerning his own emerging epistemology and pedagogy, Walter admits to adapting the way he teaches for implementation on the Web, and clearly sees the link between teaching and technology. In the past, he expressed e-learning as the cutting edge of education and saw great potential in pursuing e-learning-related teaching projects. At that time, he only saw e-learning as an aid to teaching, but now he sees it in all aspects of his personal and professional life. He tells how he has included e-learning as part of his everyday thinking. By seeing the link between teaching and technology, Walter proposes to blend e-learning into his teaching style in the future (and not the opposite).

Rose’s Story: Conflict on the Playground Rose demonstrates an example of a frozen and unyielding epistemology. She professes to be comfortable with what works for her at present and does not see herself changing her teaching in the near future. She claims that eye contact and face-to-face teaching should be the first priority at the university without considering the many benefits of using e-learning at all. With regard to her pedagogy, Rose tells of a sense of losing control when using e-learning in her teaching. She expresses feelings that she is no longer the expert when teaching with technology, and the technology becomes the focus instead of the teach-

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Stories of Engagement with E-Learning

ing activities. For this reason, she sees e-learning as cold and impersonal. She is unable to take multiple factors about educational technologies into consideration and compare them to values and standards of education that themselves are shifting. In other words, she may understand technological and educational issues, but she is unable to go beyond understanding in order to foster judgment and design. Her reflection about teaching with technology is that in her opinion, most lecturers are currently using technology without sufficient knowledge of the pedagogy that is needed in order to do so effectively.

dISCuSSIon These accounts, summarized from individual narratives, indicate that learning about teaching using technology will be more effective if lecturers are committed. Successfully committed people are more disposed to engage (Shulman, 2002). Commitment engenders new engagements, which in turn engender new understandings, and so on. Engagement is inherently collaborative in nature, and commitment involves the development of and involvement in healthy communities. For this reason, if lecturers are presented with educational technologies as a meaningful whole within a healthy community of practice, I argue that this will help them accept the value of the knowledge before they shift their focus to the appropriation and the ability to use the knowledge. This is in line with Vygotsky’s concept of developmental teaching where knowledge is only seen as useful when it “moves ahead of development” (Vygotsky, 1978). Although some lecturers still see e-learning as access to information and not as a process of distributed engagement and learning (compare Henning 2003), I have discovered from the narratives that some lecturers have changed their pedagogy based on a flexible and evolving epistemology. In so doing, they have begun to exemplify what

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Nardi and O’Day (1999) refer to as “keystone species” in the establishment of learning and information ecologies in their workplace. These are like key components of a natural ecosystem that are essential to the survival and existence of the system. Furthermore, I suggest that this pedagogical change has led to, if only emergently, some form of learning and information ecology within the work environment. The formation of this “ecology” seems to be closely related to interactions with lecturers and other key members of the “ecosystem” highlighting the potential of a healthy and vibrant “community of practice” for these lecturers. The fact that there is as yet no coherent set of established pedagogies for e-learning begs for continued questioning of what may be adopted or even fast-tracked as pedagogies in a rapidly evolving medium of learning and teaching. With no formal curriculum for lecturers to follow in this process and no formal pedagogies to follow, each one has entered the system with a life history (and thus a lived experience) that has ultimately played a role in how they engaged with technology, and due to the uniqueness of each life history, each of their stories differs. They have all landed in the system in a different way and their varying levels of engagement with the tools of e-learning can be related very much to how they position themselves in their stories. Excerpts from the nine narratives originating from this inquiry, rendered as brief portraits of the larger picture, address a wide spectrum of themes that have in the interim proved to be the experiences of many other lecturers at the university. These narratives and the ideas that have emerged in this article using a simple taxonomy as a thinking tool, must not be seen as trivial, as they offer a coherent way to think about how university lecturers use educational technologies in their teaching. This article merely highlights some thoughts and hopefully sheds more light on the topical issue of lecturers’ engagements with e-learning at institutions of higher learning.

Stories of Engagement with E-Learning

ReFeRenCeS Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2000). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research. London: Sage. Barab, S.A., Barnett, M., Yamagata-Lynch, L., Squire, K., & Keating, T. (2002). Using activity theory to understand the systemic tensions characterising a technology-rich introductory astronomy course. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 9(2), 76–107. Bloom, B.S. (1956). The taxonomy of educational objectives: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit. Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R. Punamäki, (Eds.), 1999. Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19–38. Flick, U. (1998). An introduction to qualitative research. London: Sage Publications. Fullan, M.G., & Stiegelbauer, S. (1991). The new meaning of educational change. New York: Teachers College Press. Henning, E. (2003). I click, therefore I am (not): Is cognition “distributed” or is it “contained” in borderless e-learning programmes. International Journal of Training and Development, 7(4). Henning, E., Van Rensburg, W., & Smit, B. (2004). Finding your way in qualitative research. Pretoria: Van Schaik Publishers. Kuutti, K. (1996). Activity theory as potential framework for human-computer interaction research. In B. Nardi (Ed.), 1996. Context and consciousness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 17–44.

Lautenbach, G.V., & Van der Westhuizen, D. (2005a). Investigating lecturers changing epistemologies and pedagogies during engagement with e-learning in an education faculty. Proceedings of the ED-MEDIA Conference, Montreal, Canada, AACE, 2880–2887. Lautenbach, G.V., & Van der Westhuizen, D. (2005b). Hybridising methods towards narratives in an educational ICT inquiry. Education as Change. Special Issue: ICT in Education, 9(2), 46–73. Lautenbach, G.V., Van der Westhuizen, D., & Luca, J. (2006). Rags to riches and conflict on the playground: Contrasting narratives of e-learning in an education faculty. Proceedings of the EDMEDIA Conference, Orlando, Florida, AACE, 1700–1707. Leont’ev, A. (1978). Activity, consciousness and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Nardi, B.A., & O’Day, V.L. (1999). Information ecologies. Using technology with heart. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Riessman, C.K. (2002). Analysis of personal narratives. In J..F. Gubrium, & J.A. Holstein (Eds.), 2002. Handbook of interview research: Context and method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 695–709. Rhem, J. (2002). Of diagrams and models: Learning as a game of pinball. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 11(4). Retrieved February 2, 2007, from http://lihini.sjp.ac.lk/careers/ edreform/n_amer/carnegie/diagrams.htm Shulman, L. (2002). Making differences: A table of learning. Change, 34(6), 36–44. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. In M. Cole, V.J. Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 4, Issue 3, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 11-19, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global). 809

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Chapter 4.3

Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements Edson Pinheiro Pimentel IMES University, Brazil Nizam Omar Mackenzie P. University, Brazil

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

Traditional forms of assessment used in face-toface and distance learning education are insufficient to ascertain the learning progress of student and therefore do not provide enough information to detect student learning gaps and improve learning. Another point is that traditional assessment ways rarely involve the student in monitoring his or her own learning through his metacognitive abilities. This article presents a model for formative assessment in distance learning education based on cognitive and metacognitive measurements that will make possible the identification of student learning gaps. Moreover, it presents the architecture of a computational environment for student knowledge mapping that will allow identifying more specifically the learning gaps in order to supply the educational system with qualitative information.

The assessment process plays an important role in producing information that can help students, parents, teachers, and educational administrators to know and deal better with learning gaps. Teachers and the Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) can use this information to adapt the instruction to students’ learning needs and difficulties. The Assessment Reform Group (1999) based on their research stands that successful learning occurs when learners have ownership of their learning; when they understand the goals for which they are aiming; and when, crucially, they are motivated and have the skills to achieve success. Not only are these essential features of effective day-to-day learning in the classroom, they are also key ingredients of successful lifelong learning.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements

Another important aspect in the learning process relates to the student’s metacognitive abilities (i.e., the process of reflecting about their own knowledge), which Flavell (1979) called metacognition. Knowledge about knowledge itself is very important to learning with quality. Many teachers rely on a traditional pretest and post-test design to document student progress, as shown by Shepard (2001). Pretest results are used to establish each student’s achievement level or location, but typically are not used to gain insight into the nature of a student’s understanding (e.g., when a problem is missed, it is not known what partial knowledge or competing conception is at work). Moreover, to develop students’ metacognitive knowledge about what helps in their own learning, there might be explicit discussion of both the facilitating and inhibiting effects of background knowledge. The ongoing assessment that aims to diagnose and improve learning instead of merely classifying the students is basic in distance learning education in order to increase the adaptability of the systems and the personalization of education, thus increasing motivation and reducing evasion rate, besides increasing the quality and productivity of learning. Moreover, it can help to minimize the problems of credibility lack on who effectively took the assessment, allowing monitoring of the evolution of learning instead of having only one measure at the end of the course. In distance learning education, the majority of computational environments involves some kind of ongoing student assessment in which observation is based on documentation of the student’s interactions with the environment, as shown by Silva and Vieira (2001). This article presents a model for formative assessments in distance learning education based on cognitive and metacognitive measurements that will make possible the identification of student learning gaps. Moreover, it presents the architecture of a computational environment to implement the proposed model.

The model will support the monitoring and development of metacognitive processes in order to allow the student to have control of his or her own learning through the process of self-regulation, which is self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement. As a cognitive measurer, this article will propose the Knowledge Acquisition Level (KAL) obtained for each item of the knowledge domain, making possible the identification of the gaps of learning. KAL is not only a prompt measure, but its evolution can be tracked during the process through continuous assessment. The article is organized as follows. Section 2 discuss continuous assessment and knowledge monitoring. Section 3 presents our proposed model for formative assessment in distance learning education by monitoring the Knowledge Acquisition Level based on some measurers. Section 4 describes the architecture of a computational environment to implement the proposed model. Finally, in Section 5, some considerations about this work and future work are made.

ConTInuouS ASSeSSmenT FoR knowledge monIToRIng Assessment and feedback are essential for helping people learn. An assessment process consistent with the learning principles should be continuous as part of the instruction and supply information about the student’s learning level to teachers, parents, and the student. This is formative assessment (Bransford et al., 2003; Perrenoud, 2000). In a continuous learning assessment and accompaniment process, first of all, it is necessary to identify the purposes of assessment. Falchikov (2005) has classified these purposes into two main categories: summative and formative. In the first group, the main purposes of assessment are restricted to selection, certification, accountability, and effectiveness monitoring. Purposes in the latter group are more student-centered

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and include diagnosis, motivation, feedback, and learning improvement. Our focus in this work is on formative assessment.

Continuous Assessment A clear distinction should be made between assessment of learning for the purposes of grading and reporting, which has its own well-established procedures, and assessment for learning, which calls for different priorities, new procedures, and a new commitment. Assessment of learning tends to be summative and is carried out periodically (e.g., at the end of a unit, year, or key stage). Assessment for learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there. Assessment for learning is formative in nature and takes place all the time in the classroom (ARG, 1999). The majority of distance learning computational environments involves some kind of student assessment; this is done by collecting the student’s interactions with the environment. Silva and Vieira (2001) describe a method for the ongoing assessment of students in distance courses, based on the identification and structuring of relevant information regarding their interactions with the learning environment. These environments contain four ongoing assessment tools: tracking actions (log), redirection by test, records of messages from chats, and records of messages from discussions lists. Learning on the Web (distance learning education) requires high self-regulatory skills. Virtanen, Niemi, Nevgi, Raehalme, and Launonem (2003) state that in order to develop Web-based learning, we must pay more attention to learners’ characteristics and help learners to be more aware of their learning processes and give guidance as to how to develop strategic learning. Therefore, it is still important to investigate effective

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ways of including metacognitive support in the design of natural and computer-based learning environments in order to improve the learning accompaniment.

knowledge monitoring In the past century, influential thinkers such as Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky have argued that knowledge and control of one’s own cognitive system play a key role in cognitive development, as described by White, Shimoda, and Frederiksen (1999). One of the major conclusions from the research on cognition over the past 30 years is that students who monitor their learning are more effective learners than those who do not (Tobias & Everson, 2002). The process of thinking about how we think, how we remember, and how we learn was called metacognition by Flavell (1979). He claimed that through systematic training, it is possible to increase the quantity and quality of children’s self-monitoring skills as well as their metacognitive knowledge. Many researchers have developed instruments and methods to measure metacognition as a whole or components of it. These methods range from self-questionnaires where learners rate their own metacognitive skills and knowledge, to interviews or verbal-reports in which learners recall what they did and what they thought during a learning experience, as reported by Gama (2004). Tobias and Everson (2002) have proposed a modular model of metacognition, which will be used as the theoretical foundation for this study. Their model assumes that the ability to differentiate between known and unknown is a prerequisite for the effective self-regulation of learning. This skill is called “knowledge monitoring,” and it supports the development of other metacognitive skills such as comprehension monitoring, help seeking, planning, and revising. The more students are aware of their thinking processes as they learn,

Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements

Table 1. KMA and KMB demonstration

the more they can control their own learning; self-awareness promotes self-regulation.

A model FoR knowledge monIToRIng Working on the principle that assessment and feedback are essential for learning and improvement, we have proposed a model for knowledge monitoring in distance learning education based on three measurers: KMA, KMB, and KAL. The basic idea is to obtain these measurers from ongoing assessments on computer activities and to use them to monitor the knowledge acquisition level of the student.

metacognitive measurers: kmA and kmB Knowledge monitoring accuracy (KMA), created by Tobias & Everson (2002), refers to how skillful a student is at predicting how he or she will perform a learning task; it reflects his or her awareness of the knowledge he or she possesses. KMA resulted from the match between two pieces of information: first asking his or her confidence level in solving a problem, and later asking him or her to solve the problem.

Knowledge monitoring bias (KMB) provides a statistical measure of any tendency or bias in the learner’s knowledge monitoring ability. The KMB measure was created by Gama (2004) since KMA does not provide a detailed account about the type of inaccuracies the student may show. KMB takes into account the way a student deviates from an accurate assessment of his or her knowledge monitoring. If there is no deviation, we say that the student is realistic about his or her assessment of his or her knowledge. On the contrary, the classification of a student’s current KMB state can be optimistic, pessimistic, or random. Table 1 shows some sample data obtained from empiric studies conducted by Pimentel (2006). KMA can assume High, Medium, or Low values according to the preview and the student’s assessment performance. For example, the student ID 12 is a Medium KMA level because he realized eight correct previews (CP) from 13 resolved problems. He also performed four medium pessimistic (MP) errors and one great optimistic (GO) error. Both KMA and KMB range from -1.00 to 1.00. In conclusion, he has a 0.38 KMA, classified as medium, and a negative 0.08 KMB classified as Random, because sometimes he makes right previews and sometimes he makes mistakes. More details about calculations are shown in the referred paper.

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Table 2. The KAL evolution during 10 assessments

A Cognitive measurer: kAl The knowledge acquisition level (KAL) indicates the learner’s knowledge level in a specific subject of a knowledge domain. The zero value identifies total lack of knowledge. This measure can be obtained in several knowledge assessment units (AU) which must associate the subjects or topics included in that UA. This will make it possible to establish the student knowledge acquisition level in each topic of a domain. Table 2 presents the simulation of one student’s performance in four topics during 10 assessment activities. For example, Table 2 shows that “topic 1” in the T5 instant got grade 0.8. The measure in T0-0 can be considered the student’s initial mental state. As shown in Figure 1, for “topic 1” and “topic 2,” the KAL value can increase or decrease through ongoing assessments. This measure can be used for the accompaniment of the student’s knowledge acquisition level. It is known that a continuous assessment process will produce a large mass of data, demanding automatic or semi-automatic procedures for treatment and analysis. Advances in computer technology have made it possible to store and process a larger amount of data, and new technologies have been developed to help extract information from these databases, emphasis laid on knowledge discovery in database (KDD) and data mining (DM). KDD is the process of finding useful information and patterns in data. Data Mining is the use of

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algorithms to extract information and patterns (Fayyad, Grinstein & Wierse, 2002).

A ComPuTATIonAl envIRonmenT ARChITeCTuRe Most computational learning environments (CLE) have incorporated some mechanisms of classroom assessment, classified as first-generation of computer-based assessment based on objective tests (Ardigo, 2004). This section presents the architecture of a computational environment for formative assessment in distance learning education based on the cognitive and metacognitive description in Section 3. A general view of this architecture, presented in Figure 2, shows the relationships among the modules and submodules. The use of a computational learning environment will favor the application of the formative assessment purposes and all its characteristics. Starting with a general setting capable of representing the knowledge to be reached or certified, the computational learning environment in its several modules will allow diagnosis, learning monitoring, motivation, feedback, learning improvement, involvement, and student awareness. Moreover, intelligent tools will help to identify the cognitive and metacognitive student profile in order to assist the professor and the student in the result analysis and in setting the next learning stages.

Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements

Figure 1. KAL evolution

Figure 2. General computational environment architecture

There is a similarity between the proposed architecture and the traditional ITS architecture. The main difference is the new Assessment Module, which, by using information from the Student Module and the Domain Module, will prompt the generation adaptive assessment according to the cognitive and metacognitive learner profile. Moreover, the learning gaps diagnosis will supply information for personalized learning plans in such a way that once these gaps are filled, students may resume their learning according to their ex-

pectations. In a traditional ITS, the assessment is generally concealed in the Tutoring Module. It must be pointed out that the architecture proposed here does not present the Tutoring Module because the instructional process is not included in this work. However, this module can be normally connected to this architecture. The next subsection presents the description of the proposed environment modules as well as the relationships among them.

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Communication module Through this module, teacher and student will be able to interact with the environment in order to perform their respective tasks. The teacher will be able to directly interact with the management module and the accompaniment module and indirectly with the other three modules: student, assessment, and knowledge. The communication module (interface) will adapt to user-end (teacher or student) and frontend device (personal computer, mobile device, palm-top, cell phone, etc.).

management module The management module will be accessed by the teacher or anyone else responsible for the learning assessment and accompaniment process, and will enable the following: •

•

• •

Including data gathered from the pedagogical project of the course into knowledge module in order to reflect the learning objectives Recording assessment units associated with the learning objectives of each content, with the learning process involved equally specified Creating diagnostic, summative, and formative assessment Grading assessments performed by students when required

knowledge module To allow the learning accompaniment, this module will structure the knowledge in learning hierarchies by using ontology that specifies a vocabulary relative to a set domain. This vocabulary defines the terms (classes, predicates, entities, properties, and functions) and their relationships, representing a powerful tool to support the specification and the implementation even of complex computational systems (Guizzardi, 2000).

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In order to establish the student cognitive state in each knowledge item, this module will record the knowledge representation and the concepts relationships. It could be said that this module will also contain the Learning Model. The objectives will be classified according to Bloom’s revised taxonomy, enclosing the knowledge and the cognitive processes associated to each objective. Student module. This module will store the cognitive and metacognitive student profile as well as the account of assessments. Based on these data, it will be possible to report the student knowledge level immediately, select tasks or activities in that level, or determine the learning needs to be filled to reach the objectives set.

Assessment module This is the main module of this computer architecture and will store the assessment units that form the basis for the assessment settings. Each assessment unit will be associated with the objectives and consequently with the taxonomy. In this article, an assessment unit can assess even a simple concept associated with either an indivisible content or some interrelated content. For this reason, this article does not use the term “question” found in traditional assessment methods. Hence, the attributing of a measure (right/ wrong) to an assessment unit entails doing it in a detailed way, identifying the key failures. Planning represents an important moment of assessment, since it must not only reflect the proposed objectives but also record reliably the student’s knowledge level. The elaboration of complex questions, what usually happens in the traditional system without associating them with the addressed contents, hinders the identification of the learning gaps; that is, it is not favorable for a back-tracing in the sense of identifying accurately the contents that are blocking the student’s learning improvement.

Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements

The assessment grading process (attribution of measures) could be automatic in objective questions or semi-automatic or manual when it comes to open questions. The automatic assessment grading is an open research field and deserves special attention since it consumes a lot of the teacher’s time. Moreover, assessment-grading makes room for certain subjectivity. However, this is not included among the objectives of this article. The adaptive assessment submodule should generate suitable assessments to the cognitive and metacognitive student profile. The traditional educational system assesses all students in the same way, not considering the student’s current knowledge level. Concerning formative assessment, it is necessary to take the student’s current knowledge level into account and assess him or her accordingly in order to contribute to his or her learning improvement. To create adaptive assessments, the system will take into account the student’s previous performance, stored in Student Module, besides attributes such as difficulty level of the assessment unit and contents relationship. According to the student’s performance, the system will select suitable assessment units with a lower or higher difficulty level, or will approach simpler or more complex contents. As important as data collection is, in this module is the treatment of these data in order to generate a set of simplified information that allows a human analysis or a computational analysis to support the decision-making. In this sense, the data-mining submodule should apply patternrecognition algorithms to discover new knowledge in the assessment data. This submodule will supply information to the accompaniment module.

Accompaniment module This module could be accessed by students and teachers in order to monitor the student’s knowledge and learning improvements by means of

cognitive and metacognitive measures gathered from assessments. The feedback generated by the assessment grading process (automatic or manual) and the information provided by data-mining tasks will make it possible for teachers and students to accompany the learning process. Some decisions related to educational objectives could be taken from the information stored in this module, such as issuing certificates and indicating the next instructional process stage based on the student cognitive and metacognitive level. The cognitive measures will indicate the student’s actual performance in the assessments. The possibility of selecting time periods will make it possible to track the student’s evolution. The unstable student performance in some contents (high and low) could indicate that these contents are not adequately sedimented, while a continuous unsatisfactory student performance in some contents could indicate that this content is critical for the student to advance to the next step. In other words, the environment as well as the presenting results will also allow for the Educational Users to verify the critical learning contents in individual levels as well as in collective levels. Another important point in learning accompaniment in this work is continuity. Thus, having a unique or interconnected knowledge database for several domains will make it possible to use it in several modules, courses, or even education degrees. The metacognitive measures are a differential in this work. The metacognitive accompaniment, mainly by the student, will offer him or her conditions to realize his actual level of knowledge. It is considered that metacognitive measures could be used in selecting the next instructional step and mainly in choosing the level of complexity of the next assessments. For example, the indication of a metacognitive pessimistic profile can suggest that the environment should select more complex contents for next assessments, besides keeping constant dialogue with the student to make him

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or her aware that his or her knowledge that is, in fact, wider than he or she thinks. The environment should not only show results to the student, but also compel him or her to hold a dialogue with it by selecting options, filling in the gaps, and so forth, in order to force the student to read his or her results and, in a certain way, to get his or her agreement.

ConCluSIon Most of Computational Learning Environments hide the assessment process and don’t take into account the assessments inputs and outputs for the next step of a learning process. Formative assessment-based continuous assessment can improve learning in distance learning system education, providing adaptive and personalization of the education, increasing the motivation, and reducing the evasion rate. In addition, it can help to minimize the problems of credibility lack on who effectively took the assessment, allowing monitoring of the evolution of learning instead of having only one measure at the end of the course. The environment architecture proposed in this article brings the assessment to the center in which assessment acts as a learning engine, gathering data that could identify precisely the student’s knowledge level, and use this information to improve the learning process. We have proposed three measurers for monitoring the student knowledge acquisition level in distance learning education: KMA, KMB, and KAL. This model is still under development and will include artificial intelligent techniques as data warehouse and data mining algorithms to generate student behavior patterns to aid the teacher and students in their analyses. Beyond the environment implementation, we are investigating a pedagogical architecture for application in an actual classroom context. The advancement of wireless technologies, portable devices as PDA,

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cell phones, and notebooks seem to be potential resources for this architecture.

ReFeRenCeS Assessment Reform Group-ARG (1999). Assessment for learning: Beyond the black box. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Bransford, J., et al. (2003). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school [expanded edition]. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Falchikov, N. (2005). Improving assessment through student involvement: Practical solutions for aiding learning in higher and further education. New York: Routledge Falmer. Fayyad, U., Grinstein, G.G., & Wierse, A. (2002). Information visualization in data mining and knowledge discovery. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc. Flavell, J.H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. Gama, C. (2004). Towards a model of metacognition instruction in interactive learning environments [doctoral thesis]. Sussex, England: University of Sussex. Guizzardi, G. (2000). Uma abordagem metodológica de desenvolvimento para e com reuso, baseada em ontologias formais de domínio [dissertação (Mestrado)]. Vitória, ES, Brasil: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. Perrenoud, P. (2000). Dez novas competências para ensinar. Porto Alegre: Artmed.

Formative Assessment in Distance Learning Education with Cognitive and Metacognitive Measurements

Pimentel, E.P. (2006). Um modelo para avaliação e acompanhamento contínuo do nível de aquisição de conhecimentos do aprendiz [doutorado (Tese)]. Brasil: Instituto Tecnológico da Aeronática (ITA).

Tobias S., & Everson, H.T. (2002). Knowing what you don’t know: Further research on metacognitive knowledge monitoring [College Board Research Report 2002-3]. New York: College Entrance Examination Board.

Shepard, L.A. (2001). The role of classroom assessment in teaching and learning. In V. Richardson (Ed.), The handbook of research on teaching (Fourth Ed.). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Virtanen, P., Niemi, H., Nevgi, A., Raehalme, O., & Launonem, A. (2003). Towards strategic learning skills through self-assessment and tutoring in Web-based environment. Proceedings of ECER 2003 - European Conference on Educational Research, Hamburg, Germany.

Silva, D.R., & Vieira, M.T.P. (2001). An ongoing assessment model in distance learning. Proceedings of Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications, Honolulu, Hawaii.

White, B.Y., Shimoda, T.A., & Frederiksen, J.R. (1999). Enabling students to construct theories of collaborative inquiry and reflective learning: Computer support for metacognitive development. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 10, 151–182.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 4, Issue 3, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 59-68, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Adaptive Learning Organizer for Web-Based Education Amel Yessad INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France Catherine Faron-Zucker University of Nice, France Rose Dieng-Kuntz Edelweiss, INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France Med Tayeb Laskri Université Badji Mokhtar, Algeria

ABSTRACT Adaptive learning support for learners becomes very important in the context of increasing re-use of resources from heterogeneous and distributed learning repositories. This paper presents OrPAF, an Adaptive Educational Hypermedia (AEHS) and web-based System which integrates semantic web models and technologies in order to achieve interoperability with e-learning systems. The key feature of OrPAF is the construction of adaptive hypermedia courses: both the course structure and the course content are dynamically generated and adapted to learners. We experimented the realized prototype on learners in order to evaluate the us-

ability of OrPAF and the conceptual capabilities developed by the learners who used it.

InTRoduCTIon Many researches propose personalized learning supports in order to reuse and share learning resources from distributed repositories (Dolog, Henze, Nejdl, & Sintek, 2004; Miklos, Neumann, Zdun, & Sintek, 2003; Nejdl, Wolf, Qu, Decker, Sintek, Naeve, et al., 2002). The personalization of existing learning resources can be a solution to the problem of developing online courses. However, the personalized learning that uses distributed

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metadata of learning resources is still an unsolved problem in the e-learning research area. Considering the increasing reuse of learning resources from the Web, it becomes almost impossible for the learners, experts, and formations responsible to get an overview of all the available information relevant to their current needs, tasks, roles, and goals. And even if they find some materials, which seem suitable, they are not able to assess completely whether the found content is entirely appropriate for their goals or current knowledge and cognitive state. For that reason, learning resources searched from Web repositories must be first subject to a pedagogy engineering work in order to give them reusability in the context of specific training for specific learners. This engineering work is time and effort consuming in the design step of an e-learning system. To solve this problem, we propose an approach that moves part of this engineering effort from the training responsible/ expert to the software system and delivers an adaptive hypermedia course directly to learners. In this context, we aim to offer personalized course support which generates dynamically for each learner an individualized course structure and an individualized course content by selecting the most optimal learning concepts (e.g., the concept function in the algorithmic and programming languages domain) and the most relevant learning Web resources (e.g., the definition of the concept function) at any moment. Optimal learning concepts and associated relevant learning resources are selected to bring the learner closest to his ultimate learning goal. This approach is well suited for individual and autonomous learners taking a self-study distance-learning course. They can be employees in an organization who have various experiences and background knowledge and where employees evolve in a competitive economic environment and require lifelong learning. We propose a learning organizer which generates adaptive hypermedia courses and reuses

learning resources from distant Web repositories, called “ Organisateur de Parcours Adaptatifs de Formation” (OrPAF). Queried learning resources are already annotated with LOM metadata but stay very difficult to reuse automatically because of the semantic lack of LOM metadata. Our work is based on Semantic Web models, particularly ontologies and semantic annotations, in order to improve the quality of LOM metadata and describe in a standardized way several characteristics of e-learning system (e.g., learning resource, pedagogical strategy, learner model). The Semantic Web for E-Learning (SW-EL) field has shown the greatest activity in this trend with several interesting and recurring practices (Aroyo & Dicheva, 2004; Dolog & Nejdl, 2003; Yessad & Laskri, 2006). Our aim is to improve the learning process efficiency: (1) by providing the learner with adaptive learning paths according to her level of knowledge, learning goal, and time constraints; and (2) by reusing learning resources of different Web repositories. On the one hand, an adaptive learning path is constructed on the base of the conceptual structure of the domain model (e.g., the algorithmic and programming languages domain) and the learner model (e.g., beginner). In the learning organizer, the learner is assisted to construct a “correct” representation of a particular domain of knowledge and the learning is self regulated (Perry, Phillips, & Hutchinson, 2004; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). For this purpose, we apply filters on the domain model to generate a map of relevant learning concepts. We call this map adaptive cognitive map (ACM). An ACM is automatically generated and displayed to a learner, which takes into account a specific goal, the knowledge and temporal constraints of the learner. An ACM represents an adapted view of the structure of the hypermedia course. On the other hand, learning resources that are queried from distant Web repositories like ARIADNE or created locally by domain experts are annotated by adding a conceptual layer on LOM metadata

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description layer. We propose a measure to evaluate the semantic relevance of annotated learning resources in order to associate them to the generated ACM and recommend them to the learner. This paper is organized as follows: the next section presents an overview and a positioning of our learning organizer approach. Then, we show how we represent e-learning knowledge in a meta-model and how we use it to construct different e-learning models. After that, we explain the generation of an adaptive structure and an adaptive content of the hypermedia course. The last section is dedicated the implementation of OrPAF and our evaluation protocol.

Related work Representative examples of personalized support for learners are adaptive textbooks constructed with AHA! (De Bra, Aerts, Berden, de Lange, Rousseau, Santic, et al., 2003), InterBook (Brusilovsky, Eklund, & Schwarz, 1998), and Net-Coach (Weber, Kuhl, & Weibelzahl, 2001), or adaptive courses within ELM-ART (Brusilovsky, Schwartz, & Weber, 1996), PAT (Ritter, 1997), and AIMS (Aroyo & Dicheva, 2001). There are also more global but still highly specialized efforts such as ARIADNE and EdNa coursewarereusability frameworks that provide repositories of reusable learning resources. In this context, our research aims to propose a learning organizer which is an adaptive educational hypermedia and Web-based system (AEHS). Our learning organizer integrates Semantic Web technologies like ontologies, semantic annotation, and learning standards in order to achieve interoperability with e-learning systems. Similarly to the dynamic course generation system (Brusilovsky & Vassileva, 2003) and research studies of Ullrich (2004) and Dehors, Faron-Zucker, and Dieng-Kuntz (2006), the core of our learning organizer is the explicit representation of the domain model, separated from learning resources and pedagogical strategies. We define

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a learning ontology that describes characteristics of e-learning systems (e.g., learner, pedagogical activity). This learning ontology is a metamodel which describes abstract learning characteristic independent of a specific learner, a specific domain (e.g., the algorithmic and programming languages domain), a specific pedagogical strategy (e.g., the deductive strategy) or a specific learning resource (e.g., slides created by James Rumbaugh introduce the object modeling notion). The metamodel is instantiated to construct specific learning models: the domain model, the learner model and the pedagogical model. Contrary to the learning ontology, these models describe respectively learning concepts of a specific domain (e.g., arithmetic operators in the algorithmic and programming languages domain), a specific learner, and a specific pedagogical strategy (e.g., inductive strategy). In contrast with other approaches mentioned above, the addition of learning characteristics at the metamodel makes easier the extensibility of our learning system. In authoring tools like InterBook (Brusilovsky, Eklund, & Schwarz, 1998), MetaLinks (Murray, 2001), and Net-Coach (Weber et al., 2001), the expert explicitly provides the course structure as a textbook hierarchy (like page 1 has subsection page 1-1). In contrast, in our approach, the structure of the course is an adaptive cognitive map, that is, a subgraph of the graph of concepts which represents the domain model. In fact, we use the structure of the domain model as a roadmap to generate course paths. Given a certain goal concept (e.g., arithmetic operator) that the learner wants to acquire and given his learner model, our learning organizer generates a map of learning concepts to the learner in order to achieve her goal. Moreover, our learning organizer implements a query component which uses a measure of the relevance of a particular learning resource for the learning context of the learner. Many research studies propose to query resources from the Web by relaxing the concepts of the query to other concepts close to them in

Adaptive Learning Organizer for Web-Based Education

the domain model. Close concepts are identified by using distance measures. In all these studies (Corby, Dieng-Kuntz, & Faron-Zucker, 2004; Rada, Mili, Bicknell, & Blettner, 1989; Resnik, 1995; Wu & Palmer, 1994; Zhong, Zhu, Li, & Yu, 2002), the distance measure is based on types of learning concepts in the domain model where the distance between concepts is always a constant value. The originality of our approach stands in the use of a relative weight-based relevance measure. Weights of learning concepts depend on the learning context and are not fixed in advance.

learning organizer knowledge Because of the increasing complexity and heterogeneity of knowledge in e-learning systems (e.g., domain knowledge, learner knowledge, pedagogical knowledge), we require an efficient and modular knowledge organization. We represent our learning organizer knowledge in two levels: metamodel level and model level. The metamodel knowledge is used to construct learning models which are used by functional components of the learning organizer: Querying resource compo-

nents, annotation component, testing component, and course generation component (cf. Figure 1).

learning ontology The learning ontology we developed is the metamodel and the backbone of the learning process. It describes classes and properties that are instantiated in order to specify the domain of interest (e.g., the algorithmic and programming languages domain), profiles of the learners (e.g., a beginner), and pedagogical strategies (e.g., deductive strategy). Classes and properties are seen as general objects. So, the learning ontology (metamodel) is instantiated to construct three learning models: a domain model, a learner model, and a pedagogical model. Contrary to the learning ontology, these models describe specific objects. For instance, in the learning ontology, we describe types of learning concepts of a domain (e.g., a GoalConcept) and relationships between these types (e.g., prerequisiteOf relationship) whereas in the domain model we describe concrete learning concepts and their relationships. For instance, the concept Operator and the concept Statement are instances of the class LearningConcept defined in the metamodel (cf.

Figure 1. Architecture of the OrPAF system Learning Resource Metadata

Local Repository

Annotation component

Querying distant resource

Pedagogical Model

Apprenants Experts

Querying local resource

Learning Ontology (Meta-Model Level)

Semantic Search Engine CORESE

Adaptive Cognitive Map

ARIADNE KPS

Learner Model Apprenants

Learners

Domain Model

Test Database

Learner Testing Component

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Figure 2. An excerpt of learning ontology

Figure 3. An excerpt of the domain model “Algorithmic and programming languages"

Figure 2); and in the domain model, the concept Operator is related to the concept Statement by the relationship prerequisiteOf (cf. Figure 3).

learning models The learning ontology is instantiated into three learning models: the domain model, the learner model, and the pedagogical model.

domain model The domain model represents the domain of interest where the learner evolves. A specific domain of interest (e.g., algorithmic and programming

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languages) is described by learning concepts and their mutual relationships in a specific discipline. In Figure 3, we show a fragment of the domain knowledge covering learning concepts of “algorithmic and programming languages” domain, including the subClassOf and the prerequisiteOf relationships between learning concepts. We build an ACM by filtering the domain model. An ACM is a subgraph of the whole graph of related learning concepts. It is used by a learner to construct her cognitive representation of the domain of interest in order to achieve her learning goal. Learning concepts related with an order relationship (e.g., prerequisiteOf ) must be taught following a certain order.

learner model The learner model captures knowledge and preferences of the learner. It represents what the system knows about the learner. In our learning organizer, we represent the knowledge of the learner by the overlay model (Galeev, Tararina, & Kolosov, 2004). For instance, as shown in Figure 4, if the learning concept Operator is mastered by the learner Laura, the knowledge occurs in

the learner model, or else the concept Operator is unknown by the learner Laura. The learner model changes during the learning process when the learner passes tests. In this way, our learning organizer provides mechanism for self regulated learning (Perry et al., 2004; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). Pedagogical model The structure of the domain model alone is not sufficient to decide how to present the selected learning concept to the learner, that is, what pedagogical type of learning resources to select, or how to sequence several learning resources to teach a given learning concept. For this purpose, we define a pedagogical model which describes pedagogical strategies to teach learning concepts. It describes different pedagogical activities (e.g., exercise, lecture) and their relationships. For instance, as shown in Figure 5, the Definition activity (instance of the class PedagogicalActivity in the metamodel) must precede the Exercise activity; both activities are related by the sequencingStrategy property which is defined in the metamodel. The alternativeStrategy relationship between pedagogical activities means that learning re-

Figure 4. An excerpt of a learner model

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sources related to these pedagogical activities can be accessed by a learner in any order whereas the sequencingStrategy relationship requires an order in the presentation of learning resources to the learner.

Adaptive Course generation The learning organizer aims to construct a hypermedia course as combination of an adaptive course structure and adaptive course content. The course structure is represented by an Adaptive Cognitive Map and the course content is a set of reused relevant learning resources searched from external learning repositories.

Adaptive Cognitive map An ACM is a course structure generated and displayed by the learning organizer in order to help the learner to construct a “correct” mental representation of the learning domain. It is a subgraph of the domain model and contains learning concepts that the learner must learn to achieve his goal in required time. An ACM enables the learner to navigate between the learning concepts of the course. We distinguish between three cognitive maps constructed on the goal concept set G of the domain model (DM): simple Ms(G), hierarchical Mh(G), and relational Mr,m(G). Each

Figure 5. An excerpt of the pedagogical model

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one of these maps results from the application of a specific filter on the domain model and only the concepts which pass the filter are displayed to the learner. •

•

•

Simple Ms(G) is the smallest map. It is composed of the goal concept and all concepts related to it directly or by transitive closure of order relationships. Hierarchical Mh(G) is the cognitive map that extends the simple cognitive map to descendants and ascendants of the goal concept. Relational Mr,m(G) is the cognitive map that extends the simple cognitive map to all concepts related to the goal concept by a path of relationships; the length of this path is less than m.

OrPAF implements each of these three filters. For the same concept goal, the filter depends on learner temporal constraints: the simple filter for learners with hard temporal constraints, the hierarchical filter for learners with medium temporal constraints, and the extended filter for learners with flexible or no temporal constraints. This approach can be compared to the micro, the meso, and the macro learning approaches (Hug, 2005). Before displaying the ACM to a learner, an additional adaptation layer is applied on it. It

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consists of applying rules in order to annotate each learning concept similarly to link annotation technique in adaptive hypermedia (De Bra, Brusilovsky, & Houben, 1999). Different icons represent different states of a learning concept (cf. Figure 6). A learning concept is accessible to learn if all its prerequisites are mastered by the learner. Elsewhere, the learning concept is not accessible to learn and no learning resources are attached to it. A concept without prerequisites is always accessible. In our organizer, we distinguish also between a mastered concept and not yet mastered concept. Graphical icons are used to represent the difference between these three learning concept states. For instance, Figure 6 presents an ACM where the learning concept Operator is mastered, the learning concept Procedure is not mastered, and the learning concept SemanticLanguage is not accessible. The state of a learning concept can change from inaccessible state to accessible state if its prerequisites become mastered. Also, it can change from nonmastered state to mastered state. These alterations in the ACM result from updating the learner model.

Adaptive Course Content In our work, learning resources are files with different formats (.pdf, .doc, .html, etc.) queried from Web repositories. In our prototype, we use the ARIADNE Knowledge Pool System (ARIADNE KPS), a distributed database of learning resources annotated with LOM metadata elements. In the learning organizer, we propose: (1) A conceptual annotation process for annotating learning resources and (2) a query component for querying learning resources from the local repository.

Annotating learning Resources Once a distant learning resource is downloaded, it is submitted to a semiautomatic annotation process assisted by a teacher/expert; and finally the learning resource is stored in a local repository. Conceptual annotations of the learning resource are constructed by instantiating some classes and properties from both the domain model and the

Figure 6. A screenshot of course structure

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pedagogical model. For instance, in Figure 7, the learning resource R1 is an Exercise (defined as PedagogicalActivity in the pedagogical model) and teaches the learning topic ComposedStatement (defined as a LearningConcept in the domain model). Characteristics (e.g., learningResourceTopic, learningResourceRole, learningResourceAuthor) of the resource are manually identified by experts and annotations are automatically generated by the system according to learning models. The so-built conceptual annotations are then added to learning resource metadata (in our case, the RDF-LOM binding metadata).

Querying a local learning Resource The learner can consult resources about accessible learning concepts in his ACM by a simple click on it. The querying component searches for relevant learning resources from the local repository. It computes the relevance of a learning resource by matching its conceptual annotations with the ACM. We propose an approach for computing the semantic relevance of a learning resource in a particular learning context. In our case, the learning context is composed of the current learning concept (the concept clicked by the learner) and the state of the ACM. Only learning concepts of

conceptual annotations are used in the calculus of the semantic relevance. Our calculus relies on the assignment of a relative weight to each learning concept related to the learning resource. These relative weights depend on the current concept in the ACM and the type of relationships that connect the current concept to concepts related to the learning resource. Let P be a learning path of length n and composed of concepts ci. Let wci/c1 (i>1) be the weight of concept ci relative to the current c1 concept in the ACM. Let wc1 be the weight of the current concept c1. We define the relative weight as follows:

wci/c1= (1/a) wci-1/c1 Where i>1, wc1/c1= wc1= N (with N a maximal number) and a is a variable whose value is as follows: a=2 (if the relationship between ci-1 and ci is subClassOf or the inverse relationship) a=3 (if the relationship between ci-1 and ci is prerequisiteOf or the inverse relationship) a=5 (if the relationship between ci-1 and ci is aggregationOf or the inverse relationship), and so forth.

Figure 7. An excerpt of the conceptual annotation of a learning resource R1

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When there are several relative weights for one learning concept (due to graph cycles), we take the smallest value. Once defined the relative weight of each learning concept related to the learning resource, the semantic relevance SR of the learning resource can be measured as follows: Let E be the set of concepts present in the learning resource annotations and present in accessible concepts of the ACM, let F be the set of concepts present in the learning resource annotations and not present in accessible concepts of the ACM, and let c be the current concept of the ACM.

∑w SR= 1+ ∑ w x∈E

y∈F

Faron-Zucker, & Gandon, 2006). Corese is used to extract concepts and properties of learning models and conceptual annotations. OrPAF prototype is experimented to teach learning concepts of the domain “algorithmic and programming languages” on a group of 30 learners in graduation of mathematics and computer sciences. Each learner must give identification information (username and password) in order to access to OrPAF. Once logged in, she can: •

x/c y/c

The definition of SR reflects the fact that the weight of a concept depends on the current concept and the state of the ACM and therefore of the learning context. A resource is relevant if its learning concepts have important relative weights and are largely similar to the accessible learning concepts of the ACM. Otherwise, the resource is less or not relevant.

Implementation and evaluation Implementation The implemented prototype of the learning organizer integrates several functions to fulfill requirements for the generation of adaptive courses. We used Java language for all user interfaces and functions in OrPAF. The interoperability between the implemented prototype and ARIADNE KPS is implemented by a java application programming interface (API) named KPS client package. The learning ontology was described in OWL Lite language and learning models were described in RDF language. OrPAF uses Corese, an ontology-based search engine for the Semantic Web, dedicated to the query of RDF annotations by using the SPARQL query language (Corby, Dieng-Kuntz,

•

•

Open a new learning session by submitting her learning goal concept and time constraints that define the filter type and therefore the size of the ACM. Save a current learning session (the ACM, the learner comments, queried learning resources, etc.). Sessions of a learner are stored in his learner model. Reload an interrupted session.

evaluation We experimented OrPAF on a group of 30 learners who belong to three different graduation levels. We applied an accurate evaluation protocol: we divided the group into two subgroups A and B. In the first step of the protocol, the learners of group A used the OrPAF whereas the learners of group B used paper-support resources. In the second step of the protocol, the learners of group B were invited to use OrPAF. After each step, an exercise was performed by learners of both groups. It aimed to detect the conceptualization capabilities of learners before and after the use of OrPAF. The purpose of this evaluation protocol was to analyze behavior/judgments of learners according to three orthogonal directions: the usability of OrPAF, the conceptualization capabilities acquired by learners and the learners’ judgments about the relevance of learning resources recommended by OrPAF. For each direction interviews were

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presented to learners in order to capture their feedback. Figure 8 presents synthetic results which reflect global positive judgments of learners about the usability and the utility of OrPAF. The learners of group B appreciated OrPAF more than those of group A—certainly because they made a comparison between learning without and with the learning organizer. They found more assistance with OrPAF. After step 1, learners of group A obtained best results in the exercise of the conceptualization whereas learners of group B had difficulties to perform the exercise and obtained bad results. After step 2, learners of group B obtained best results in the exercise of the conceptualization. Other experimentation is currently held for evaluating our relevance measure but is outside the scope of this article.

ConCluSIon This article presents OrPAF, a learning organizer for the generation of adaptive hypermedia courses which enables a self-regulated learning for learners with different profiles. OrPAF reuses learning resources from distant Web repositories.

A learning ontology is proposed to describe, in a metalevel, abstract characteristics of an e-learning system. This learning ontology is instantiated to construct a domain model, a learner model, and a pedagogical model which describe concrete characteristics of e-learning systems. As a result, the learning organizer is a multidomain and multilearner profile with minimum changes in the learning models, and the common description of all learning characteristics in the learning ontology improves the reusability of external resources. In contrast with e-learning systems, cited in the second section, the learning organizer provides hypermedia course adaptation for both course structure and course content; and it is an efficient personalization support with few means. OrPAF generates a hypermedia course as the combination of an adaptive structure and an adaptive content. On the one hand, the course structure is a map of relevant learning concepts. This map is generated by filtering the domain model and applying two layers of adaptation: (1) a first adaptation according to the learning goal and the temporal constraints of the learner; and (2) a second adaptation according to the knowledge of the learner by annotating the concepts of the map. On the other hand, an adaptive content consists

Figure 8. Results of the experimentation of OrPAF on learners evaluation of orPAF 100% 90% 80% 70% Group B (negative judgment/results)

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OrPAF Usability

Conceptualization Capabilities (after step1)

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evaluation criterea

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of relevant learning Web resources. We propose a measure of the semantic relevance of a learning resource for a specific learning context. It is based on relative weights of learning concepts related to the learning resource. These relative weights depend on the learning context. Experiences with OrPAF led to positive results, both for the usability and the utility of the learning organizer. In addition, we concluded that concept-based course structure develop conceptualization capabilities of learners.

ACknowledgmenT We are grateful to our colleagues in the EDELWEISS team for their helpful discussion and sharing knowledge on our research. We also would like to thank Hamdi Fayçal who helped us to implement some functions of the prototype and the group of students at the 20 Août 1955 University with whom we experimented the prototype.

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Pintrich, P. R., & Schunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, Prentice Hall. Rada, R., Mili, H., Bicknell, E., & Blettner, M. (1989). Development and application of a metric on semantic nets. IEEE Transaction on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 19(1), 17–30. Resnik, P. (1995). Semantic similarity in a taxonomy: An information-based measure and its applications to problems of ambiguity in natural language. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 11, 95–130. Ritter, S. (1997, August 18–22). PAT Online: A model-tracing tutor on the World-Wide Web. Paper presented at the Workshop on Intelligent Educational Systems on the WWW, Kobe, Japan. Ullrich, C. (2004, November 7–11). Description of an instructional ontology and its application in Web services for education. Paper presented at the SWEL Workshop, ISWC, Hiroshima, Japan. (pp. 17–23) Weber, G., Kuhl, H.-C., & Weibelzahl, S. (2001). Developing adaptive Internet based courses with the authoring system Netcoach. In Proceedings of the 3rd workshop on adaptive hypertext and hypermedia (UM, TU/e Computing Science Report 01/11). Wu, Z., & Palmer, M. (1994, June 27–30). Verb semantics and lexical selection. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Associations for Computational Linguistics, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA (pp. 133–138). Yessad, A., & Laskri, M.T. (2006, December 7–9). Ontology-driven dynamic course generation for Web-based education. In Proceedings of MCSEAI, Agadir, Morocco.

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Zhong, J., Zhu, H., Li, J., & Yu, Y. (2002, July 15–19). Conceptual graph matching for semantic search. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS, Borovets, Bulgaria (LNCS 2393, pp. 92–106). Springer-Verlag.

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 3, Issue 4, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 57-73, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.5

The Blended Learning Classroom:

An Online Teacher Training Program Karen García University of Massachusetts, USA Renata Suzuki Sophia University, Japan

InSIde ChAPTeR

InSIde ChAPTeR

This blended learning classroom (BLC) case study identifies and describes successful procedures and methodologies that widen the use of online tools in virtual environments. It provides a systematic and organized access to the plethora of free social software available online for the development of collaborative learning activities. The goal of this particular BLC professional development activity was to offer a face-to-face group of English teachers in Venezuela the opportunity to meet members of an international community of practice (CoP) and together review a packaged learning course material online. Blended technology, the mix and match of available tools, served to display the wide use of resources and each person’s skills. By exploring online tools, participants gained an opportunity for learning about both educational theory and the use of technology. The experience described here shows a prototype of future pathways towards educational content use and development.

This chapter describes a spontaneous collaborative learning activity initiated by members of a virtual community of learners involved in the exploration of online tools for English language instruction. The procedures followed to carry this teacher training experience were instrumental to the thorough review of pedagogical theory that took place in terms of their applicability and suitability as technology enhanced learning approaches. This chapter addresses the following achievements:

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-600-6.ch003

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The blended course creates and facilitates expansive discussion of content adaptation for online delivery, aiding learners to become producers of knowledge while gaining functional computer skills. A North American educational curriculum served to highlight constructivist learning among English language teachers within a virtual environment, showing that a culture bound pedagogical content holds relevance in international online settings.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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This project showed a great potential, moving from the predictive review of established curriculum to offering educators an invigorating international instructional approach to professional development. The blended learning experience offers a glimpse at future educational trends in which learning materials are easily available from unlimited knowledge repositories and spontaneously used in virtual settings.

A review of educational theory and socio ecological models of teaching in virtual environments leads our description of a blended learning experience. Procedures are offered, used by members of a virtual community of English teachers and a group of teachers in a computer laboratory in Venezuela to meet online weekly for 13 weeks for the review of an educational curriculum. The learner-based approach to teaching and learning described here served to expand the limits of online tools and the application of existing educational materials beyond traditional methods as they held relevance in a virtual classroom. This chapter describes a blended learning activity in which volunteers from distant countries and time zones gathered weekly for an hour in a virtual classroom to examine an educational unit from a pre-packaged K-12 teacher-training course. The group’s weekly meetings are examined, illustrating how “The Learning Classroom: Theory and Practice” course materials gave structure and content to the teacher training, facilitating both substantial review of materials, and examination of its relevance to language teaching for adults. In this 13-week peer mentoring learning experience members of an international online community of practice (CoP) located at various places around the world joined a face-to-face group of English language teachers in Venezuela in a virtual classroom for the examination of the curriculum and exposure to online tools. This blended synchronous approach to joining online

and face-to-face participants also served to build delivery skills and teaching styles in a virtual classroom environment. A socio-ecological model examines the context in which a homogeneous language is instrumental to representation and interaction in virtual learning experiences. The socioconstructive application of technical skills was a source of support for teachers and a major asset. Modeling from experienced peers was also crucial for success in the virtual environment. Online interaction strengthened the virtual CoP and showed how multivalent representations of this international aggregate of educators achieved diversity in an era of supposed digital homogenization. The applied nature of the blended experience is evidence of the depth of applicability and relevance of technology enhanced learning applications available to educators online. In addition to the technological challenges of gaining distinct skill sets for online interaction, the added face-to-face group served to validate the boundaries of meaning and the suitability of the curriculum explored in the virtual classroom. Hence, the blended learning experience offers a unique experience facilitated by a constructivistic approach to teaching and learning beyond geographical confines.

A SoCIo-eCologICAl APPRoACh To eduCATIon This online “blended” learning experience follows along the lines of the “socio-ecological field theory” attributed to Brofenbrenner (1979), “constructivism” to Vygotsky (1978), and called “Situated Learning” by Herrington and Oliver (1995). These approaches share three common elements: the agent, the interaction, and the context in which action takes place. Our approach also integrates a critical pedagogy (Fassett & Warren, 2007) by promoting the exploring of how the educational content was relevant to each participant. A central element in this socio-ecological model

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is the ability of a virtual learning environment to host and integrate synchronous interaction between participants from the entire world. Examination of the function of language to achieve online interaction and the contextual formulation of CoPs as hosts to that emergent pedagogy are fundamental to our work. In addition to exploring the limits of technology on pedagogical methods, the blended classroom served to address the subjective nature of teaching and learning within its expansive global context.

Teaching in virtual environments Issues of language, technological literacy, and how to best use online tools for teaching are central to understanding the challenges posed by the blended learning experience. A critical review of social presence and interaction dynamics between expert-learners and moderators-presenters in the blended format allows for recommending ways to advance teacher-training activities online. How the literature explains virtual representations of diversity is a primary concern of this work. The literature on learning technology and language use in the formulation of virtual CoPs offers that understanding. Lacking physicality, virtual representations more strongly rely on social presence, achieved by interaction. Social presence is recognized in the literature as a central concept in building online communities (Aragon, 2003), directly related to learning outcomes (Richardson & Swan, 2003), and crucial in the improvement of instructional effectiveness (Tu, 2002). This literature acknowledges the affective function of social presence, or as Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, and Archer (2001) call it, “the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry” (p.3). Interest in the measurement of social presence is also growing (Rourke et al., 2001; Tu, 2002).

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Some definitions of social presence entail the perception of online participants as being real (Richardson & Swan, in Garber, 2004); others (Short, Williams & Christie, in Aragon, 2003) emphasize its salience as the interpersonal nature of interaction. Short et al. (Rourke et al., 2001, p. 4) define social presence as interaction, that is, “the salience of the other in a mediated communication and the consequent salience of their interpersonal interactions.” Cutler (Rovai, 2002, p. 6) also notices the interactive quality of social presence since “in cyberspace (it) takes more of a complexion of reciprocal awareness of others… to create a mutual sense of interaction that is essential to the feeling that others are there.” For Gunawardena (1995) “(i)nteractivity is a quality (potential) that may be realized by some, or remain an unfulfilled option. When it is realized, and when participants notice it, there is social presence” (p.152). Although interaction in asynchronous and synchronous environments pose rather different challenges, it seems safe to assert that in general, social presence is a function of interaction rather than the converse. Nevertheless, the construct of a teaching presence is more appropriate to address the ability to steer online interaction beyond just transmitting information. Rourke et al.’s (2001) definition is applicable to our experience: “We define (text based) teaching presence as the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (p. 5). For our purposes, gaining and refining a teaching presence became most important for the success of the blended learning experience. In order to fully use technology for selfrepresentation, participants must use online tools expansively (Aragon, 2003), build an identity (Macfadyen, 2004) or an interactional self (Vieta, 2003). Devoid of physical cues, reliance on text is critical for social presence (Miller & Miller,

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1999). The required ability to mediate language (in speech and/or text) and technology results in a distinct self-portrayal. For instance, in text-only environments icons become gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice. On synchronous experiences involving speech, the content allows communication to more closely resemble face-to-face transactions in which the greater the interaction the greater the learning. Yet reaching an accurate virtual representation of society is arguable since a filtering process takes place where those with at least basic language competence and social skills for disclosure and/or technological competence are the ones rendered as present and representative of the population. The nature of interaction is of interest to educators and a wide range of variations is discussed in the literature. Hawkes (2001) looks at the ability of asynchronous computer networks to host critically reflective dialogue; McAlister, Ravenscroft, and Scanlon (2004) look at the use of text in synchronous environments; Burnham and Walden (1997) audio and text. McKenna and Green (2002) and Kern, Ware, and Warschauer (2004) address differences between face-to-face and virtual interaction and how language is used to negotiate meaning. Graham (2005) also looks at blended settings. What seems certain is that interaction in computer supported learning environments is essential for “effective knowledge acquisition and increased understanding” (Orvis & Lassiter, 2006, p. 1). Both the social and instrumental function of interaction in distance education are acknowledged by Collins and Berge (1996) and Thurmond and Wambach (2004) and aids in reaching a teaching presence (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001). We now turn to considering how teaching presence is the medium for knowledge management in the virtual classroom.

Critical Pedagogy in virtual Classrooms Using online tools for teaching and learning generates participation in learning environments (Brook & Oliver, 2003; Hill, Wiley, Nelson, & Han, 2003), leads to competency in utilizing their components (Mabrito, 2004; Miller & Miller, 1999), serves for delineating strategies to achieve best results (Preece, & Maloney-Krichmar, 2003; Ryba, Selby, & Mentis, 2002), and leads to professional development activities for teachers (Eib & Miller, 2006; Hinson & LaPrairie, 2005). In these environments, online tools allow interaction, transmit information, and serve for the construction of knowledge (Dalgarno, 2001; Khan, 2000; Pahl, 2003). As communication instruments, online tools serve to interact privately, to broadcast publicly, to announce, and/or to archive. Online educational experiences are bound to limits of the technology and the users’ ability to transcend those limits while also gaining personal competency in the transfer of knowledge content in teaching. According to Miller and Miller (1999) “(c) omputer technologies used to develop and deliver Web-based instruction vary depending on factors such as learning goals, pedagogical approach, and instructor expertise or access to expertise in using these technologies” (p. 1). While the literature on learning styles (Schrum & Berge, 1998) addresses important considerations applicable to online education, we concur with Muirhead (2004) in that there is a need to ascertain which is the best instrumental teaching stance in online environments: “researchers have neglected to study individual differences in teachers’ facilitator skills that can influence the quality of interactivity” (p. 5). In the BLC we focused on the development of interactive pedagogical approached to transmitting educational content while gaining expertise in the use of the virtual classroom. Approaches ranged from expert presentations, to moderation and facilitation of classroom participation, to the delivery of participatory and highly interactive activities.

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An emergent critical pedagogy worth noting leads to Walker (2004), who examined strategies to encourage participation in synchronous text utilizing Socratic questioning, and to Elder and Paul (1998), who examined how it may lead to critical thinking. The literature on constructivism in online education is worth highlighting. Honebein (1996) establishes pedagogical goals, Lefoe (1998) and Adriaen (2002) offer guidelines for designing constructivistic learning environments. This literature is also sensitive to the online social context in which learning takes place (Verneil & Berge, (2000). In addition, Schrum and Berge (1998) describe how teachers’ functional roles are turning into that of brokers, questioners, providers of structure, encouragers of self direction, team membership, collegiality, leading towards sensitivity to all learning styles and breaking vertical hierarchies between teachers and learners.

The Blended leARnIng exPeRIenCe The professional development experience featured here took place in a virtual classroom housed at Learning Times (http://www.learningtimes. org), a learning environment supporting an open community of educators. The goal of the learning experience was twofold: first, to offer a local face-to-face group of educators the opportunity to meet members of an international CoP and study learning material together online; and second, to explore this novel use of the available tools towards displaying the most expansive use of resources and the individual’s skills. In doing so, participants gained an opportunity to learn about both content and the use of technology. The blended learning classroom became a study group, the packaged curriculum the object of observation, and the delivery of the materials online a means to achieving a blended experience. The overall design of the activity evolved in practice as described below.

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Set up Procedure A higher education institution in Venezuela, South America, endorsed the course as a formal teacher training activity. Participants met face-to-face in a computer laboratory with Internet uplink to study the “Learning Classroom: Theory into Practice,” a self-contained course developed in North America by the Annenberg Foundation (2004). This rich collection of educational resources is freely available online for use formally within the Foundation’s leadership, or independently as in the virtual experience described here. First, The Learning Classroom Course Web portal is reviewed. The “packaged” video-based course explores learning theory and application to grades K-12. It includes 13 half-hour video programs, a print guide and a Web site with background readings, questions for discussion, and assignments. All materials and full description of the course are available at the Foundation’s Web site: http://www.learner.org/resources/series172.html. Graduate credit is available after completion. The educational materials were relevant to teachers in Venezuela and to a virtual CoP of educators, a nexus of English language instructors whose main purpose is to use the Web as a means for teaching. Members of the CoP use free communication tools and readily available technologies to explore applications in the teaching of english to speakers of other languages (TESOL) context (Stevens, 2005). Planning discussions led to their sponsorship of the professional development activity. Participation was encouraged by means of announcements through an asynchronous Yahoo-group based mailing system and solicited at a weekly gathering at Tapped In (a synchronous text based virtual environment hosting a community of educators). Participants in the blended experience registered in the course’s own Yahoo-group to receive messages describing our Blended Learning Classroom (BLC) course and explaining its requirements: weekly video and readings, keeping journals on reflections, a final project, and weekly 1-hour synchronous meetings in a virtual classroom.

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Online tools used for communication and interaction emulated features generally available in “contained” asynchronous learning environments. Text messages served as forums for asynchronous communication and Web pages built to publish participants’ profiles. The actual weekly performance varied among participants and their access to technology; it centered on readings, videos, blended classroom participation, and revolving leadership moderating study of one unit. Once the synchronous blended format was established, the focus shifted from the curriculum per se to encompass online presentation and moderating skills for each unit. The BLC approach is similar to McCarty’s (2005) “hybrid” approach regarding online education in which a face-to-face group in Japan used voice technologies and a learning management system to communicate with mentors in different points of the world. In our case, an already established curriculum served for discussion about its appropriate use in a virtual classroom.

who are the Participants? All of the participants in the virtual classroom were teachers. While most were language instructors, their teaching of English varied according to fluency, geography and access to materials. The use of a common language is central to carrying out the teacher development project showcased in this chapter. During sessions, participants connected unit topics to their teaching around the globe. Core group teachers recounted experiences from Brazil, Portugal, Denmark, the USA, Japan, and Venezuela. Sporadic participants from Columbia, Abu Dhabi, Taiwan, Russia, Poland, Greece, and Kuwait filled the palette of descriptions about schools and local English teaching circumstances. Twenty-eight individuals representing 13 countries of the world participated. Although the regular meeting time (Fridays at 16 GMT) presented a challenge to participants residing in scattered locations around the globe, on average, 12 par-

ticipants attended each session. The open-door style classroom in which guests would present a topic of their choice created a flexible atmosphere of group attendance, giving it a sense of being a seminar. The next section describes innovative uses of asynchronous and synchronous tools in the blended classroom.

online Tools Members from the CoP highlighted their mastery of the electronic medium by documenting their experiences with asynchronous tools ranging from profile-sharing Web pages, e-mail posts reporting hurdles and/or achievements, to blogs and blokis (electronic journals). Recordings of lessons were archived for absent members. The integration of asynchronous features within the “live” Blended Classroom experience may have served a significant unifying function by shortening the participants’ “threshold(,) from feeling like outsiders to feeling like insiders” (Wegerirf, 1998, p. 34). These tools not only served to archive the general content, they also allowed continuity of expression throughout the 13-week period, keeping the virtual context alive beyond the one hour synchronous meeting. Synchronous tools for communication within the virtual classroom and beyond included an interactive whiteboard for slides and shared Web page viewing, voice chat, text chat, and instant messaging. A world map helped pinpoint the geographical location of participants present each week, building a strong sense of the global network. Other visual tools such as pictures, images and doodles on the white board built spontaneity and familiarity among course participants. A significant feature of the course over and above the benefits of each particular session involved a learning curve, or rather, the challenge of how to mix and match tools for personal expression. Beginning sessions entailed not only gaining mastery of the virtual classroom platform and the hardware each participant had available, but

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also finding the best means to convey curriculum material. Beyond the “show and tell” nature of online presentations, the virtual classroom’s most outstanding feature was its “multiliteracy” dimension: audio capacity, text messaging, and coordinated projection of visual information by means of an interactive whiteboard. Navigating or leading a session involved addressing the communication taking place in the text, audio, manipulating visual slides, and coordinating the use of the white board. Managing all of the virtual classroom features is complex and requires skills and practice. As a participant stated: “This is not so easy, the scrolling and the text chat, and the copy and pasting.” Gaining a voice became an ongoing goal much like Honebein’s (Cox, Carr, & Hall, 2004, p. 183) constructivistic approach to reaching “… sensitivity toward learners’ previous knowledge and the encouragement of ownership and voice in the learning process.” Close to the end of the course, innovative use of tools achieved highly generative activities. For example, during the Motivation session, participants working in pairs researched pictures, Googled quotes, scripted role-plays, or shared personal stories. The interactive whiteboard and audio served to gather and present the results to the whole group. The final session also pooled useful learning strategies and practices integrated into the classroom.

language The key function of English as an international global language in Internet environments is acknowledged in the literature (Chew, 1999; Wallace, 2002; Yang, 2002) to the extent of computers being considered as “extremely resistant to any language using nonRoman alphabets (Holderness in Selwyn, 1999, p. 71). Indeed, Warshchauer (2002) speaks of the “de facto lingua franca of online communication” (p. 64). However, the homogenous and dominant use of English for communication in the Internet may pose a challenge

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to those whose language is different. Moreover, Crystal (2001) clearly analyses how “Netspeak” has distinct linguistic parameters different from the written or spoken word, raising the bar for speakers of other language Internet users. For instance, the ability to use words as nonverbal communication , and to convey the depth of face-to-face encounters is a challenge shared in virtual environments relying on text and/or audio. Again, repartee in text or audio utterances must be expressed almost simultaneously with mental processing. For the local group in Venezuela, using the audio feature was indeed a hurdle involving technical configuration of equipment and linguistic stage presence. Nevertheless, once accustomed, as English instructors they welcomed the access to an international English speaking community, and the opportunity to learn from the experience. Access to online tools allowed them contact with other language teachers, and the virtual classroom offered all participants a destination in which to meet and learn together, solidify bonds, and strengthen skills in using online tools. In the voice of a participant: “Learning a language is not only words, it is also contact with viewing different ways of viewing life.” The following statement from the coordinator in Venezuela illustrates the group’s positive attitude to the instrumental function of the English language in reaching the virtual global community: “We are citizens of the world … Teaching a second language allows us to teach a new culture. … When we are English speakers we belong to a larger community from what we are now.” As these statements and experiences clearly indicate, for the BLC participants, the collaborative, supportive environment of the course lowered barriers in its approach to communication per se, be it via technological or linguistic tools. In this way, the classroom was able to embrace benefits of a global English language as an acceptable expression of community identity.

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In the blended experience, the participant’s use of text to represent their immediate local surroundings increased the appeal of text communication. Synchronous media offers teachers immediacy, an important component of social presence, with more explicit visual and/or audio content. In turn, the quality of interaction serves to achieve teaching presence.

The vIRTuAl leARnIng SeSSIonS Each session started with greetings among participants, checking their audio and introducing themselves. Those without audio capacity participated by greetings in the text-messaging window, establishing a smooth integration and interweaving of social presence in text and audio conversation. Not only would technical adjustments take place at this point, but this practice also allowed the development of comfort with the classroom’s audio broadcast feature. During the course, all participants had the opportunity to project their personal and unique voice, irrespective of volubility. Indeed, it was exciting and motivating to hear the mix of voices from far-flung places and make the auditory connection to the Web of learning across the planet. The interactive whiteboard served as an important visual tool to establish social presence. Members posted up pictures of themselves or their country’s beauty spots on the “ice-breaker” world map, or grabbed a seat next to a friend in a doodled classroom diagram. Preferences for particular font colors and sizes in whiteboard brainstorming also served to establish personality and presence. The virtual classroom software offered tools such as visual checkmarks and polling function, mini surveys, hand-clapping and smiley icons which popped up next to participants names when clicked. These icons served to convey presence, personal appreciation and interested involvement in proceedings.

Interaction Even if we accept the expressive power of visual tools, as stated before, the role of language literacy in social presence is unquestionable, and in online environments requires competence with text and oral speech. At the beginning of the blended experience, preference for text exchange prevailed and silence was noticeable. Later in the 13-week period, audio and text interaction appeared complementary, as all members developed these basic competencies. It seemed possible that participants came to know each other, felt more confident to state their views verbally, and were more skilled in following the text thread. Oren, Mioduser, and Nachmias (2002) support our observation that the quality of interaction changing over time was possibly due to the participants’ comfort with each other and with the technology. The virtual classroom became the principal locale for group interaction and where social and didactic activity was managed in each session. A linear text chat accompanied a turn taking access to the audio in which people could be required to raise their hands to ask for a turn to speak. While the platform could nurture strong regulatory norms similar to a well-controlled face-to-face environment, in practice, teachers shared spontaneously. Moderators and participants invited others to speak either by voice or by text, and took turns in a fluid reciprocal exchange. There was consensus that text chat as a tool was beneficial, interactive, and unobtrusive. Its capacity to serve as a “vehicle for the development of social cohesion” was also evident as concluded by Cox et al. (2004, p. 192) and Wang (2005). The synchronous nature of the text chat while others speak was a distinct asset of the virtual classroom, offering opportunities for reflection and expansion of ideas without disruption. As stated in the text window by a participant, “Text complements voice and it gives us a chance to comment while someone speaks.” In addition to the communication devices within the virtual

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classroom, the use of instant messaging also offered important complementary functions such as rehearsals prior to public statements within the classroom. Although we were virtually blind to witnessing the interaction that took place in the local group, their rich face-to-face and online encounter possibly lead to richer interaction and reflection. Becoming a facilitator in the virtual classroom entailed both the construction and broadcasting of knowledge, and participants faced the challenge of making the Learning Classroom course material interactive. The topics presented allowed for a review of teaching approaches, and the experience offered an opportunity to practice those skills online. In this way, the Blended Classroom became a showcase for different teaching styles ranging from reliance on the original curriculum, to a shower of ideas visually represented by means of text and/or pictures, and even to teamwork. Further examination of variations in the facilitation of the teaching process found in the BLC seems warranted.

gaining Teaching Presence at the Blended learning Classroom Like Hawkes (2001), who wonders if the quality of asynchronous interaction approximates faceto-face interaction, looking at styles of online instruction also seems crucial to reaching all learning styles. The ability to convey educational content diversely might address the expected gaps in learning, established in the literature by Cox et al. (2004) and Wang (2005). These learning gaps attributed to limits in online tools might instead be a function of the participant’s preference and the leader’s style. The roles of facilitator as presenter and as moderator parallel Miller and Miller’s (1999) view of the cognitive process and cognitive constructivist approaches. The former transmits expert knowledge and the latter leads to individuals gaining knowledge through social interaction. Following

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the packaged curriculum with a presentation style corresponds to a cognitive processing approach to transmit knowledge. In turn, a constructivist approach would lead to a moderating facilitator style, since “(t)he constructivist paradigm reflects a position that knowledge is not independent of the learner but is internally constructed by the learner as a way of making meaning of experiences” (Cronin & Jonassen, et al., in Miller & Miller, 1999, p. 6). Further examination of the facilitator’s roles according to Moshman’s (Dalgarno, 2001) distinction of endogenous, exogenous, and dialectical constructivism is beyond our consideration. However, it is important to highlight that the dialectical constructivistic approach permeated, since the “role of social interaction in the learner’s knowledge construction process, leading to an emphasis on cooperative and collaborative learning strategies” (p. 190) was evident. Likewise, varied use of open, comparing, proving, and synthesizing questions among moderators could have lead to different pedagogical benefits as noted by Wang (2005). The virtual nature of the experience allows for another parallel, this time between Riley’s (2002) focus on modeling and the distinction between presenting, moderating, and facilitating a learning experience in a virtual classroom. He posits “(v)irtual culture affords the wider educational sweep (of communicative interactions) and highlights the activity of modeling to represent and to communicate, rather than the activity of communicating in order to model” (p. 50). A dialogical process promoted reflection on the roles of language used by teachers as educators, the function of learning styles as they relate to students’ persistence and success in school, group work as a means to reduce the fear in learning a second language, and teaching being more than sharing thoughts. The participants used and witnessed a comprehensively designed curriculum on education using divergent methods for transmission of the material within and beyond the boundaries of the technology. The virtual

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classroom as the place for interaction allowed for a construction of knowledge shared by the whole group. Such an experience approximates the concept of multiculturalism offered by Shaffer (2004) as a “diversity of means rather than ends” (p. 25). Nevertheless, the work of Holliday (2001) offers insights in examining the challenges faced by facilitators in reaching this diversity in the delivery of the curriculum: We must come to terms with the fact that the bridges we build to reach other cultures might only be meaningful to our culture. The concept of learner-centredness and stakeholder-centredness are products of our own discourse, and may not belong to the differently constructed worlds of those we wish to reach. We thus need to look deeply and critically at our own discourses before judging those of others. (p. 176) In other words, expecting dialog or a particular approach to facilitating is in itself already colored by our own bias. Observing the whole repertoire of facilitator styles allows each educator to begin to consider when a particular style and use of tool is most appropriate. A cross-fertilization among teachers around the world allowed for a wide support loop as theory was put into practice. Thus, as the material was covered, participants were gaining access to patterns of coping with a new style of teaching delivery. By witnessing the shared modeling, they developed their teaching skills. This knowledge and modeling on how teachers adapt new theory and approaches and implement them in their environment was a major asset in the blended learning experience.

ConCluSIon Our experience followed that of Rovai and Jordan’s (2004), which identified the trend of education as “moving away from a faculty-centered and lecture

based paradigm to a model where learners are the focus, where faculty members become learning environment designers, and where students are taught critical thinking skills” (p. 2). This new blended system of professional development offered the benefits of collaborative dialog, linking up educators with others in diverse international locations to share common educational concerns. It also offered congruence in purpose in a teacher development activity by the transferring or construction of knowledge resulting in social interaction, which in turn ultimately facilitates and is required for that process of knowledge creation. The BLC experience also heightened the groups’ competence as language teachers in a manner similar to Duemer et al.’s (2002) description of the formation of online professional communities. Furthermore, this transfer of information and communication through contact in the virtual classroom also strengthened and bonded the blended global community. We have described a dynamic approach to professional development, a learning experience in which face-to-face educators met weekly with an international community of practice to study about teaching and learning synchronously online. This new approach takes basic and generally available technology and extends its capacity into a vibrant and expansive application of human interaction. The multivalent representations of this international aggregate of educators suggest how online diversity is achieved in an era of supposed digital homogenization. A major asset of the blended learning experience was the support offered teachers by the socioconstructive modeling loop of practical application conducive to affective gains in approaching technolinguistic issues. Examination of methodological approaches leading to such supports is crucial for success in blended environments. Moreover, the facilitating function of text as a speech rehearsal/unobtrusive discussion tool in synchronous environments deserves further investigation. The teaching competence of par-

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ticipants and the volunteer nature of the project served to overcome the concerns expressed by McDonald (2002) for suitability of educational materials and feasibility of technological access. Her identification of benchmarks for success in Internet based Distance Education is worth addressing in the future. This project showed much potential, moving from the established curriculum and offering educators an invigorating international instructional approach to professional development. It exemplifies innovative uses of technology in its application of reusable procedures for learning packages (Finnis, 2004). Further use of socioecological field theory could explain how various virtual environments serve as efficient contexts to support experiential education. The interactive approach described here offers an applicable structure leading to the successful integration of learning objects, pre-packaged curriculum and open content digitalized materials for educational purposes. While this chapter described procedures used to implement a successful professional development activity, next steps must certify and protect the quality, value, and equitable access of online resources throughout the world. Our blended classroom experience became spontaneously available to a global community of practice whose cooperative experimentation and exploration of online tools served as the basis for a teacher development activity. The virtual setting allowed for intercultural interaction in a collaborative global environment. Access to the unlimited plethora of educational materials and tools that ease social interaction online increased the potential to develop the technical, theoretical and social skills required for ongoing teacher training. The procedure that emerged from harvesting resources from a community of practice is the foundation for the development of extended activities like the blended classroom. The face-to-face complement also deepened the interaction and created a unique group composition. In addition to these blended group compositions, an explorative and innovative

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climate built by experienced virtual participants furthered the student centered learning. The potential use of online tools and educational materials within multicultural contexts seems promising and worth pursuing.

ACknowledgmenT The authors would like to thank all Blended Course participants, the Webheads Online Community of Practice and the Venezuela coordinator Doris de Martins for their invaluable support in the project. The generous support from Learningtimes.org is also acknowledged in providing access to the virtual classroom in which the learning experience took place.

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Moore, G. S., Winograd, K., & Lange, D. (2001). You can teach online! Building creative learning environments. New York: McGraw Hill. Pallof, R., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Pallof, R., & Pratt, K. (2003). The virtual student a profile and guide to working with online learners. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Piskurich, G. M. (Ed.). (2004). Getting the most from online learning: A learner’s guide. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Roblyer, M. D., Edwards, J., & Havriluk, M. A. (1997). Integrating educational technology into teaching. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

uSeFul lInkS CommunITIeS oF PRACTICe http://p2p.internet2.edu/: The Peer-to-Peer WG (P2Pwg) has its beginnings from a grassroots effort to investigate and explore the many aspects of peer-to-peer, beyond the resource management issues that bring the most notoriety. http://kngforge.uwc.ac.za/santec/: SANTEC is an enabling network of educational technology practitioners with an interest in educational technology in developing environments. The aim of SANTEC is to be a community of practice that facilitates and supports collaborative ventures and effects synergies amongst members. http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr062. shtml: Getting started in the internet—a resource guide to listserves

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/ dede03012003.html: Interview with Professor Chris Dede who believes that emerging technologies expand our capability to create, share, and master knowledge. His current project is the development of Multi-User Virtual Environment Experiential Simulators (MUVEES). http://www.internet2.edu/projects/: Developing advanced networking technology is at the heart of Internet2. Members have access to a unique nationwide high-performance network infrastructure that removes boundaries of today’s Internet. Internet2 actively supports our community as it pioneers developments in areas such as middleware, security, network research and performance measurement capabilities. http://www.ocwconsortium.org/: Universities working together to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware. http://www.webheads.info/: Webheads in action communities of practice online ttp://www.zope.org/: Zope is an open source application server for building content management systems, intranets, portals, and custom applications. The Zope community consists of hundreds of companies and thousands of developers all over the world, working on building the platform and Zope applications.

eduCATIonAl ConTenT http://careo.ucalgary.ca/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ CAREO.woa: Learning Commons Educational Object Repository

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http://courses.durhamtech.edu/tlc/www/html/ Special_Feature/hybridclasses.htm: The Teaching-Learning Center (TLC) is dedicated to enhancing teaching and learning excellence for faculty, students, and staff at Durham Technical Community College and for educational colleagues in public schools and universities across the community. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/: MIT’s OpenCourseWare: a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world. It is true to MIT’s values of excellence, innovation, and leadership. http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/affectiveeducation.html: Lesson Plans for the affective domain http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/webcourses.html: Dynamic syllabi serve as online platforms upon which to stage, manage, and enhance a course and can include electronic resources, instructors’ notes, exercises and assignments, course projects, virtual exhibitions, links between course readings and Web resources, rich multimedia resources and students’ projects. http://www.ibritt.com/resources/dc_objects.htm: Designing Courses: Learning Objects, SCOs, IMS Standards, XML, SGML, and so forth. http://www.lolaexchange.org/cgi-perl/lolaexchange/lola.cgi?function=f54&username=: Learning Objects Repositories

AFFeCTIve eduCATIon leSSon PlAnS And ReSouRCeS http://www.eduref.org/: The Educator’s Reference Desk builds on over a quarter century of experience providing high-quality resources and services to the education community.

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TeAChIng And leARnIng ReSouRCeS FRom FedeRAl AgenCIeS http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/: The course Web site for Law in the Court of Public Opinion. http://creativecommons.org/: Enabling the legal sharing and reuse of cultural, educational, and scientific works. http://nsdl.org/: The National Science Digital Library http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index. php?title=OER_useful_resources: OER useful resources http://opencontent.org/ocwfinder/: The Open Content Finder http://thenode.org/: Resources to support an international community of educators and trainers interested in understanding online learning technologies and harnessing their potential. http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/98/5/: A Model for Distributed Curriculum on the World Wide Web http://www.intime.uni.edu/terms.html: The mission of INTIME is to help educators improve student learning at all levels (PK thru University work) and in all content areas. http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/: The Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) is an electronic warehouse of ideas, examples, and resources (represented as “packages”) that support student learning at the Maricopa Community Colleges. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm: Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching

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http://www.nln.ac.uk/Materials/default.asp: National Learning Network

onlIne ToolS http://cosl.usu.edu/projects/educommons/: What is eduCommons? eduCommons is an OpenCourseWare management system designed specifically to support OpenCourseWare projects like USU OCW. eduCommons will help you develop and manage an open access collection of course materials. http://plone.org/: Opensource content management system http://scout.wisc.edu/: The Internet Scout Project. Since 1994, the Scout Project has focused on developing better tools and services for finding, filtering, and presenting online information and metadata. http://www.edutools.com/: WCET’s EduTools provides independent reviews, side-by-side comparisons, and consulting services to assist decision-making in the e-learning community

http://www.google.com/educators/: Google recognizes the central role that teachers play in breaking down the barriers between people and information, and we support educators who work each day to empower their students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. This Web site is one of the ways we’re working to bolster that support and explore how Google and educators can work together. http://www.google.com/literacy: A resource for teachers, literacy organisations and anyone interested in reading and education, created in collaboration with LitCam, Google, and UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning. http://www.lamsfoundation.org/: LAMS is a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration.

This work was previously published in Technology Enhanced Learning: Best Practices , M. Lytras; D. Gasevic; P. de Pablos; W. Huang, pp. 57-80, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.6

Online Learning:

A Transforming Environment for Adults in Higher Education Patsy D. Moskal University of Central Florida, USA Charles Dziuban University of Central Florida, USA Joel Hartman University of Central Florida, USA

ABSTRACT The authors describe the distributed learning program (Online@UCF) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) that serves a number of adult learners. They present outcomes from several years of research collected by the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness on adults enrolled in online courses. Paradoxically, most educators in online learning focus on millennial generation students, their learning styles, and preference for Web 2.0 technologies. However, research at UCF confirms that online education resonates with adult students because it responds to their lifestyle needs, provides

more active learning environments, and empowers their learning beyond classroom boundaries. This chapter examines the strategic elements required for successful adult online programs and explores components of online student satisfaction. The authors conclude by considering the opportunities and challenges for adults in online distance education.

InTRoduCTIon The growth of fully online and blended courses is contributing to an expanding body of research that examines how students and faculty members

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-830-7.ch005

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Online Learning

respond to these technology-rich learning environments. However, the majority of these studies focuses on younger learners and their experience and propensity toward choosing digital, mobile and personal technologies (Dziuban, Moskal, Brophy-Ellison, and Shea, 2007;Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2001). This paper considers an alternative population encountered in Web courses—the adult learner. We investigate a large metropolitan university’s distributed learning initiative and how adults are finding expanded educational opportunities enabled by online and blended learning. More than 73% of Americans report using the Internet regularly (Pew, 2006) and more than 55% of Americans have broadband access, up from 47% in 2007 (Horrigan, 2008). Of those who use the Internet at home, 79% have a high-speed connection. These data suggest that Americans are becoming technologically engaged, if not savvy. Eighty-eight percent of students indicate they access the Internet on a daily basis at a minimum (Student Monitor, 2008). As a result of this technological proliferation, higher education is turning to the World Wide Web to expand or enhance course and program offerings. In fall 2006, nearly 20 percent of the nation’s postsecondary students were enrolled in at least one online course, and the online enrollment growth rate was 9.7 percent, nearly 7½ times the rate of overall enrollment growth in higher education (Allen & Seaman, 2007).

AdulT leARneRS Adult learners do not fit the customary description of the “traditional” college student who is a recent high school graduate, 18-22 years of age, not yet employed nor having family obligations. Adults, on the other hand, are described as “engaged in some form of instruction or educational activity to acquire the knowledge, information, and skills necessary to succeed in the workforce,

learn basic skills, earn credentials, or otherwise enrich their lives” (NCES, 2000). Pioneer andragogy researcher Malcolm Knowles (1973) describes unique adult learner characteristics this way: read to learn, relevancy-oriented, responsible, self-directed, goal oriented, practical, and pragmatic, with life experiences that they bring with them to the classroom. As students, adults are more financially independent, working part time or full time while enrolling in courses. They may have dependents, a spouse, and/or children (NCES, 2002). However, the characteristics that make adult learners “nontraditional” also create challenges for them in successfully attaining a degree. Often, adult students approach college with an already full plate. Employment and family obligations present time and financial considerations that may compete with the traditional educational experience. Because adults require more flexibility in scheduling, online asynchronous opportunities increase the likelihood that they will be able to successfully complete a degree program. Silva, Calahan, and Lacireno-Paquet (1998) found four barriers for adults completing a degree: lack of time, family responsibilities, scheduling and location of courses, and cost. Customarily, adults see their work as a primary responsibility, compared to traditional college students who envision college as their primary “job.” These at-risk adults were successful at college completion less than 15% of the time, compared to 57% of those students who were classified as traditional (Choy, 2002). Berker, Horn, and Carroll (2003) found that 62% of these working adults were unable to complete their studies in 6 years, compared to only 39% of full time students. Similarly, an NCES (2002) study of nontraditional students found nearly half of them dropped out of community college, compared to only one fifth of the more traditional students. Clearly, life responsibilities make higher education challenging for this population of students.

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Online Learning

Table 1. Online and blended enrollment growth Modality Academic Year

Fully Online

Blended

2000-2001

8,710

4,729

2001-2002

12,778

7,771

2002-2003

15,828

10,505

2003-2004

21,950

13,640

2004-2005

29,187

16,690

2005-2006

38,148

16,765

2006-2007

42,398

19,537

2007-2008

46,326

25,064

weB CouRSeS FoR The AdulT leARneR Flexibility in course location and scheduling is critical to the adult learner. Online or blended courses can provide asynchronous opportunities that allow these nontraditional students to be able to effectively juggle work, family, and education (Chao, DeRocco, Flynn, 2007). The many positive characteristics of adult learners—motivated, able to manage their time, have much to contribute, prefer consistency from course to course, and require a high degree of organization and flexibility (O’Lawrence, 2007)—make Web courses a viable and attractive option for this population. The successful Web student also needs to be self motivated, organized, and responsible – characteristics that mirror adult learners. In 1996, the University of Central Florida began offering fully online courses in part to provide access to community college transfer students who had been enrolled in online 2-year programs. In 1997, UCF’s Web course offerings expanded to include blended courses—courses with reduced face-toface seat time. Since that time, the university has seen phenomenal growth in these modalities (Table 1). The instructional model selected by UCF for use in online courses is based on the following elements and principles:

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Social constructivist learning theory-based: It is assumed in UCF online courses that students construct their own knowledge and are responsible for their own learning. Students in online courses are expected to be autonomous and selfmotivated. Communication-centric vs. content-centric course design: Online courses emphasize communication and team-based learning through the use of learning communities. Student communication is a required element of online courses, and is typically graded. The decision to employ a CMC model, rather than a content-centric model was based on the need to support learning communities, as well as a desire to avoid the need to produce extensive content, making it possible to support increasing numbers of courses. High level of interactivity: Active student learning is emphasized. Modes of interaction include student-instructor, student-student, student-content, and student-external resource. UCF research has observed that the level of studentstudent interaction in online courses exceeds that in many face-to-face courses, especially large enrollment sections. Faculty members also report that the quality of interaction in online courses exceeds that in their face-to-face courses. Asynchronous vs. synchronous: Online courses will primarily employ asynchronous communication, although synchronous commu-

Online Learning

nication is possible and occasionally used. The emphasis on asynchronous communication was made in recognition of the needs of UCF students for time flexibility. Instructor led: All online courses are designed and delivered by a faculty member, who is responsible for all aspects of course design and delivery. The role of the instructor shifts from content transmission to guide of student learning. Accommodating the needs and preferences of individual faculty requires that some courses deviate slightly from this model. These components resonate with the Sloan-C technology-based template for quality higher education online programs. The model organizes itself around a set of five metaphorical pillars that comprise an effective framework for delivering online learning to adults. Access assures that students who are on campus, near campus or far from campus have the opportunity to achieve their educational goals; this defines the SloanC concept of localness. Learning effectiveness addresses a fundamental concern that courses in any nontraditional modalities must provide high quality student learning outcomes. Student satisfaction responds to the assumption that a satisfied and engaged client base is a primary contributor to an effective learning environment. Faculty satisfaction requires that instructors in the online environment have positive experiences with new teaching modalities and experience a sense of professional development that enhances their teaching skills. Cost effectiveness requires distance and online learning to be responsive to institutional strategic initiatives, generating revenue while increasing student participation and completion. The Sloan-C pillars serve as the basis for continuous quality improvement of Online@ UCF, the University of Central Florida’s online learning initiative and provide the framework for the findings in this chapter.

ImPRovIng ACCeSS ThRough weB CouRSeS The population of Florida increases by 1,000 persons per day, and along with Texas and California, Florida will account for nearly half (46%) of all U.S. population growth by 2030. The central Florida region served by UCF is one of the fastest-growing areas in the nation. UCF’s enrollment surpassed 50,000 students at the beginning of the 2008-2009 academic year, making UCF the second largest university in Florida and the fifth largest in the country. The university cannot fully meet the educational needs of its 11-county central Florida region through exclusive reliance upon its main Orlando campus, which is rapidly approaching its projected maximum capacity. Therefore, the university has turned to development of 11 regional campuses and a large scale online learning initiative, Online@ UCF, to ensure its ability to meet the expanding demand for access to higher education throughout the region, while at the same time making access more flexible and convenient for the area’s many place-bound students, many of whom fit the adult model. Through aggressive development of online degree and certificate programs, as well as hundreds of blended learning courses, UCF has strategically shifted from a capacity-driven access model to a demand-driven model. Online@UCF currently provides access to 20 fully online undergraduate and graduate programs and tracks, and 12 fully online graduate certificate programs, with additional online degree and certificate programs under development. Student credit hours produced by UCF’s fully online and blended learning courses increased 190 percent over just the past five years. During academic year 2007-2008, 63 percent of all UCF students enrolled in one or more online or blended learning courses, and in that year UCF generated 17 percent of its total student credit hours from online enrollments. These growth rates are a strong indication

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Table 2. Characteristics of UCF’s web students Adults (n=226)

Non-Adults (n=1,095)

Have children

45%

4%

Employed 36-40 hrs/week

53%

13%

Married

47%

17%

that UCF’s strategy of increasing access through online learning is succeeding.

Some demogRAPhICS FoR The AdulT onlIne STudenT PoPulATIon AT uCF As so many authors have pointed out, determining who belongs to the adult category and who does not is difficult and oftentimes arbitrary. The context of a particular institution has a great deal to do with making this decision. UCF is a metropolitan research university dedicated to serving central Florida while building selected internationally outstanding programs. This rapidly growing institution is one where many adults are attempting to complete their first degree rather than enroll for job advancement through continuing education. Therefore, the definitions of adult learners as being in the 35-37 year age range (Eduventures, 2008) misrepresent our adult student population. However, some classification metric was necessary in order to portray the data accurately. The method used was the procedure developed by Harris for a fixed length mastery test (Kuyper & Dziuban, 1982). Essentially, we identified the age point in our student population that maximized the F ratio for the groups above and below the cut point. This was an objective procedure that identified the age of 24 as the demarcation point for adults and non adults in our student population. Therefore, from a random sample of 1,321 students approximately 17% (n=226) are classified as adults by the UCF criterion with the remaining

856

83% (n=1,095) falling in the non-adult category. Table 2 presents the characteristics of students who are enrolled in Web courses at UCF. These data suggest the adult online learner at the University of Central Florida fits the characteristics defined in the andragogy literature. In addition, 56% of the adults indicated they had taken 5 or more fully online courses, while only 29% of non-adult students had done so. Clearly, adults are drawn to this modality at UCF.

AdulT STudenT SATISFACTIon wITh dISTAnCe eduCATIon The authors indexed online student satisfaction with various elements of online learning using five-point Likert scales ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. A common strategy with these responses is to combine like responses (e.g., strongly agree and agree) into one generally “agree” category. The problem with this procedure is that it obscures many important interactions of satisfaction responses, demographics and other item responses. In addition, the middle responses for Likert scales (agree, neutral and disagree) carry some ambivalence. In theory, the extreme responses (strongly agree and strongly disagree) are close to ambivalence-free. For example, consider these comments from students with the most positive responses toward distance education (strongly agree): “Because there is something due every week you tend to be more involved with the class. You are constantly with the book and reading because it is set up so that you have to be engaged weekly” “I am able to attend classes with online classes. This allows me to still work. If I couldn’t work, I wouldn’t be able to go back to school”

Online Learning

“As a ‘late in life’ student, I have come to believe I take my online educational experience twice as seriously” These statements portray non-ambivalent satisfaction with online learning and are typical of the narrative from adult students that assign the highest ratings to their online courses. Now consider these negative comments: “I prefer the requirement of sitting in a seat and being lectured to, because it makes sure that I learn the material” “I am more likely to procrastinate and only work on the material for an online class when it is due” “I disagree (that I learn more in online classes than smaller face-to-face classes) because I’m not completely a self-learner. I’m more visual, where sometimes a person has to show me something for me to understand it” These students do not equivocate while expressing their dissatisfaction with distance education. Generally, however, the number of students who are dissatisfied is quite small (Dziuban, Moskal, & Futch, 2007). Often, those who are genuinely dissatisfied with online learning do not re-engage after their first experience. Finally, these comments represent students who selected the neutral category (most ambivalent): “I believe attendance and commitment are part and parcel with higher education goals” “Sometimes this happens in online courses and sometimes it doesn’t”

“I agree only moderately that online classes reduce stress, they are more convenient but they have their own built in type of stresses” “It (how much you learn) depends on how the online course is set up and what kind of assignments and activities are assigned. I can learn a lot from some online classes, while others can be passed easily without learning that much material” These responses from the neutral category are prototypical in their simultaneous positive and negative responses. Students are positive about the convenience and flexibility of online learning but miss the face-to-face interaction with instructors. They respond well to the power of technology but become upset when it fails to function properly. Because of these idiosyncrasies of rating scales, the authors chose to evaluate non- ambivalent satisfaction with distance education in the adult and non-adult student populations (Table 3). Several findings are noteworthy. Approximately 2/3 of the adult population expressed satisfaction with online courses while less than half of the non-adults students indicated that level of satisfaction. Scheduling facilitation is a positive for adult students (84%) compared to 60% for non-adults, as is life management 50% (adults) vs. 28% (non-adults). Adult students (38%) are more likely to remain engaged in education because online course allow them to work when they can (78%). Another important finding in Table 3 shows the adult students (54%) indicate that online courses increase the likelihood of their completing their degrees. Interestingly, only 15% of the non-adult students indicate that online courses facilitate their ability to complete their education. In alignment with much of the research literature on satisfaction, adult students agree that online courses increase their learning flexibility (72%) and convenience (67%). Those percentages were much lower in the non-adult population (47% and

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Table 3. Non ambivalent (very high) satisfaction for online courses Non adult <=24 yrs

n

Adult > 24 yrs

n

Online class easier to schedule

60%

650

84%

189

Online course helps me control my life

28%

306

50%

112

Overall, satisfied with online courses

40%

428

67%

150

More likely to stay engaged in online course

18%

198

38%

85

They allow me to work when I want

59%

641

78%

176

More likely to get degree because online class

15%

161

54%

121

Online class makes my life more flexible

47%

503

72%

162

Online classes make life more convenient

46%

496

67%

151

I have major responsibilities other than degree

35%

367

74%

165

Online experience increased ability to access information

25%

262

49%

109

46%, respectively). When compared to non-adult students, 74% of adult learners indicate that they had major life responsibilities outside of obtaining an education. Only 35% of non-adults indicated that such was the case in their lives. Finally, almost half (49%) of adult learners indicated that their information fluency skills were enhanced by online learning compared to 25% for non-adult online students.

The AnnA kARenInA PRInCIPle AS A model FoR AdulT SATISFACTIon wITh dISTAnCe leARnIng What is it about distance education that satisfies adult learners? This important question addresses the value-added assumptions about why nontraditional students choose online learning in higher education. Because the adult population has many options for continuing education, colleges and universities are becoming much more responsive to this client base, placing a premium on student engagement. Satisfied adult learners are motivated, responsive, contribute to a positive learning environment and tend to achieve at higher levels. Dissatisfied or ambivalent students contribute to

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less positive learning climates, where instructors encounter more difficulties creating opportunities for effective learning. Faculty members in such circumstances, especially online, have trouble relating to their adult students. They encounter resistance and some cases experience outright hostility from those individuals whose skills they are trying to enhance. Interestingly, a template for gauging adult satisfaction with learning at a distance can be found in classic literature and cultural anthropology. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This opening line of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (2000) tells us that resolution of many elements is necessary for a successful marriage. Couples must come to terms with issues such as attraction, sex, money, in-laws, children, work, religion, communication and leisure time among many others. Implicitly, Tolstoy warns us that marriages can turn unhappy if one or any combination of these elements fails to reach resolution for both partners. Thus unhappy marriages have an almost unlimited number of footprints for failure, most of which are unique to that particular partnership. Similarly Jared Diamond in his book, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Society (1999), uses the Anna Karenina principle to ex-

Online Learning

plain the difficulties encountered by civilizations in domesticating large mammals, a singularly important key to societal advancement. Generally, good candidates for domestication must be herbivores because the dietary requirements of carnivores are overly restrictive and costly. To be domesticated, herbivores must not have a nasty disposition, not panic in captivity, not be overly territorial, grow quickly, breed in captivity, be able to live in herds, have a dominance hierarchy, and be able to imprint on man. Like good marriages, each of these issues must be resolved in order to domesticate a large mammal. Failing any one of these criteria renders the animal unfit for domestication. Zebras, for instance, would make excellent domesticates except for the fact they will not imprint on man. Recent educational studies have shown that the Anna Karenina principle applies to adults’ satisfaction with their online experiences. Using data mining techniques to predict overall student rating of courses, Wang, Dziuban, Cook, & Moskal (in press) identify stable elements that predict students’ satisfaction. The investigators developed a model for excellent ratings in distance education using course level (a variable highly correlated with age), college membership and ratings of other aspects of classes –for example pace of the course or communication of expectations. Stable decision rules evolved for adult learners. The authors found that adult satisfaction with courses is best predicted by two perceived characteristics of the instructor, his or her ability to facilitate student learning and his or her ability communicate ideas and information effectively. When students see excellence in those two categories the probability is .96 that they will assign a rating of excellent to any course. This rule proved valid across disciplines, a wide range of course levels and instructional modes such as interactive television, technologyenhanced, blended, and fully online. Adult learners respond to facilitative instructors. An examination of the literature in adult satisfaction with online learning will reveal two

recurring themes: convenience and flexibility. These obvious and ambiguous elements constitute what the sociologist Susan Leigh Star (1989) terms boundary objects, concepts that tend to bring various constituencies together but have different meaning for each cohort. A recent study commissioned by the A.P. Sloan Foundation (Dziuban, Moskal, Brophy-Ellison, & Shea, 2007)1 sought to identify underlying elements for flexibility. Through focus groups and factor analytic work with a wide range of students (including adults), the following satisfaction components emerge for online courses: Reduced Ambiguity ◦ Reduced uncertainty about how to succeed in course ◦ Reduced work and family disruption and constraints ◦ Improved sense of control Enhanced Student Sense of Value in Courses ◦ Faster assessment of assignments ◦ Higher levels of recognition ◦ Better able to audit course progress Reduced Ambivalence ◦ Reduced stress over class completion ◦ Increased degree access ◦ Increased connectedness Clarified Rules of Engagement ◦ Course expectations clear from the onset ◦ Fairer performance assessment ◦ Clearer definition of involvement ◦ More opportunity to collaborate More Individually Responsive Learning Environments ◦ Continually connected as an individual ◦ Encourages active engagement ◦ Facilitates access to outside sources ◦ Able to audit course progress Improved Interaction ◦ Anywhere, anytime communication with peers

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◦

Anywhere, anytime queries to instructors ◦ Sustained conversations ◦ Rapid access to independent experts ◦ Better able to find, evaluate, and use information (information fluency) Augmented Learning ◦ More room for individual creativity ◦ More individually empowered to learn ◦ Expanded course boundaries Increased Freedom (Latitude) ◦ To manage the learning environment ◦ To expand beyond a course ◦ From large lecture classes ◦ From prohibitive logistics The Anna Karenina principle teaches us that all good courses feature a good deal of instructor facilitation and effective communication. In addition, each one of the above eight elements must be present if adult learners are to expresses satisfaction with their online experience. Failing to meet any one of those elements will cause a decrease in the valuation of a course. Adult learners express satisfaction with online learning because they believe that colleges and universities are responding to the complex demands of their lifestyles. Their satisfaction emanates from a sense of cooperative learning and personal empowerment. The bottom line for nontraditional students is that learning at a distance reduces their opportunity costs for obtaining an education. Faculty satisfaction is highly related to student satisfaction. We have made the point (Hartman, Dziuban, & Moskal, 2000) that satisfaction of both students and faculty members must operate in resonance. Instructors are unlikely to have a positive experience online without positive and engaged clientele. Nothing is quite as unappealing as a class of disgruntled students. This contributes to a negative learning environment with very little synergy or positive interaction. Earlier in this section we pointed out that when students believe

860

that an instructor is facilitative and communicates well, he or she will most likely an overall student rating of excellent. The opposite is also true. When students perceive instructors as poor on those two elements, they will most likely present that faculty member with a poor overall rating. This does not lead to faculty satisfaction.

AdulT onlIne leARneR SuCCeSS The research literature makes a strong case that in spite of that fact that online learning substantially reduces the opportunity costs and increases the probability of success for adults, they still encounter considerable obstacles. Their success rates are lower and withdrawal rates higher then their non-adult peers (Chao, et al, 2007). Recognizing this likelihood, and in an attempt to mitigate its effects, Online@UCF provides a wide array of support services for online students and faculty. Some of these supportive elements include critical success factors, linkage to core institution mission, high quality professional development, online learner support, proactive mechanisms for policy formation, executive sponsors and champions, online support services, and continuous quality improvement through evaluation (Hartman, et al., 2007). Table 4 contains the outcome data for that initiative-showing success and withdrawal rates for adult and non-adult online learners at the lower undergraduate, upper undergraduate and graduate levels. Success at UCF is determined through a declassified grading system (A, B or C=Success). Table 4 depicts that fact the success rates for adult online learners are only trivially lower than they are for non-adult students. Continuing the trend, adult withdrawal rates for online courses are only marginally higher than those for younger students. These data suggest that online learning can greatly reduce the historically high probabilities that adult learners will not achieve their educational objectives.

Online Learning

Table 4. Success and withdrawal for adult and non-adult online students Success Rates for Adults/Non-Adults Lower Undergrad

Upper Undergrad

Graduate

Generation

N

%

N

%

N

%

Adults

4,701

73%

52,811

87%

28,415

93%

Non Adults

30,351

75%

75,471

87%

4002

94%

ConCluSIon The good news Online distance education presents many opportunities as well as some challenges for adult learners. They have access to professional development, certification, and degree seeking programs that, in the traditional academy, were logistically challenging, if not impossible for them. They have a world wide network of learning resources available to them just a click away, transforming education into a classroom without walls, clocks, or physical space. Millennial age adults have increased access to their instructors, interaction with their classmates and a portal to expertise throughout the world. They can go to an expert’s Web site or blog, in some cases being able to interact directly with them. Adult learners can build a peer support network around them in learning circles that make education a cooperative rather than a broadcast experience. These support groups often continue long after the actual time frame of the class. Online students have the ability to share their work with their peers and colleagues receiving facilitative feedback that enhances their critical thinking skills. They move past traditional the “write a paper, submit it, and get a grade” model. Adult learners bring considerable expertise to class, and when online have the opportunity to be co-creators of the curriculum where they contribute to the class in a manner than transforms the instructor’s role to one of a facilitator The online environment forces adult learners to develop personal learning geographies for time,

resources and people. This is the process Stephen Hall (2004) calls “orienting”--one that is one of the most valuable side effects of online learning. The student must build an individual learning map for how they will negotiate the demands of their lives, their personal goals, the demands of the courses, and many other complicating factors such as their energy level on any given day. Although there are specific requirements in all classes online learning eliminates the rigid lock step trajectory of traditional courses for adults where if they miss one class they have lost 8-10% of the course. By creating their personal learning maps (where, what, when, how, and with whom) adult learners experience an unanticipated valueadd from distance education thereby learning how to learn. Online learning eliminates courses in silos, an enduring criticism of higher education classes on Ratemyprofessor.com. The good news is the adult learner, compared to younger students, is more positive and engaged in online learning. They know what is expected of them and experience faster feedback about their work so that they know where they stand. Garrison and Vaughan (2008), in their community of inquiry framework, summarize the advantages of online learning for the adult learning population. There is an enhanced sense of social presence featured by open communication enabling risk-free communication. Online learning fosters optimal cognitive presence that enables exploration and integration by exchanging information and applying new ideas. Finally, this modality extends the concept of teaching presence where students are able to participate by contributing to

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the curriculum design and focused discussions. All of these elements point to the fact that online distance education can be a transformative event for adult learners, making education accessible and success much more likely. In this new environment one is never far away from educational opportunities.

Challenges Along with the many opportunities afforded adult learners by online learning there are some substantial challenges. First, they must assume a much more active role in their own educational activities by managing their learning space. When we survey our students about the advice they would offer their peers, the number one response is stay connected. Success in online learning depends on continuous and incremental engagement in the course assignments, discussion boards, and interactions with classmates and the instructor. This can be a challenge for students used to attending weekly classes. Secondly, adult online learners will have to accustom themselves to a completely different kind of class climate. It is entirely possible that they will interact with peers that they never meet face-to-face. The traditional cues such as body language and instructor’s immediate oral response will not be available to them. Depending on their preference for learning this can be a difficult circumstance. If they seek approval from the teachers and classmates it comes in much altered formats, usually textual. This issue points to another potential problem for adult learners. A comment in class can be immediately modified or corrected. Online written comments can be interpreted much differently than intended, resulting in a time consuming flurry of back and forth posts that can derail the objectives of the course. Most all of us have experienced the “that’s not what I meant” phenomenon with our e-mail. Adult learners in online courses are likely to experience an expanded metric for evaluation of

862

their work. Evidence of successful student learning outcomes in distance education is moving from that traditional teach-then-test paradigm to assessment approaches that require students to be technology literate, information literate, and have the ability to demonstrate critical thinking. In fact, online learners are expected to be much more information fluent in this world; Peter Morville (2005) claims this is ambient findability, where anyone can find anything at anytime. More pointedly, Taleb (2007) suggests that we now live in a world of information toxicity. Therefore, there is a greater expectation placed on adult learners to find, evaluate, and use information in an ethical manner. The challenge adult learners face in new learning models is that objective, non-authentic, and non-contextual methods for assessing their work have given way to procedures that are reflective, authentic, and contextual. Rather than take a test, most likely they will have to design or create something, have it reviewed by their peers and classmates, then produce an appropriate response. This is a big change from just the midterm and final exam format to which “traditional” students are accustomed. The new approach is more time consuming and much more thought intensive, requiring analysis, synthesis, and creativity. Often this is accomplished in groups and collaborative work--a drastic change for those accustomed to working alone.

AdulT leARneRS And weB 2.0: oPPoRTunITy And ChAllenge Adults who engage online learning for recertification, continuing education, or career advancement may be involved with educational institutions in programs tailored toward the adult learner’s learning preferences and life circumstances. However, many higher education classes are not specifically designed with the adult student in mind. Students may interact with the instructor, peers, and course materials through learning management systems

Online Learning

as such a Blackboard, Angel, or Desire2Learn. Younger students in these classes are also familiar with many Web 2.0 technologies that provide rich user experiences with dynamic content and an open environment, often drawing synergy from the participation of users and their collective intelligence. A prime example of a Web 2.0 technology is Wikipedia: the free online encyclopedia that can be edited by any user at anytime. According to O’Rielly (2005) Web 2.0 follows certain principles: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The World Wide Web is its platform It harnesses collective knowledge Data become the primary resource It will be in a constant state of development Programming is not requisite It is not dependent on a single device It provides rich user experience.

Remembering that Web 2.0 is in a state of constant evolution, a review of some of the learning concepts that adult students might encounter include: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Social bookmarking software that facilitates personal collection of Web sites and URLs that give us the ability to locate information while at the same time building a personal organization system that can be shared with other users (http://delicious.com) Blog is a shorthand for Weblog which is a public diary with dated entries, often accompanied by links to others users’ blogs (http://blogger.com) Wikis form a collection of Web pages that may be edited by anyone, at any time, from any location. This is the frequently used in classes for collective writing (http://www. wikispaces.com) Social networking focuses on building social communities and interaction online with

5.

6.

7.

8.

people who share common interests (http:// www.facebook.com) Social media sharing Web sites facilitate the process of posting and sharing media content such as pictures or video on the Web (http:// flckr.com) Mashups permit users to combine images and data into configurations that create new meaning (http://mashmaker.intel.com) Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) facilitates synchronous communication with audio, video, and text messaging (http://skype. com) Virtual worlds allow synchronous interaction in a 3-dimensional immersive world (http:// secondlife.com/)

Adult learners in online classes can have many rich Web 2.0 learning resources available to them. The convenience and flexibility that motivates them meshes perfectly with their ability to collect resources in a retrievable system, write cooperatively, form and participate in social communities, share their material and resources worldwide, remix resources into new content, instantly communicate around the world and enter alternative realities. Web 2.0 technologies and processes provide almost limitless opportunities for adult learners because they expand learning far beyond the confines of the traditional classroom. The challenge with Web 2.0 is that it requires a whole new way of thinking. There is a learning curve with each of the technologies and their use can be time consuming, sometimes to the determent of achieving course objectives. As Friedman (2005) reminds us, this is a Web-enabled playing field with players from all over the world with completely horizontal collaboration. Group writing on wikis takes some getting used to when anyone can edit what you have written at anytime. In addition, evolving technologies continually modify our familiar relationships. Effective searching on the World Wide Web is

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vastly different the traditional library research mode. In fact Marsha Bates (1989) suggests that our current search methods resemble grazing or berry picking rather than framing a question then finding the answer. Almost every Web 2.0 technology has an associated community of practice that characterizes itself with organizational needs, openness, and in most cases sharing and acting globally. Web 2.0 requires engagement, whether it is blogging, joining a group on Facebook, posting your photographs on Flickr or uploading a video to YouTube. Whenever one uses a Web 2.0 technology their work is available worldwide. Repeating the opening of this paragraph, this is a whole new learning world--especially for those of us who were used to just going to class and taking notes.

The FuTuRe FoR AdulT leARneRS And dISTAnCe eduCATIon The changes and opportunities for adult learners in the past decade have been nothing short of astounding. The question remains, however, what lies ahead? Although Taleb (2007) would argue that the major transformation in adult learning is impossible to predict we would like to close by raising a few possibilities. Most of the ideas here were provided to us in conversations with colleagues throughout the country: There were far too many to name but we summarize their ideas here. We believe that future adult populations will become much more mobile creating the need for more modular courses. There is a good chance that the expectations of adults will rise, forcing a much more inter-institutional collaboration that is now easily attainable through the Internet. In fact, there may be more adult education outsourcing and the expansion of informal and on-demand learning opportunities. In addition, there is a good possibility that that teaching platforms will gravitate to student preferred technologies. In the future it may be possible for adult learners to ar864

range their own cognitive apprenticeships or use the syndication capabilities of Web 2.0 for personally aggregated feeds of open content. Learning will be driven more through multimedia content with visualization becoming important. All of these ideas have common unifying concepts. The increasing possibilities adults have for learning at a distance will cause traditional educational boundaries to disappear

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Star, S. L. (1989). Regions of the Mind: Brain Research and the Quest for Scientific Certainty. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Student Monitor. (2008). Retrieved September 1, 2008 from http://www.studentmonitor.com/ Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York, NY: Random House Press. Tolstoy, L. (2000). Anna Karenina. New York: Penguin Group, Inc.

Wang, M. C., Dziuban, C. D., Cook, I. J., & Moskal, P. D. (in press). Dr. Fox Rocks: Using data mining techniques to examine student ratings of instruction. In M.C. Shelley, II, L. D. Yore, & B. Hand (Eds.), Quality research in literacy and science education: International perspectives and gold standards. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.

endnoTe 1

This study was funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. However, the findings and opinions expressed represent those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the position of the funding agency.

This work was previously published in Online Education and Adult Learning: New Frontiers for Teaching Practices, T.T. Kidd, pp. 54-68, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.7

Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life® Patricia Edwards University of Extremadura, Spain Mercedes Rico University of Extremadura, Spain Eva Dominguez University of Extremadura, Spain J. Enrique Agudo University of Extremadura, Spain

ABSTRACT Web 2.0 technologies are described as new and emerging for all fields of knowledge, including academia. Innovative e-learning formats like ondemand video, file sharing, blogs, Wikis, podcasting and virtual worlds are gaining increasing popularity among educators and students due to their emphasis on flexible, collaborative and community-building features, a promising natural channel for the social constructivist learning theory. This chapter addresses the application of e-learning in university degree programs based on exploiting the practical, intensive and holistic aspects of Second Life® (SL™). Although the specific framework dealt with is English as a foreign language, it seems feasible DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-729-4.ch012

to assume that the learning processes are equally transferable to other disciplines. In light of the aforementioned premises, the outlook of e-learning 2.0 approaches require action research and shared experiences in order to back up or challenge the claims and expectations of the academic community concerned with best practices in education.

InTRoduCTIon: welCome To weB 2.0 With the arrival of the so-called Web 2.0, a term coined by Tim O’Reilly (2003), windows of opportunity have burst wide open for internet users to participate, share, communicate and collaborate with one another in order to spread knowledge and learning experiences. The second generation web,

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

coupled with a significant increase in users, has been favored by the appearance on the scene of new technologies such as AJAX, FLASH or RUBY, and standards like XML, XHTML, RSS, RDF and CSS. The combination of these new support systems, plus the fact that internet access has reached even the most remote corners of the globe, has generated the development of innovative Web applications. Unlike their predecessors, the latest developments are not merely limited to displaying multimedia information. They also allow users to interact, modify or create more dynamic and enriched information by means of the integration of social networks (nodes where users interact and share knowledge) as well as encourage initiatives in collaborative web projects. Regardless of the degree of acceptance and use made of Web 2.0 thus far, the availability of a continuum of tools, applications and platforms is progressively leading higher education towards making virtual learning activity a viable option. Although a minority of teachers and learners has adopted interactive learning models to date, these can alter current educational practices. For instance, by substituting teacher-oriented linear learning processes for a methodological approach where students choose their own resources, manage their learning, collaborate with co-learners, communicate and socialize through blogs, wikis, postcasting, chats, learning and knowledge communities, and learning management systems (LMS) like Moodle™ (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment is a trademark of Open Source Initiative).Worthy of mention is the birth of Sloodle™ (Second Life Object-Oriented Distance Learning Environment), an Open Source Initiative Project application which allows Second Life® and Moodle™-users to share certain tools in this brave new virtual world for educational purposes. This study is centered on the analysis of userlearner capacity to engage and interact in English as a foreign language for the future professional

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purposes of engineering students. Total immersion in the specific learning scenario of virtual worlds offers the global experience of exposure to elements of interaction rarely present in the teaching-learning of isolated items of knowledge. Three-dimensional interaction provides the means to create motivating environments for students to learn in context, such as foreign language sessions held in a monumental setting of the target language country (Stevens, 2008). In this type of environment the central and the periphery components of any topic are presented as a whole to learn from. Computer Assisted Language-Learning (CALL) specialists are particularly interested in the emerging concept of the second generation Web. The second language learning prospects it can offer regard students collaboratively constructing knowledge on topics of common interest while using the target language and publishing pupilauthored reflections throughout the entire creative process. Thus, the interactivity promoted by these new technologies is bound to have a profound impact on how CALL is approached. Nonetheless, a crucial question remains – Just how effective is a virtual world for second language learning and professional training? In order to unfold this desideratum, the aim of the work herein presented lies in examining the potential of various pedagogical aspects and second language learning strategies for professional training purposes with the 3D virtual platform Second Life®, a.k.a. SL™ (an unregistered trademark of Linden Research, Inc.). Of the many motivational resources included in this social networking environment, first is virtual role play represented by the individual learner’s avatar (Figure1). Secondly, preferences in engaging activities and interrelationships with other avatars are analyzed once immersed in the simulated setting (Figure 2). Finally, the effectiveness of the methodological domain for learning foreign languages for professional applications is scrutinized with research instruments, namely, a learner questionnaire and

Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

Figure 1. Student Avatar Prototype.

follow-up interviews, Web 2.0 tools and sites in the case study of a target group of participating university students.

vIRTuAl woRldS And The Role oF AvATARS The process for diving into participation in a virtual world is an extension of a well-known, classical learning technique called role-play. Role-play has always been a teacher-exploited strategy for getting students to assume a given situation and then act it out. However, in virtual worlds, role-play pushes far beyond traditional uses and takes on dimensions simulating reality and fantasy from a holistic perspective, “when the deepest identity change is possible with a single mouse click, the opportunities to…play are endless” (Au, 2008, p. 79). In other words, a role is played out with at-

tention paid to every possible detail, starting with student design of his/her avatar’s personalized physical appearance to owning possessions, to acting and reacting to multiple forms of situational context with other avatar-learners for as long a period of time as required. For the purposes of second language learning, the application of roleplay can carry avatar-residents towards horizons capable of heightening student motivation levels through intensive, all-encompassing simulation exercises. Another feature of virtual worlds is 3D browsing, a creative source of fun with role-playing for users “in-world”. Since avatars can move about the virtual world at will, interactions can vary and role-play can change according to situations and contexts. Successful role-play demands knowledge of a new virtual environment which modifies the ways people socialize and communicate, ergo, for CALL purposes, the way students learn.

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Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

Figure 2. Pilot group at a virtual conference. Graphic compositions from & about the Second Life® world.

Avatar-students can interact at any time, anywhere and with anyone they encounter, so conventional classroom scheduled barriers like limited time, restricted space, and authentic identity fade into the background. For these reasons, a virtual world houses the potential of opening up a wide range of development for variable kinds of e-learning activities. The complete role-play experience is due to several factors most of which are learner rather than teacher oriented (Edwards et al, 2008): 1)

2)

3)

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there is a certain amount of personal investment on the part of the learner involved in creating an avatar and in carrying out his/ her actions, role-play is not limited to class hours, but rather, can be prolonged over time allowing for really getting into the part, avatar behavior is directed by the protagonist, that is, the learner, who encounters and creates numerous variables in simulated settings,

4)

5)

6)

avatar actions can become progressively more complex as s/he accumulates a past, lives out a present and makes plans for a future, both the physical characteristics and behavior of avatars can change, be true to life, or materialize into “want to be” aspirations, the status of anonymity may increase the participation of shyer and more introverted types of students who often find it too challenging to speak up and speak out in traditional classes where one is literally on the spot. However, some scholars argue that avatars are not completely anonymous as the avatar name becomes known in-world. Bruckman (1996) discusses this type of middle ground identity and claims that people come to the net to participate, to construct and push new identity limits. Others suggest that informing students that they are not completely anonymous may encourage inappropriate behavior (Haynes, 1998),

Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

Figure 3. Avatar appearances. Adapted from & about the Second Life® world.

7)

Edwards et al (2008) contend however that the identity of the real life learner is fundamentally wrapped in a protective bubble behind the concealing shield of his/her avatar which may be a particularly attractive feature for motivating students into taking learning risks.

Building an identity in SL™ is relatively easy and it is also free of cost, although with certain limitations like the buying and selling of objects, allowed only in the premium membership. For the goals of the case study, free membership was a satisfactory solution for getting students to develop their avatars with imagination and to represent their motivations, decisions and desires while communicating in English. In this respect, each student becomes a creative designer as well as a participating agent (Figure 3). Identities can be made to the image and likeness of the creator, - or not, meaning that one’s avatar can be a realistic or an imaginary representation of oneself, as well as a combination of both (see Turkle, 1995 for a psychological perspective of avatars, role-play and identity). In the event that the reader should prefer a wider range of options for designing and building

avatar identities, for a nominal fee, subscribers are provided with a budget to spend as they please in-world. The Linden™ dollar (a trademark of Linden Lab) fluctuates like any other official currency on the virtual financial market, and therefore, so does the avatar’s buying power. As monetary transactions occur in any profession as well as in one’s personal (first) life, the academic applications and implications of budgeting one’s salary could provide yet another experimental tool for learners to manage in pre-work role-play, that is, doing virtual business and making a virtual living (Craig, 2006). Residents can own a home, shop, go to work, attend college, interact with others, enjoy leisure activities, and in essence, get a (second) life and live it. Time and money can be spent on dining out, at sporting events, the supermarket and the mall, all with corresponding prices. It is even possible to take in a machinima movie, a medium in a real-time 3D virtual world created by combining film-making, animation and game development. Nonetheless, should the free membership be the only choice available in a particular academic setting, there are plenty of role-playing circumstances valid for the educational purposes pursued. Typical examples can be found in social

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Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

Figure 4. Free cultural spaces. Adapted from & about the Second Life® world.

events and cultural activities like those held in museums, parks, exhibit halls and libraries, available to avatar-internet users through innovative techniques in virtual reality and 3D interaction (figure 4). Thus, avatars play a vital role in a virtual world. The visual composition will be a reflection of oneself, realistic or otherwise, so the creation of a personal avatar should be addressed with care. The e-motional behavior will be remote-controlled by its creator as h/she interacts in-world. For CALL purposes, students will be communicating in English as a foreign language via their avatar, a point which brings us to the question of considering virtual worlds as a second language e-learning tool.

CAll And weB 2.0 lAnguAge leARnIng Background Where has CALL methodology and Web 2.0 language learning come from, where are they going, and where will they go from here? Virtual world methodology is based on Social Constructivist Learning Theory which originally stems from a trio of renowned classical development perspectives on motivation, problem-solving and collaboration. These consist of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Acquisition (1950), wherein knowledge is acquired through self-motivated

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experience in the world;Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Theory (ZDP), “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (1978, p.86); and Wood, Bruner & Ross’ Theory of Instructional Scaffolding (1976), providing a temporary structural support system for the learner, like a scaffold, where building knowledge is facilitated by sharing with others until independence is reached. Today’s scholars have embraced and expanded on aspects of these important concepts to adapt them to social constructivist theory in virtual worlds. The concept of Second Life® is not entirely new. It may be likened to a modernized version of multi-user text-based virtual environments developed decades ago (e.g., MUDs, MOOs), early 3D games, and precursor virtual worlds used over the years in education to simulate applications rich in learning opportunities. Reminiscent environments include the no longer available InterZone site created by Gordon Wilson (Stevens, 2003), which featured voice chat in a text-based 3D environment and encouraged students to participate in building up the world. Current developments include language learning in a game-based multi-user virtual environment, such as the Quest Atlantis project to immerse children, ages 9 to 12, in educational tasks (http://atlantis.crlt.indiana. edu/), presented by Zheng, Brewer & Young at

Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

the 2005 WiAOC Conference. A 24-hour online event, SLanguages 2008, provided a forum for practitioners, researchers and consultants in the field of language education to exchange methods, experiences, tools and materials on Second Life at EduNation I & II (http://www.slanguages.net/ home.php).

ConTRoveRSIAl ReSeARCh There are multiple studies promoting language learning through virtual worlds and online chats. Peterson’s (2006) research on Active Worlds for language learning found that participants were able to undertake a variety of tasks in the target language, communicate effectively and use interactive strategies. The study claimed that avatars (the role-play vehicle) facilitated learner engagement during computer-mediated communication. This research concluded that interaction was influenced by a number of variables like task type, sociolinguistic factors and context, mixed with the potential provided in-world. In light of such experiences, and the conception that Second Life® might be a creative place to visit and explore, countless institutions are setting up sites, even purchasing islands, for educational purposes, entertainment, conference venues, professional meetings and so on. Not all scholars however consider Second Life® a universally suitable e-learning environment. Downes (2007) critiques the lack of open standards, interoperability, or data portability of the environment. O’Donnell (2006) raises some critical points and lists reasons to seriously question its use, like the lack of context, a void in guidance, an over-emphasis on escapism encouraging membership supposedly far outpacing the active use of the site. Second Life® claims to have reached a million users in October 2006, and, enrollment is continuously on the rise. (http://blog. secondlife.com/2006/10/18/1000000-residentshappy-crushing-signup-load-sad/) Other reports

question such successful statistics as simply the rapid spread of a “Try Me” virus, whose one time users drop out and become immune (Shirky, 2006). A similar opinion is backed by Rose (2007) who suggests that 85% of the avatars have been orphaned once the novelty has diminished. Interim stances include scholars such as Scott (2007) whose approach recommends an openminded trial period for interested educators. Her standpoint is seconded by Macleod (2007) who recognizes value in virtual spaces for teaching and learning, but, qualifies his statement by observing that its instructional strengths are by no means unique to virtual reality alone.

PRoSPeCTS Regardless of the divided opinions on the educational potential of virtual worlds, the success of Web 2.0 lies in the ability to provide tools for sharing, communicating, collaborating and enhancing creativity among users, and to apply these advantages to improving on-line learning with blogs, podcast, social networks, wikis, folksonomys, and so on. Likewise, multimedia environments allow users to share text, images, videos and audio files, thus enabling learners to communicate in oral chats, audio recordings, on-line audio-video conferences and similar applications. As previously stated, Sloodle™ combines Moodle™ and Second Life® learning objects to offer teachers and students the benefit of sharing the mutual advantages of both sites. While LMS provide activities, chats, wikis, forums, podcasting, the possibility to share longer documents etc. (Kemp and Haycock, 2008), SL™ enables users to talk to people outside the traditional classroom, visit far away destinations, attend conferences and hold meetings. Availability of oral/aural tools is an important requirement of online language learning in order to provide for the practice and perfection of speaking and listening skills. SL™ virtual environment supplies the communicative

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context, reveals simulated real world situations and offers valid options for collaborative work to be evaluated in the e-learning classroom. With all these tools integrated in one site, the resources should be capable of the functionality needed to develop an optimal environment for on-line language learning. Expectations regarding instructional methods and strategies for foreign language e-learning with this virtual channel include: •

• •

•

•

•

Classroom simulation - re-creating traditional classrooms within the 3D world, both in small and large groups of avatars where the instructor teaches with virtual slides, or gives lectures through voice and text chats. Role-play - a construed situation to be interpreted in the virtual environment. Treasure hunts - hidden clues followed by learners to complete an activity, task or game for educational purposes. Guided tours - used to show learners the location of products, services or events by helping them understand relationships between locations/features within an area. Virtual cooperation - challenging learners to apply rules and learn by collaborative doing. Avatars work on creating in-world through teamwork. Critical thinking and problem solving presenting avatar-learners with simulations in which they must draw on prior knowledge to find answers to thought-provoking pretexts.

Although alternatives exist, Second Life® is one of the largest and most mature platforms available for social interaction (EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, 2008), making it a prospective place to carry out educational projects which allow for building knowledge in an attractive and social constructivist way. Can it be an ideal tool

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for the open source nature of the Web and social networking online, or is it just a banal promise which consumes resources, wastes time, and is far removed from educational aims? Gaining insight into the adequacy of the virtual world for collaboration and productivity on the aforementioned challenge is the purpose of the empirical study developed in the next section.

emPIRICAl CASe STudy Aims and Scope The feasibility of using virtual worlds for second language learning and professional training is developed with an in-depth analysis of the results of the qualitative study undertaken at the University of Extremadura in south-western Spain on Web 2.0 tools and selected Second Life® sites. The general research questions can be summarized as: 1- Is there a motivating and engaging learning life beyond the 4 walls of the traditional classroom space, and to what degree? 2- What are the learning preferences and acquisition goals of the participating target group of students? 3- How effective do students with presumed common interests feel Web 2.0 and virtual worlds for second language learning really is? The situational context and technical specifications of the research sampling are as follows: • • •

• •

Participants: 66 first /second life inhabitants Course type: elective for undergraduate level engineering students Course content: English as a Foreign Language for ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Tools for data analysis: questionnaire /follow-up interview /statistical data packages Realization date: late spring semester (3 months), 2008.

Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

The data collected has provided evidence for course design and content in the development of virtual worlds and indications requisite to achieving specific learning objectives. It has also supplied a series of warning signals that need be heeded when enthusiasm for innovation can at times blur a clearer vision of the actual state of affairs. In short, analysis, discussion and concluding comments from the results obtained in the current empirical study propose to shed some meaning on the issue of using a virtual world as an instrument for second language e-learning and professional training.

TeST InSTRumenTS As previously pointed out, the learner questionnaire (see Table 1 for detailed results) and follow-up interviews were expected to provide practical insight into the issues under study. The questionnaire was anonymous and answers/ comments were noted down in the post survey interviews void the identification of authorship to allow students to speak freely. The twenty-two question survey is structured into three major sections of interest: student motivation (Q 1-8), learner preferences (Q 9-14), and the effectiveness (Q 15-22) of exploiting virtual worlds for second language acquisition and professional training in technical university degree programs. A four-item Likert scale was chosen (e.g. none/a little/some/a lot) in the motivation and effectiveness sections in order to encourage the 66 participants into evaluating the probes to a greater or lesser degree of commitment, rather than a five point itemization which might lend itself to choosing a middle of the road variable. In this sense, students had to decide between leaning towards either a more or less favorable option in order to state their opinions. The preference section, on the contrary, contains yes/no variables, open responses and check lists, allowing for a certain amount of flexibility.

The follow-up interviews supplied further information regarding the responses received in the questionnaire. Moreover, students commented on the positive and negative aspects of the program, made suggestions, and/or recommendations for future improvement of the methodology carried out. A sampling of 22 volunteers, representing one third of the group, openly spoke about their motivation, preferences and the program effectiveness for learning English. The researchers clarified questions or doubts regarding apparent contradictions and unexpected answers during the dialogue, while comments made with respect to this academic experience were recorded. Throughout the analysis of the pilot program questionnaire, applicable data obtained in the follow-up interviews will be highlighted for the purposes of illustrating the results and identifying specific avenues of future research.

dISCuSSIon And ReSulTS Student Motivation: Is there a motivating and engaging learning life beyond the 4 walls of the traditional classroom space, and to what degree? Motivation is considered prerequisite for performance and the driving force behind the entire experience, for without it, there would be little acceptance of SL™ at all. Therefore, student receptivity to using a virtual world and their dedication to making the system work constitute an important source of information. In this regard, the increase in their personal attitudes towards learning English through computer support (Q 3) varies equally from “a little”, to “some”, to “a lot”, thus presumably showing no clear evidence that the setting in itself motivates in excess. However, when directly questioned if SL™ has contributed to their learning experience (Q4), the overwhelming majority have responded affirmatively. This apparent contradiction was pursued in the follow-up interviews where participants clarified that as computer engineering students,

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Table 1. Learner Questionnaire Annex - Sampling = 66. MOTIVATION 1. I have had previous experience with SL™ No 84.85%

a little 9.09%

some 6.06%

a lot 0%

2. For me to feel integrated, become involved and participate in the activities is Very difficult 12.12%

a little difficult 36.36%

somewhat easy 51.52%

very easy 0%

3. My personal attitude towards learning English through computer support has increased No 6.06%

a little 24.24%

some 36.36%

a lot 27.27%

some 57.58%

a lot 12.12%

4. This course has contributed to my learning experience No 12.12%

a little 18.18%

5. I have contributed to my learning by taking advantage of my time during this experience No 3.03%

a little 21.21%

some 69.70%

a lot 6.06%

6. I was able to solve the problems I encountered in my interactions No 9.09%

mostly not 21.21%

mostly yes 54.55%

yes 15.15%

some 24.24%

a lot 6.06%

7. I feel more confident about my role in a future job No 33.33%

a little 33.33%

8. I would like to repeat this way of learning No 21.21%

Yes 78.79%

PREFERENCES 9. I prefer learning English In virtual worlds 12.12%

In a traditional classroom 27.27%

A combination of both 60.61%

10. What I want to learn in English is (mark as many options as pertinent) 72.73%

To speak with confidence

81.82%

To understand when I am spoken to

48.48%

To be able to read well

57.58%

To be able to write correctly

69.70%

To translate

11. The language skill I have practiced the most is Speaking 12.12%

Listening 12.12%

Reading 48.48%

Writing 78.79%

12. I consider the sites listed useful –YES- or not useful –NOHelp Island Public

YES 87.88%

NO 12.12%

Education (Online Conferences)

YES 51.52%

NO 33.33%

Edunation Help you Learn - Educational Consultants

YES 54.55%

NO 30.30%

Knightsbridge 170, 157, 22 (PG) - London Community

YES 81.82%

NO 18.18%

Statue of Liberty (Historic Boat Trip)

YES 78.79%

NO 21.21%

Avignon 140, 180, 490 (PG) - Art Centre

YES 54.55%

NO 27.27%

continued on following page

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Table 1. continued Waterhead 36, 75, 25 (PG) - Waterhead welcome area

YES 63.64%

NO 24.24%

International Spaceflight Museum, Spaceport Alpha (37, 70, 22)

YES 57.58%

NO 21.21%

13. My favorite sites in SL™ are / The SL™ sites I feel most comfortable at are: (please list): Help Island Public, Knightsbridge 170, 157, 22 (PG) - London Community, Statue of Liberty (Historic Boat Trip) 14. What I enjoy the most about my favorite SL™ sites (mark as many options as pertinent) 75.76%

Entertainment; It’s fun

45.45%

The design of the site

45.45%

The cultural information available

69.70%

The language skills I can practice

39.39%

The in-world inhabitants I meet

21.21%

Usefulness for my future job

33.33%

Relevance to my studies

42.42%

The wide variety of environments to learn from

42.42%

Socializing around the globe

63.64%

Talking to people in English outside of classroom situations

45.45%

Finding it easier to learn English words in context

42.42%

Discovering how people use language in virtual worlds

30.30%

Setting up scenarios where I can create the need to learn words

0%

Other (please specify)

0%

I have not enjoyed any SL™ sites

EFFECTIVENESS 15. I learned English with SL™ No 6.06%

a little 39.39%

some 42.42%

a lot 12.12%

a little 48.48%

some 18.18%

a lot 9.09%

a little 42.42%

some 24.24%

a lot 3.03%

a little 33.33%

some 42.42%

a lot 15.15%

a little 33.33%

some 33.33%

a lot 24.24%

a little 39.39%

some 30.30%

a lot 15.15%

some 39.39%

a lot 27.27%

some 36.36%

a lot 3.03%

16. My speaking skills have improved No 24.24% 17. My listening skills have improved No 27.27% 18. My reading skills have improved No 6.06% 19. My writing skills have improved No 6.06% 20. My vocabulary has increased No 12.12%

21. My communicative capacity with others has improved No 9.09%

a little 24.24%

22. I feel more confident about using my English in a future job No 21.21%

a little 39.39%

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Figure 5. Virtual world input & Student input

they are already favorably inclined towards learning through technology, and a virtual world is but one more strategy within the realm of operation they are quite used to handling. However, the vast majority of participants confess to having no prior experience with SL™ (Q1), with minor percentages having “a little” or “some” previous contact in-world. At a first glance, this fact might prove excessively challenging, however, when asked if they were able to solve the problems they encountered in their interactions (Q 6), again the majority answered either that they could, or that most of the time they were able to overcome the difficulties. Specifically, slightly more than half of the students found it easy to feel integrated, become involved and participate in the required activities (Q 2), wherein the other half considered it somewhat difficult to do so. Further inspection with the half experiencing participation difficulties revealed that at times there was no one at the site to interact with, and others said their home computers were so slow at handling the applications that boredom and frustration set in. Thus, for at least some of these students, obstacles regarding timing with other participants at certain sites and the appropriate conditions of their computer system temporarily jeopardized involvement in English language learning. Remedies implemented for 70% of the half encountering problems (Q2) include visitation of more frequented sites (Q12),

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and, working from the multimedia computer labs on campus. Student input is vital to the success of the proposal, and in this regard, three-quarters of the learners claim they have contributed to their own learning by taking advantage of their time during the course (Q5). It is interesting to observe however, that in comparing student input (Q 5) and the input of the virtual program towards their learning experience (Q 4), the most notable differences occur at the extreme ends of the scale (Figure 5). That is, the students who did not feel that their input was sufficient, and, those who said they invested considerable effort in the course, both claim that SL™ has contributed more to their learning than they themselves put into it. In contrast, the students in the mid-range majority state they have worked harder in the program than the benefits rendered. Discussion on this point in the interviews revealed that the novelty of virtual worlds required dedication in order for most of the participants to become familiarized with the tasks and activities. This result does not seem to be particularly detrimental as a first time experience, because four-fifths of the participants say they would like to repeat this way of learning (Q 8) and the majority state that they were able to solve their problems (Q6). An unexpected result was that only a third of the participants felt that the experience significantly boosted their confidence in their role in a

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future job (Q 7). Another third said it did not help towards inspiring professional confidence at all, and the rest stated just “a little”. This means that further research and testing is required for fulfilling this objective. Nonetheless, discussion of this point during the follow-up interviews revealed that the students, in general immersed at present in an academic environment, feel far removed from the world of work. They have not yet held down jobs in their field, nor carried out work internships, making future job roles an intangible reality for the time being. Some also expressed a great deal of insecurity regarding their on-the-job capacity due to the unknown aspects it holds for them at this time. In addition, recalling their affirmative answer to the contribution of the SL™ world to learning (Q 4), and cross referencing the check list stating SL™ is relevant to their studies (Q 14), it seems safe to confirm that most participant perspectives remain based on an academic environment rather than on future professional employment at this formative stage. Lastly, the response that almost all the students would like to repeat this way of learning (Q 8), seems indicative that the process has somewhat enhanced second language e-learning, and perhaps professional training to be determined as useful to them at a later date. To conclude the analysis of the motivation section, the experimental group of learners has not had previous exposure to virtual learning environments but they have found it relatively simple to adapt to and participate in the activities. Technical problems aside, mainly when working with their home computers (Q 2), students’ personal attitudes towards CALL are favorable. SL™ seems to have contributed to their language learning experience. The students claim to have dedicated time and effort towards acquiring greater skill in English, but confidence as professionals has not been transferable to their projected potential role on the job. Especially encouraging, as well as opening the door towards future pursuits, is that the experience has motivated the target group enough to want to attend this type of course again.

Learner Preferences: What are the learning preferences and acquisition goals of the participating target group of students? One of the principles of education rests on a respect for learning styles, so every attempt is made to provide conditions for learner preferences and critical examination of emerging points of conflict. The target group of students has studied English as a foreign language in high school and has taken this college level course as an elective within the Computer Engineering Program syllabus. Given these circumstances, the learners possess an intermediate to advanced level of English and have freely chosen to enroll. Although they have stated that this is a first time experience, they are computer literate and technologically prepared to deal with it. Curiously enough, the majority of students state that they prefer to learn English with SL™ combined with traditional classroom learning (Q 9). Noteworthy is the statement made by about a quarter of the group preferring only the traditional type classroom, while an eighth of the group prefers learning English exclusively with SL™. Not only do most students prefer a combined learning methodology of ICT and class, but they also want to improve the full range of language skills (Q10) in the following order of preference: listening, speaking, translation, writing and reading. It is of interest to see that the language skills participants have most practiced are writing and reading respectively (Q11) when in fact their priorities lie in speaking and listening. This result is a potential trouble spot for the pilot program. For this reason, as expressed in the interviews, students have a preference in also learning English in a traditional classroom setup in order to fill the gap in aural/oral skills. This data serves as a useful indicator for researchers and program designers for covering the void by devising activities that promote and exploit the learning preferences to a greater degree than has been developed in the project.

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Figure 6. Preferences

Initial plans were made for students to choose from an ample list of 18 sites at which to work in-world (Q 12). These were eventually reduced to eight for several reasons, some of which were beyond the control of the researchers. The main objective was for students to improve their English language capacity, so time efficiency, content management and free public access were major considerations. On the one hand, too many resources complicated the processes involved in preparing the equipment for application and the students for orientation, and on the other hand, some of the most interesting sections of a few sites switched to private payment membership which was not a viable option. As a result, the eight sites listed in Q 12 were finally selected as meeting the conditions needed in conjunction with students’ interests. All of these were rated as useful to a high degree by the participants for the language skills they were able to practice in-world. The most preferred sites (Q13) are: Help Island Public, Knightsbridge 170, 157, 22 (PG) – London Community, and Statue of Liberty (historic boat trip). The reasons expressed for the preferences do not differ much from the justifications that might be given in a conventional classroom setting, such as, feeling welcome, interacting and getting feedback from others, being able to understand the content and carry out the tasks.

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Q 14 was set up as a check list (see annex for details) in order to ascertain what exactly was attractive to the learners at the sites they participated in. In addition to the specific 14 items we offered, there was also an open space for comments. All the items contain a contributing value with the exception of the last one stating that no site was considered beneficial. The participants were invited to mark as many items as they deemed appropriate to their individual learning styles and tastes. Interpretation of the results corresponding to the percentage of responses received on each item is illustrated in (Figure 6). Two items were not marked at all, those being the “other” open item option, and, the “I have not enjoyed any SL™ sites” option. A discreet value is applied to “usefulness for my future job” as only about one fifth of the students contemplated this advantage with the program. Most of the items fall into the category of significant relevance: “the design of the site,” “the cultural information available,” “the wide variety of environments to learn from,” “socializing around the globe,” “finding it easier to learn English words in context,” and, “discovering how people use language in virtual contexts,” all nearly reaching a marked status by half of the participants. Meanwhile, “the SL™ inhabitants I meet,” “relevance to my studies,” and, “setting up scenarios where I can create the need to learn words,” obtain percentages marked

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by roughly one third of the group of learners. A very significant level is reached by “the language skills I can practice,” and, “talking to people in English outside of classroom situations” as well above half of the students have so valued both features. The highest percentage received pertains to the ludic aspect denoted as “entertainment, it’s fun” marked by over three-quarters of the target group. A number of deductions can be formulated with the analysis and cross-referencing of these preference-based items. First is the enjoyment factor which has paved the way towards a positive disposition towards learning and is closely linked to motivation. In addition, the option “I have not enjoyed any SL™ sites” was not marked by any participant, and is therefore presumed a solid confirmation of the high rating received by the entertainment variable. This result is not to be taken lightly as its very nature offers educators an attractive way in to using virtual worlds for learning purposes. The subject matter for the pilot course consists of learning English as a foreign language so a favorable grading of linguistic aspects by the students holds importance. They seem to have adequately focused on the subject material by expressing the desire to perfect all their English language skills, as well as considering features of the sites like “finding it easier to learn English words in context,” “discovering how people use language in virtual worlds,” “setting up scenarios where I can create the need to learn words,” and, “the language skills I can practice.” All the aforementioned are essential ingredients to the field, but linguistic capacity encompasses a much larger sphere of influence. Comprehensive language learning pushes far beyond the correct use of grammar and acquisition of an extensive vocabulary. Language is society’s form of communication and the target group of participants appears to have captured this vital premise. They have awarded recognition of several items that may be classified

as socio-cultural supporting the foundations of learning theories on social constructivism. In this regard, specific concepts like sharing knowledge with others and collaborative tasking in online interaction seem apparent to the participants in responses such as “the wide variety of environments to learn from,” “socializing around the globe,” “the SL™ inhabitants I meet,” “the cultural information available,” “the design of the site,” and “talking to people outside of classroom situations.” It is here, language in use, where the communicative role of virtual worlds can potentially contribute the most to learners. One of the original objectives targeted was establishing a threshold for professional training. Most students did not perceive their in-world activities accordingly. The item marked “usefulness for my future job” not only received the lowest rating, but a weak rating of the concept was corroborated in both the motivation and effectiveness sections. Perhaps the goal is unrealistic, depending on maturity and experience in the world of work before it can be seriously considered by the students. Extended follow-up of the target group a few years after they have obtained a job would provide some direct answers, but obviously goes beyond the intentions of this chapter. Nonetheless, case research of former students in working environments in order to determine the relevance of study programs in professional applications could prove to be an enlightening one. To highlight what has been learned about the preferences of the target group of students, the empirical data indicates they are favorably inclined towards English language acquisition with SL™ activities complemented by conventional classroom tasks. Linguistic competence is desirable in all the traditional language skills, including translation. The skill most practiced has been writing, and reading to a somewhat lesser degree. On the down side, speaking and listening skills have not quite received attention to the extent the learners would have liked. Some participants commented that they would have

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Figure 7. Effectiveness

preferred a longer duration of the pilot course further removed from the end of the semester due to distraction from studying for final exams. Site selection seems to have been appropriate for in-world learning applicable to their studies. Specifically, Education (Online Conferences) and Edunation Help you Learn - Educational Consultants have been considered useful for improving the participants’ language skills; International Spaceflight Museum, Spaceport Alpha (37, 70, 22) and Waterhead 36, 75, 25 (PG) - Waterhead welcome area for providing high quotas of enjoyment and moving around in-world; Avignon 140, 180, 490 (PG) - Art Centre, and Statue of Liberty (historic boat trip) for cultural discovery; and, Help Island Public or Knightsbridge 170, 157, 22 (PG) - London Community for visiting and worldwide socialization. Effectiveness: How effective do students with presumed common interests feel Web 2.0 and second language learning in a virtual world really is? Thus far, participants in the pilot program claim to have been motivated and have expressed their preferences for learning. Now, the evaluation of effectiveness brings us to the crux of the whole matter. In other words, has the program been successful, and if so, to what degree? To find out let us examine what the target group has to say and proceed to an evaluation of their responses.

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The global evaluation of learning English with SL™ is basically a positive one (Q 15), distributed as illustrated in Figure 7. Most of the item ratings fall into the center zone between a little effective and somewhat so. On the extreme ends of both poles, an insignificant percentage states the virtual world has not been effective for them, and, a small percentage claims it has been extremely such. As with any kind of learning methodology, there is a small representation of students who do not favorably respond. There are also a number of students whose response is over-enthusiastic. Although the attitude of the latter is well-received, objective evaluation and caution remind educators that some students adapt and prosper no matter what type of learning situation they are faced with. Likewise, some students do not. For these reasons, logic indicates paying the closest attention to the majority ruling on effectiveness in order to evaluate the proposal for the entire group. In this sense, the program has been effective to a certain degree for over 80% of the participants. The breakdown of the results on specific language skills varies, with oral production and reception lagging behind more affirmative results scored in writing and reading. The speaking skill has improved “a little” by this method according to about half of the participants (Q 16). Nearly one quarter of them have said their speaking ability has not improved, while one-fifth have

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claimed oral capacity has improved somewhat. Only a mere tenth of the group rate oral skills as increasing “a lot”. Regarding the listening skill (Q 17), most students say aural capacity has improved “a little”. About a quarter of them qualify improvement in listening comprehension as “some”, whereas a similar rating is claimed as no increase. An insignificant number of students say their comprehension has improved “a lot”. According to about half of the participants they have bettered their reading skill ‘somewhat”, and another third of them say they have noticed “a little” improvement in this regard (Q 18). Very few students say reading ability has not increased, while for a fair number of learners, their reading skill has improved “a lot”. Writing skill improvement (Q 19) is recorded in equal proportions to the reading skill on the lower variables of the scale. A difference is marked on the higher variables, being that a more ample margin of students claims their writing skill has improved “a lot”. These scores cross reference and confirm those rendered in Q 11 of the preferences section. Slightly less than half of the group states an increase in the acquisition of vocabulary (Q 20) ranging from “some” to “a lot”. The majority say it has increased “a little”, with the remaining minority denying any vocabulary acquisition. Also, and in keeping with the results obtained in Q 7 of the motivation section, practically identical percentages have been derived regarding the feeling of a lack of confidence about using English in a future job (Q 22). Finally, about a quarter of the students feel their overall communicative capacity in the use of English has improved “a little”, and a small percentage say it has not (Q 21). On the contrary, a significant two thirds of the target group has claimed a favorable “some” to large improvement regarding their communication skills. Communicative competence is a term originally coined by the anthropological linguist Hymes (1971). For language learning, the Communicative Approach has developed into a philosophy advocating the

ability the get the message across, as well as to understand meaning even though some lexis and/ or syntactical structures are missing or faulty. The underlying principles behind communication theory reject a perfectionist perspective on language and language use. This linguistic point of view is extremely flexible in that it tolerates mistakes and allows for language lapses as long as the flow of conversation is not indefinitely interrupted or completely broken. Effective communication breaks away from traditional correction methods of language teaching simply because unimportant errors are permitted (Larsen-Freeman, 1986). In contrast, the participating students received a grammatical approach to learning English prior to university. Therefore, these results are considered an important step in the right direction towards learning by doing, and a favorable contribution of the pilot program to the target group’s English language competence. To sum up the data analyzed for effectiveness, the experimental group claim to have learned English with SL™ though their speaking and listening skills have not undergone as much improvement as their reading, writing and vocabulary acquisition. Particularly important is the improved ability to communicate with others in English despite imperfections. However, confidence in their communicative capacity does not extend much beyond academia and into the world of work at present.

ConCluSIon At the start of this chapter, uncertainty regarding the implementation of a virtual world like Second Life® as a viable tool for second language learning and professional training in university degree programs was presented. The main thrust of the empirical study has demonstrated that in fact it can be, notwithstanding certain limitations, modifications and considerations.

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From the observable data collected in the pilot study implementing virtual worlds a series of recommendations can be derived, in addition to suggestions for future hands-on research and improvement. For the sake of organization, a three-part division of the conclusions drawn will be offered in these closing remarks, namely, 1preliminary preparation for the course, 2- intraprogram actions, and 3- post-program tasks.

Preliminary Prep: logisticsneeds Analysis - Task design & Site Selection- Training Logistics- For web 2.0-based learning to happen, first and foremost adequate preparation is required of both human and material resources. The core skills needed to get started, as well as approaches, tools and content for in-world learning demand a focus on language teaching and up to date language teacher training in online environments. Advancements regarding support for teaching staff, investments in equipment and technical maintenance cannot be taken for granted. So, where and when participants are learning, who is teaching them, and the efficiency of installations and communications are without a doubt essential. Needs Analysis - Needs Analysis (Munby, 1978) is the process by which teachers find out what exactly it is that learners wish to know about a subject. This information is taken into account by the teacher who combines its relevance to the requisites of the course material and goals. Task Design & Site Selection - Needs analysis regarding the motivation of the participants towards web 2.0-based learning can be helpful for a more expedient selection of the specific sites to be included in the course, while careful scrutiny of learner preferences conducive to reaching objectives of knowledge in the discipline being studied can aid in designing specialized tasks. Task design and site selection should be anchored on the ultimate aim, namely, professional preparation. TrainingFinally, before initiating any in-world activity,

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prior training for skill enhancement on a trial basis would be highly advisable, especially for students with limited computer skills.

Intra-Program Action: observation- Availability- Combo Format- Target Tasking Observation While the program is in process, close observation of in-world activity at all the sites listed can head off problems such as changes in membership status, levels of participation, difficulties in completion of tasks, questions to be answered or confusion easily clarified, among other glitches that may crop up. In essence, this means checking in regularly on the operational functioning at the sites.

Availability Teacher availability guarantees addressing problems in their initial stages as well as providing relatively immediate feedback for learners. Teachers may find themselves dedicating much more time than the structured number of conventional class time hours. However, any new project requires a maiden voyage, and the rewards can be worth it.

Combo Format There is really no reason to be exclusive about teaching-learning methods and tools. If the student group and/or facilitator feel the best practice is to combine web 2.0-based learning and traditional classes, this currently seems to be a justifiable transitional way to go about it. Target TaskingLast but not least, targeting appropriate tasks to meet the expectations of Needs Analysis should be sought. In the case in point, speaking and listening skills claim greater presence, whereas, for any degree program, provision for professional

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apprenticeship activities can provide specialized simulation and realistic role-play. In general terms, further development with Sloodle™ can provide solutions to the former, while a likely measure for the latter could be to design simulations like seeking jobs, preparing resumes and practicing interview techniques, followed by simple introductory on-the-job tasking characteristic of the area of expertise.

Post Program: Student evaluationCourse evaluation- Follow-up Student Evaluation The final exam, upon which education traditionally rests its case for student grades, should contain a format familiar to the test-takers in order to assess not only what has been taught, but also the fundamental way knowledge has been acquired in the course processes. Based on this perspective, evaluation tasks should present a similar activity pattern to that followed during the program in order to contain face validity. If there has been a combination of class and e-formats, these should also be inherent to the final evaluation procedures.

Course Evaluation Innovative processes can highly benefit from the input of the students with respect to their participation. Evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of the course is a welcomed contribution to further editions and future users.

Follow-Up If at all feasible, extended follow-up of student success in the world of work specifically regarding the practical applications of the course matter learned at university could be undertaken. If indeed the desired outcome of a college education is preparation for future professional practice in

a field, then it stands to reason that the fruits of learning efforts in former students should become apparent in on-the-job experience. To conclude, the bottom line indicates a favorable academic scenario in store for the use of 3D virtual worlds like SL™ as long as all the parties involved are willing and able to make amends in customizing the educational uses to which they are put. As learning institutions join the state of the art means and ways, invest in the technological support to implement them, and a wider variety of versatile, user-friendly e-learning formats, programs and sites become increasingly available, both teachers and students will become more adept at exploiting the exciting world of web 2.0 and beyond for academic purposes.

noTICe And dISClAImeR Second Life® is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc. This chapter, “Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®” and its authors are not affiliated with or sponsored by Linden Research.

uRl ReSouRCeS Avignon Art Center (140,180,491): http://slurl. com/secondlife/Avignon/140/180/491 EDUCAUSE: http://www.educause.edu/ Edunation I (140, 136, 24): http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation/140/136/25 Edunation II (128, 128, 23): http://slurl.com/ secondlife/EduNation%20II/128/128/23 Edunation III (128, 128, 31): http://slurl.com/ secondlife/EduNation%20III/128/128/31 Help Island Public (124, 124, 26): http:// slurl.com/secondlife/Help%20Island%20Public/124/124/26

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International Spaceflight Museum (137,127,451): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Alpha/137/127/451 Knightsbridge, London (170, 158, 22): http://slurl. com/secondlife/Knightsbridge/170/158/22 Linden Lab®: http://lindenlab.com/ Machinima: http://www.machinima.org/ Moodle™: http://moodle.org/ Papers and Presentations by Vance Stevens: http:// www.vancestevens.com/papers River City Project: http://atlantis.crlt.indiana. edu/ Second Life®: http://secondlife.com/ Sloodle™: http://www.sloodle.org/ Statue of Liberty (90, 154, 40): http://slurl.com/ secondlife/Statue%20of%20Liberty/90/154/40 Waterhead (36, 76, 25): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Waterhead/36/76/25

ReFeRenCeS Au, W. J. (2008). The making of Second Life. Notes from the New World. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Bruckman, A. (1996). Finding one’s own space in cyberspace. Technology Review, (January): 48–54. Craig, K. (2006). Making a LIving in Second Life. Wired. Retrieved August 5, 2008, from http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/ news/2006/02/70153

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Downes, S. (2007, May). Virtual worlds in context. Paper presented at the Eduserv Foundation Symposium: Virtual worlds, real learning? London. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www. downes.ca/presentation/148 EDUCAUSE learning initiative. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/eli/16086 Edwards, P., Domínguez, E., & Rico, M. (2008). A second look at Second Life: Virtual role-play as a motivational factor in higher education. In K. McFerrin et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 2566-2571). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Haynes, S. N. (1998). The changing nature of behavioral assessment. In A. S. Bellack & M. Hersen (Eds.), Behavioral assessment: A practical handbook (4th ed., pp. 1-21). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Hymes, D. (1971). On communicative competence. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kemp, J. W., & Haycock, K. (2008). Immersive learning environments in parallel universes: Learning through Second Life. School Libraries Worldwide, 14(2), 89-97. Retrieved from http:// Asselindoiron.pbwiki.com Larsen-Freeman, D. (1986). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Macleod, H. (2007, May). Holyrood Park: A virtual campus for Edinburgh. Paper presented at the Eduserv Foundation Symposium: Virtual worlds, real learning? London. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.slideshare.net/efsym/ holyrood-park-a-virtual-campus-for-edinburgh/

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Munby, J. (1978). Communicative syllabus design. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. O’Donnell, C. (2006). 10 reasons to go short on Second Life. This is going to be big. Retrieved August 13, 2008, from http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2006/11/10_reasons_to_g.html O’Reilly, T. (2003). The software paradigm shift. IT Conversations. Retrieved August 13, 2008, from http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/ detail50.html Peterson, M. (2006, February). Learner interaction management in an avatar and chat-based virtual world. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 19(1), 79–103. doi:10.1080/09588220600804087 Piaget, J. (1950). Introduction à l’épistémologie génétique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Rose, F. (2007, July). How Madison Avenue is wasting millions on a deserted Second Life. Wired Magazine. Retrieved October 13, 2008 from http:// www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-08/ ff_sheep Scott, J. (2007, May). Second nature: Nature publishing group in Second Life. Paper presented at the Eduserv Foundation Symposium: Virtual worlds, real learning? London. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2007/presentations/scott Shirky, C. (2006, December). Second Life: What are the real numbers? Many 2 Many. Retrieved October 13, 2008 from http://many.corante.com/ archives/2006/12/12/second_life_what_are_the_ real_numbers.php

Slanguages. (2008, May). The conference for language education in virtual worlds. Retrieved October 23, 2008, from http://www.slanguages. net/es/index.php Stevens, V. (2003). Some CMC clients promoting language learning through chatting online. ESL_ Home A Web Resource for CALL Lab Managers & for Teachers & Learners of Languages Online. Retrieved August 8, 2008, from http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/findbuds.htm Stevens, V. (2008, June/July). Class of the future. The Linguist, 18-20. Retrieved from http://sl2ndchance.pbwiki.com/f/linguist18-21_2ndLife_lores.pdf Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 17(2), 89–100. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x Zheng, D., Brewer, R. A., & Young, M. F. (2005, November). English language learning in a game-based Multi-User Virtual environment: Quest Atlantis connects middle school students in China to the world. Paper presented at Webheads in Action Online Convergence.

This work was previously published in Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking, H.H. Yang and S.C. Chen, pp. 207-227, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.8

Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers E. Gregory Holdan Robert Morris University, USA Mary Hansen Robert Morris University, USA

ABSTRACT Discourse has been thought to be an essential aspect of high quality education (Bean & Stevens, 2002; Harkness, D’Ambrasio & Marrone, 2006; Wade, Fauske & Thompson, 2008; NCTM, 2000; Heller, 2004). But because the teaching profession is sometimes one of isolation and disconnecteness (Wong & Wong, 2001; Zmuda, Kuklis & Kline, 2004; Sparks & Hirsh, 1997), teachers may not get opportunities to engage in thoughtful discourse. With advances in on-line education, however, teachers who might otherwise not have opportunities to engage in meaningful, reflective discourse about teaching and learning can easily, and at their own relative convenience, do so. Through an on-line venue, teachers can get involved in substantive communication about teaching and learning, address valid and invalid preconceptions about the profession, and work

to improve their practice through directed metacognitive reflective activities.

InTRoduCTIon Reflective practice for the classroom teacher has been conceptionalized in many different ways: reviewing and thinking about ones teaching (Stronge, 2002); reviewing an experience to identify accurate and inaccurate perceptions (Marzano, 2007); thinking about teaching before, during, and after a lesson (Artzt, Armour-Thomas, & Curcio, 2008); sophisticated thoughtful consideration of instructional intentions and the degree to which those intentions have been accomplished (Danielson & McGreal, 2000); a cycle of inquiry to foster building new understanding of self and teaching practice (Lambert, 1998); a mental activity where an experience is recalled,

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Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers

thoughtfully considered, and then evaluated, usually with some overarching purpose in mind (Richards, 1991). Overarching purposes might be to improve instruction and influence student learning (Stronge, 2002), to uncover beliefs, as well as accurate and inaccurate perceptions about teaching and student learning (Marzano, 2007), to analyze ones personal teaching practices and cognitions that drive each and every lesson (Artzt, et al., 2008), to build a strong sense of self-efficacy (Stronge, 2002), or to build a deeper understanding that the consequences of teacher actions can build an expanded repertoire of teaching skills (Danielson, 1998). Reflective thought requires more than just recounting events, though. It must also consider the why’s associated with those events. Simply put, for example, recounting the sequence of events of a particularly good lesson is not reflective thinking at a comprehensive level. The teacher must thoughtfully consider why that particular lesson may have been so successful. It is believed that reflective thinking by the effective teacher acts as a learning tool for the teacher and builds confidence in teaching. Indeed, reflective thinking about ones teaching can transform an ordinary classroom into a much more productive one (Stronge, 2002). According to Richards (1991), one may consider reflection as a three step process. First is the identification of a teaching or classroom event. Second, there is an account of what happened, without explanation or any evaluation. Third, there is a conscious review of the event, questions are asked about the event, and an evaluation is generated. For example, when asked to respond to a discussion on a best and worst lesson, a student teacher might, at the first stage, simply identify that a lesson on the unit circle in trigonometry was his worst lesson. At the second stage, that same student teacher might describe the lesson as one where he derived some trigonometric expression as his students watched and then sent his students on a path to apply that trigonometry. At the third level, the student teacher might suggest that the

lesson was too teacher-centered and consequently many students were left disenfranchised for too long a period of time; he might further realize that students spent too much time mindlessly copying from the chalkboard without processing the underlying big mathematical ideas. Realization then sets in that students were unable to work on the application problems without a lot of help from the student teacher, who spent much of the rest of the class running around the room helping individual students. Finally the student teacher might add an evaluation that “teacher-directed, note-taking” math classes may not be effective because of low student engagement. When this high level of reflection is met, the student teacher can make the conscious and evidence-based decision to involve students more in developing an understanding of mathematics with active student involvement in activities that encourage students to explore, make conjectures, and test them. In essence, through reflection, the student teacher comes to recognize the role of problem-solving in developing meaning in his content area.

The Role of Technology in Reflection In recent years, advances in on-line education have increased the potential for synchronous and asynchronous discourse across all disciplines. Asynchronous discussions have the potential to promote high quality reflection (Brookfield & Preskill, 2005), which is seen as an essential aspect of learning (Fåhræus & Döös, 2007). Further, successful on-line learning involves developing a community of learners (York, Yang, & Dark, 2007), in which students feel comfortable reflecting on and responding to others’ posts. In on-line, asynchronous discussions, students can ponder over the material before responding. Thus, such discussions have the potential to result in students’ increased ability to critically reflect, provide well thought-out views and realize deeper thinking (Brookfield and Preskill, 2005, Wade

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et al., 2008). Further, on-line discussions allow students to delve into discussions that they may be uncomfortable having in a face-to-face format (Otero, et al., 2005).

moTIvATIon FoR The STudy For several years, surveys of our student teachers, before and after their teaching methods courses and student teaching, indicated very little change in attitude concerning some big issues about teaching and learning, including assessment, classroom management, providing for all learners, and mathematics content preparation. We were looking for some intervention to help student teachers manage their concerns about such issues. In particular, we wanted to begin to build confidence in the student teachers so that they might embark on their careers as lifelong learners and focus on continuous improvement. We also wanted to begin to dissipate antiquated perceptions student teachers had about teaching and learning. It was clear to us that what we taught during methods, built around a strong constructivist philosophy and a rich teaching repertoire, often got lost during student teaching if the student teaching placement was in a more traditional setting. The intervention that we hypothesized would be viable during student teaching was a monitored discussion where student responses to bothersome issues that they themselves generated could be turned into a forum where the student teachers were encouraged to reflect on these issues. We recognized immediately that with real-time faceto-face class discussions, not all student teachers felt comfortable sharing piecemeal personal thoughts. In a face-to-face venue, they simply did not have the time nor the opportunity to think about issues in depth to generate a sophisticated response. We also realized the importance of sharing thoughts; student teachers simply had to be forced to form their own verbalizations about

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these issues to help build a sense of efficacy. We therefore chose an on-line, asynchronous venue (the discussion facility in Blackboard) to hold the reflective discussions. The on-line vehicle we used would give all students a chance to participate at their own relative convenience, giving them a chance to think about a real-time issue and respond accordingly.

The STudy In a study involving 11 secondary mathematics student teachers, we investigated concerns that they themselves generated about teaching in 4 major areas: content knowledge, classroom management, assessment, and differentiated instruction. Participants were also asked about their thoughts and experiences with on-line discussions. For 4 weeks before student teaching and 12 weeks of student teaching, participants were asked to respond weekly to a threaded discussion, based on their previously generated issues. Discussions were monitored, and students were prompted as necessary to generate reflective responses within each thread. It was thought that the addition of the reflective discussion threads would diminish initial concerns, help build confidence, and provide for professional growth even at this novice level of teaching. Before the study, data gathered suggested that most student teachers with prior experience with on-line discussions felt such discussions were a waste of time and students reported that they often simply generated a perceived “correct” response to discussion questions posed by instructors. A review of data gathered after the study found 100% of the students in agreement that the current on-line discussions were quite useful during student teaching. The nature of the discussion threads and purposeful prompting made the student teaching experience a much more worthwhile one as student teachers began connecting theory to practice.

Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers

Several sources of evidence were utilized in the current study. The instructors tracked student teachers’ views pre- and post- the student teaching semester. To this end, student teachers responded to both (1) a self-constructed Likert-type survey instrument and (2) self-reflection papers that addressed the following four areas: content knowledge, classroom management, assessment, and differentiated instruction. Student teachers were asked about their confidence levels and/or attitudes towards these four areas. The researchers intentionally obtained similar information in both formats in order to obtain a better and more in-depth understanding of students’ views and beliefs. Student teachers were also asked about the effectiveness of the threaded discussions. Internal consistency reliability coefficients were computed for the Likert surveys. Questionnaire data were analyzed descriptively, and changes in pre-post responses were analyzed using nonparametric tests.

ReSulTS

participation in threaded discussions would be beneficial.

open-ended Items Qualitatively, all students made positive remarks regarding the threaded discussions. A number of student responses were similar to Student 7, one of the more reflective learners, who indicated: •

The threaded discussion “did not only help me because of the topics that were discussed but it helped me to understand the importance of always asking questions and truly becoming a life long learner.”

Some students did not regularly reach high levels of reflection, and, it is believed not coincidentally, had some negative views about the discussions: •

“There were times when I felt like I didn't have anything to say, but I just kinda had to make something up.” (Student 6)

likert Items

Reflective Postings

Questionnaire responses were evaluated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 = Not Confident at All to 4 = Very Confident, or 1 = Strongly Disagree to 4 = Strongly Agree. Internal consistency reliability coefficients were 0.803 for the pre- and 0.511 for the post-questionnaire. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test results showed that confidence levels on the post-questionnaire were significantly higher than on the pre-questionnaire for the average of subsets of questions related to content knowledge (z = 2.94, p = .003), assessment (z = 2.73, p = .006), and classroom management (z =2.81, p = .005). The results were not significant for differentiated instruction (z = 1.95, p = .051). Both pre- and post-student teaching, 100% of the students agreed or strongly agreed that

We coded student responses according to Richard’s (1991) three step process (identify, consider, evaluate) that was described earlier. For the threads we posed in the online discussion, virtually all students were able to reach the third level (conscious review and evaluation), and actually generated a reflective response that reached the evaluation stage. There was clear evidence in the level 3 postings that students were becoming conscious of their teaching and their previously unaware of underlying assumptions about teaching and learning. Some students were able to get to level 3 more times or faster than others during the semester. As the asynchronous discussions began, levels 1 and 2 were readily taken care of by the first posters; other students built on those postings and were able to generate more one-

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Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers

time truly reflective postings without seemingly addressing the first 2 levels in the process. It was critical when a discussion was stymied on the first or second level that a facilitator intervene to help the student teachers get to that third consideration and evaluation level. This was done by simply prompting for elaboration or feeling, or posting somewhat controversial and thought-provoking comments for student response. In some cases, student teachers were not able to generate a very sophisticated reflective response. It seemed as if some prompts, perhaps because of student teacher inexperience or ineffective discussion prompts, were not conducive to getting student teachers to evaluate in a sophisticated manner. For example, asking student teachers “What interview questions scare you the most?” did not lead to substantive responses at first. It might have been better to ask “What interview questions scare you the most and why? Now that you have identified one or two such questions, generate a response for each that we can examine as a group and help you not be so afraid of it.” We found that prompts were better if they were multi-dimensional and required student teachers to consider several probing questions involving what, how and why, on a single issue. We found that you get what you ask for!

2.

3.

guIdelIneS FoR InCoRPoRATIng ReFleCTIve dISCuSSIon As the semester progressed, we began generating our own perceived guidelines for conducting the on-line reflective discourse segment of student teaching that made our student teachers’ discussions more reflective in nature. Our facilitation of the discussions led to the following suggestions: 1.

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It is important to use the first few discussions to get student teachers to understand what reflection looks like and what it does

4.

not look like. Student teachers must come to understand that a reflective response need not be uncomfortably personal, and that criticism and disagreement can be healthy for professional growth. Simply put, direct instruction in reflective thought may be essential, and with lots of examples and non-examples. Monitoring the discussion is critical, especially early on. The monitoring must be done in a timely manner so that interventions can occur to drive and direct the discussion towards the bigger end of getting students to consider and evaluate a personal classroom event. Student teachers simply lack experience and are genuinely naïve about teaching and learning, and so purposeful intervention is essential to move the discussion forward. Without intervention, discussion becomes superficial. The order of discussion is important. The topics that we had student teachers discuss during the first three weeks while they were still on campus were somewhat different from what we had them discuss while on-site student teaching. For instance, a discussion about classroom management was posted after students had been in the classroom for about 4 weeks; a discussion about notetaking in the classroom was posted prior to actual classroom experience. Some topics were explored both pre- and post- student teaching, which allowed students to articulate changing views based on their real experiences. Framing discussions in the particular order that will allow for the highest level of reflection is recommended. Scoring guidelines for a response need to be made clear to the student teachers. Descriptive scoring criteria should be provided that relate to the number of postings and the degree of reflection that is necessary. Student teachers need to know that a truly reflective response requires some careful

Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers

5.

6.

consideration of the item topic and some sense of personal evaluation that shows ownership of the idea. Unfortunately, we found at first that student teachers needed to be motivated by a “grade” associated with each posting; they were not yet internally motivated to post and share for the sake of learning. Therefore, attaching points to the discussion to make the participants more motivated at the on-set is recommended. As the semester progressed, we found that students became more engaged in the discussions, posting their own questions, prompts, and experiences, and participated well beyond the requirements set forth by the scoring criteria. However, initially the scoring criteria were needed as motivation factors. The anonymity of the online discussions, along with an open time element that supports thinking about and generating a sophisticated response, tend to give student teachers more comfort in generating personal evaluative responses. However, having student teachers share their online experiences when they are face-to-face acted as a building block for continued use of the discussions. We found it important to engage in discussions related to discussion! Student teachers need to have a sense of why they are reflecting on some issue. To reflect on an activity for a grade may not contribute to meaningful learning. For example, when student teachers are asked to reflect on note-taking in the classroom, they need to be consciously aware of the reason for the discussion: that note-taking as a classroom activity is worthy of talking about, that there are advantages and disadvantages of note-taking as a learning activity, and that there are philosophical and style/ management issues surrounding the activity. Thus, content-based instruction may have to accompany the threaded discussions.

7.

8.

Initial prompts must be designed so that student teachers feel compelled to elaborate and reflect. Often the prompts must take on multiple dimensions in order for student teachers to generate truly reflective responses. Otherwise student teachers may simply respond to the prompt without conscious consideration. For example, asking student teachers “What role should note-taking play in the mathematics classroom?” may not lead to elaborative responses. Instead, posing a prompt such as “What role should notetaking play in the mathematics classroom? What are your personal experiences with taking notes in the mathematics classroom? How does this fit with your philosophy of teaching and learning? Is it possible that you might replace note-taking with other better learning activities?” requires student teachers to reflect on their own experiences and philosophy. Discussions must be generated around topics that are of interest and have meaning to the student teachers. Listen to student teachers in formal and informal settings to gather possible discussion items. Choosing topics that we, as practicing professionals with years of experience, think student teachers will respond to positively may not, in fact, produce the kind of responses we seek, primarily due to pre-professional naiveté.

Additional on-line venues for Incorporating Reflective discussion The venue that we utilized for reflective discussion was asynchronous, on-line threaded discussions through Blackboard. However, other technologies can support effective, reflective discussion as we envision it. That is, discussion to compare perspectives and discuss, argue, and criticize; to promote conversation and not be primarily a delivery system for reproduction of what was learned

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Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers

during methods; discussion as a vehicle to build reflection, not to prescribe reflection, can be attained through additional technologies (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). Therefore, we address the potential use of other technologies to engage student teachers in articulate and reflective discussion. Many of these are limited only by one’s imagination and practicalities! •

•

•

•

•

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Video technologies, including embedded videos in e-mail or text messages and ipods, can be used to establish non-verbal prompts for student teachers to reflect upon and discuss. Video conferencing, with its 2-way communication characteristics, might be used to allow a group of student teachers to see into a real classroom and interact with a real teacher during a real lesson. Student teachers and teachers can share their thoughts conveniently and from afar. Computer role-playing games, such as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) could be designed to simulate teaching and learning scenarios for student teachers to react to, make decisions, and evaluate those decisions. This could be an excellent venue for student teachers to practice interviewing techniques. Though perhaps not the most cost effective tool for individual use, perhaps a specialized company could design such a game to market for such use. A list-serve has the potential to open up educational discussions to other student teachers and practicing teachers to share common experiences as well as experiences unique to an educational setting, such as a rural, suburban, or urban setting. The opportunity to share perspectives here is unbounded. Voice over Internet Protocol could be used to have ‘conference calls’ where students can ‘call in’ and talk to one another or an

•

expert. This could be quite useful for small group reflective discussions. Texting might be used to gather data at various sites. That data can then be sent to a leader responsible for gathering the data and organizing it for later discussion. Such data might consist of survey results or teaching/learning observations occurring in real time. The collector of the data would have the data ready to display for student teachers to interpret and discuss in a more effective and efficient technological venue later on.

ConCluSIon Sometimes student teachers are placed with a cooperating teacher who does not advocate the beliefs and practices we try to instill in our student teachers. There are veteran teachers, for example, who are point junkies and advocate grading every piece of student work and awarding a grade on total points, a far cry from having in place a genuine assessment plan to improve teaching and learning. And there are teachers who rule with an iron fist, a far cry from our suggestions to develop and implement a classroom management plan that is more proactive, that is built around engaging students in meaningful activities that serve to develop understanding. And there are teachers who teach according to one style, theirs, and are not at all interested in differentiating instruction on the usual big three of readiness, interest, or style (Tomlinson, 1999). As such, student teachers begin to lose trust in what we deliver during methods, and begin to perceive teaching as a solitary endeavor for which there is just one best way to teach. Sharing teaching incidents and thoughts about student teachers generated pedagogical ideas takes some of the solitary out of the initial teaching experience. Building an asynchronous on-line discussion aspect into the methods and student teaching experience allows student teachers to

Using On-Line Discussion to Encourage Reflective Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers

hear that others are experiencing similar experiences, both positive and negative. Some may share anxiety and frustration about not being able to test out assumptions about teaching and learning in their cooperating teacher’s classroom; some may admit a connection between theory and practice and note proudly that something learned from methods is actually working quite well. One begins to see a Delphi effect as student teachers begin to change as they hear of others admit change. From sharing real-time classroom experiences, student teachers’ preconceptions are confronted, confidence is built and the student teachers begin to see themselves as lifelong learners. Incorporating an on-line instructional strategy into the student teaching experience provided a venue that allowed us to watch our students become more reflective and evaluative educators.

eduCATIonAl ImPoRTAnCe While educational institutions believe that reflective discourse is a strength of effective teachers, specific information about how to get teachers to engage in high-quality discourse is not concrete. This study presents a method for incorporating reflective discourse into pre-service teacher education programs through an on-line venue. Previous research has called for studies that investigate the effects of on-line, scaffolded discourse that focuses on high-quality student reflection. This study answers this call by investigating the effectiveness of on-line guided discussions during student teaching. Through several sources of qualitative and quantitative evidence, the structured discourse was shown to have positive effects.

ReFeRenCeS Artzt, A. F., Armour-Thomas, E., & Curcio. F. R. (2008). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher (2nd ed.). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bean, T. W., & Stevens, L. P. (2002). Scaffolding reflection for preservice and in-service teachers. Reflective Practice, 3(2), 205-218. Brookfield, S. D., & Preskill, S. (2005). Discussion as a way of teaching: Tools and techniques for democratic classrooms (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Danielson, C. (1998). Enhancing professsional practice. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Danielson, C., & McGreal, T. L. (2000). Teacher evaluation to enhance professional practice. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Fåhræus, E., & Döös, M. (2007). Competent web dialogue: Thoughts linked in digital Conversations. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 3(3), 14 – 24. Harkness, S. S., D’Ambrosio, B., & Morrone, A. S. (2007). Preservice elementary teachers’ voices describe how their teacher motivated them to do mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 65, 235–254. Heller, D. A. (2004). Teachers wanted: Attracting and retaining good teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Jonassen, D. H., Howland, J., Moore, J., & Marra, R. M. (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology: A constructivist perspective (2nd. ed.). Columbus: Merrill Prentice Hall. Lambert, L. (1998). Building leadership capacity in schools. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Marzano, R. J. (2007). The art and science of teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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NCTM. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reeston, VA: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. Otero, V., Peressini, D., Meymaris, K. Ford, Pl, Garvin, T., Harlow, D., Reidel, M., Waite, B., & Mears, C. (2005). Integrating technology into teacher education: A critical framework for implementing reform. Journal of Teacher Education, 56(1), 8 – 23. Richards, J. C. (1991). Towards reflective teaching. The Teacher Trainer 5(3). Retrieved June 6, 2008, from http://www.tttjournal.co.uk/uploads/File/ back_articles/Towards_Reflective_Teaching. pdf Sparks, D. & Hirsh, S. (1997). A new vision for staff development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Stronge, J. H. (2002). Qualities of effective teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wade, S. E., Fauske, J. R., & Thompson, A. (2008). Prospective teachers’ problem solving in online peer-led dialogues. American Educational Research Journal, 45(2), 398-442. Wong, H. K. & Wong, R. T. (2001). The first days of school. Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications, Inc. York, C., Yang, D., & Dark, M. (2007). Transitioning from Face-to-Face to Online Instruction: How to Increase Presence and Cognitive/Social Interaction in an Online Information Security Risk Assessment Class. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 3(2), 42-52. Zmuda, A., Kuklis, R., & Kline, E. (2004). Transforming schools: Creating a culture of continuous improvement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 3, edited by L.A. Tomei, pp. 74-82, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.9

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning:

Teaching Complex Information Systems Classes Online Solomon Negash Kennesaw State University, USA Marlene V. Wilcox Bradley University, USA Michelle Emerson Kennesaw State University, USA

ABSTRACT An empirical analysis in the form of a pilot study was conducted to compare a complex information technology course taught in a synchronous hybrid e-learning environment with one taught in a traditional classroom. The aim of the pilot study was to explore whether virtual learning environments (VLEs) are ready for teaching complex courses. Three courses taught during the summer semester of 2006 were used for the study; the results indicate the promise of synchronous hybrid e-learning for complex courses. Self-efficacy and satisfaction were also examined, and no differences were found between students

in the two learning environments. Directions for future research were proposed to further evaluate synchronous hybrid e-learning environments.

InTRoduCTIon Advances in technology have increased the popularity of virtual learning environments (VLEs) in both the educational arena and corporate world (Alavi, Marakas, & Yoo, 2002; Dagada & Jakovljevic, 2004). VLEs are defined as “computer-based environments that are relatively open systems which allow interactions and encounters with other participants and providing access to

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Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

a wide range of resources” (Piccoli, Ahmad, & Ives, 2001, p. 402; Wilson, 1996). Advances in information technology (IT) continually expand the capabilities of VLEs (Seng & Al-Hawamdeh, 2001). VLEs can be characterized by six dimensions that distinguish them from traditional classrooms and computer aided instruction: time, place, space, technology, interaction, and control (Piccoli et al., 2001). The instruction delivery when defining the six dimensions by Piccoli et al. (2001) is asynchronous delivery. The definition for two of the dimensions, time and control, in a synchronous (real-time) virtual learning environment (SVLE) is different from that of an asynchronous virtual learning environment (AVLE). Research still remains to uncover the effectiveness of the environments and also to determine whether the differences in these environments alter the learning experience of the student (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Alavi et al., 2002; Hodges, 2005; Seng & Al-Hawamdeh, 2001). Prior research indicates that students are less satisfied when using VLEs for unfamiliar (complex) topics like databases and more satisfied using VLEs for more familiar (non-complex) topics like word processing (Piccoli et al., 2001). With the advances made in VLEs, this study aims to answer the research question: Are virtual learning environments ready for teaching complex subjects? This research presents the findings of a pilot study conducted to compare a VLE using a synchronous hybrid e-learning environment with a traditional class setting for a complex course. A synchronous hybrid e-learning environment is one where portions of the interaction among the participants take place virtually in real-time and the balance of the class is conducted face-toface. The format for the course is a mixture of online and in-class instruction. Hybrid learning is also referred to as blended learning. The next section presents an overview of the research on hybrid e-learning followed by a discussion of

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the pilot study, the results, and suggestions for future research.

BACkgRound hybrid e-learning Technology mediated learning (TML) has been the focus of researchers for some time, and it has been noted that research still lags behind practice. Overall, there is a need to gain a deeper understanding into the effectiveness of the use of technologies for online learning (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Alavi et al., 2002). To address this issue, researchers recently studying TML have turned their focus toward understanding the effectiveness of different pedagogical approaches in different content areas; as a result, there have been a number of studies examining hybrid approaches. A hybrid approach to learning with TML involves providing content in a variety of formats with a mixture of online and in-class instruction. Current research provides a mixed response on the subject of advantages and disadvantages of using a hybrid approach to teaching. Webb, Gill, and Poe (2005) examined the differences between pure versus hybrid approaches to teaching using the case method and found that students’ online discussions may enhance learning in case methods when taught using a hybrid approach. In a comparison of traditional and technologyassisted instruction methods in eight sections of a business communications class, where live versus hybrid formats were compared, an improvement in writing skills was found in students who participated in the hybrid course, particularly for those whom English is a second language (Sauers & Walker, 2004). McCray (2000) found that courses that combine online learning with the traditional classroom can help students to become more engaged in rich classroom interactions by appealing to different learning styles through variety in content delivery.

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

Piccoli et al. (2001) examined differences in learning outcomes for students training in basic information technology skills in a traditional classroom with those in a virtual one. No major differences were found in the performance of students in the two environments. There were, however, differences reported in computer selfefficacy. Brown and Liedholm (2002) compared the outcomes of three different formats for a course in the Principles of Microeconomics (face-to-face, hybrid, and asynchronous) and found that the students in the virtual course did not perform as well as the students in the face-to-face classroom settings and that differences between students in the face-to-face and hybrid sections, versus those in the virtual section, were shown to increase with the complexity of the subject matter. The researchers also concluded that ultimately there is some form of penalty for selecting a course that is completely online (asynchronous). In addition to the comparisons of learning outcomes for courses taught in a hybrid, asynchronous, and traditional classrooms settings, research in this area also highlights the importance of the influence of self regulation (ability to control actions and decisions) and control of the learning environment (Hodges, 2005; Piccoli et al., 2001). A discussion of two important dimensions of the learning environment, time and control, follows.

Time dimension Time in an asynchronous VLE is defined as, “The timing of instruction” (Piccoli, et al., 2001, p. 404). In comparison to traditional classrooms, “when instruction is delivered asynchronously in a VLE, participants retain control as to when they engage in the learning experience. Learners determine the time and pace of instruction” (Piccoli et al., 2001, p. 404); the time constraints for participants in VLEs are therefore removed (Piccoli et al., 2001).

In synchronous VLEs, participants have to be present, albeit virtually, at the time of instruction delivery. Participants in synchronous VLEs, therefore, do not have control over when they can engage in the learning experience. An advantage often cited by participants in asynchronous VLEs is the ability to be able to control their engagement in the learning experience, an option that is not available in synchronous VLEs. The synchronous VLE used in this study allowed the class session to be recorded and archived, providing students with the ability to access the archived session at any time; consequently, the “anytime” benefit of an asynchronous VLE was achieved.

Control dimension Control in an asynchronous VLE is defined as, “The extent to which the learner can control the instructional presentation” (Piccoli, et al., 2001, p. 404). When compared to traditional classrooms, asynchronous VLEs allow participants to control the pace and sequence of material during instruction (Piccoli et al., 2001). In synchronous VLEs, participants’ control over the pace and sequence of instruction material was somewhat limited. In the synchronouse VLE used in this study participants were able to move around the instruction material in the sequence and pace they chose, they were re-directed to the instructor-led page each time the instructor changed the page. In the archived session, however, participants had control over the pace and sequence just like in the asynchronous VLE.

differences between Synchronous and Asynchronous vles Piccoli et al. (2001) state that participants of asynchronous VLEs have difficulty managing the high degree of control, feel overburdened by the shift of responsibility and control to the learner, feel isolated, experience anxiety, and encounter difficulty in time management. These

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challenges have not yet been found to be evident in synchronous VLEs. Difficulty Managing the High Degree of Control: Asynchronous VLEs avail a high degree of control for participants. In traditional classrooms, the instructor provides direction and structure. In asynchronous VLEs, participants are challenged when managing the high degree of control in the absence of instructor direction and structure. Synchronous VLEs, on the other hand, enable students to participate in a familiar consisting of instructor direction and structure, in addition to having the benefit of archived sessions for further elaboration. Overburdened by the Shift of Responsibility and Control: In an asynchronous environment, participants are responsible for finding solutions when the concept is not clear. In a synchronous VLE, on the other hand, participants can ask questions at the time of instruction delivery. Feeling Isolated: Participants in asynchronous VLEs go through instruction material on their own and learn at their own pace. Participants in synchronous VLEs, however, can see the instructor and fellow students at the time of instruction delivery by connecting via a Webcam to the synchronous VLE. Experiencing Anxiety: Participants who experience anxiety at the time of instruction delivery in synchronous VLEs are able to get immediate assistance through audio and video communication. This feature is not available to participants in an asynchronous environment where there would be a time delay in getting access to help. Difficulty in Time Management: Students who participate in asynchronous VLEs have to manage their time, whereas students in a synchronous VLEs use a familiar fixed-time format with “anywhere” connection.

hyPoTheSeS Time flexibility and learner control are found to be benefits of VLEs (Piccoli et al., 2001); how900

ever, synchronous VLEs fix the time of delivery, eliminating this advantage. In asynchronous VLEs, the learner has a greater degree of control during the time of instruction; learner control in synchronous VLEs takes on a different form. In synchronous VLEs, the responsibility for learning control is retained by the instructor, and the burden of time management is removed from the student. In this type of environment, synchronous interaction maintains the familiar face-to-face classroom environment. The following is therefore hypothesized: •

•

H1: Students in synchronous hybrid elearning environments will report higher levels of computer self-efficacy than their counterparts in traditional learning environments. H2: Students in traditional learning environments will report higher levels of satisfaction than students in virtual learning environments.

Piccoli et al. (2001) found that the level of student satisfaction in a VLE for difficult (or unfamiliar) topics like Microsoft Access dropped when compared to familiar topics like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Brown and Liedholm (2002) found that students in asynchronous classes performed worse on exams than students in traditional classes where exam questions required more complex applications of basic concepts. The course material in a system analysis and design course is considered more complex when compared to the project management and IT resource management courses used in this study. Students in non-complex courses are therefore expected to be more satisfied than those in complex courses; this leads to the following hypotheses: •

H3: Students in synchronous VLEs with non-complex courses will report higher levels of satisfaction than students in synchronous VLEs with complex courses.

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

ReSeARCh deSIgn The VLE framework (Piccoli et al., 2001) shown in Figure 1 was used as the theoretical background for this study.

The Courses The setting for the study was a large public fouryear AACSB-accredited university. The courses are taught in the computer science and information systems department at the college of science and mathematics. Three courses were examined in the study: a systems analysis and design (undergraduate) course, a project management (graduate) course, and an IT resource management (undergraduate) course. The systems analysis and design course is a required course for all information systems (IS)

and computer science (CS) students, and a prerequisite for all upper division core courses. A term project was used to practice the course content, and students had to work in groups to complete the project. As part of the project, students were required to select an organization for their project, identify requirements, and develop a proposed information system. The modeling language used was Unified Modeling Language (UML). Four major outputs were expected from the term projects: an activity diagram, class diagram, sequence diagram, and method specifications. A take-home midterm and final exam were administered for the course. The exams consisted of a case study that required the students to create the four major outputs just specified. The IT Resource Management course is a capstone course for undergraduate IS majors. This course is typically taken by senior students.

Figure 1. Dimensions and antecedents of VLE effectiveness (adopted from Piccoli et al., 2001) Human Dimension Students

Maturity Motivation Technology comfort Technology attitude Pr evious experience Computer anxiety Ep istemic beliefs

Instructors

Design Dimension learning model Objectivist Constructivist

Technology Quality Reliability Av ailability

learner Control Pa ce S equence Content

Content

Factual knowledge Pr ocedural knowledge Conceptual knowledge

Technology control Technology attitude Teaching style Se lf-efficacy Av ailability

Effectiveness Performance

Ac hievement Recall Time on task

Self-efficacy Satisfaction

Ev aluation of the learning experience Drop rate An xiety

Interaction

Timing Frequency Q uantity

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Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

The aim of the course is to bring together the concepts from the core course requirements in the IS program. There were no final exams in this course. Students were evaluated through their case study analyses, oral presentations, and term-research papers. The Project Management course is a core requirement of the Master’s degree in Information Systems program. In this course, students were assigned individual projects. No exams were administered for the course; instead student performance was assessed based on six assignments and a simulation project. Students were required to submit a write-up of their assignments in addition to making a presentation to the class. The simulation project ran for six weeks.

The learning environment All three classes were supported by a learning management system from WebCT1. All course material, including lecture notes and assignments, was posted on WebCT. Discussion forums and e-mail communication for the three classes were conducted through WebCT. Students in the three classes had Web-based access to a video and audio recording of the lectures. The recordings for the System Analysis and Design and Project Management classes were completed in the classroom using an e-learning system; sessions were recorded at the same time the face-to-face lecture was delivered. Students in these classes were given the e-learning option for half of the scheduled classes. With the e-learning option, students connected to the “live” classroom from locations other than the classroom, that is, from home. Some students selected the e-learning option, while others attended all classes in a faceto-face environment. The recording for the IT Resources Management class was completed outside the classroom using Camtasia Studio2. Students in the IT Resources management class were not given the e-learning option offered to the other two classes.

902

In this class, all students attended the face-to-face class sessions.

The Technology The e-learning system used in this study is called Marratech (http://maratech.com). Marratech was used in conjunction with WebCT. The Marratech system has video, audio, chat, whiteboard, Web browsing, recording, and playback features. The user-interface has five panes (see Figure 2). The left pane, approximately ¾ of the screen width, is used for whiteboard or Web browsing. The right pane, approximately ¼ of the screen width, has four vertically stacked up windows: video or talking head pane, list of participants’ pane, display pane for chat messages, and a text box for typing chat messages. Whiteboard and Web Browsing Pane: Participants can alternate between the whiteboard and Web browsing screens. Lecture notes, lecture slides, and annotations are displayed on the whiteboard. The lead person (typically the instructor, but often participants were given the privilege to lead) has the capability to highlight or write additional notes in real time. Participants can browse around to different pages of the whiteboard independent of the instructor. All participants, however, are guided back to the instructor page each time the instructor changes to a new page. The Web browsing screen is used for exploring the Web; the lead person can take everyone on a guided tour of the Web. Participants can browse around on their own on the Web independent of the instructor, but again, they are re-directed to the same page as the instructor each time the instructor changes a page. Video or Talking Head Pane: The video screen displays the active speaker. For this study, video was used at all times by the instructor. Although video for students was optional, some students used a Webcam. The video screen is typically 20-inch x 18-inch (50 cm x 45 cm); however, it can be expanded to 40-inch x 32-inch (100 cm x 80 cm).

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

Figure 2. Marratech user interface

User Interface Tm

video:

whiteboard

How Leaves Work

see who is talking to enhance the lesson

Present & Collaborate

Participants: See who is in the meeting

group and Private Instant message / Chat voice over IP Highest quality available

Real time video display is projected, and video can be enabled or disabled by clicking on the video ON/OFF button. The video delay in this study was negligible (less than 1 second). Audio: The audio uses voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) format. Participants only require a speaker to listen to the class interaction; however, if participants want to be heard, they need to have a microphone connected to their computer. Audio can be enabled or disabled by clicking on the audio ON/OFF button, and participants can also adjust the audio volume. List of Participants’ Pane: The user name for each participant is displayed in the participant list screen. For participants using a video connection, a thumbnail picture and username is displayed. Chat Display Pane: All chat messages during a session are tracked in the chat window. Each chat message is tagged with a time stamp and sender’s user name. Participants have the ability to scroll back and forth to view chat messages. Chat Entry Pane: A text box is used for typing chat messages.

Public vs. Private Mode for Video, Audio, and Chat: In the public mode, participants who are logged-in can see and hear everyone’s communication. In private mode, only selected individuals can see, hear, and chat. Private mode privileges must be set by the instructor. When a student wants to ask a private question, the instructor can pull him or her to the private mode for discussion. Private mode can also be used among students. Private mode is available for video, audio, and chat communications. Recording and Play Back: Recording can be set at any time during a session. All interactions in a Marratech session, including the whiteboard, Web browsing, video, audio, and chat are recorded; recordings can be archived and played back at any time. If students miss class or want to review concepts, they can play back the recording. With permission, all participants can record a session. When a participant sends out a request to record a session, it is displayed in the participant list window; the instructor can disable the recording at will.

903

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

ReSulTS A survey was posted online for the students participating in the three courses. A total of 63 students completed the survey, 30% (19) graduate and 70% (44) undergraduate. The distribution of the participant age ranges is shown in Table 1. The gender mix of survey participants was 70% (44) male and 21% (13) female; 10% (6) did not provide a response to this question. All graduate students were enrolled in the Masters of Information Systems program and majored in that program. Graduate students accounted for 30% (19) of the participants. Undergraduate students accounted for 62% (39); they were comprised of 43% (27) seniors, 30% (19) juniors, and 16% (10) sophomores. Eight percent (5) of the participants

skipped this question. Participants from undergraduates were 70% Information Systems majors and 29% Computer Science majors; 1% skipped this question. All respondents indicated that they had computer and Internet access from home. Computer experience for participants was reported as 73% professional users and 17% frequent users, and 2% reported being somewhat experienced; 3 respondents skipped this question. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said they enjoyed working with computers and, only 2% indicated that they felt threatened by computers. Most of the respondents (84%) indicated that they expected the courses to be somewhat difficult, and 90% reported they had medium to high expectations that they would learn a lot from the

Table 1. Subject participation by age Age Range (Years)

No. of Students

Percentage

19-23

4

6

24-29

22

35

30-35

16

25

36-40

8

13

41-45

0

0

46-49

5

8

>50

3

5

No Response

5

8

Table 2. Knowledge of software How do you rate your knowledge of the following software: (A rating of “1” indicating no knowledge at all and “5” excellent knowledge) 1

Total

3

4

5

92%

58

0

0%

0

0%

3

5%

22

35%

33

52%

Presentation

92%

58

0

0%

3

5%

8

13%

16

25%

31

49%

Spreadsheet

92%

58

1

2%

1

2%

10

16%

20

32%

26

41%

Database

92%

58

3

5%

13

21%

8

13%

15

24%

19

30%

Modeling tools like Visio

92%

58

5

8%

10

16%

21

33%

12

19%

10

16%

Simulation tools

92%

58

17

27%

18

29%

12

19%

6

10%

5

8%

8%

5

(skipped question)

904

2

Word processing

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

courses. of the respondents rated their software knowledge as high (see Table 2). On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, respondents rated themselves high for self-efficacy (over 70% of the participants). Satisfaction with the class experience was measured on a 5-point Likert scale with 5 being very satisfying; over 90% of the respondents from each course reported their satisfaction a 4 or 5.

dISCuSSIon For the purpose of this study, students were classified as traditional classroom students or synchronous hybrid e-learning students. The traditional classroom students were those students that attended all classes online in a face-to-face format. The synchronous hybrid e-learning students were those students that attended some of the classes in the synchronous e-learning format and the balance in a traditional classroom setting. Eighteen respondents (29%) participated in the synchronous hybrid e-learning format; 44 respondents (70%) participated in the traditional classroom format; one student skipped this question.

Each respondent was asked a set of 10 questions on self-efficacy. The questions are listed in Table 3. T-tests were used to determine whether there were significant differences between e-learners and traditional classroom learners. The results of these tests are shown in Table 4. Self-efficacy questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 resulted in slightly higher means for those in the e-learning group, while questions 2 and 9 were slightly higher for the traditional classroom group. Self-efficacy ratings between the two groups were not found to be significantly different. The first hypothesis (H1) stated that students who tend to choose the VLE would have a higher level of computer self-efficacy. This hypothesis was not supported by the data, which indicates that the two groups had similar levels of self-efficacy. Further analysis of the data indicated that factors other than self-efficacy determined the students’ desire to participate in the synchronous hybrid e-learning. In the two classes where synchronous hybrid e-learning was offered, almost all respondents (94%) stated they were already on campus for another class just before this one, hence did not have time to drive home for the online class and chose the face-to-face class.

Table 3. Self-efficacy questions I could complete the job using the software package… 1

…if there was no one around to tell me what to do as I go.

2

…if I had never used a package like it before.

3

…if I had only the software manuals for reference.

4

…if I had seen someone else using it before trying it myself.

5

…if I could call someone for help if I got stuck.

6

…if someone else had helped me get started.

7

…if I had a lot of time to complete the job for which the software was provided.

8

…if I had just the built-in help facility for assistance.

9

…if someone showed me how to do it first.

10

…if I had used similar packages before this one to do the same job.

905

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

Table 4. Self-efficacy responses for research groups T-Test

Self-Efficacy Question

Mean e-learning

Mean Traditional classroom

t

Sig.

1

7.22

7.23

.013

.990

2

6.44

6.59

.218

.828

3

8.28

7.31

-1.488

.142

4

8.39

7.82

-1.092

.280

5

8.72

7.69

-1.548

.127

6

8.89

8.33

-1.032

.307

7

7.56

8.51

1.375

.175

8

7.83

7.38

-.668

.507

9

8.44

8.92

.805

.424

10

8.67

8.56

-.147

.883

* Traditional Class format = 39 cases; e-learning = 18 cases

Table 5. Satisfaction responses for research groups Satisfaction with the class

Synchronous hybrid e-learning

1=Very Dissatisfying

0

0.0%

0

0.0%

2=Somewhat Dissatisfying

0

0.0%

1

2.6%

3=Undecided

1

6.0%

1

3.0%

4

22.0%

16

41.0%

13

72.0%

21

53.8%

4=Somewhat Satisfying 5=Very Satisfying Total

Satisfaction responses for the research groups are shown in Table 5. The two research groups— synchronous hybrid e-learning and traditional classroom—did not show differences in satisfaction. The second hypothesis (H2) stated that students in the traditional classroom setting would report higher levels of satisfaction when the subject level is complex. This hypothesis was not supported by the data. The Chi-Square test indicates that these two groups are not significantly different (χ2=2.714, p=.438).

906

Traditional classroom

18

39

Responses from the two classes with options for synchronous hybrid e-learning (system analysis & design and project management) were used to assess the VLE impact on complex courses. The classes for the IT Resource Management course were all face-to-face and therefore excluded from this analysis. The System Analysis and Design class required significant collaboration between groups; students learned how to model business requirements and were expected to create graphical models for activity diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams, and method specifications. These models were complex and required signifi-

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

Table 6. Satisfaction responses for complex and non-complex courses System Analysis and Design (Complex Course)

Satisfaction 1=Very Dissatisfying Synchronous hybrid e-learning

Project Management (Non-Complex Course

0

0%

2=Somewhat Dissatisfying

1

11%

0

0%

3=Undecided

0

0%

1

11%

4=Somewhat Satisfying

3

33%

2

22%

5=Very Satisfying

5

56%

6

67%

9

100%

9

100%

Total

cant interaction between the instructor and team members. In contrast, the Project Management course was lecture-based with individual assignments; there were no group projects required for this course. Table 6 summarizes the responses for satisfaction for the complex (System Analysis and Design) and non-complex (Project Management) courses. The third hypothesis (H3) stated that students in a non-complex course would show higher levels of satisfaction; based on the results, H3 is not supported. The Chi-Square test shows no significant difference in satisfaction level between the complex and non-complex courses (χ2=2.291, p=.514). When asked whether they would take another e-learning class on a 5-point Likert scale, 91% of the respondents indicated they would by selecting a 4 or 5 on the scale. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents said they did not regret enrolling in this online class, and 83% said they would recommend this online class format to their friends.

lImITATIonS oF The STudy The sample size for the synchronous hybrid elearning group consisted of 18 respondents and

0

0%

is therefore limited; the collection of additional data to further validate the findings is a natural extension of the study. The results of this study may also be limited to the specific courses examined in this study and may not be generalizable to other courses, universities, or environments.

FuTuRe ReSeARCh Additional research still needs to be undertaken for research and practice to gain a clearer understanding of synchronous hybrid e-learning versus traditional classroom environments. Research comparing synchronous hybrid e-learning and traditional classrooms with different types of courses would provide further understanding of the benefits and challenges of these types of learning environments. Research could also be undertaken to compare the levels of satisfaction and self-efficacy of participants in courses in VLEs and traditional environments that are more focused on teamwork as opposed to individual coursework. Additionally, research could also be conducted on this study using larger sample sizes. Finally, researchers are encouraged to conduct studies that compare hybrid synchronous and asynchronous VLEs.

907

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

ConCluSIon VLEs using synchronous hybrid e-learning were examined in this pilot study. Synchronous VLEs provide real-time interaction in the classroom. Prior research using asynchronous VLEs found differences in how VLEs support complex and less complex courses, indicating that students who take complex courses in VLEs are less satisfied. Many of the difficulties reported by students in an asynchronous VLE, such as difficulty managing the high degree of control, overburdened by the shift of responsibility and control, feelings of isolation, experiencing anxiety, and difficulty in time management, may be addressed by synchronous VLEs. This pilot study provides preliminary evidence to support the fact that VLEs are ready for teaching complex courses. It is believed that the difference in the results from this study and prior research emanate from the differences between synchronous and asynchronous VLEs. The research results show that students in a complex course have the same level of satisfaction as students in a non-complex course. In the study, the levels of satisfaction and also self-efficacy were found to be similar between students in the traditional classroom and those in the synchronous hybrid e-learning courses. In the pilot study it was determined that many of the students who did not select the VLE option did not choose that option because the synchronous VLE required attendance at the same time as the face-to-face class and the timing of the class was not convenient for them. A number of students were already taking courses on-campus prior to the time the classes in the synchronous VLE format were being offered, and with only a 15-minute gap between classes, they did not have adequate time to travel home to take advantage of the VLE option and therefore opted for the traditional classroom format.

908

This research provided support for using synchronous hybrid e-learning for complex subjects. It should be noted, however, that the sample size used to conduct the pilot study was small, and a larger sample size is required to further ground these findings. Researchers are therefore encouraged to conduct further studies on the impact of synchronous VLEs.

ReFeRenCeS Alavi, M., & Leidner, D. E. (2001). Research commentary: Technology mediated learning— A call for greater depth and breadth of research. Information Systems Research, 12(1), 1-10. Alavi, M., Marakas, G. M., & Yoo, Y. (2002). A comparative study of distributed learning environments on learning outcomes. Information Systems Research, 13(4), 404-415. Brown, B. W., & Liedholm, C. E. (2002). Can Web courses replace the classroom in principles of microeconomics? The American Economic Review, 92(2), 444-448. Dagada, R., & Jakovljevic, M. (2004). ‘Where have all the trainers gone?’ E-learning strategies and tools in the corporate training environment. Paper presented at the 2004 Annual Research Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists on IT Research in Developing Countires, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa. Hodges, C. B. (2005). Self-regulation in Webbased courses: A review and the need for research. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6(4), 375-383. McCray, G. E. (2000). The hybrid course: Merging online instruction and the traditional classroom. Information Technology and Management, 1, 307-327.

Synchronous Hybrid E-Learning

Piccoli, G., Ahmad, R., & Ives, B. (2001). Webbased virtual learning environments: A research framework and a preliminary assessment of effectiveness in basic IT skills training. MIS Quarterly, 25(4), 401-426. Sauers, D., & Walker, R. C. (2004). A comparison of traditional and technology-assisted instructional methods in the business communication classroom. Business Communication Quarterly, 67(4), 430-442. Seng, L. C., & Al-Hawamdeh, S. (2001). New mode of course delivery for virtual classroom. Aslib Proceedings, 53(6), 238-242. Webb, H. W., Gill, G., & Poe, G. (2005). Teaching with the case method online: Pure versus hybrid approaches. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 3(2), 223-250.

Wilson, B. G. (1996). Constructivist learning environments: Case studies in instructional design. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

endnoTeS 1

2

WebCT is a learning management system that supports online learning environments. URL: http://webct.com/ Camtasia Studio is a product specially designed for recording and publishing presentations and video on the Web and mobile devices.

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 3, Issue 3, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 1-13, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

909

910

Chapter 4.10

An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity J.A. Gómez Tejedor Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain G. Moltó Martínez Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain C. Barros Vidaurre Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain

ABSTRACT In this article, we describe a Java-based virtual laboratory, accessible via the Internet by means of a Web browser. This remote laboratory enables the students to build both direct and alternating current circuits. The program includes a graphical user interface which resembles the connection board, and also the electrical components and tools that are used in a real laboratory to build electrical circuits. Emphasis has been placed on designing access patterns to the virtual tools as if they were real ones. The virtual laboratory developed in this study allows the lecturer to adapt the behaviour and the principal layout of the different practical sessions during a course. This flexibility enables the tool to guide the student during each practical lesson, thus enhancing self-motivation. This study is an application of new technologies

for active learning methodologies, in order to increase both the self-learning and comprehension of the students. This virtual laboratory is currently accessible at http://personales.upv.es/ jogomez/labvir/ (in Spanish).

InTRoduCTIon The idea of Web-based virtual laboratories is not new (Hoffman, 1994; Potter, 1996; Preis 1997). However, this topic has received much attention over the last few years, due to the implementation of new teaching technologies in the classroom, and the widespread adoption of the Internet. Currently, a large number of virtual laboratories can be found online. These virtual laboratories cover different fields of study: measurement of hardness in metals (Hashemi, Chandrashekar, & Anderson,

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity

2006), microbiology (Sancho, 2006), earthquake engineering (Gao, 2005), environmental applications (Ascione, 2006), manufacturing engineering education (Jou & Zhang, 2006), photonics (Chang, 2005), robot control (Sartorius, 2006), and electronic circuit simulation (Butz, Duarte, & Miller, 2006; Moure, 2004; Yang, 2005), to name but a few. All of these virtual laboratories are based on computer simulations, and have been developed with different programming languages such as Java (Gao, 2005), Matlab (Sartorius, 2006), or Macromedia Flash (Hashemi et al., 2006). This article describes a virtual laboratory for electronic circuit simulation developed in Java and deployed as an applet which can be accessed through a Web browser. One of the main topics of the Fundamentals of Physics for Computer Science subject at the Faculty of Computer Science ( http://www.fiv.upv. es/default_i.htm) and HTS of Applied Computer Science ( http://www.ei.upv.es/webei/english/ in_english/in_english.php) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (http://www.upv.es ) is the study of elementary electrical circuits, with both direct and alternating currents. The electrical circuit is also an important topic in other engineering studies at many universities. These studies are performed both from a theoretical point of view and a more practical one through applied lessons in a laboratory. In these lessons, the students become familiarized with a series of devices, tools, and techniques, and they learn to analyse data, thus achieving skills and expertise. However, the students also face a lack of tools for their individual work, since they are unable to perform electrical experiments outside the laboratory. In addition, some students cannot attend the laboratory during their allocated time slot. Furthermore, the financial costs related to maintaining and updating the laboratory with modern equipment is also a major handicap. With the simulation software described in this article (Gómez Tejedor, 2002; Gómez Tejedor,

Barros Vidaurre, & Moltó Martínez, 2005), the students are supplied with a useful and versatile tool for performing some of the practical lessons online (Gómez Tejedor, Barros Vidaurre, & Moltó Martínez, 2007). One important question related to virtual laboratories is “Can the fundamental objectives of the instructional laboratories be met via software and computers?” (Hashemi et al., 2006). In order to overcome this problem, we propose that virtual lessons should be complemented with real ones. On the one hand, the students can train themselves in the virtual environment before working in the laboratory and even improve their skills before examination. On the other hand, different practical lessons can be available online which, due to timetabling problems, cannot be performed in the real laboratory. The main novelty of this work is that the students can make electrical circuits in a similar way as they do at a real laboratory. Only the virtual laboratories of Butz et al. (2006) and Moure (2004) have this built-in feature. In addition, another original point of our virtual laboratory is the possibility of configuring the program by the teacher by only editing a file, where the main options of the program are defined. This easy approach to configure the virtual laboratory makes it ideal to perform different practical lessons, where the environment is customised. Besides, our virtual laboratory is friendly accessible through the Web by only means of a Web browser. This article is related to teaching the Fundamentals of Physics for Computer Science through the Internet (Mas, 2002), which, since 2000/2001, has been part of the curriculum at the Faculty of Computer Science and HTS of Applied Computer Science at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. This approach is linked to the current trend of developing applications for active learning methodologies, to leverage self-learning and comprehension skills for the students. In this field, this work can be considered to be a pioneering one.

911

An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity

meThodology This study introduces an important feature in the teaching methodology used within the laboratory, since it enables the students to train their skills using any computer connected to the Internet. The virtual laboratory allows students to learn how to operate the different devices found in a laboratory by means of a comprehensive user manual. Subsequently, they practice with virtual devices which resemble real ones. Practice is conducted either individually or in small groups, and without a schedule. This enables students to self-regulate their learning procedure, investing as much time as required. It could be argued that using a virtual environment does not fully help the students to interact with real devices. However, our proposal combines both virtual and real lessons so that students can gradually become used to the actual technology employed in university laboratories. Moreover, the virtual laboratory facilitates the design of more challenging practical lessons. Hence, the students can practice in the virtual laboratory before working in the real laboratory. Therefore, they can achieve a greater number of objectives, given the expertise gained using the software tools. Finally, as previously mentioned, the students can use the virtual laboratory as a useful tool to prepare for the laboratory exam. Also, its ubiquitous access is of great benefit to those students that cannot attend the practical lessons in the laboratory.

The vIRTuAl lABoRAToRy oF eleCTRICITy The virtual laboratory has been entirely developed in Java (Newman, 1996). The usage of Java represents a two-fold strategy. On the one hand, its portability enables the application to be executed

912

on virtually any platform for which a Java Virtual Machine exists (Sun Microsystems, 2007). On the other hand, a Java application can be deployed as an applet in order to access its functionality via a Java-enabled Web browser. This involves only minimal requirements from the students, who are only required to install the Java Virtual Machine on their PCs. On the other hand, the use of the object-oriented skills of Java has enabled the simplification of application extensibility by using a modularized approach for separating the different functionalities of the application.

Implemented Functionality Nowadays, the virtual laboratory allows for the creation of direct and alternating current circuits on the connection board using wires, resistances, capacitors, and inductors. It is important to point out that, with this software, the student must completely set-up the circuit, by linking all the elements and devices on the connection board, as if these were actually in a real laboratory. This is a major advantage compared with other virtual laboratories found on the Internet, where the circuit is almost completely implemented, and the student can only change some parameters and different configurations. As far as the authors are aware, only the virtual laboratories of Butz (2006) and Moure (2004) have this built-in feature. The virtual laboratory permits voltages to be measured in direct currents by means of the analogical voltmeter. The digital multimeter allows both voltage and current to be measured in direct and alternating currents, and frequencies in alternating currents and resistances. The established virtual laboratory includes a circuit resolution kernel that computes all the voltages and intensities in the circuit by using the matrix method for node tensions, both in the direct current and in the alternating sinusoidal current (Llinares & Page, 1987).

An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity

In this method, given an electrical circuit with n+1 electric nodes, the circuit is solved by the following method: 1.

All potential generators are transformed to current generators. For this purpose, we take into account that the short-circuit current of the current generator is given by the following expression: I0 =

2.

3.

where e is the generator electromotive force, and re corresponds to its internal resistance. The internal resistance of the current generator is the same as the voltage generator one. The voltage of one node is taken arbitrary to 0 volts. In our case, this is the node number n+1. Then a system of linear equations, with dimension n×n, is assembled:  I1   Y11 Y12     I 2  =  Y21 Y22         I n   Yn1 Yn 2

4.

(1)

r

 Y1n  V1     Y2 n  V2          Ynn  Vn 

(2)

where Ii stands for the short-circuit current of current generators connected to node i, Yii are the admittances connected to node i, Yij with i≠j are the admittances simultaneously connected to nodes i and j. Vi corresponds to the voltage at node i. The admittance is defined as the inverse of the impedance. The calculations are performed with complex numbers for alternating current, whereas real numbers are employed for direct current circuits. Then, the matrix equation is solved in order to obtain Vi. This way, the potential difference between any pair of nodes can be calculated. The intensities measured by the multimeter

are calculated as the potential difference between the nodes where the multimeter is connected, divided by the resistance of the multimeter in ammeter function. The resolution of circuits, when the generator supplies a square wave, requires special resolution techniques. In this case, the program performs a Fourier series of the square wave given by the following expression (Zwillinger, 2003): u(t)=

4U m

∞

∑ n= 0

cos [(2n +1) 2

0

1

- 90º ]

(3)

Um stands for the amplitude, and ω0 is the signal pulsation. For example, by taking the first 100 terms of the Fourier series, we obtain the results shown in Figure 1. With this input voltage, the program solves the circuit for each one of the harmonics of the Fourier series as described before, and finally gathers the obtained results to determine the voltage in each of the circuit nodes. Experimental observations have revealed that using the first 50 terms of the Fourier series provides an appropriate representation of the potential difference. Using only 10 terms of the series reveals that a satisfactory reproduction of the potential difference in the terminals of the capacitor in a resistance-capacitor circuit is provided. However, with these terms, the potential difference in the generator terminals is not satisfactorily represented when compared to real measurements in the laboratory. Therefore, the final decision regarding the number of terms of the Fourier series to be employed should depend on the performance capabilities of the client computer. Finally, using 50 terms is an appropriate value for most cases, since it combines a moderate execution time with a satisfactory voltage performance in the electrical circuit. The following elements and devices have been implemented in the virtual laboratory.

913

An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity

Figure 1. Square wave computed with the first 100 terms of the Fourier series V (V) 3 2 1 -1

0,5

1,0

1,5

2 t (ms)

-2 -3

Figure 2. First connection board

•

•

914

Connection board: This has six electric nodes, each one of them with three or four pins, allowing the set-up of a great variety of circuits. Two different models of connection boards, as illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, have been implemented. On the left hand side of the figures, a picture of a real connection board is given. On the right hand side, the graphical aspect of a simulated one is shown. Resistances, capacitors, and inductors: These have a known nominal value, and an unknown real value. The program assigns a random value to each impedance close to its nominal value, between the element tolerance margins. The real values are ignored by the user, who is only aware of the nominal value. In addition, “unknown resistances” can also be used, the nominal value of which

•

•

is ignored by the user, in order to produce a practical session for determining the value of resistances. Wires: Employed to link devices and elements to create electrical circuits. They are shown, together with resistances, in Figure 4. Power supply source in direct current: Composed of three independent power supply sources. Two of these supply a variable potential difference between 0 and 30 V, and the third one supplies a constant voltage of approximately 5 V. In the program, the 5 V power supply, shown in Figure 5, is modelled in a similar manner to a current generator, with current in the short circuit of 0.4618 A, and internal resistance of 10.9 Ω.

An Online Virtual Laboratory of Electricity

Figure 3. Second connection board

Figure 4. Elements used in the program: two wires, two resistances of 22 Ω and 47 Ω, a capacitor of 4.4 µF and an inductor of 9.0 mH

•

•

resolution kernel (10 MΩ in voltmeter mode, and 0.003 Ω in ammeter mode). Analogical voltmeter: This is a very useful device for observing systematic errors, as shown in Figure 8. It has a small internal resistance (15 kΩ). Scope: The program uses the virtual scope developed by Benlloch Dualde (2002) to measure time-dependent potential differences.

Given all the implemented functionalities, the virtual laboratory can currently simulate most of the practical laboratory sessions of the Physics for Computer Science module at the University Polytechnic of Valencia (Gómez Tejedor, 2006): • •

•

Function generator: Employed to create circuits in alternating current. It allows the generation of a sinusoidal signal or a square wave of a given amplitude and frequency. Its visual aspect is shown in Figure 6. Digital multimeter: It is shown in Figure 7, and it measures potential differences and intensities in both direct and alternating current. It also measures resistances and frequencies. The internal resistance of the device has been considered in the circuit

•

Practical session 1: Equipment and measure devices. Circuit set-ups in direct current. Measurement of the electrical potential difference, current, and resistances at different circuit points. Practical session 2: Accidental and systematic errors. Evaluation of different techniques to measure resistances by means of Ohm’s law in two different circuit set-ups. In the first set-up (Figure 9), the emphasis is placed on accidental errors in the measurements introduced by the devices. In the second set-up (Figure 10), an important systematic

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Figure 5. Power supply source in direct current

Figure 6. Function generator

Figure 7. Digital multimeter

Figure 8. Analogical voltmeter

Figure 9. Virtual laboratory: First set-up for resistance measurement

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Figure 10. Virtual laboratory: Second set-up for resistance measurement

•

•

•

error appears, due to the internal voltmeter resistance of 15 kΩ. Practical session 3: Scope. Measurement of amplitude, period, and difference of phase in a resistance-capacitor circuit (RC circuit) with a sinusoidal alternating current. Practical session 4: Transitory phenomena. Capacitor charge and discharge. Time constant measurement in the RC circuit. A square wave is supplied in the RC circuit. Subsequently, the virtual scope shows how the capacitor is charged and then discharged. The time constant of the charge and discharge processes can be measured from the curves obtained. Practical session 5: Resonance and filters in the alternating current. Measurement of the impedance in a series inductor-capacitorresistance circuit (series LCR circuit) as a frequency function, and calculation of the resonance frequency. Filter use: low-pass, high-pass, and band-pass filters by means of an LCR circuit. Measurement of the ratio between the output and input potential difference as a frequency function, and the determination of the quality factor.

Nowadays, the user manual of the virtual laboratory is very detailed, guiding the student

during the practical session, in addition to the teacher’s manual, which explains how to easily configure the program for the implementation of new laboratory practices. It is possible to access the program and documentation through the Web page: http://personales.upv.es/jogomez/labvir/ (in Spanish).

uSAge exAmPleS oF The vIRTuAl lABoRAToRy The following section describes some examples which show the functionality of the virtual laboratory. The first example illustrates how to determine the value of a resistance by measuring the potential difference and the current in the electrical circuit. There are two different configurations for this circuit. The first layout sets the ammeter in serial with the resistance. The voltmeter is in parallel to both elements (see Figure 9). In this case, we have selected 7.5 V in the generator. A measure of 7.5 V in the analogical voltmeter, and 0.521 mA in the digital ammeter is obtained. Subsequently, R, the resistance, is given by:

R=

V = 14.40 k I

(4)

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Figure 11. Circuit LCR series in the alternating current configured in the virtual laboratory. Current evaluated in the circuit as a function of frequency. R =120 Ω, C =4.4 µF and L = 9 mH

In addition, we should take into account that the nominal resistance value is 15 kΩ, with 5 % tolerance, and that the program selects a random resistance around the nominal value and between the tolerance limits. Subsequently, the measured resistance of 14.40 kΩ, falls within the expected 15.00 ± 0.75 kΩ interval. In this case, it is important to point out that the current through the resistance has been measured. However, the potential difference measurement corresponds to the resistance + ammeter set. The measure is very precise, due to the fact that the internal resistance of the ammeter (3 mΩ) is negligible when compared to the circuit resistance of 15 kΩ. In the second layout, the voltmeter has been linked in parallel to the resistance, and the ammeter in series with both elements (see Figure 10). Once again, a value of 7.5 V was selected on the generator, and measurements of 7.5 V on the analogical voltmeter, and 1.021 mA on the digital ammeter were obtained. This configuration produces an important systematic error, because the measured resistance is 15 kΩ. This is of the same order of magnitude as the internal voltmeter resistance, which is considered in the calculations, obtaining a measured resistance of:

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Rmeasured =

V = 7.32 k I

(5)

corresponding to the parallel association of both resistances: Rmeasured = (1 / R + 1 / RV ) = 7.5 k -1

(6)

The difference between both results can be explained by the fact that the real value of the circuit resistance is randomly taken around the nominal value of 15 kΩ, as previously mentioned. In Figure 11, an example of the program in the alternating current is given. The Figure on the left shows the LCR series circuit in alternating current. The Figure on the right shows the measured current as a function of frequency, where the resonance frequency can be clearly observed at around 800 Hz. R =120 Ω, C =4.4 µF, and L = 9 mH.

web Integration Not only can the virtual laboratory seamlessly run as a stand-alone application, but it can also be deployed as an applet accessible via the Internet. This facilitates its access to students, who only require a Web-browser, and also simplifies the work of the tutors, who have total control of the application. Whenever an updated version of the

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application is available, the students can automatically use this, without having to reinstall the application. In addition, online access enables to gather statistics regarding application usage. The application has been designed to be easily configurable without requiring a source code modification. This allows the basic behaviour and layout of the application to be adapted to various practical lessons. This is a very useful asset for laboratory training, as each practical lesson requires a different set of devices and elements. This configuration is currently supplied via arguments to the applet, specified in the Web page which launches the applet. The program currently allows for the modification of the following parameters: •

•

•

•

Resistances, capacitors, and inductors: A list of these elements, indicating the nominal value and the tolerance can be specified. If the tolerance is not specified, then a value of 5% is assumed. The program assigns a random value between the margins of tolerance to these components. In the case of resistances, if the tolerance is greater than 19 %, then the program considers this to be an unknown resistance, whose nominal value is not known by the student. Connection board: Two different types of connection board are available. Furthermore, the electric connections between the different connection points can be shown or hidden. Voltage source: A direct current generator and a function generator are available. The latter has three independent exits. The short circuit current, and the internal resistance of the 5 V generator, can be defined. The number of terms used in the Fourier series for the square wave in the function generator can also be selected. Analogical voltmeter: The maximum potential difference value, the class error, the divisions of the scale, and their internal

•

•

resistance can be specified. The class error of the voltmeter is visible to the student in order to acquire the error estimate, but does not influence the calculations. Devices: It allows the devices that will be available when the application starts, to be specified. Either two digital multimeters, a digital multimeter with the analogical voltmeter, or one with the virtual scope can be selected Digital multimeter: The resistance values in the voltmeter and ammeter modes of the digital multimeter can be established.

ConCluSIon And AReAS FoR FuTuRe STudy During the 2005–6 course, the program has been introduced as a pilot study with a group of approximately 250 students from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Nowadays, the virtual laboratory is freely accessible through the Web to all students. In order to analyse the impact on student achievement, as well as student satisfaction, we made a questionnaire to a group of 40 students, and also gathered user experiences. According to the results, we can conclude that the students are satisfied with the laboratory skills gained using the virtual laboratory. The virtual laboratory interface was easy to use. It is also worthwhile to point out that there was a strong disagreement between students comparing this online learning with a conventional presential laboratory: some students prefer the online learning, most of them think that they are equivalent, and few of them consider worse the online learning. On the other hand, it is important to mention that students think that technical problems have interfered with the learning of the content covered. At this moment, we are planning to solve these problems by enhancing the user interface, as well as the robustness of the application.

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The results reveal that students who used the virtual laboratory significantly improved their knowledge level of the objectives of the Physics for Computer Science subject. Using a self-training approach in the virtual laboratory, through different practical lessons, enables the students to repeat the same actions they do in the real laboratory. It has been observed that learning by means of the virtual laboratory has assisted students when carrying out laboratory work involving real devices. Therefore, we can conclude that the virtual laboratory has helped the students to learn in a more effective way. This environment provides the student with the opportunity to learn through free exploration, although a specific performance criterion guides the learning process. In virtual laboratories, the student has the freedom to explore different parameters, observing their effects inside the virtual laboratory. Our results show that Web-based experiments that are designed to be interactive and allow the user to be involved in the learning process are effective for distance education. They facilitate learning objectives and help students learn about the procedure and analysis of data. In conditions where physical laboratory facilities are not available, virtual modules are a suitable replacement. It is also important to point out that since the Web site has been online (established more than 3 years ago), it has received more than 9,100 visits. Areas for future development include increasing the simulator functionality by incorporating new components and devices in order to increase the number of practical sessions that can be accomplished with the program. For example: • •

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Diodes and a transistor to obtain its characteristic curves. A chronometer to perform capacitor charge and discharge with a large time constant,

•

by measuring the potential difference with a multimeter as a function of time. The inclusion of a variable resistance in order to perform a practical session of Wheatstone's bridge, where an unknown electrical resistance is measured by balancing two legs of a bridge circuit.

In addition, we are planning to migrate the virtual laboratory to a client-server architecture, in order to create a remote laboratory. The idea is to prepare a connection board with real components and devices, thereby producing desirable connections through the use of commutators. Subsequently, the student would be able to set-up the circuit via the Web interface of the virtual laboratory. Hence, instead of simulating the circuit, this could be carried out on the connection board with the help of commutators. Subsequently, the devices would perform real measurements which would be accessible to students through a Web interface.

ACknowledgmenT The support of the Institute of Education Sciences of the Polytechnic University of Valencia— through project numbers PID 10.041, PID 13.085, and PAEEES 04-030—is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to acknowledge the valuable discussions with Professor Lenin Lemus Zúñiga of the Department of Systems Data Processing and Computers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, and the authors of Virtual Scope (Benlloch Dualde et al., 2002) for allowing us to integrate the Virtual Scope into the Virtual Laboratory. We would like to thank the R&D+i Linguistic Assistance Office at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia for their help in revising and correcting this article.

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ReFeRenCeS Ascione, I. et al. (2006). A grid computing based virtual laboratory for environmental simulations. Euro-Par 2006 Parallel Processing Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 4128 (pp. 1085–1094).

Gómez Tejedor, J.A., Barros Vidaurre, C., & Moltó Martínez, G. (2007). Laboratorio virtual. Retrieved January 17, 2008, from http://personales. upv.es/jogomez/labvir

Benlloch Dualde, J.V. et al. (2002). Osciloscopio virtual. Retrieved January 17, 2008, from http:// www.eui.upv.es/ineit mucon/Applets/Scope Osciloscopio.html

Hashemi, J., Chandrashekar, N., & Anderson, E.E. (2006). Design and development of an interactive Web-based environment for measurement of hardness in metals: A distance learning tool. International Journal of Engineering Education, 22(5), 993–1002.

Butz, B.P., Duarte M., & Miller, S.M. (2006). An intelligent tutoring system for circuit analysis. IEEE Transactions on Education, 49(2), 216–223.

Hoffman, C.M. et al. (1994). Soft lab—a virtual laboratory for computational science. Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, 36(4–6), 479–491.

Chang, G.W. et al. (2005). Teaching photonics laboratory using remote-control Web technologies. IEEE Transactions on Education, 48(4), 642–651.

Jou, M., & Zhang, H.W. (2006). Interactive Web-based learning system for manufacturing technology education. In Progress on Advanced Manufacture for Micro/Nano Technology 2005, Parts 1 and 2, Materials Science Forum, 505–507 (pp.1111–1116).

Gao, Y. et al. (2005). Java-powered virtual laboratories for earthquake engineering education. Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 13(3), 200–212. Gómez Tejedor, J.A. et al. (2002). Laboratorio virtual. In Institute of Education Sciences and the Vice-rectorate for Academic Organisation and Teaching Staff of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Ed.), Proceedings from the I Jornadas de Innovación Educativa. Metodologías activas y educación (pp. 559–564). ISBN 84-9705-187-4. Gómez Tejedor, J.A. et al. (2003). Prácticas de fundamentos físicos de la informática: Facultad de informática. In the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Ed.). ISBN 8497053109. Gómez Tejedor, J.A., Barros Vidaurre, C., & Moltó Martínez, G. (2005). Laboratorio virtual. In the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Ed.), Proceedings from the IV Jornadas de Didáctica de la física, III Encuentros de Investigación (pp. 197–202). ISBN 84-9705-833 X.

Lawson, E.A., & Stackpole, W. (2006). Does a virtual networking laboratory result in similar student achievement and satisfaction? Conference on Information Technology Education (pp. 105–114). Llinares, J. & Page, A. (1987). Curso de física aplicada. Electromagentismo y semiconductores. In the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Ed.). ISBN 8477210268. Mas, J. et al. (2002). Una experiencia sobre enseñanza distancia de asignaturas básicas de primer curso. In Proceedings from the Resúmenes I Jornadas de Innovación Educativa en la UPV (pp. 705–711). ISBN 84-9705-187-4. Moure, M.J. et al. (2004). Virtual laboratory as a tool to improve the effectiveness of actual laboratories. International Journal of Engineering Education, 20(2), 188–192. Newman, A. (1996). Special edition using Java. Indianapolis, IN: Que Cooperation.

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Potter, C. et al. (1996). EVAC: A virtual environment for control of remote imaging instrumentation. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 16(4), 62–66. Preis, K. et al. (1997). A virtual electromagnetic laboratory for the classroom and the WWW. IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 33(2), 1990–1993, Part 2. Sancho P. et al. (2006). A blended learning experience for teaching microbiology. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 70(5), Art. No.120.

Sun Microsystems. (2007). Java plugin. Retrieved January 17, 2008, from http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/ Yang, O.Y., et al (2005). ECVlab: A Web-based virtual laboratory system for electronic circuit simulation. In Computational Science—ICCS 2005, Pt. 1, Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3514 (pp. 1027–1034). Zwillinger, D., (2003). Standard CRC mathematical tables and formulae, 31st edition. Chapman & Hall/CRC Press LLC. ISBN: 0-8493-2479-3.

Sartorius, A.R.S., et al. (2006). Virtual and remote laboratory for robot manipulator control study. International Journal of Engineering Education, 22(4), 702–710.

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 6, Issue 2, edited by Q. Jin, pp. 21-34, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.11

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab Stephanie W. Cawthon The University of Texas at Austin, USA Alycia L. Harris Walden University, USA

ABSTRACT The goal of this chapter is to present instructor and student perspectives on the development of a Community of Practice within an online research laboratory for graduate students in psychology. A computer-facilitated learning environment was set up meet two goals: (1) to encourage individuals to work as a team on a live research project, and (2) to give students research skills needed to further their development as scholarpractitioners. The objective of this chapter is to identify, from the perspectives of the students and the instructor, how social factors influewnced learning outcomes and how the group formed into a research team. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the Community of Practice literature

and the context of the Online Research Lab in the School of Psychology at Walden University. The second section addresses strategies the instructor used to facilitate the sense of community in the Online Research Lab. The chapter concludes with a summary of challenges in developing a Community of Practice, as well as strategies instructors can use to overcome these obstacles.

TheoReTICAl FRAmewoRk Community of Practice The Online Research Lab discussed in this chapter is conceptualized as a kind of Community of Practice (CoP). A Community of Practice is made up of a group of individuals working together toward a common goal. Essential to the development of a

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-753-9.ch003

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Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

CoP are the practices, activities, and rituals that set the group apart from other groups or organizations (Wenger, 1998). There are four important processes in addition to learning itself that must be in place for a successful CoP: (1) a practice to be learned, (2) a community within which to learn it, (3) meaning developed as part of learning the practice with a group of individuals, and (4) an identity formed as part of membership in that community (Wenger, 1998). As group membership shifts over time, the CoP must also balance the practices of the established community with the learning curve of new members. Most individuals will belong to a number of different Communities of Practice throughout their lifetimes (Merriam, Courtenay, & Baumgartner, 2003; Stacey, Smith, & Barty, 2004; Wenger, 1998). For example, individuals may participate in a cohort of professional peers, play on a recreational sports team, or perform in a musical production. Membership in one community may influence the development of membership and identity in another CoP (Stacey et al., 2004). For example, by pursuing a higher degree, membership in an academic CoP may provide a person with resources that increases her contributions to a work-based CoP. However, although individuals may overlap in their CoP membership, the activities and contribution of group members must be coherent to constitute a separately functioning CoP. In Wenger’s (1998) CoP model, a meaningful life stems from the practice of a purposeful activity. In this view, learning happens best when it is relevant to the individual’s goals and interests (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989). In the present discussion, both formal learning activities and “extracurricular” social interaction are assumed to foster the development of a sense of community in the classroom (Browne, 2003; Johnson, 2001; Johnson & Aragon, 2003). Within a CoP, the community members draw from each other, collaborating to develop and validate shared understanding (Browne, 2003; Collins

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et al., 1989; Johnson, 2001; Johnson & Aragon, 2003; Richardson, 2003). The interactions of most CoP involve members with varying amounts of expertise (Wenger, 1998), but can also include novice-novice relationships (Hertzog, 2000). When applied to a formal education setting, both the instructor and the students contribute to the activity of the classroom. In the Online Research Lab discussed in this chapter, the focus is both on the relationships between students and on the relationship between the instructor and the students as a research team.

Cognitive Apprenticeship Cognitive apprenticeship was the motivating theoretical framework for the Online Research Lab design and pedagogy (Collins, Brown, & Holum, 1991). Apprenticeships, in the traditional sense, are an opportunity for the novice to acquire a skill by working alongside an expert in his or her work environment. The expert models a skill within his or her own workplace, office, or laboratory. What each apprenticeship has in common is the “real world” context, or situated learning, in which the skill is developed (Brown, Collins, & Danguid, 1989). Cognitive apprenticeship is an effort to combine the best of the classroom experience with the applied learning opportunities of apprenticeship (Collins et al.). In traditional graduate education, this model is most closely manifest in the way faculty mentor graduate students by including them as members of a research team. Some online graduate programs in psychology provide research experiences as an independent study or research practicum, where a student works individually with a faculty member (Jones & Wilson, personal communication, 2006). To our knowledge, the Online Research Lab discussed in this chapter is the first example of a research cognitive apprenticeship course in an online, Webbased graduate program in psychology.

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

online learning and graduate Studies in Psychology The number of students pursuing online higher education continues to grow (Allen & Seaman, 2004). At the same time, the role of research in training professional psychologists has experienced a lively and sustained debate (e.g. Kahn, 2001; Lejuez, Read, Gollan, & Zvolensky, 2001; Mallinckrodt & Gelso, 2002; Schlosser & Gelso, 2001). Most professional psychology programs require statistics and research design coursework, and allow students to work with a faculty mentor on research projects (Gelso, 1993; Hill, Hall, & Pike, 2004; Krumboltz, 2002; Shivy, Worthington, Wallis, & Hogan, 2003). As graduate training moves into electronically distributed formats, including online graduate programs, what opportunities are available for online research mentorship for professional psychologists (Howell, Williams, & Lindsay, 2003; Rudestam, 2004)?

The onlIne ReSeARCh lAB In Fall of 2004, the first author began an Online Research Lab for graduate students in the School of Psychology at a distance-based online institution. The purpose of the Online Research Lab (Lab) was to provide psychology graduate students with hands-on experience in research design, study implementation, and data analysis. The Lab was similar in intent to research laboratories in traditional settings where graduate students assist a faculty principal investigator on his or her project. In this online setting, the researcher acted both as the principal investigator of the project and the instructor for the Lab course. A Blackboard 5.5 shell (and later, e-College) at the host university provided the “space” for instruction and collaboration. This was not a hybrid course, and did not include any face-to-face components. The focus of the Online Research Lab was the development and implementation of a national

online survey of educational professionals who serve students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The purpose of the survey was to gather data on the use of testing accommodations for students participating in large-scale, standardized assessments used for state accountability purposes (Cawthon & the Online Research Lab, 2006). The Lab participants conducted literature reviews, developed survey items, piloted the measure, recruited participants, analyzed data, and assisted in drafting manuscripts for publication. The Lab was an ongoing course for three years; the activities reported in this chapter occurred over the course of five quarters (one year and three months) during the 2004-2005 academic year. One goal of the Lab was to invite the students to think about their role on the team as distinct from what they typically experience in graduate school. Students in this online graduate program took courses and worked on a thesis or dissertation, but usually did not have the opportunity to act as a research assistant or teaching assistant alongside a department faculty member. Instead of thinking of their role as consumers of information, and the instructor as the primary source of information, the goal was to help students take on their own identity as researchers. Furthermore, the goal was for them to see the group as a team, as a community of researchers working together towards project completion. At the close of the Lab, the instructor and two student participants sought to understand more about the learning process that had occurred. Using a case study approach, the research team gathered data about the Lab from a variety of sources. First, Lab alumni were invited to participate in a survey about their academic background and basic demographic information. Alumni also participated in structured interviews about their learning experience. These interviews included questions about student expectations about the Lab, how they learned, their interactions with the instructor and colleagues, and recommendations for future online research opportunities. Finally,

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the research team analyzed the online transcripts of discussion board postings and announcements in the Web-based classroom format. Examples from each of these data sources will be used to illustrate the emergence of a community of practice in this environment. The chapter will discuss key components in the development of a sense of community in the Online Research Lab. This discussion will look specifically at three key goals: (a) inviting the students into a community of researchers, (b) providing opportunities for collaboration, and (c) encouraging the development of nonactivityrelated social interaction. Student perception of the role of communication tools such as discussion board posts, instant message chats, and e-mail will also be addressed. Finally, the authors will discuss challenges to developing a community of practice in an online setting and offer recommendations for future research training formats.

develoPIng A CommunITy oF PRACTICe When facilitating a research training environment, two leading roles emerge: principal investigator, and course instructor. If the research endeavor is to be successful, there must be an effective principal investigator whose role it is to initiate the research idea, and ensure that the project comes to completion. In addition, if the learning process for students is to be successful, there must be an instructor who is attentive to the needs of students. The project-based learning environment thus required the faculty member to balance these two roles. As a result, both the principal investigator and course instructor roles were important to the development of a sense of community. Data analysis yielded a total of five strategies for developing a CoP, and two obstacles that, at times, threatened the success of the Lab as a CoP. The five strategies summarized below include: the use of CoP language, providing the big picture of

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the research project as a whole, providing opportunities for collaboration, creating student-centered assignments, and allowing for social interaction. The two obstacles to a strong CoP were technology issues, and students who were inconsistent in their participation in the Lab.

Community of Practice language Research team terminology. The first strategy to facilitate a sense of community was to use specific “research role” terminology in communications with Lab participants. The purpose of this terminology was to give students a sense of feeling like a fellow researcher, as part of a team effort. One of the simplest forms of role terminology was the use of the first-person plurals “we” and “our” in discussion board posts and classroom announcements throughout the course of the Lab. Another strategy was to tie individual student responsibilities to the broader project goals. Here is an example of an announcement from halfway through the project: Week 9, Winter Term: Hello! The major thrust of this week (Week 9) will be to email our letters out to those individuals we identified when developing our database of contacts. The directions for what we need to remember as we send out our letters are attached to this post. Your specific assignment is also in this attached document. Please read through this before proceeding with your emails! The remaining posts for this week contain your specific resources: Your contact list and your letter. Each of these will be designated by your name and group. Please verify that you have the correct materials before proceeding! I ask that all emails be sent individually (not in a group email with multiple recipients in the to: line), from your email account. Please send all emails by Friday, February 4th at the very latest.

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

Thanks so much! Instructor (Announcements, Winter Term, 2004) In addition to weekly (or, at times, daily) announcements, Community of Practice language also appeared throughout the discussion board posts. Unlike a traditional online course that begins a new topic each week, the Lab started a new topic roughly every other week. This was necessary because the topics and tasks were often challenging enough to require two or three weeks to complete. The use of “we” language was used to help motivate students as they started the activity in the topic’s first week. The second week of each unit required other kinds of contributions, such as feedback on individual student tasks, and further instruction on how to meet task goals. Transcript analysis of the first quarter included coding for “we” terminology, denoting a sense of community (see Figure 1). Interestingly, student and instructor usage of CoP-type terminology appears to spike in opposite weeks. Weeks with high student use of “we” terminology happens immediately following weeks with high instructor use of CoP language. This pattern may be because students are reflecting the language modeled by the instructor. It is also possible that the sequence of course activities lent to this alternating use of “we” terminology. Activities spanned over multiple weeks, initiated by the instructor, and then discussed by students. Finally, the diverse content of activities may also be a factor in the use of “we” terminology. For example, literature review searches may not be conducive to the use of CoP language, because students were more likely to report on an article from the research literature than to discuss the ongoing project as a whole. In contrast, sharing the results of pilot studies and needed changes may facilitate more discussion as a research team.

Progress over time. In the first quarter, the sense of community developed slowly, and was not immediately evident in early activities. During interviews, students discussed difficulty with group activities, especially initially, and were frustrated when their colleagues did not complete their assigned tasks. However, despite early difficulties, they began to get comfortable with the environment, developing a strong sense of community that lasted throughout the duration of the project. Students indicated a strong sense of overall community during the interview process. Kelly: Initially I truly believed there wasn’t any. [laughs] But it did develop and um It did happen. Um and I personally, my personal thoughts on this because another area I spent a lot of time thinking about was that we were so …busy perhaps learning new skills that the sense of community took time to develop because we needed to start feeling comfortable with what we were supposed to be doing. And as we learned uh and as we figured out what we were supposed to be doing that being able to be more collaborative with our team members…um…was easier. Sheila: I would think um uh percentage-wise something like 99% we were really cohesive. Erica: It was a community. It was very bonded. (Student Interviews, 2005) Students identified with each other as a group, particularly those who participated in the Lab for more than one term. The first student quoted above, Kelly, did not realize at first that working together as a team was as important as completing the assigned research tasks. Reflecting back on the experience, Kelly understood that the assignments were structured to facilitate collaboration, and that teamwork was actually required for the project to be successful.

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Figure 1. A line graph showing the percent of posts with CoP related terminology over the course of the twelve week Fall, 2004 term. Terminology included use of “we” and references to the group research activities. The instructor had higher rates of inclusive language in weeks 5, 7, and 9, whereas students had higher rates in weeks 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, and 12. This alternating pattern reflects a “give and take” in CoP language between the instructor and students.

Establishing a CoP from scratch takes time and a great deal of work. Individuals entering later quarters joined an existing community as newer members, and then aided in the development of community over the course of their participation. Subsequent quarters were easier, in that the community of practice already existed, and new members came in, began working on their own trajectory of membership, and contributed new knowledge and ideas to the community: Kelly: Oh I think everyone was extremely supportive…Um when new members came um it was it was a, you know, definitely welcoming. Um I think at that point it was um really um good again to have that new perspective of new people joining even just for one quarter. (Student Interviews, 2005) 928

Kelly was a student who started with the group from the beginning, whereas others started later in the process. The “veterans,” or those who were returning each term, were very conscious of the importance of their role of welcoming the new students.

Providing the Big Picture The second strategy used by the instructor to build a sense of community was to continually update students on the progress of the research project as a whole. The purpose of these updates was to facilitate the transition of the contribution of each individual activity to the big picture of the study (Collins et al., 1989). The “project updates” were similar to what you might find in a regular research

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

staff meeting in traditional settings. Here is one example of these project updates from the class announcements archives: Week 4, Fall Term: Hi all. Back in August I submitted a proposal to give a paper at the 2005 AERA (American Educational Research Association) conference in Montreal. The proposal was based on (1) The paper on Schools for the Deaf and No Child Left Behind and, (2) The design and pilot phases of this study. I found out today the paper is accepted! This is a big deal. The group only accepted four papers this year. So we actually have a target audience already, and we’re still in the development phase! Actually, this is good. They’re more interested in how we’re doing than having it all finished (remember, pilot data!). (Announcements, Fall Term, 2004) These posts touched upon activities the instructor was involved in as the project principal investigator outside of course instruction. They also illustrated for students how research findings are presented in the academic community, and how their activities will eventually be represented with presentations and publications. Finally, the announcements helped to clarify what each person’s responsibilities are towards the larger Lab goals, and reminded them of the timeframe for task completion and discussion contributions. Students provided positive feedback regarding these project updates. When interviewed about their experiences in the Lab, and the way the instructor facilitated communication and a sense of community, students said that the announcements and e-mails provided much-needed context and support. Edward: Bar none. Um…creating an environment that was both supportive uh…collaborative and uh and yet still had a solid guidance from uh

Stephanie the instructor. Julie: In her announcements she also posted a lot of helpful instructions. She would keep us posted all the time of what to expect, um, time frames again reminding us that, you know, she posted or uh put documents out there for us to share, for us to use or look at. Um…reminding us of resources …um… very very helpful.

Student-Centered Assignments Soliciting student input on what research activity they were assigned was a third strategy used to enhance student identification within the community of researchers. This strategy is supported by adult learner research literature that encourages instructors to draw up on students’ previous experiences (Huang, 2002; Knowles, 1990). In this case, students provided information, both on their skills and knowledge about research, as well as research tasks they wanted to learn. At the start of the Lab, each participant completed the following “mini survey” (Figure 2). Student information from these intake surveys was used to develop teams, matching those students who were looking to develop skills with those who were proficient and looked to use those skills to help others. This information also helped us to target individuals to take leadership in specific areas related to the project such as advertising and Web site development. One student member continued to be the Web site developer and consultant on the project a full year after her involvement with the project ended: Maria: Oh. Well she was giving assignments and everybody would pitch in and do their part and it was divided up. And she tried to make it accommodate um the skills of the people in the class … So that um everybody participate and uh and … succeed. And never stopped looking for the overall goals of what needed to be accomplished. (Student interviews, 2005) 929

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Figure 2. Intake survey given to students when the enrolled in the Online Research Lab. This survey was used to form project teams throughout the course of the research activities.

This participant recognized that the tasks were divided up in a way that was meaningful for students. These assignments drew on their background, but challenged them to apply previous knowledge to a new area. Her comment reflects a feeling of purpose and of success that arose from deliberate allocation of tasks according to student preferences and strengths. This student also recognized the challenge of both attending to student needs, and those of the overall project.

opportunities for Collaboration The fourth strategy for building community was to provide structured opportunities for collaboration. This also provided students with varying skills within the CoP to assist one another and broaden their understanding of research tasks (Browne, 2003; Collins et al., 1989; Hertzog, 2003; Johnson, 2001; Johnson & Aragon, 2003; Richardson, 2003). This was done mainly through the use of project pairs. The Lab offered many opportunities to engage in team-oriented projects or decision

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making. There were many factors that led to the decision to place students in teams. First, the Lab enrollment was quite large compared with a traditional research lab, often over 10 students. Large enrollment was due both to the minimum enrollment needed to run the course, as well as the popularity of the course with students. Each student task required a detailed list of instructions and follow up e-mails. It is challenging to individually tailor activities for a large group of students, and teaming students up meant there could be five or six quality activities instead of 10 smaller, less well-defined tasks. The second reason for pairing students was to provide an embedded structure for peer support. Students were often using research tools for the first time. The intent was to provide a peer safety net by teaming students on projects that could be administered jointly. Learning within the community of practice took place primarily in the form of experiential learning, or learning by doing a portion of the project. Activity-based learning forms the core of any cognitive ap-

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

prenticeship (Brown et. al., 1989). For example, one task was to randomly select schools from a national database that was disaggregated by state. This task required an advanced knowledge of database tools, including sorting fields and adding a randomized number in an additional field. Students with greater background in database software served as mentors to those who did not have the skills required to complete their tasks. After everyone was trained on the techniques, students completed their state lists individually. Students did not necessarily complete projects together, but could use each another as a support before submission to the larger group. Gina: Working with other researchers was um obviously very enlightening because we shared a lot back and forth. And some of us, maybe, had stronger skills in one area and others maybe had stronger skills in another area and we supported each other, and, you know, helped each other, and really kind of taught each other too. And I really liked that. (Student Interviews, 2005) Because the research project relied upon task completion, the teams also provided a safety net for the research project itself. If one student was unable to contribute to the task, or dropped the course midway through the process, there was at least one other person who was familiar with the task, and who could take up the slack where needed. This is an example of how a pedagogical strategy also served as good research practice. Students collaborated not only in the development of new skills, but in giving feedback on contributions to the research project. Students often provided as much feedback to another as the instructor, and at times, perhaps even more. Student feedback was particularly helpful when a group member struggled with the week’s assignment or needed additional help with computer

software, locating needed resources, and so on. This collaboration resulted in a strong sense of community identity, as opposed to just an identity as a student in the group. Feedback could be in the form of help in answering a question or in evaluating a fellow student’s ideas in the discussion area. During the interview, when asked about forms of feedback, 75% of students mentioned receiving feedback from fellow Lab members: Jane: “It was pretty scary because I entered in the last quarter. And I felt like a fish out of water. And…uh…I was assigned a partner and evidently it’s my feelings that she was quite astute to what was going on. And she guided me through figuring out what to do. She gave me examples so that I knew why’d she’d do…she didn’t tell me what to do. She gave me examples. And that helped me learn really, really well. Um…it gave me ideas on what I should find out. She was kind of like a mentor towards me and everybody was so wonderful and so understanding and made me feel like I was actually part of a team.” Joan: Personal e-mails from either the instructor or from either other uh colleagues, you know, in the class… Kelly: It was like we were, you know, pretty much hand holding even though I’d been in the project longer than she had. James: I found it comfortable. It was enjoyable. Um I thought we had a really good close-knit group, again, supporting each other. It was that type of group where, no matter where you were coming from, no…I don’t think anyone felt like it was a bad thing or it was embarrassing to say “Hey I’m stupid here! I don’t know what you’re talking about.” (Student Interviews, 2005)

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Feedback activities included suggestions for revising a work product, or ways to address problems with the research task. Though less prevalent than helping activities, feedback was particularly strong in the early weeks (up to 15% of the posts). At times, especially towards the end of the term, more feedback came from the students than the instructor. This demonstrates how students grew in their willingness to provide substantive feedback, and to work as a team towards project completion.

Breadth of Communication The Online Research Lab members used several forms of communication, including discussion boards, email, chat, and telephone calls. The multiple communication formats met the needs of different students. For example, some students had difficulties with the technology or the synchronicity (i.e., finding a time when they could all meet, especially across time zones) of the chats. These students used asynchronous communication—such as the discussion board or e-mail—when they could not access the chats. Students also indicated varying preferences for different forms of communication depending on the content of the task: Jane: Some of the things, like when we got into the more complex data analysis, it was nice to be able to go to the message board and see what other people were doing and see how they were doing. And to be able to post so you could get everyone’s feedback on where you had gone with it so far. But then smaller tasks like when we were doing the literature review that first term there were three of us who were supposed to do a certain section backgroundwise. And in that instance the e-mail was much more helpful because if we could e-mail each other back and forth and get the list put together and then just post it all as one big list. So I think the one that’s most helpful depended on what the task was.

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Edward: From the uh my peers in the research Lab. Um… e uh even though everything was through e-mail. E-mail I meant from the instructor. Like if I reached out to her or whatever. And then also from my peers in the class. Because you know when you when I posted something, you know people would respond and were really supportive. (Student Interviews, 2005) Students showed different preferences for discussion boards and e-mails depending on the task at hand. Some students preferred e-mail when detailed communication was required, but discussion board postings when input was needed from the entire group. Students indicated that instruction for tasks with multiple steps, such as for data analysis, was more effective in an e-mail format. It was therefore important to use multiple forms of communication in this course, and to supplement discussion board postings with follow-up e-mails to students.

Allowing for Social Interaction The last strategy for building a community of practice is to allow for social interaction. A successful community is one that works well together—not just on the task at hand, but as members of a social group. An effort was made by the instructor to contribute to social interaction by purposefully setting the stage for such activity, allowing its natural occurrence, and participating where appropriate. The first place where this is done in an online setting is through the “Class Café.” The Class Café in Blackboard and e-College is set up as a place for social interaction that is not necessarily tied to the content of the course. The Class Café functioned in a similar manner in the Lab. One strategy was to intertwine more informal requests for student perspectives with social interaction. For example, at the start of

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

the second (Winter) term, the instructor made the following post early on in the Class Café: Please check in here! Some of us are continuing on from last term, others are joining us for the first time. Please do welcome each other and share a bit about yourselves. For those of you who are returning, if you could answer the following: What resource/reading/activity did you find most helpful getting going last term? How can we help our new folks get revved up? Thanks! Instructor (Course Transcripts, 2004) Personal events often made their way into the conversation in the Class Café and on the main discussion boards. For example, the Lab was held during the 2004-05 hurricane season. Participants often expressed concern when there were major weather events occurring in different regions of the country. Students were spread throughout the United States, and there was an awareness of how people in different regions were faring throughout the term. Stacey, My goodness! You said it, Florida was really pummeled this last hurricane season. We have friends and relatives who live down in your neck of the woods so we were constantly praying for them! Glad to have you with us. Welcome aboard! I think you will really enjoy this opportunity! Jennifer (Course Transcripts, 2004)

Finally, the online chat was an important place where students connected with each other. After the first term, regular, bi-weekly chats became a fixture of the Lab environment. This was important in gauging student understanding of the research process, providing specific feedback, and demonstrating “live” thinking processes that come up in synchronous conversations. A pleasant side effect of the online chats was the opportunity to connect with each other in a social way. The instructor intentionally allowed the beginning and end of each chat to flow naturally between group members. Participants often checked in with how each person was doing, personally, before delving into the task at hand. Although the instructor certainly had a role in facilitating this process, students were the ones who took ownership of developing community. Here is an excerpt from a “live” chat discussion in the Spring, 2005 term: Allison > hi Instructor > How are you today? Mary > how’s allison? Allison > got my chicken soup and I’m in bed Instructor > oh no! Mary > oh no... Instructor > hey, in answer to your question allison, filter then categorize Allison > okee doke that is what I have been doing Mary > allison...flu? Allison > I don’t know Allison > I could not get warm at all today at work Instructor > oh dear! Mary > aches from head to toe, yet? Allison > Oh yea. I came home yesterday and went to bed and felt better this am. So tomorrow’s lookin good Instructor > oh good How is the new job going this week? Mary > sounds like what i had last week Allison > I’m just bein a baby Mary > nah.... if it’s what i had, 933

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you have a right to flat-out whine Instructor > tee hee Allison > How is the thesis going? Mary > gettin’ there dr. keeps coming up with something else he needs for my file . i keep giving it to him (Chat, Spring, 2005) Students frequently brought up whatever issues were on their plate at the time of the chats, be it thunderstorms in the neighborhood, thesis woes, their children, or the latest flu bug going around. The chats gave participants an opportunity to share their life experiences in a natural way. For example, one student experienced this camaraderie during the later phases of the project (personal communication, “Allison,” 2006). She was assigned to assist a new member who preferred communication via phone over e-mail exchanges. During their nearly two-hour phone conversation, they discussed many aspects of the Lab, but also discussed each other’s families, interests, and so on. This and other such personal communication enabled them to feel more comfortable in interacting within the practices of their CoP. That is, the more they knew each other—especially given the fact that this was done online—the easier it was to offer suggestions, critique one another’s work, and work together as fellow researchers.

ChAllengeS To CommunITy oF PRACTICe As with any learning environment, there are sometimes challenges to communication among group members. Working within an online environment resulted in some unique challenges, and required proactive attention from all members, especially from the instructor. There were two main sources of communication breakdowns in the Lab: technology problems, and nonresponsive students. Technology breakdowns were typically

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temporary, and usually overcome with alternative strategies for task completion. Nonresponsive students, however, proved to be a persistent problem, and quite difficult to remedy in the context of a group project.

Technology Online education is wholly dependent on functioning technology for the environment to run smoothly. Because the Lab was interactionintensive, intermittent technology outages were perhaps even more disruptive than in a typical online course. For example, when the classroom servers were running slowly, or the online chat mechanism failed to launch, the students could not access the course materials, post their feedback, or participate in the synchronous discussions. As the Lab progressed, access to the online chats proved to be an increasingly important source of feedback and troubleshooting for students, particularly in statistics and data analysis. Students also expressed their frustration with failed technology during the online chats. When both e-mail and the classroom servers were down (once, for about two weeks, at the start of a term), research activities ground to a halt. Using e-mail to convey information and answer questions usually led to more intense communication between the instructor and the Lab participants. In the classroom, students often read announcements and posts without posting a response or comment. In e-mail, however, it was not uncommon to receive separate messages from many students about the activities of the week. In an e-mail communication format, students treated the Lab as a one-on-one independent study instead of a group project. This changes the nature of a community of practice by shifting the emphasis away from collective knowledge to a more comfortable—but at times less productive—individual learning experience. E-Mail communications were welcomed, but the

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

questions were often redirected back to the group discussion board for further consideration.

nonresponders There were a handful of students throughout the year who did not participate as fully as was needed to be successful in the Online Research Lab environment. In all cases, students expressed a desire to participate in their introductions and e-mail communications, but underestimated the time required to participate in research, given the other demands in their lives. Students in face-to-face research training environments also face this kind of challenge in allocating enough time for research activities (Shivy et al., 2003). This is partly an artifact of the kinds of students that attend this online program. As adult learners, Lab participants frequently worked, in addition to working towards their degrees. The majority worked outside of the home, mostly in the education field. Participants were mostly employed full-time, with an average workload of 37 hours per week. However, it was lack of communication with team partners that had the most significant impact on the sense of community, not the task noncompletion itself. There were often ways to rearrange the work so that the research project continued as needed. It was much more difficult to repair damage to the social network when a Lab member chose not to respond to e-mail communications or telephone calls to maintain contact. Students often took it personally when their partner would not respond to attempts to work on their team project. In their interviews about their experience in the Lab, several participants noted the frustration they felt when the person they were teamed with let them down. The instructor took some proactive steps to remedying or at least preventing future issues. When a team member became “missing in action,” the first strategy to support the student who now had the team’s project on his or her own plate.

As the Lab continued, we were able to employ a teaching assistant (a Lab alumnus). The teaching assistant proved invaluable in both supporting the remaining participant emotionally, and with the work that was left to be done. The priority was to ensure that the remaining participant did not have to do double the work, and to mitigate feelings of abandonment they often expressed. However, communicating with and supporting the nonresponder was often a more challenging task. In the case of students with significant personal life and health issues, frequently the discussion surrounded the wisdom of continuing in the Lab. At other times, students were struggling with time management. In these cases, structured work timeframes were useful tools in bringing students back on track. These strategies were challenging at times, because the research project deadlines sometimes meant that the student needed to start on a new or alternative task, instead of completing the original assignment. The realities of the timeframe in “live” research sometimes meant that nonresponders could not be fully reintegrated where they left off.

ConCluSIon And ReCommendATIonS This chapter presented components of Community of Practice as they evolved in an Online Research Lab. Strategies for developing a sense of community in this setting included deliberate use of “we” language by the instructor, studentcentered assignments, collaborative tasks, feedback among students, and encouraging social interaction. There were, however, many obstacles to a community of practice in an online research setting, especially technology breakdowns, and nonresponsive students. There are several key points that we hope the reader will take from this discussion:

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1.

2.

3.

4.

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The purpose of the Online Research Lab was to have students learn about research by participating in a live project. For this to be successful, members of the class must work well together and be involved in constructive communication. Without strong, consistent communication among participants, it is challenging for the instructor to both meet the needs of students and the demands of an ongoing research project. The structure of the class, using larger twoand three- week units, resulted in mirrored patterns of dialogue from both the instructor and the students. We saw communication strategies used by the instructor later integrated by the students. Instruction and feedback cycles were also paced by the structure of classroom activity. Instructors can use these cycles to model research tasks, and to allow students to provide feedback to their peers. It is important to use multiple forms of communication (discussion board, e-mails, chats) for instruction, feedback, helping, and other community of practice activities. Some students prefer e-mail communication over discussion board postings when they find the material challenging, or have questions about the activity. However, the community of practice may be enhanced by having these discussions as a group. Careful thought should be given to the amount of support offered to an individual outside of the format of the online classroom. Nonresponding students are a significant obstacle to a successful Community of Practice. One way to be proactive is to provide interested students with information about the expectations and time commitment required for participation. These expectations should include communication with peers. Even if grading is pass/fail, frequent opportunities for graded evaluations of communication with peers may also be helpful

5.

6.

7.

in reinforcing the importance of dialogue within the classroom. Technology failures were often beyond the control of the Lab participants, but could be remedied by having back up plans and using other communication strategies to cover the gaps of a failed e-mail or online discussion board system. For example, provide essential information in course announcements, discussion boards, and e-mail to ensure that students are aware of key issues, particularly those that are time-sensitive. Veterans of the project—those who participated in the Lab for more than one term— played an important role in bringing new students on board each term. While it is challenging to have research assistants at different skill levels, the project benefits from having students with previous experience available to apprentice the new students on specific Lab-related tasks. Instructors of research labs may want to consider how best to structure activities for new team members. Instructors of research labs should be aware that it takes a considerable amount of time investment for outcomes to be successful for both the students, and the research project. Part of this time investment is required to develop one’s role as both an instructor of research, and principal investigator of a research project. There will be times when the need to provide additional instruction may draw one away from pressing administrative issues that arise. Likewise, research timeframes did not always fit neatly within the schedule of the academic year. In each, keeping students informed about the larger research activities helped to illustrate where their work fit into the broader project.

An Online Research Lab contributes in unique and significant ways to the development of research skills for online graduate students in

Developing a Community of Practice in an Online Research Lab

psychology. Through deliberate scaffolding of student participation in research activities, and conscious facilitation of both the academic and social environment, students can grow into a thriving Community of Practice. Students noted that this community was an important part of their enjoyment of the process, and that research experience in isolation would not have generated a similar level of learning outcomes. Although they were frustrated when peers did not contribute as expected, students appreciated the interaction with their colleagues on both a personal and professional level. Strategies for integrating students into faculty research may also be considered for other programs and fields of study, especially those that allow students to apply the literature review, statistics, and research design skills they have learned through their coursework. In light of the increased enrollment of students in online graduate programs, particularly those at the doctoral level, universities will be challenged to structure research experiences for aspiring academics. Experiences such as the Online Research Lab maybe a way that both faculty and students can participate in joint scholarship activities, while maintaining the flexibility of the environment.

Cawthon, S., & theOnline Research Lab. (2006). Accommodations use for statewide standardized assessments: Prevalence and recommendations for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11(3), 337–359. doi: 10.1093/deafed/enj040

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Hill, P. C., Hall, T. W., & Pike, P. L. (2004). Research at an explicitly integrative program: Rosemead school of psychology. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 23, 338–344.

Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2004). Entering the mainstream: The quality and extent of online education in the United States, 2003 and 2004. Retrieved October 19, 2007, from http: //www. sloan-c.org/resources/entering_mainstream.pdf Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42. Browne, E. (2003). Conversations in cyberspace: A study of . Open Learning, 18, 245–259. doi: 10.1080/0268051032000131017

Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator, 15, 6–46. Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. E. (1989). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the crafts of reading, writing, and mathematics. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (pp. 453-494). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gelso, C. J. (1993). On the making of a scientistpractitioner: A theory of research training in professional psychology. Professional Psychology, Research and Practice, 24, 468–476. doi: 10.1037/0735-7028.24.4.468 Hertzog, H. S. (2000). When, how and who do I ask for help? Novice perceptions of learning and assistance. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the AERA. New Orleans, LA. Retrieved October 19, 2007, from ERIC database.

Howell, S., Williams, P., & Lindsay, N. (2003). Thirty-two trends affecting distance education: An informed foundation for strategic planning. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 6(3), 19. Huang, H. (2002). Toward constructivism for adult learners in environments. British Journal of Educational Technology, 33, 27–37. doi: 10.1111/1467-8535.00236

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Johnson, C. M. (2001). A survey of current research on online communities of practice. [from http: // www.learnloop.org/olc/johnsonOnlineCoP.pdf]. The Internet and Higher Education, 4, 45–60. Retrieved October 19, 2007. doi: 10.1016/S10967516(01)00047-1 Johnson, S. D., & Aragon, S. R. (2003). An instructional strategy framework for environments. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 100, 31–43. doi: 10.1002/ace.117 Kahn, J. H. (2001). Predicting the scholarly activity of counseling psychology students: A refinement and extension. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48, 344–354. doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.48.3.344 Knowles, M. S. (1990). The adult learner: A neglected species (4th ed.). Houston: Gulf. Krumboltz, J. D. (2002). Encouraging research: Making it collegial, enjoyable, and relevant. The American Psychologist, 57, 931–940. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.57.11.931 Lejuez, C. W., Read, J. P., Gollan, J. K., & Zvolensky, M. J. (2001). Research considerations for obtaining a predoctoral clinical psychology internship. Professional Psychology, Research and Practice, 32, 650–654. doi: 10.1037/07357028.32.6.650 Maillinckrodt, B., & Gelso, C. J. (2002). Impact of research training environment and Holland personality type: A 15-year follow up study of research productivity. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 49(1), 60–70. doi: 10.1037/00220167.49.1.60

Merriam, S. B., Courtenay, B., & Baumgartner, L. (2003). On becoming a witch: Learning in a marginalized community of practice. Adult Education Quarterly, 53, 170–188. doi: 10.1177/0741713603053003003 Richardson, V. (2003). Constructivist pedagogy. Teachers College Record, 105, 1623–1640. doi: 10.1046/j.1467-9620.2003.00303.x Rudestam, K. E. (2004). Distributed education and the role of in training professional psychologists. Professional Psychology, Research and Practice, 35, 427–432. doi: 10.1037/0735-7028.35.4.427 Schlosser, L., & Gelso, C. (2001). Measuring the working alliance in advisor-advisee relationships in graduate school. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48(2), 157–167. doi: 10.1037/00220167.48.2.157 Shivy, V. A., Worthington, E. L., Wallis, A. B., & Hogan, C. (2003). Doctoral research training environments (RTEs): Implications for the teaching of psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 30, 297–302. doi: 10.1207/S15328023TOP3004_03 Stacey, E., Smith, P. J., & Barty, K. (2004). Adult learners in the workplace: and communities of practice. Distance Education, 25, 107–123. doi: 10.1080/0158791042000212486 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

This work was previously published in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Best Practices and Principles for Instructors Communities of practice, edited by K. Orvis; A. Lassiter pp. 41-65 copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.12

Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning: A Case Study Clive N. Buckley Glyndŵr University, UK Angela M. Williams Glyndŵr University, UK

ABSTRACT Collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) has a well established history within medical and health care education. Undergraduate nursing students at the Glyndŵr University undertake PBL to explore ethical issues of health care; traditionally these students meet in person to discuss scenarios, provided by tutors, and present the product of their deliberations to the rest of the class. The geographical dispersion of the students has meant that most discussions have been limited to those times when the students are physically on campus by virtue of their timetabled classes. By using Web 2.0 technologies, students are able to collaborate at distance, at a time that suits them. This chapter describes how students have used these emerging technologies to share ideas and resources to prepare for class presentations; described also DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch011

are the underpinning theories that inform this work together with an analysis of student use and feedback.

InTRoduCTIon This chapter describes how Web 2.0 technologies, in particular wiki pages, have been used to facilitate group work with undergraduate nursing students at the Glyndŵr University, United Kingdom. We begin by examining the theoretical basis for applying this technology to facilitate collaboration; we describe the nature of the problem based group work and its pedagogical value; we analyse, from the perspective of both tutors and students, the effectiveness of this approach and finally we examine the nature of discourse between students, freed from the constraints of the traditional classroom environment. Our conclusion supports the view that, sympathetically used, Web 2.0 technology can enhance the level of “conversation” between

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Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

students, enabling students living remote from the university campus to engage productively in group tasks and providing a flexible forum for collaborative work. In employing a wiki to facilitate student collaboration, tutors are able to observe the process by which students develop their final presentation, providing an opportunity to scrutinize group dynamics. We also explore how the “facebook generation” adopt language styles which are distinct from the academic language normally used within the formal classroom setting.

BACkgRound The past few years have witnessed an explosion of Web 2.0 applications. PBL PBL PBL such as “Facebook” and blogs have become increasing popular, especially with young adults, and many of us in higher education are beginning to consider how this phenomenon can be used to facilitate learning. We now have a ‘connected society’; connected not by face-to-face interaction but by the internet; geographical location is no longer a barrier to discourse and interaction. Whilst the social aspects of learning have long been recognised by educational philosophers such as Vygotsky, it is only recently that new theories of learning have started to emerge that reflect the burgeoning potential of the digitally connected society. Siemens (2004) has coined the phrase “connectivism” to describe how learning can reside outside the individual and how individuals can contribute to a social network of understanding and knowledge. Connectivism applies to that nebulous entity, the internet and, one supposes, to the growing use of mobile devices to access, and contribute to, a shared, socially situated body of knowledge. The scope of this chapter, however, is narrower; focussing on a single aspect of emerging technologies, the wiki, and how this can be used to exploit the potential of social networking to enhance the learning of the individual.

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O’Reilly (2007), in exploring how Web 2.0 technologies allow for “remixing” of data from various sources, describes how individuals use technologies to collaborate to a common cause; this “harnessing of collective intelligences” (O’Reilly ibid) generates a product that is greater than the sum of its parts. This has resonances with the social constructivist approach to learning of Vygotsky and the connectivist approach of Siemens. Boulos et al (2006) have highlighted the potential of wikis to help facilitate learners in constructing their own knowledge, leading to a deeper understanding. Based upon this theoretical underpinning, the authors determined to examine the potential of wiki technology to facilitate collaboration between groups of geographically dispersed nursing students.

ISSueS, ConTRoveRSIeS, PRoBlemS As Adams (2004) observes, nurse education is not simply a matter of presenting students with information to remember and reproduce in examinations; it requires the students to think creatively, to collaborate and to critically reflect upon practice. Whilst by no means unique in this respect, nurse education lends itself to a constructivist or connectivist approach to learning, especially when aligned to problem-based learning (PBL). Cognitive conflict (Savery and Duffy, 2001), whereby learners are presented with problematic scenarios that challenge their preconceptions provides a basis for reflection and, through collaboration, for constructing new paradigms of practice. Rather than providing them with solutions, students are encouraged to explore scenarios, to construct frameworks of understanding and to resolve personal and collective conflicts. Problem-based learning and collaboration is not new in nurse education (Davis and Harden, 1999; Wood, 2003) but emerging technologies provide an additional dimension whereby students,

Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

separated by location or time, can collaborate, share resources and participate in discursive learning (Gulati, 2006). Additionally, those students that feel uncomfortable in contributing to classroom based discussions often feel liberated by the opportunity to contribute to discussions from the comfort and security of their own homes. That is not to say that adverse inter-personal dynamics that one may see in the physical classroom are absent from the virtual world; intimidation (Doolan, 2006) and bullying (Reigle, 2007) are as hurtful in the virtual world as they are in the real and careful tutor monitoring is required to ensure that debate is both constructive and polite. Our own experiences, described later, demonstrate that misunderstandings can quickly develop into personal disputes. It is a widely held belief that adult learners (the over 25’s) are uncomfortable with emerging social networking technologies; “Facebook” and other social networking sites seem strictly for the teenage and young adult market but our experience is that mature students quickly adapt to using new technologies. Analysis of student contributions to the wiki pages show no correlation between the age of the student and the level of activity demonstrated.

PRoBlem-BASed leARnIng (PBl) FRAmewoRk Glyndŵr University is located in Wrexham, north Wales and works closely with the demands of the local economy. The University is addressing the widening participation agenda and its aim is to be “open to all”. Approximately 110 nursing students are recruited per academic year. The Bachelor of Nursing (Hons) degree runs over a 3-year period and is evenly split between theoretical modules and clinical practice. Nursing cohorts are predominantly female and aged between 18 years – 44 years. The students generally live in the north Wales region and this represents a diverse

geographical area, with many students living in rural locations. The PBL framework is used to deliver information to student nurses about possible trauma issues in a clinical practice setting. The ‘trauma’ based PBL is introduced at the end of the 2nd year of a pre-registration Bachelor of Nursing (Honours) Degree Programme. The PBL is used to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills (Hsu 2004). In nurse education, one of the main aims of PBL is to promote autonomous learning by encouraging students to take some responsibility for their own learning (Ousey 2003). This is done by the identification of the student’s own learning needs in relation to the problems highlighted within the weekly PBL scenario. The PBL is timetabled for one day a week over a five-week time span. Each week the students work in small groups of about eight and each group is facilitated by a nurse tutor. The tutor’s role is purely advisory, as all the student groups are encouraged to nominate a “chairperson” (student) from their individual groups. The chairperson helps focus the group towards the work required and makes suggestions on ‘communicating’ via the wiki page. The main scenario is based on a young female who is involved in a road traffic accident. She requires cardiac pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at the scene of the accident and is admitted to the emergency room (ER) via the ambulance service. This scenario, as well as exploring trauma issues, also raises issues around possible “real life” ethical dilemmas. The main format of the first PBL scenario, and the subsequent additional weekly information, is organised to encourage individual student learning with the students being principally in control of the area for exploration. For the first PBL session, each group is given an ethical scenario to work on. The following week each group has to debate their argument, based on current and relevant evidence, in a cohort discussion. For example, ethical dilemmas may include the following: whether to continue with CPR or not, other groups debate whether

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Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

Table 1. Wiki usage by student group Group Number

1

2

3

4

5

Total

Wiki Revisions

99

104

108

109

77

497

Percentage of Total

20

21

22

22

15

100

to allow the patient’s “partner” in to ER or not. During the following four weeks the scenario is developed and additional layers of complexity are added. Groups are provided with additional information and each group must then work on this to expand their presentation. Student selfdirected study time is also timetabled to enable students to gather information from such sources as books, journal articles and the web in order to support each feedback session. These scenarios are all related to the same patient situation and encourage the separate groups of students to solve the highlighted problems they decide are important to their particular group. The flexibility of choice allows the students to identify their main issues and, as a result, in control of their own learning. This demonstrates the constructivist approach of PBL (Hsu, 2004). Prior to the PBL scenario being introduced to the students, an introductory lecture is delivered on how to use the “wiki page”. The students are encouraged to use the wiki page as a resource tool and also as a means of communication to organise their group work.

password protected wiki page; collaboration took place over a five week period. Analysis of wiki page usage (Table 1) shows a total number of page revisions of 497 over the five week period, giving an average of just under one hundred revisions per week or twenty revisions per group per week. Groups 1 to 4 made a similar number of revisions but Group 5, which had a number of students away on other duties for the first week, registered a lower number. We see no significance in the slight variation in the number of revisions. Simple numerical analysis of wiki page revisions gives an indication of activity level but not the nature or quality of that activity. Student contributions were divided into three categories; non-task related posts, task related contributions (including sharing of original documents) and resource sharing, which includes sharing of internet resources; total contribution were roughly equal across these categories but task- specific contributions account for 65% of the total. We believe the non-task related posts to be an important element in generating a sense of community within the student groups. Often these posts would be about home life or difficulties students were experiencing; other students would respond with messages of support and offers of help. Creating a “team spirit” and bonding members of the group gives a sense of

Student use of the wiki Pages Students were divided into five groups of eight and each group given access to their individual Table 2. Type of wiki contribution by student group

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Group Number

1

2

3

4

5

Total

Non-task posts (%)

43

39

43

20

30

35

Task-related contribution (%)

23

32

28

25

40

30

Resource sharing (%)

34

29

28

55

40

35

Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

identity and a common goal. Sharing personal information in this way also empowers students to share their own views and original writings in the safe and secure knowledge that these will be received by others in a supportive and respectful manner. Inappropriate postings, “flaming”, was observed in one group (Group 1), prompting one student to comment “However the wiki page was used inappropriately to air disagreements which discouraged some member [sic] from using it.” Although students were given clear guidance about appropriate behaviour, it is impossible to ensure that this is observed at all times and tutors must monitor posts on a regular basis. Task-related contributions fell into two main categories; identifying existing resources and sharing of the students’ own work. Those contributions which simply identified a resource without additional comment received few, if any, responses; suggesting that these were seen as being of little value. Sharing original work or reflections upon resources generated many more replies and students began to construct understanding; we observed peer-teaching and team work, a core objective of the exercise.

language used It was evident, from a very early stage, that students were tending to adopt very informal use of language, much akin to the shorthand used in SMS messaging (“texting”). Typical examples include: “c u tomorrow” - see you tomorrow “hope u are all happy” - hope you are all happy “Dus any 1 no” - does anyone know As described earlier, a very small minority of students became embroiled in flaming and used inappropriate language which required tutor intervention. Other students, normally reluctant to contribute to classroom discussion, embraced the opportunity to debate and contributed enthusiastically. This behaviour, which would not occur in a

traditional face-to-face classroom, suggests that students’ perception of the electronic medium and the “rules” of social engagement weresignificantly modified. Without the physical classroom environment and isolated from direct contact with tutors and peers, new rules of discourse developed. Students, in effect, established a set of social norms specific to the virtual environment within which they were operating. Souter (2008) describes a similar experience with her students when using the “Second Life” multi-user virtual environment, noting what she terms as “naughtiness” in the behaviour of some students. Whilst it is important to ensure that debate is conducted in a professional manner, freeing students from the strict code of conduct expected in the classroom setting may facilitate a deeper, more reflective learning experience. By employing informal language to discuss complex issues students are demonstrating, it is suggested, clearer understanding and the ability to relay this understanding in the language of their peers. Interestingly, when required to return to the reality of the physical classroom in order to present their findings to tutors, students reverted to the expected protocols and language of that environment. Further work is needed to establish whether different groups of students develop different sets of social norms for the “virtual classroom” and we are currently extending our research to examine such aspects.

Student Feedback Student feedback was gathered using a short questionnaire consisting of a number of statements which students were asked to grade on a five point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Students were also given the opportunity to give free-form comments on their own experiences of using the wiki. The questionnaire returns indicate that students found the wiki useful, that it improved the quality of their group work and that they would like to see this technology applied more generally

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Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

Table 3. Results of student questionnaire (aggregated results from 33 returns) Score (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)

Agreement (as a percentage)

I found the wiki easy to use

3.76

72%

The wiki was useful in helping us share ideas and resources

4.15

83%

Our group work improved because we used a wiki

3.38

68%

I would prefer to use email to share ideas and resources

2.48

50%

I prefer to meet face to face or by telephone

3.15

63%

I would prefer tutors could not see our wiki pages

1.85

37%

I would like to use a wiki for group work in the future

3.79

76%

Statement

across their studies. A significant number of students would, however, prefer to use face-to-face meetings or telephone contact for collaboration, rather than e-mail or wiki pages, indicating that not everyone is entirely comfortable using webbased communication tools. Interestingly, the students clearly prefer that tutors have access to their on-line discussions; this may reflect a desire to demonstrate the level of contribution or the need for tutor moderation. This, however, raises questions about the type of language and social rules used by these students in their on-line discussions and the fact that students then readily acquiesce to the more rigid formality of the physical classroom. This dichotomy of behaviour suggests that this group of students perceive their on-line behaviour as entirely appropriate within the context of that medium but not appropriate for the “real-world” setting of the classroom.

example Student Comments I felt the wiki page was central to our group work – everybody contributed relevant information and it was an excellent form of communication. (DE). It was an excellent way to help develop my knowledge …. This will be good to use during

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each module throughout nurse training. (RW) I found it useful for sharing information and keeping in contact with group members because we all lived in different areas. However the wiki page was used inappropriately to air disagreements which discouraged some member [sic] from using it. (BW) Some of our members lived in different areas so we could discuss things without meeting up. (SS) It was just seen as extra work among our group. We work that well as a team we’d have had the same results without using the page. (LM) I like it because you could share information with others. I didn’t like the way everybody else could change what you had done. (JT) The free-form comments from students provide an interesting insight to some of the benefits and some of the disadvantages of using a wiki page for collaboration. The vast majority of feedback received in this way described the benefits, in particular how geographically-dispersed students could still collaborate in a meaningful and constructive manner. Negatives to emerge were

Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

inappropriate behaviour (flaming) and the fact that contributions could be changed or deleted by another.

SoluTIonS And ReCommendATIonS Facilitating collaboration between students who are geographically dispersed or in employment can be problematic; Web 2.0 technology provides an opportunity for students to contribute to group work where and when they like. Freed from the confines of classroom etiquette and geographical isolation, students are able to express their views and contribute to group work in a meaningful and constructive manner. Interestingly, students themselves evolve their own social norms and use language which is meaningful to their particular cohort; provided it is managed appropriately, we argue that this facilitates a deeper and more reflective learning experience. Disadvantages which arise through inappropriate behaviour, whether that be aggressive language or changing / deleting the work of another can be overcome by careful and diligent tutor moderation. We believe that on-line collaboration through the use of Web 2.0 technologies such as wiki pages provide an opportunity for students to explore their own understanding within a supportive and non-threatening environment. By applying these emerging technologies to problem based learning we recognise the value of the constructivist approaches to learning and the opportunity for “harnessing of collective intelligences” (O’Reilly ibid). For tutors looking to assess team work, wikis provide an insight into both process and group dynamics; something difficult to achieve in traditional classroom teaching.

FuTuRe TRendS Our experiences have convinced us to broaden our use of these technologies to other student groups. Social networking applications and multiuser virtual environments have the potential to enrich the learning opportunities for our students but to exploit this fully we must gain a deeper understanding of the social interactions that take place within such environments. Emerging technologies present us with a new opportunity to engage students with their own learning; Web 2.0 tools provide a platform for a constructivist and connectivist approach to learning and teaching. We may need to review our previously accepted pedagogic ‘truths’ if we are to exploit the potential of these technologies; this is a challenge to all of us engaged in such teaching. Conversely, these technologies may enable the visionary work of Piaget and Vygotsky to be realised.

ConCluSIon This chapter has detailed our experience of using wiki pages to facilitate collaboration between adult learners on a nursing degree at Glyndŵr University, Wales, United Kingdom. The role of problem-based learning in a constructivist approach to teaching has been described and we have explored how student interaction within virtual environments differs from that observed within a traditional classroom. Freed from formal classroom environments, students are able to express themselves in the language of their peers and this, we believe, facilitates enhanced learning, greater debate and a reflective approach to discussions. Further work is needed to better understand how social norms develop within the virtual environment and how this can be exploited to assist learning. We believe that Web 2.0 technologies provide a valuable opportunity for learners who are geographically dispersed or who have time constraints to participate in face-to-face group

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Web 2.0 Technologies for Problem-Based and Collaborative Learning

work. Although student work in this case study was not formally assessed, tutors are able to review not only the end product of collaboration but the process, enriching the assessment potential. In light of our experiences, we have reviewed our use of PBL and will introduce formal assessment of both final group presentations and wiki contributions in the near future.

Hsu, L.-L. (2004). Developing concept maps from problem-based learning scenario discussions. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 48(5), 510–518. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2004.03233.x

ReFeRenCeS

Ousey, K. (2003). The first year of a problembased learning curriculum. Nursing Standard, 17(22), 33–36.

Adams, A. M. (2004). Pedagogical underpinnings of computer-based learning. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 46(1), 5–12. doi:10.1111/j.13652648.2003.02960.x Boulos, M. N. K., Maramba, I., & Wheeler, S. (2006). Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. BMC Medical Education, 6 (41), 1283-1284. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from http://www.biomedcentral.com/ content/pdf/1472-6920-6-41.pdf Davis, M. H., & Harden, R. M. (1999). AMEE Medical Education Guide No. 15: Problem-based learning: a practical guide. Medical Teacher, 21(2), 130–140. doi:10.1080/01421599979743 Doolan, M. A. (2006) Effective Strategies for Building a learning community Online Using a Wiki. Annual Blended Learning Conference 2006, University of Hertfordshire. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/dspace/ bitstream/2299/1721/1/901867.pdf Gulati, S. (2006). Application of New Technologies. In S. Glen, & P. Moule, (Eds.), E-learning in Nursing (pp. 20–37). New York: PalgraveMacMillan.

O’Reilly, T. (2007). “What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software”. Communications & Strategies, 1, 17. Retrieved 12 July 2008 from SSRN: http:// ssrn.com/abstract=1008839

Reigle, R. R. (2007). The Online Bully in Higher Education, (ERIC ED495686). Retrieved 14 July 2008 from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/28/03/ ae.pdf Savery, J. R., & Duffy, T. M. (2001). Problem Based Learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Tech. Rep. No. 16-01 Indiana University CRLT. Retrieved 18 July 2008 from http://cee.indiana.edu/publications/journals/ TR16-01.pdf Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved 14 July 2008, from http://learningwithwikis.wikispaces. com/space/showimage/elearnspace.+Connecti vism_+A+Learning+Theory+for+the+Digital+ Age.pdf Souter, K. (2008) MUVE-ing in web 2.0. EQ Winter 2008@Curriculum Corporation. Retrieved August 27, 2008 from http://www1.curriculum. edu.au/eq/2008winter/article1.php Wood, D. F. (2003) ABC of learning and teaching in medicine. BMJ, 326(8), 328 – 300. Retrieved July 14, 2008 from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ picrender.fcgi?artid=1125189&blobtype=pdf

This work was previously published inAdult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes, edited by T. T. Kidd; J. Keengwe pp. 118-125, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.13

Adult Learners Learning Online: A Case Study of a Blogging Experience Danilo M. Baylen University of West Georgia, USA

ABSTRACT This chapter presents a case study in which an online experience for adult learners facilitated improved understanding of blogs and its applications to K-12 classrooms. Data were primarily derived from archived documentation provided by students as components of several completed course assignments. The case study illustrates and examines how the online experience, specifically the creation and maintenance of a blog, supported student learning about use and application of a specific technology. The chapter discusses processes and results given the contexts of adult learning and instructional technology as well as suggests directions for effective practice.

InTRoduCTIon The blogging experience was one of the assignments I enjoyed most because it is one that is applicable to both my personal and professional life. Watching the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch015

blog grow, with contributions from my classmates and our acquaintances, was both interesting and educational, and I feel that our blog turned into a good source of information and resources on our topic, nutrition for students in the middle grades. I also enjoyed the opportunity to work cooperatively with my group mates; one of the disadvantages of online classes is the lack of interaction with others taking the course. Since completing this assignment I have read and contributed to others’ blogs outside of this course and have also started working on my personal blog, with poems, images, and musings about life in general. (School Library Media Student B) Adult learning is a vast frontier for those who want to enhance access and promote success in one’s professional development. The literature identifies that adults are physiologically, psychologically, and sociologically more diverse than children and with varying needs (Lieb, 1991; Long, 1998). They learn best when prior learning is tapped and content learned is meeting their needs. Motivation is high when learning activities are supported by interaction or dialogue and opportunities for self-direction. Also, mistakes are seen as opportunities to further

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Adult Learners Learning Online

one’s learning. For many adult learners, instruction becomes engaging when critical thinking and problem solving have become part and parcel of the process of gaining practice experience. Given hectic schedules and multiple demands to an adult lifestyle (AASCU, 2006), getting an education online has become an industry within higher education. Course management systems (i.e., Blackboard, WebCT, Angel, etc.) have provided delivery platforms to private entities as competitors of traditional institutions of higher education by offering educational opportunities to those who have difficulty taking on-campus courses in the past. Online learning, in this context, means all or the combination of the following characteristics: “knows no time zones, location and distance”; “access the online materials at anytime”; “real time interaction between students and the instructor”; and “use the Internet to access up-to-date and relevant learning material; and communicate with experts in the field” (Anderson & Elloumi, 2004, p. 5). Stokes (2008) argues that online learning can support working adults in their pursuit for an education by the ability to go to school despite their busy schedule. Online learning has the potential of meeting the educational needs of adult learners. Literature about online learning identifies increased participation by adults on web-based activities like content creation and interactive conversations (Courtney, 2007; Madden & Fox, 2006). Also, emerging technology-based tools (e.g., blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.) provide new ways to support adult learners in 1) learning content; 2) communicating and collaborating with peers; 3) facilitating critical thinking and problem-solving; and 4) producing creative and appropriate outcomes for target audience (Egbert, 2009). For example, blogs could provide new spaces to learn and share information on variety of content and for different audiences. However, this technological innovation presents enormous challenges for

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many educators and administrators providing educational experiences for adults due to lack of experience and understanding the potential of this technology-based tool in various contexts. As a case study, this chapter focuses on how the creation and maintenance of a blog has enhanced the understanding of adult learners on how it can support teaching and learning processes. Blogs began as “web pages that were created and maintained by individuals who made it their practice to monitor the Web” (Warlick, p. 25). However, blogs are about posted entries, not web pages. Solomon & Schrum (2008) explains a blog as “a set of personal commentaries on issues the author deems important” (p. 55). It is a user-generated website that uses texts, images and links to other blogs, web pages and, other media related to its topic. Readers reply to posted entries, promoting open dialogue and community building, that are displayed in a reverse chronological order (Hurlburl, 2008). The literature identifies many applications of this tool in the writing process like maintaining a writer’s journal or keeping a daily log of activities (Windham, 2008). Blogs are natural tools for writing instruction, from brainstorming to organizing to writing, revising, and peer review, they are tools that lend themselves to the writing process. Since there’s a comment box, blogs are important in peer editing and sharing thoughts on the ideas presented (Solomon & Schrum, 2008, p. 81) The case study discusses how adult learners acquire new knowledge on specific content areas through the blogging experience. It discusses how a blog and a blogging experience become an appropriate and effective online learning tool and activity to support the delivery of a professional development program. It discusses practical challenges of working with adult learners in an online learning environment. The goal of this chapter is to appeal to individuals with a professional interest in online learning using a specific technology. Anyone working with adult learners or anyone

Adult Learners Learning Online

engaged in distance learning activities will also find this chapter useful.

Technology-Based Tools Supporting learning at a distance

Framing the educational experience of Adult learners

The case study involves adult learners enrolled in an introductory graduate course in instructional technology delivered online by a university located in the southern United States in Spring 2008. The graduate course is required for those who plan to work in K-12 schools as mandated by the state government. Students in this course come from various disciplines outside of instructional technology and school library media -- business education, middle grades education, physical education, school counseling, and special education. Many, if not most students, have limited or basic knowledge and skills in using technology to support teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms. The course delivery format includes the use of a course management system, identified as WebCT Vista. From the course catalog, it states that the course provides “an overview of communication and technology as it relates to teaching and learning; including the design, production and utilization of materials and operation of audiovisual equipment and microcomputers” (University of West Georgia, 2008, p. 226). With the proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies, the creation and use of blogs was identified as one of the key experiences in the course. As blogs become familiar to adult learners, they have the potential of redefining how this group of students learns in and out of the classroom (Baylen & Glacken, 2007). In this blogging experience, students would have an opportunity to better understand the nature and limitations of such a tool to support their own learning and teaching practices.

Adults as learners have become a major population in many institutions of higher education. AASCU (2006) states a large percentage of undergraduates can be categorized as non-traditional with the 25 years or older group comprising more than one-third of the student population. Stokes (2008) identifies this group not only as nontraditional but “largely working adults struggling to balance jobs, families and education” (p. 1). The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (2000) argues that adult students have needs that are very different in comparison to traditional 18-22 year old students. Adult student needs require “different kinds of information about their educational option; institutional flexibility in curricular and support services; academic and motivational advising supportive of their life and career goals; and recognition of experience and work-based learning already obtained” (p. 4). In addition, Lieb (1991) identified the following characteristics: autonomous and self-directed; foundation of life experiences and knowledge; goal-oriented; relevancy-oriented; practical; need to be shown respect. In developing courses for adult learners, it is important to use multiple instructional methods including experiential and problem-based methods to help them connect curricular concepts to useful knowledge and skills. Also, support systems need to be in place to assist adult students to develop the capacity to learn and to become self-directed, lifelong learners (CAEL, 2000). Finally, information technology should be used “to provide relevant and timely information and to enhance the learning experience” (p. 5).

making a Case for Adult learners online The Blogging Experience The blogging experience initiated students to the potential of a blog, a specific Web 2.0 technol-

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Adult Learners Learning Online

ogy in supporting learning and teaching. One of the course goals was to provide students with a blogging experience that focused on knowledgecentered instructional tools involving students in research activities and engaging them in discussions (Glogoff, 2005). Given that the course is delivered online, the blogging experience was structured to run for approximately seven weeks and designed as a 3-part online activity: 1) developing a conceptual understanding from the literature through reading and discussion; 2) acquiring technical skills in setting up a blog; and 3) applying knowledge and skills by adding various elements to the blog set up. These different blogging experiences engaged students to be collaborative as well as self-directed in completing their tasks. Students developed a conceptual understanding of blogs and blogging by reading David Warlick’s book on Classroom Blogging. Initially, the instructor divided the class into four groups and assigned each a Google document. Using this electronic document, each student posted ideas and comments as input to a review of Warlick’s book. After this interactive online exchange, students finalized the comments shared within their groups, then submitted a book review individually as a course assignment. After the GoogleDocs experience, and armed with conceptual understanding of blogs and blogging, students were asked to prepare for their blog set up. Initial information was requested from the class members to be posted in the class bulletin board which included the following: names of team members (2 or 3); topic or focus of blog content related to education; potential roles that each team member would assume in the duration of completing the experience (e.g., blog creator, designer, developer, researcher, etc.); and a URL of the blog created by the group. Furthermore, the students were informed that the blog should include educational resources for elementary, middle or secondary school teachers and their

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students as well as the community at large. Also, the blogging experience should promote the creation of an online learning community among students in the class and the invited members of the community at large. Once the initial information was posted in the discussion board, students received a step-by-step handout as a tutorial on how to create their own blog. For this experience, the students used a blogging application available at blogger.com. This time, they worked in pairs or groups of three to set up their blogs, start posting entries and adding various elements to enhance the blog’s layout and appearance. As students built their blog structure, they were asked to provide relevant information on their selected topic. They were required to post Web-based resources with descriptions and commentaries especially on potential value and benefit to future readers and contributors. Also, students were asked to describe and share teaching and/or learning strategies involving available technology-based tools and materials. Finally, students were expected to engage in meaningful conversation with others about materials posted on the blog. At the end of the blogging experience, students were asked to assess how it impacted them in support of student learning about blogs and blogging, and acquisition of knowledge and skills in using and integrating current and emerging technology. Also, students were asked to review the blogs created by their peers and discuss how they met the following expectations: 1) value to teachers, practitioners and students; 2) value to parents and community at large; 3) creative look; 4) layout and ease of navigation; and 5) quality of information. Students posted their reviews in the assigned bulletin board and were asked to respond to comments made by their peers. Finally, after the review and discussion, each student was asked to email the instructor for their top choices of blogs that best fit these categories: 1) most informative to teachers/practitioners; 2)

Adult Learners Learning Online

Table 1. Distribution of blog creators’ major, level, and gender by academic discipline Academic Discipline

Major N=15

Level* N=15

Gender N=15

Business Education

1

M

F

Instructional Technology

2

M (1), E (1)

F

Middle Grades Education

2

C

F

Physical Education

1

M

M

School Counseling

1

M

F

School Library Media

6

M

F

Special Education

2

M

F

* C = Certification; M = Masters; E = Specialist

most creative use of digital images and texts; 3) best in professional look/layout; and 4) best in quality of engagement of blog members.

Data Collection After the blogging experience, five blogs out of fourteen emerged as top student choices based on content, digital elements, structure/layout, and engagement. The top five blogs involved fifteen students as co-creators. The table below identifies the academic discipline, degree level sought, and gender of the 15 students involved in this case study. (Table 1) Three of the blogs were created by a group of three students; one blog by a pair and the other by four students. Collected evidence of student

learning from this blogging experience focused on these students as data sources. (Table 2) Beyond the students’ input from the online discussions, two other data sources were used to assess how the blogging experience supported student learning: 1) comments related to the impact of the blogging experience found in retrospective papers submitted at the end of term; and 2) blog entries in the five blogs that identified and discussed insights gained and applications to one’s practice or discipline from the experience.

Data Analysis Relevant texts from the identified sources of data were highlighted, then copied and pasted to a word document and finally, printed in preparation for data analysis (Wolcott, 1994). In the process of

Table 2. Distribution of blog creators’ academic discipline, and gender by blog focus/content Blog Focus/ Content

# of Student Bloggers

Academic Discipline Composition of Participants

Gender Composition

A – Arts/Music

2

School Library Media & Instructional Technology

F (2)

B – Physical Education

3

School Library Media, Physical Education & Middle Grades Education

M, F (2)

C – Instructional Technology

4

School Library Media (2), Business Education & Special Education

(F (4)

D -- Cyberbullying

3

School Library Media, Counseling & Instructional Technology

F (3)

E – Health/Nutrition

3

School Library Media, Middle Grades Education & Special Education

F (3)

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analyzing the data collected from various sources, electronic files were created to assist in organizing the generic themes and patterns initially identified. For example, the students provided titles to their blog entries either as “insights” or “applications”. This was helpful in identifying and moving relevant texts to their designated electronic files. It was a similar situation when retrospective papers were reviewed and analyzed. Students used subheadings to identify different sections of their paper. The subheading on “impact’ helped identify relevant comments. During the final stage of data analysis, the comparative method (Glaser & Straus, 1967) was used to analyze similarities and differences among relevant texts filed under the same theme or pattern. This facilitated the selection of relevant and appropriate transcripts that would be used to illustrate key points for discussion in this chapter.

looking for evidence of Student learning Blogging helped me see that communication — between students and teachers, teachers and parents, and teachers and teachers — is the key to creating learning communities. It is the key to helping learners read, write, publish, and connect. In the “old days” students did their own work and turned it in to the teacher. Now, everything can be shared and commented upon: the process becomes the learning experience, before the product is ever evaluated. (Middle Grades Education Student B) What and how much did the student learn from the blogging experience? These are the key questions when this case study was initially set up. Did the students learn about blogs? Did the experience enhance their understanding of the technology-based tool and its potential for supporting learning in the classroom?

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Impact of the Blogging experience At the end of the term, students wrote a retrospective paper that provided them an opportunity to reflect on what they learned from the course. One of the questions they were asked to respond to was to describe and reflect on assignments that made an impact on their thinking about using technology to support teaching and/or learning. Thirteen students out of the fifteen talked about the blogging experience as one of the assignments that made an impact on them. For some, the impact of this blogging experience provided an opportunity to better understand blog as a tool or to create one for the first time. I was apprehensive at first. It is a little intimidating to post something on the internet that anyone could read. But after I posted the first entry, and read some of the other posts, it became easier. I received help from the other members of the group when I needed it. It was helpful to work as a group, because we could collaborate and share ideas. (School Library Media Student A) Finally, creating a blog was a good experience because I accomplished something that I had never tried. My initial impression of blogs was that they were something people did for recreation only. Now I can see how a counselor can use them as a professional tool to collaborate with other professionals and convey information to teachers, parents, students, and fellow counselors. (School Counseling Student) The blogging experience was significant to me because it was my very first experience in creating and contributing to a blog. I can easily see the value in having a classroom blog for my students and parents. This would provide a great tool to work on group projects, communicate upcoming homework assignments and tests. (Business Education Student) Blogging for Learning [the assignment title] required research and development of an education topic, presenting the information, and continued communication about the topic. It was a group

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effort, and I was fortunate enough to have great team members. My group members participated in all aspects of the project. (School Library Media Student E) My thinking about blogging changed completely as I worked on this assignment. I had never considered blogging as a teaching tool before; now I believe it can be a very effective teaching tool. (Middle Grades Education Student B) Others saw the impact of the blogging experience as an opportunity of gaining new skills to support current classroom practices or bringing their level of literacy with technology to the next level. I have created a blog to communicate with my colleagues. I have learned to use … were time consuming, but I have learned some valuable tools that will take my teaching style to the next level. (Physical Education Student) Great insightful ideas about the use of this savvy tool would assist in developing classroom mindset about the use of technology as it did mine to support teaching and learning. Blogging opened my creative awareness to the many facets that can deploy student’s imagination. Creating class or school blogs as a group can be the start of an ongoing learning tradition. I was amazed at the professional ideas and format used by my peers. This tool can be used outside of the classroom and help to integrate parental and community involvement. (Special Education Student A) The experience of creating our own blog provided an opportunity to produce a “real-life” application that is very relevant today. In the world around us, many people, at least those that make it a priority in their lives, are blogging their thoughts, communicating ideas, and sharing some important information every day on the Internet. As future educators, we will benefit by knowing how to use the blogging tools to incorporate the process into some of our classroom and media center instruction. The blogging experience is one that can be used to promote creativity, as well

as, the sharing of information and ideas among students. (School Library Media Student F) Classroom blogs invite dialogue about ethics, quality of writing, critical thinking, organization and research skills, as well reinforcing the content creator in all learners. (Instructional Technology Student A) An element of surprise seemed evident in their writing on how the blogging experience impacted them as learners and practitioners. Several students stated in their writing that they could not believe what they had accomplished after the experience. Actually participating in the blog was an important step in this learning process, as it led to my change in thought process. I did not receive any assistance from outside sources on any of the projects mentioned (other than, obviously, collaborating with partners on the blog). I like to learn by doing, so I enjoyed the process of reading and acting on my own. Making mistakes along the way helped me to see how I could improve the next time, and helped me to realize what kind of questions and problems would occur if I used the project with students. (School Counseling Student) This tool [referring to the blog application] could open possibilities for students to be creative as well as better informed about their classroom or their world, depending on the goal of the blog that was set up. I really got excited about this project. It was definitely my favorite! If someone had told me that I would be responsible for maintaining a blog during the next school year before completing this project, I would have panicked. Now, I see the great potential for learning through this technology and while it would be a time investment, I would gladly manage a blog site. (Instructional Technology Student B) [Blogging] made me feel as though I had transitioned from “old school” to “new school” applications. Creating a Blog was not something that I thought that I would be doing anytime soon, so this experience gave me a new found confidence

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about my technological skills. (School Library Media Student E) [Blogging] was significant to teaching because I realize how important collaboration is to student learning. Some teachers at my school are unfamiliar with blogging, and I would like to conduct an in-service to show them how students will benefit from collaborating and blogging with their classmates. (School Library Media Student A)

Insights gained from the Blogging experience Until I had this assignment, I had read only a few blogs recreationally. I did not realize the implications that blogging could have for educating or counseling students. When used responsibly, blogging can be an excellent resource and means of communication and collaboration for educators. As for myself, I learned much about the technical aspect of setting up a blog, editing, and posting. There is a wealth of information on any particular subject on the internet; it takes time to sort through all of it, and it can be overwhelming. Done correctly, a blog can condense and summarize, saving the reader time and frustration. (School Counseling Student) Students reported through their blog entries that creating and maintaining a blog was a positive experience. At first, they reported being apprehensive and scared at the initial stage of the experience. As they gained familiarity with terms used and improved their understanding of a blog and how it functions, they found the experience less intimidating and were able to see its value to K-12 teachers and students in developing research and critical thinking skills. They believed that the continued exposure made the experience not so scary and added enjoyment to the learning process. I have never had a positive impression of blogs prior to this experience. I have seen some blogs were people are ranting on and on about particular topics. I could not see the usefulness

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of creating and participating in a blog. This experience has changed my impression of blogs. (Business Education Student) I am enjoying blogging so much that I am going to start another blog about my other interest. This is a wonderful way to share information and get feedback from others. Also, I found out that I am way behind when it comes to utilizing technology to enhance my profession. (Physical Education Student) It offers the additional bonus of providing a format to discuss the information with other readers. I learned that I enjoy communicating with others and discussing various educational issues. I also enjoy learning about new technologies and how to apply them in my practice. (School Counseling Student) Second, students selected for this case study reported viewing their blogs as tools for communication and collaboration. Blogs are tools for communication like journal entries, research diaries, spaces to organize thoughts and resources (The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, 2005). Further, ELI described blogs as tools for collaboration when used as venue for posting reactions and reflections on current activities and practices, for extending in-class discussion, and for sharing resources. I now see that they can be meaningful tools to communicate information to specific groups of people. In a classroom setting they keep students in tune with what is going on. Students are so accustomed to using technology at home and in their everyday lives; we should continue to build these skills in school. (Business Education Student) I have enjoyed focusing on a topic outside my usual realm and learning about it. This happened because of the nature of our blog group: a Physical Education major opened the door to this topic. It shows that people can always be open to learn no matter what their interests are. In school, we will expect our students to expand, and we must also expand. That is what blogging has helped me to do. (Middle Grades Education Student B)

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I found this blogging experience to be very engaging and intriguing. Often group projects can feel uneven, but in our group we each made timely and valuable contributions. (Instructional Technology Student A) First of all I did not even know what a blog was until this class. So by participating in blogging, I have come to learn about what blogging really consists of. I have enjoyed collaborating with my group members on a topic that I believe peaked all of our interests. I feel like I have really learned a lot about the benefits of integrating technology into the classroom, and I will carry this blog with me for when I become a teacher. (Special Education Student B) Given these features, having a blog supporting classroom or media center activities allows for the development of a learning community where one could solicit and receive feedback. I now truly see value in blogs, especially in education. I think they have a place in every classroom because they allow students to keep up with class at home and allow parents to easily communicate with the teacher. It is also beneficial to the introverted students who might have difficulty asking questions while at school. Unlike via email, the posts can benefit everybody subscribing to the blog rather than the sole email recipient. Overall, blogs allow for essential out-of-class dialogue. (School Library Media Student D) [What] I have gained is that there is so much to learn from other people. I am impressed by the posts of other bloggers in our class and those associated with our classmates. It is interesting to be part of such a diverse learning community. (Middle Grades Education Student B) I have a lot to learn about setting up a blog and managing one, but I feel that I’ve gotten a head start and have already started two personal blogs for future development, one professional, and one for my extended family to jointly develop as contributors. (Instructional Technology Student A)

I find that there are so many different blogs out there – from bird watching, hiking – to greyhound rescue blogs. I think blogs would be a great way for students to share ideas and communicate with each other. (School Library Media Student A) In creating the blogs, students learned that challenges lurk but could be managed. Initially, apprehension was high given limited technical knowledge in building a blog. However, those initial feelings immediately diminished as students realized the user-friendliness of the blogging application software used. Once the technicalities had been managed, students began the daunting task of expressing one’s ideas. For example, writing a coherent piece on a specific position or topic is not always easy to accomplish. [Blogging] in the beginning, I was a little apprehensive. I noticed a few blogs while surfing the net, but I didn’t fully understand how they were created. I assumed that it was similar to building a website, which had to be complicated. After learning more about blogging, I realize that it isn’t that difficult at all. (School Library Media Student A) In my usual chaos I felt, at times, a little overwhelmed. But I was determined to invest myself in the work and to make it mean something. And it did! (Instructional Technology Student A) I have learned though, that most often it is the terminology that scares me away from new technology. The tools themselves are not hard to learn and I need to take more chances and dive right in. It’s funny to me that people who talk BIG seem so smart, especially when it comes to technology. (School Library Media Student B) This is my first time participating in blogging. The more I blog the more comfortable I have become with the practice. I have learned that it’s not easy for me to express myself in writing. I am overcoming my phobia and becoming more comfortable using the computer. (Physical Education Student) [Blogging] takes effort to say something worthwhile. Opinions need to be backed up by

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meaningful sources to have real value. This requires searching and thinking things through and documenting -- activities which take time and attention to detail. I know this is a beneficial exercise, but it is not always easy to accomplish: it is easier just to state opinions. (Middle Grades Education Student B) Success in this blogging experience could not be measured immediately. Students might report increased interests in using this tool in their individual work contexts. This report could be counted as an indicator that the experience did influence how students view this tool in the teaching/learning contexts. However, the real measure of whether the goals of better understanding of blogs and their application in K-12 classrooms have been achieved would be evident when students start creating and using blogs to support their activities. Over the course of this blogging experience I have gained several insights about myself. One is that while I have become more familiar with technologies this semester, there is still much room for growth and improvement. I am still somewhat apprehensive about experimenting with unfamiliar applications such as video and photos, but I hope to incorporate these into future postings. I think I will find using these to be easier than I think! (School Library Media Student C) I think so many students are bored because we do not incorporate new learning tools into the subjects that we are teaching. Technology can provide so many resources and many of themes are free to use. I hope to see the school systems provide teachers with more training on how to use emerging technologies in the classroom. (Business Education Student) I have always been interested in technological change as it relates to preparing music materials for my classes, such as new recording techniques and media. However, I have not really seriously considered how to involve the students in the use of technology as a tool they can use – hands on. The blog is one of several technological tools that I have learned about so far in this class with which

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students can interact within my class. I plan to incorporate some of these tools in my classes next year, especially the blog! (Instructional Technology Student B) When I finally become a teacher I will ponder back on this blog and remember the benefits of incorporating technology into the classroom setting. I believe that I would like to continue blogging on other topics that are of interest to me. (Special Education Student B)

Blogging Applications to one’s Practice or discipline Fifteen students were selected as sources of data for this case study. There were seven academic disciplines represented by the students in this blogging experience – school library media, instructional technology, middle grades education, special education, business education, physical education, and school counseling. From data sources, students reported how they saw blogs as part of their future practice and how it will impact their discipline – support content learning and professional development, communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, and engagement of the community at large (Egbert, 2009).

Supporting Content Learning and Professional Development Blogs are an important part of my practice …. My subjects will be language arts and social studies, and I believe blogs are a great way to communicate my views on books, history and current events, and receive feedback from students and other teachers. (Middle Grades Education Student B) When looking at blog usage in regards to music, several specific uses come to mind. Practice exercises could be placed within the blog and students could record and submit their rehearsals or playing exams. (Instructional Technology Student B)

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Cyberbullying is a constant threat to our kids, and as a school counselor I must be informed about the subject in order to help the students that I counsel. Blogs can be helpful in various ways: as a resource for students who need information, as a way to understand that others have experienced the same issues, and as a way to spread information that is helpful to those students who have suffered from bullying. (School Counseling Student) In my middle school keyboarding class, I can use the blog to post links to the websites that we will be using for our classroom warm-up exercises. In the past I had to write the website addresses on the board and many students took a great deal of time to key the address correctly. By posting the link, the students can go directly to the site and begin their work. This will cut down on some of the time wasted and students can feel more confident about the assignment. I look forward to using this form of technology in my classroom. (Business Education Student) As a future school library media specialist, blogs have several applications to my practice. As a professional I can read other media specialists’ blogs to find out what they are doing at their schools; this will give me new ideas to try as well as learn how they deal with challenges, policies, and even everyday routines. (School Library Media Student C)

Supporting Communication and Collaboration I can easily see how blogs can be used to contribute to the learning experience in the classroom. Blogs can be used to “help students connect to one another and to others outside the classroom, and to create networks of learning that promote reading, writing, and critical thinking.” (Nelson 2005) I will definitely create a classroom blog for the courses that I will be teaching next school

year. I think that they are a valuable resource for students to express themselves. (Business Education Student) I will use blogs to communicate with parents. The parents will be able to find out what topics students are learning in class. I will use this tool to share ideas and discuss issues that are important to Physical Education. (Physical Education Student) I plan to create a virtual book club for students (and may do one for parents as well if enough interest was generated). I will also encourage both students and teachers to create their own educational blogs. A teacher, class, small group of students, grade level, or even individual students, could create blogs similar to this one, dealing with a topic of study. I would give support in any way possible, from helping to set up the initial blog to searching for items of interest for the blog. Collaborating with students and teachers in this way will allow me to show support for what they are doing in the classroom as well as introduce them to useful new technologies. (School Library Media Student C) [T]he blog can be used as a general tool to promote interaction between educators, students, parents, as well as colleagues. Basic information can be disseminated in a way that other forms of communication would not necessarily be able to accomplish. (Instructional Technology Student B)

Supporting Critical Thinking and Problem Solving I would use blogs to have students review books, teachers discuss professional development, to organize school newsletters or newspapers, and for discussing research topics or authors. I’m sure there are 100 more ways that I can use blogs as a media specialist, but I can’t think of them all.

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However, I look forward to setting them up and encouraging my students and teachers to use them. (School Library Media Student E) The goal of blogging is to enhance the students’ educational experience. It is the hope that the blog could be used as a tool to foster creative thinking, research skills, and technology skills. I think the students will be more interested in creating a blog rather than a standard research paper and will put more effort into project. Blogs can be a win-win for everyone involved. It can assist the teachers by allowing the students to help “teach” each other, as well as provide a more interesting learning environment for the students. (Middle Grades Education Student A) The possibility of truly digging into a subject, researching, following it, and posting comments about it on a regular basis seems like so much more of an in depth learning experience compared to just a one time “current event” write-up. (School Library Media Student F)

Supporting Engagement of the Community at Large I plan to create a blog in which teachers, students, parents, and the local community can participate in book discussions. It will also serve as a medium for obtaining feedback, providing summer reading lists, promoting media center events, accessing research databases, obtaining synopses of books and posting media center announcements. (School Library Media Student D) Blogs will also be a great way for students to publish their writings and thoughts. Blogs can also cross cultures to join students together from other countries. Blogs are a way of expanding one’s knowledge and learning in a community. As a teacher, I will strive to create viable learning communities, and blogs are an essential tool to meet this purpose. (Middle Grades Education Student B) I envision the blogging experience to be somewhat of a replacement for the past “current

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events” projects, and much more robust in its capabilities. I see the potential to collaborate with core curriculum teachers to develop an ongoing dialogue via a classroom blog about a very critical or interesting current event taking place in the world (such as the Darfur Genocide blog I was recently exposed to through this class). (School Library Media Student F) The music teacher could keep parents informed of class rules, expectations of the class as well as upcoming events such as performances, after school rehearsals, fundraisers, audition schedules and concert opportunities. Music projects could be discussed and explained within a blog with links to examples and references. (Instructional Technology Student B) This would be a great way to promote and advertise all the materials and services that are available. This not only will help place value on my job, but encourage frequent visits from all. I could post policies and procedures, photographs and descriptions of students’ outstanding work, material check out lists, and class sign-up sheets. I could offer a checklist for teachers so I can be ready for whatever they will need when they bring their class to the Media Center. I could ask for feedback so staff will offer suggestions and allow progress and growth to be based on input. These are always to encourage collaboration without interrupting the various schedules. (School Library Media Student B)

Implications of using Blogs to Support online learning I began this blogging exercise with a great deal of apprehension. When I initially looked at some of the blogs that were provided as examples, I was quite intimidated and feared it would be a difficult process to create one from scratch and give it a professional character. However, I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to find that after only a couple of sittings with the Google Blogger tool my anxiety decreased substantially,

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and I developed a certain confidence that I could work with it quite successfully. (School Library Media Student F) There are many factors that can account for a positive and successful online experience. The literature identifies sound design as one of these factors. Powell (2003) identifies 1) familiarity with online learning by students; 2) clear and uncomplicated navigation and link structures; and 3) effective and timely communication as important elements in facilitating student comfort in an online environment. Students, in this case study, initially struggled with apprehension on their technical skills. However, as they got familiar with structure and layout of the blog, students found themselves exploring and experimenting on what they could do to make their blog more appealing to their readers. Constant exchanges between students and the instructor in a question and feedback format also facilitated gaining a comfort level that assisted toward a positive disposition on blogs and blogging. Maroulis and Reushle (2005) suggests that the creation of a positive online experience is facilitated by the following characteristics: 1) interaction and collaboration between peers and with the teacher as central to the learning process; 2) flexible format of learning activities; 3) authentic and reflective practice; 4) dynamic and ongoing learning community; 5) accessible support structures; and 6) timely technical support. Putting the students in small groups made them less dependent on the instructor for constant questioning and feedback. They had their peers to connect with as they encountered challenges in building their blogs. Decisions on what to include in the blogs were made at the group level and the instructor provided the initial parameters as guides for task completion. Finally, a study on online collaborative learning in secondary schools in Malaysia found that individual motivation is key to a successful experience (Koo, Lee, & Chin, 2005) followed by setting of goals, quality of group work, and group

members’ commitment to completing the project. In reviewing the blogs completed by the students, it seems safe to assume that the top choices were products of good goals, collaborative group work, and strong group commitment. Many of these factors contributed to the blogging experience of adult students. Given the findings from this case study, the following are provided as recommendations to improving practice. First, it is important to gain accurate data on prior experience. Data might include information on basic knowledge and skills in using technology (hardware and software) in various contexts. Available technology for classroom use might be quite different for those in office settings. Also, information on disposition (or attitude) towards using technology in one’s practice if available, might be useful to ease the introduction of new technologies. It is important to note that fear of using a specific tool is quite different to resistance. Being afraid is something that is instinctive and a natural reaction. Resistance, on the other hand, results from making a choice and is a much more challenging disposition to overcome. Second, the availability of authentic learning experiences is critical for adult learners. In this blogging experience, the act of creating a blog provides a very authentic learning experience. However, limited time and other demands from personal and professional contexts reduce the ability of the students to provide comments to other blogs and solicit active participation from external blog contributors. To simulate online exchanges in a blog, it is recommended that students select another blog to engage with given the timeframe in completing the assignment. Students will provide weekly commentaries and feedback to promote interactivity. Third, in developing a learning community within a blog or across blogs, students should be encouraged to continuously make connections between content, peers, teacher and technology. It is recommended that students should focus on

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a blog entry (posting or comment) to one of the above mentioned on a weekly basis. For example, in the first week, a student may post a reflection on an online article related to the blog’s content. The following week, a comment directed towards a peer or the instructor will be made. In another week, a blog entry on related technology may be shared. Fourth, the use of role play or facilitation might enhance engagement and participation in a blog. Taking different roles or positions in an online exchange may fuel engaged conversations on specific issues or topics. Good facilitation skills on the part of the blog creator may push a conversation of an issue or topic to greater clarity and understanding. It is recommended that students are provided with experiences to develop these online skills.

ConCluSIon Over the course of this blogging experience I have gained several insights about myself. One is that while I have become more familiar with technologies this semester, there is still much room for growth and improvement. I am still somewhat apprehensive about experimenting with unfamiliar applications such as video and photos, but I hope to incorporate these into future postings. I think I will find using these to be easier than I think! (School Library Media Student C) Students reported that they have learned not only about the technical aspects of creating a blog but also understand the potential applications and opportunities that this tool brings in and out of the K-12 classroom. In addition, reactions and reflections posted and submitted by the students indicated learning beyond knowledge and skills and more so about themselves and their capacity to go beyond their comfort zones. Creating blogs and blogging, in this case study, have proven to be an exciting and challenging experience among these adult learners.

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ReFeRenCeS American Association of State Colleges and Universities. (2006). Addressing the needs of adult learners. Policy Matters, 3(2). Retrieved August 31, 2008 from http://www.aascu.org/policy_matters/pdf/v3n2.pdf Anderson, T., & Elloumi, F. (2004). Theory and practice of online learning. Canada: Athabasca University. Baylen, D. M., & Glacken, J. (2007). Promoting lifelong learning online: A case study of a professional development experience. In Y. Inoue (Ed.), Online education for lifelong learning. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing. Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. (2000). Serving adult learners in higher education: Principles of effectiveness. Chicago: CAEL. Retrieved August 31, 2008 from http://www.cael. org/pdf/publication_pdf/summary%20of%20 alfi%20principles%20of%20effectiveness.pdf Courtney, N. (2007). Library 2.0 and beyond: Innovative technologies and tomorrow’s user. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Columbus, OH: Pearson Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine Publishing Company. Glogoff, S. (2005). Instructional blogging: Promoting interactivity, student-centered learning, and peer Input. Innovate, 1(5). Glogoff, S. Google. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.google.com

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Hurlburl, S. (2008). Defining tools for a new learning space: Writing and reading class blogs. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 4(2). Retrieved September 3, 2008 from http://jolt. merlot.org/vol4no2/hurlburt0608.htm Koo, A., Lee, C., & Chin, W. (2005). Factors for successful online collaborative learning: experiences from Malaysian secondary school students. In P. Kommers & G. Richards (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2005 (pp. 2031-2038). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Lieb, S. (1991). Principles of adult learning. Vision. Retrieved August 31, 2008 from http://honolulu. hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/ guidebk/teachtip/adults-2.htm Long, H. B. (1998). Understanding adult learners. In M. Galbraith (Ed.), Adult learning methods (2nd Ed.). Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company. Madden, M., & Fox, S. (2006). Riding the waves of “web 2.0”: More than a buzzword, but still not easily defined. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project. Maroulis, J., & Reushle, S. (2005). Blurring of the boundaries: Innovative online pedagogical practices in an Australian Faculty of Education. Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia Conference, Adelaide, Australia. Retrieved September 4, 2008 from http://www.odlaa.org/ events/2005conf/ref/ODLAA2005MoroulisReushle.pdf Powell, W. (2003, March). Essential design elements for successful online courses. Journal of Geoscience Education. Retrieved September 4, 2008 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/ mi_qa4089/is_/ai_n9178196?tag=artBody;col1

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. Stokes, P. J. (2008). Hidden in plain sight: Adult learners forge a new tradition in higher education (Report to the Secretary of Education, Archived). Retrieved August 31, 2008 from http://www. ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/ stokes.pdf The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2005). 7 things you should know about blogs. ELI 7 Things You Should Know About. Retrieved August 31, 2008 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ ELI7006.pdf University of West Georgia. (2008). University of West Georgia 2008-2009 graduate catalog, 72(1). Retrieved August 31, 2008 from http://www. westga.edu/assets/docs/Grad-current.pdf Warlick, D. F. (2007). Classroom blogging; A teacher’s guide to blogs, wikis, & other tools that are shaping a new information landscape. Raleigh, NC: The Landmark Project. Warlick, D. F., & Web, C. T. Vista. (n.d). Retrieved from http://webct.westga.edu Windham, C. (2008). Reflecting, writing and responding: Reasons students blog. ELI Discovery Tools; Guide to Blogging. Retrieved September 3, 2008 from http://wwww.educause.edu/eli/ guidetoblogging/13562 Wolcott, H. F. (1994). Transforming qualitative data: Description, analysis, and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

This work was previously published in Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes, edited by T. T. Kidd; J. Keengwe, pp. 163-177, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.14

Reaching Beyond Bricks and Mortar:

How Sylvan Online Expands Learners’ Options Saul Rockman Rockman et al., USA Lynn Fontana Sylvan Learning, USA

exeCuTIve SummARy Sylvan Learning has set the standard for personalized, after-school, academic support programs for students in elementary grades through high school. It has been in business for 30 years and was one of the earliest programs to demonstrate that providing direct supplemental instruction services could be successfully scaled nationally. The nearly 1,100 Sylvan centers provide academic assistance to thousands of students each day and have helped more than 2 million students reach their full academic potential. A relatively little-known but growing component DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-876-5.ch013

of Sylvan Learning’s offerings is Sylvan Online, a one-to-one academic assistance program that is offered to students at home in association with their local Sylvan Learning centers. This Internet-based service provides the same type of individualized academic support as the centers, yet it affords greater flexibility and access. Using proprietary technologies, Sylvan Online makes it possible to reach learners—no matter their geographic area or proximity to a Sylvan Learning center—and helps them receive the kind of academic support necessary to succeed in school. This chapter describes the program and attributes of Sylvan Online and situates the program within the larger context of extended-day academic programs.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Reaching Beyond Bricks and Mortar

BACkgRound Extended-day or supplemental academic programs have been part of the educational landscape for decades, often existing—and even flourishing— without any evaluation of their actual or potential impact. Some students attend these programs because they need to address gaps in basic skills, while others may have to develop more effective learning strategies. Still others want to learn and practice the skills necessary to improve test scores, and others wish to accelerate their course work and master the content more quickly. Meeting the varied needs of students and helping them to succeed academically is the purpose of these after-school supplemental programs. In recent years, research on after-school academic programs has identified the attributes of programs that are likely to be effective in reaching the goals set for students participating in them. Incorporating these attributes, programs achieve success both for the students and in the marketplace. Over the past decade, Sylvan Online (the online program highlighted in this case study) has focused on incorporating these attributes and, as a result, provides academic interventions that make a difference for students. Furthermore, the organization continues to explore what other factors can make this program even more effective and accessible. Building on Sylvan Learning’s 30 years of experience, Sylvan Online is developing the potential to be even more successful for its students and within its marketplace by helping students develop the skills, habits, and attitudes needed for lifelong success. The attributes of effective extended-day academic programs are what drive the approach utilized by Sylvan Learning and Sylvan Online. The case study developed below focuses on how these attributes come into play and how the strategy taken by Sylvan Online builds on them. Among the critical elements are:

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Experienced staff, especially those who know how to work both with children who have diverse learning styles and children who do not necessarily thrive in traditional learning environments. Equally important, staff should receive comprehensive training and ongoing support. Quality curriculum, aligned to school curriculum, as well as to local, state, and national curriculum and standards. Curriculum should be age/grade-level appropriate and delivered with effective instructional techniques, including standardized assessments and varied pedagogical styles that meet the needs of different learners (e.g., personalized instruction, engaging activities, and interactive learning experiences). Programs that provide adequate structure for participants but also offer flexibility and provide sufficient time for learning (in session length and program duration). Strong and positive partnerships with classroom instructors and connections to the learning community, including parents and schools. Quality resources, including technology and facilities that foster sustained levels of involvement in a safe and healthy environment. Well-aligned evaluation and/or research components to provide feedback on the program.

Before beginning to delve into the attributes of effective academic support programs and the Sylvan Online model, a bit of background is needed. Over the years, Sylvan Learning’s instructional system has demonstrated that it helps children improve and accelerate their academic performance while also discovering their love of learning. However, not all of those who needed the academic support that supplemental education offered could easily attend a program at a

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neighborhood Sylvan Learning center. Because of distance, inconvenience, illness or competing activities, many students could participate only if offered greater flexibility in where and when the instruction took place. Consequently, after reviewing the needs of students and the business opportunity, Sylvan Learning created Sylvan Online (then called eSylvan) in 2001 as a means of delivering synchronous, individualized instruction by a live instructor over the Internet. The online approach taken by eSylvan matched closely with that offered in the physical Sylvan Learning centers: it recognized the unique learning needs of its students, it provided a range of activities and a reinforcement structure that engaged students, and it retained its commitment to highly-qualified and well-prepared instructors. It also employed leading edge, synchronous online technology to deliver live, high-quality instruction. Online diagnostic/prescriptive instruction could now be delivered to families who would not otherwise be able to access it. Moreover, the approach to online learning acknowledged the limitation of the technology in place at homes by designing the program to work over a modem rather than requiring high bandwidth access. As one of the earliest efforts to provide individualized instructional support over the Internet, eSylvan had to build a system without precedents. The company created an infrastructure that could be integrated into the existing bricks-and-mortar system for capturing progress and that provided systematic feedback to instructors and to students and their families. The Committee on International and Transregional Accreditation (CITA) certifies eSylvan (aka Sylvan Online) as a national provider of supplemental academic programs. While eSylvan was utilized by a few families in its earliest years, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation in 2002 created additional opportunities that included the tutoring of students in schools that had not been reaching performance goals. The eSylvan platform and infrastructure was adapted

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to provide an instructional experience for these students. Pursuant to the free tutoring provision of NCLB, Educate Online (formerly Catapult Online) was created in 2004 to offer synchronous, online Supplemental Educational Services (SES) building on the eSylvan platform, content, and approach. Since 2005, Educate Online has delivered an effective and successful tutoring option to more than 50,000 underperforming students in failing schools. The combination of technology, quality instruction, and a team of caring, educational professionals allowed Educate Online to provide a level of engagement that produced results not found with many other supplemental educational providers. Over the past three years, this program has been part of a significant, federally-funded research project looking at the impact of SES on academic performance. In a section below, we report on some of the findings from this program, a program identical to that of Sylvan Online, which illustrates its effectiveness in increasing academic performance. Catapult Online changed its name to Educate Online and was established as a stand-alone enterprise in 2007. During this period, eSylvan was re-launched as Sylvan Online™ and focused on building a successful service for its after-school supplemental education program.

CASe deSCRIPTIon extending Academic Programs to online Students enrolling in Sylvan Online are given the Sylvan Skills Assessment®, a pre-test that serves both as a basis for placement and to create an individualized prescription. This assessment identifies a student’s unique skill gaps and areas of academic strengths and weaknesses. This assessment also helps define the prescription (personalized learning plan) for that student, along with information from the parents and, when appropriate, from the student’s classroom teachers. Based on a diag-

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Figure 1. Student and Teacher View © 2008, Educate Online, Inc. Used with permission

nostic prescription, an individually customized program is built that, when implemented, will result in improved academic performance and personal engagement with learning. Sylvan Online’s instruction is accomplished in a one-to-one setting using a mastery teaching model in which students move through a series of progressively more challenging stages to ensure mastery of a content element or skill. Included in the learning plan are interactive lessons that have variation in methods to engage students with different learning styles. The interactive lessons use a digital writing tablet and hands-free headset to create an interactive real-time learning environment supported by the computer. Students and teachers communicate using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and can chat about current learning tasks

and academic problems faced in school, as well as specifics of the lessons and learning plan. An engaging interface keeps students focused at all times and is able to deliver all pertinent information to the teacher so he or she may work with each student independently. The student’s screen includes a whiteboard space with drawing tools, a chat area, and a control panel. The teacher’s screen includes a listing of the prescriptions for that student, records of past performance, and a set of lessons from which to choose. Teachers are able to offer stickers and points for accomplishments, and the tokens are then accumulated for prizes and reinforcements. Technical support to the students’ families is made available throughout the program, beginning with set-up. Technical problems are handled quickly at the system level.

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The online experience mirrors the instruction that takes place when the teacher and student are sitting in the same room. The supplemental teacher introduces topics with a brief set of questions to assess and confirm current knowledge; a problem set might be demonstrated and completed by the teacher and student together, followed by a set of guided practice examples before the student is asked to complete lessons on his or her own. The student has the opportunity to complete independent practice and problem-solving. Additional learning activities are then offered if the student is struggling. Using the writing tablet, the teacher provides comments on the student’s work and visibly scores the student’s answers. The online classroom also includes a token economy reward system through which the student accumulates tokens for working diligently and mastering skills. Students take a progress assessment at 36 hours to document the gains made in academic performance. Grade-level gains are calculated, and information about the student’s improvement is provided to his or her parents. Additionally, monthly progress reports are sent to parents and to school teachers upon parental request. This sharing of information with classroom teachers encourages the collaboration of those supporting the student’s learning needs, and the progress reported can be built upon in regular classroom activities. Sylvan’s approach to mastery learning has proven to be effective and ensures the regular monitoring of a student’s academic progression. A student does not move to a more challenging skill until the basic learning concept is mastered. This creates greater confidence in the student’s own perception of him or herself as a learner and translates into more engagement and participation in school and extracurricular activities. Reports from classroom teachers indicate greater participation and initiative in class on the part of the online students.

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A Successful Approach to mastery learning What are the factors that contribute to Sylvan Online’s success as a provider of online supplemental education with demonstrable impact on learners? Earlier, we identified a series of attributes that lead to success in after-school academic support services. Below, we elaborate on each attribute and how Sylvan Online engages them in the creation of a successful program. Staff, training, and support: Successful programs utilize experienced staff provided with comprehensive training and ongoing support. Sylvan Online stresses its efforts to hire, train, and support high-quality instructors. Characteristics and criteria for good staff: Selecting experienced teachers and supportive staff is essential for successful out-of-school academic programs. Sylvan Online teachers are state-certified and experienced in working with a range of children. The program employs 1,500 licensed, certified U.S. teachers for grades 3-12, most with three or more years of experience. All are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree and many have specialized certification. Many of these teachers are certified to teach English Language Learners (ELL) and consequently provide additional support for those students needing help in reading and language arts. Sylvan teachers are recruited from all parts of the country so that students will have access at a convenient time after school and on weekends. All teachers are vetted with background checks, in partnership with Kroll Background America, and searches of national and international databases to ensure the safety of the enrolled families. Training: Providing staff with quality training and adequate preparation is an essential component. Vandell et al. (2004) suggest that employment of experienced staff and devotion of considerable resources to enhancing staff skills are two criteria that increase program success. Sylvan Online teachers receive a series of training sessions to learn how to use the diagnostic/prescriptive

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system, interact with students online using the available technologies, and accomplish the assigned lessons. Regular professional development sessions are devoted to teaching philosophy, the academic content, and instructional approaches effective for students who struggle academically, consistent with the research conducted by Dodd & Wise (2002). At the end of each student online meeting, teachers complete a feedback form about the session and its impact, as well as the level of student participation and technical issues. A supervisor (a member of the education team assigned to monitor students throughout the program) periodically reviews these reports. Monitoring includes evaluation of the following: students’ lesson scores, pace to mastery, average number of lessons completed per session, session length, teacher comments, and behavioral flags. As a result of these periodic reviews every six to eight sessions, lesson plans are adjusted to more closely match actual performance. Staff to participant ratio: Small classes and/ or instructional groups tend to be most productive, according to Schuch (2003). Sylvan Online teachers are initially supervised as they work with a single student in a one-to-one online relationship. Eventually, teachers move to one-to-two and then one-to-three ratios. Teachers engage the first student with direct instruction while the second and third students are involved in guided or independent practice. The teacher is on-call continually to each of the students online at that time. From the students’ point-of-view, the interaction is only one-to-one. This individualization is a parallel to the instruction provided in Sylvan Learning centers and is even more pronounced as a one-to-one instructional program. Curriculum and instructional techniques: Sylvan Online builds on the validated, research-based approach of mastery learning with curriculum that is clear and focused and that supports what students are asked to do in their classrooms. High-quality academic content and effective techniques for

delivering the content to students are important components of successful out-of-school academic programs. Dodd & Wise (2002) assert that simply extending the school day will not have a significant effect on student achievement; quality instruction is the key component. As schools respond to the pressure of No Child Left Behind, what is often forgotten “is the research-based knowledge on how students learn best: with a rich curriculum, multiple ways of reinforcing it, and relevance” (Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force, 2007, p. 12). Consistency and alignment with school curriculum: There seems to be general consensus that a consistent approach to curriculum that involves alignment between various modes of formal and informal education is preferable to one that lacks alignment and consistency. Tutoring programs that are closely aligned with the content and use similar but “slightly different” teaching and learning strategies have been found to be more successful than programs that do not build on the schoolday curriculum (Dodd & Wise, 2002). Sylvan’s approach has always been to begin not only with the learning gaps that students have, but also to incorporate strategies that build upon the child’s learning preferences. As a result, the approach in instruction is not a one-size-fits-all, but rather an individualized learning plan that is customized to the learner while continuing to cover the curriculum that is offered by the schools. The curriculum content of Sylvan Online is aligned with both state and national standards and frameworks, which allows the instructors to report student progress using the same benchmarks that the local schools are using. Depending on the specific learning needs of the child, coverage of curriculum content can be aligned with what the school is doing and the content tested by standardized assessments used in each state and district. In addition to providing consistency in terms of what is taught, it is also important that there be frequent communication among school-day teachers and after-school tutors to ensure a seamless integration of during- and

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after-school learning (Schuch, 2003). Sylvan Online provides feedback to parents and, with the parents’ permission, instructors provide information about the content and progress of Sylvan’s programs to the children’s classroom teachers. Relevant content: Successful after-school programs provide content that is relevant to diverse students. If traditional educational content doesn’t attract students’ attention in a manner that is sufficient to foster learning during the regular school day, putting a new spin on that content in a non-formal academic setting may be beneficial. According to the Time, Learning and Afterschool Task Force, “relevance is a major ‘hook’ to engaging students in intensive academic work” (Time, Learning and Afterschool Taskforce, 2007, p. 6). The instructional approach taken by Sylvan Online incorporates both variety in lesson pedagogy and an array of strategies for student engagement, with teachers having a range of tools at their disposal. The combination of the digital tablet and its interactivity, a deep assortment of student instructional activities, and the ability to engage a child in one-to-one discussion yields a highly motivating setting for effective learning. Moreover, students can always communicate areas with which they are struggling in the classroom to the online instructor, who can then link this to the lessons being covered after school. Appropriate content for age and skill level: Content should be age-appropriate, but also provide challenges and enable opportunities to develop new skills or help to hone existing skills (Bodilly, 2005). “Forty-seven percent of youth who drop out of school do so because they find it unchallenging” (Time, Learning and Afterschool Taskforce, 2007, p. 15). With the well-tested mixture of lessons, as well as the initial assessment of learning gaps and learning preferences, Sylvan Online instructors can align the content to meet the unique needs of each learner. Moreover, instructors can test the limits of a child’s ability by providing activities that challenge the learner

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and encourage him or her to take academic risks within a safe, online environment. Use of multiple methods to reach different types of learners: Not all learners are able to learn well in the same ways. Therefore, it is beneficial to use multiple techniques to teach and reinforce learning. Using various approaches to help students acquire and utilize knowledge is an important component of a learning system designed to meet students’ needs. In a study cited by Dodd & Wise (2002, p. 24), researchers “found that providing content and instructional pace adaptations to accommodate the student’s style of learning during the extended learning time in one-on-one or oneon-two tutorial sessions can cause a rise in student achievement scores.” This is what Sylvan Online offers its students: customization of instruction. By design, Sylvan Online’s curriculum materials and pedagogy provide the variety and depth for differentiated instruction based on learning preference and specific student academic needs. Individualized instruction, supplemented by independent learning, results in higher motivation and greater learning. As part of its efforts to ensure that the content and strategies were consistent with current research on both reading and mathematics, Sylvan commissioned two independent research validation reports on the content of its instructional program and on the most effective strategies for supporting the learning of core subject areas. These two validation reports, which have been recently updated (Farr, Levitt, & Fontana, 2009; Farr, Brown, & Fontana, 2009), supported not only the content and pedagogy implemented by Sylvan Online, but also provided support for the technology strategy implemented by the company. The Language Arts validation report (Farr, Levitt, & Fontana, 2009) provided both support for current Sylvan Online strategies and recommendations for greater efforts to support English learners. This report stressed the value of providing qualified ELL instructors and embedded support strategies to meet the needs of a growing population of non-

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native speakers and readers. Sylvan has been a leader in adding ELL-certified teachers to its roster of online instructors and guiding students to those qualified teachers as the need arises.

Program Structure How an after-school academic program is structured can also have an important impact on its ultimate success. Research suggests that a blend of rigidity and flexibility is preferable to programs that are either completely rigid or completely flexible in their structure. Structure and flexibility: Strong tutoring programs provide a schedule and a course of lessons that need to be mastered, but offer a great deal of flexibility and opportunity for students to make choices about how they participate. The flexibility of online learning and the availability of supplemental instructors at various times throughout the afternoon and early evening permit students to work at convenient times on their unique set of curricular units. Furthermore, personalized instruction can take place throughout the year, while traveling, or while home- or hospital-bound. There are fewer distractions than in the classroom and fewer interruptions in the hour-long session. Amount, persistence, and duration: Arguably, more instructional time is better—children have more time to learn and instructors have more time to help them achieve desired academic goals. Nevertheless, there is efficiency to the instructional approach to mastery learning used by Sylvan Online. Academic progress can be seen quickly and results clearly noted by students, parents, and classroom teachers. Many evaluations show a positive relationship between higher, longer, and/or more regular levels of participation and program outcomes (Little & Harris, 2003). High retention and completion rates in Sylvan Online programs lead to greater improvement in skills and knowledge and their consistent application to instructional tasks. Students stay with the program because it is engaging, offering custom-

ized approaches to the content and a variety of learning strategies as well as a reinforcement structure that keeps students motivated and working hard. Evidence from the online program indicates growth of about one-and-one-half grade levels for students in math and language arts. This kind of growth is a testament to the Sylvan Online diagnostic and prescriptive approach and the quality and skills of its well-prepared instructors.

Partnerships As noted in the sections above, Sylvan Online sees its individualized education programs as one component of its effort to improve students’ academic performance. Parents have the ability to view and monitor the interactive lessons; reports on students’ progress are delivered to parents at home and are available online using parents’ passwords. Parents are offered detailed views of the students’ progress through the assigned units, movement towards reaching the overall personal goals established at the outset, and feedback about the amount and nature of participation in the learning activities. Parents can print out the lessons as worksheets and work further with their children. Parents can also visit a Sylvan Learning center and receive a more detailed interpretation of an individual child’s needs and progress. In addition to informing parents, Sylvan Online provides, with parental permission, similar detailed information about student progress to the child’s teacher. This effort is designed to encourage the classroom teacher to be a partner, along with the Sylvan instructor and parents, in the effort to help each child develop the skills, habits, and attitudes needed for lifelong success. As the teacher becomes aware of the content covered and the progress achieved, he or she can begin to link classroom activities to the online instruction taking place after school. For those students seeking to improve in a current course, this educatorfocused information often helps the student both meet course expectations and gain the academic

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confidence necessary to achieve higher grades. Often this partnership leads to changes, not only in academics, but also in engagement in learning, classroom participation, greater self-confidence, and the ability of the child to be an independent learner and to take responsibility for assignments. Success in Sylvan Online can be transferred to the classroom with improved learning and performance throughout the school year.

Sylvan online is a Proven Resource Supplemental education programs need access to resources that can augment the learning experience and engage the student. While the Sylvan Online curriculum uses a variety of content that is aligned with the schools—and implements the same time-tested pedagogy that can be found in many classrooms—the unique use of personalized, interactive technology further enhances the educational experience for students. By using some of the same instructional approaches that are familiar to students, those enrolled in Sylvan Online have a head start in using the interactive technology without needing to dedicate additional time for familiarization. New techniques are needed to master some of the learning activities, but the tablet and VoIP easily become part of each student’s skill set. Technology: The use of technology in out-ofschool programs, like Sylvan Online, is beneficial for several reasons. First, it is used to facilitate individualized instructional opportunities for students. It is used for “diagnostic teaching, analyzing student reading patterns, and adjusting instruction based on immediate feedback” (Chen, 2007). Second, technology provides an engaging resource that today’s students tend to relate to better than other traditional learning resources. “Students are like the Jetsons, able to access information instantaneously and communicate across time and space, but they are being schooled in a Flintstones’ world,” notes Milton Chen, the executive director of the George Lucas Educational

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Foundation (Time, Learning and Afterschool Task Force, 2007). While the technology used in the instructional program is not the same as that used in action games and social networking, it is sufficiently novel and engaging to keep youngsters engaged. Third, the strategy for using technology in Sylvan Online creates an efficient learning environment that allows students to accomplish more, receive more timely feedback, and succeed at their own rate. The integrated data collection and analysis system, not directly seen by students or instructors, provides for sophisticated analysis and monitoring to keep students on-track and provide the analytic feedback to inform instructors and others concerned with student progress.

Research and evaluation for Sylvan online Very few after-school academic programs have had substantive research to assess their impact on student learning; the curriculum and approach of Sylvan Online has been studied in an exacting manner by an independent research organization. Through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Educate Online, the SES version of Sylvan Online, has been studied in a highly rigorous research effort. The Star Schools Program, a program of the Office of Instruction and Improvement, funded Sylvan as one of five programs to be studied in-depth. Over the past two years, both the math and reading core online curriculums have been part of randomized control trials with middle school students across several states. Unlike the Sylvan Online program, students participating in the SES version received a computer as part of the enrollment covered by the Title I program. The instructors and the curriculum content were the same, as was the one-to-one nature of the student-instructor interaction. The findings from these studies demonstrate statistically significant gains in academic performance in both math and reading when compared to a control group (Rockman et al, 2007, 2009).

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Approximately 350 students each year were randomly selected to be in the initial treatment group or a delayed treatment group and completed the initial assessments that lead to diagnosis and prescriptions for the instructional program. The initial statistical analysis indicated that the groups were equivalent at the start. At the end of the first semester, after about 25 hours of supplemental instruction, the treatment group (those receiving the online program during the first semester) had statistically significantly higher scores on the posttest. In reading, for example, the differences were more than one-and-one-half grade equivalents. As part of the study, a sample of English Language Learners (ELL) students was carefully assigned to ELL-certified teachers. Consequently, their improvement was even greater over their control group than students not part of ELL programs. Because of the manner in which the curriculum was designed and delivered, students performing well below grade level improved the greatest. In addition to academic performance, the researchers reported improved interactions in school, greater participation in class, more efforts to become independent learners, higher grades (especially for ELL students), and an acknowledgement by classroom teachers that participation in online learning made a difference in students’ school accomplishments. Students reported that involvement with the online instruction helped them do better in school, that their language arts grades improved, that they read more proficiently, that they were better at figuring out their mistakes in reading, and, ultimately, that they were now better learners. From the parents’ point-of-view, online supplemental instruction was more flexible and convenient. Parents saw their children’s progress in school - and their children’s teachers acknowledged the improvements--and perceived their children as improved, independent learners. Several years ago, Sylvan, through Catapult Learning, commissioned several Research Validation reports, one of which was focused on technol-

ogy and its role in supporting Sylvan’s services in core areas. The report (Puckett and Rockman, 2006) not only reviewed the research supporting online instruction in reading and mathematics, it suggested how the organization could adopt, adapt, and incorporate the range of emerging technologies that students and educators were beginning to use. The report envisioned not only the application of push technologies such as podcasting and RSS feeds, but also greater use of immersive technologies such as virtual reality learning environments, simulations, and multiplayer gaming. While these new technologies are still proving themselves in formal and informal learning settings, the report suggests that research has demonstrated their benefits for student engagement and content mastery learning. As part of an online learning system, emerging interactive technologies offer Sylvan Online greater opportunities to motivate and teach students with strategies that engage them.

CuRRenT ChAllengeS Improvements in both technology and instructional content will drive the future of Sylvan Online. A recent rebuilding of the system infrastructure improved the quality of audio and online interactions; the program has been exploring mobile computing platforms to offer access anytime, anywhere. As new technologies for learning emerge with the range of capabilities needed, they will be adopted and adapted to improve the Sylvan Online experience. New instructional approaches may include interactive learning games, perhaps accessible on mobile phones; animation to further engage the student in the learning activities; and more sensitive assessments that provide greater precision in the diagnostic and prescriptive process, in addition to more targeted instructional plans. More complex and powerful instructional workspace tools are also on the drawing board and

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will provide more creative interactions between instructors and students. Sylvan Online is also planning for greater linkages between the Sylvan Online instructor and both family and school. This will increase the opportunities for the classroom teacher to reinforce what is learned using Sylvan Online while allowing the online instructor to better tie into the students’ classroom activities. To increase the impact of Sylvan Online, Sylvan wants to strengthen its provision of information to educators. Special efforts are underway to reach school administrators and principals in order to increase the likelihood that classroom teachers will participate in an integrated effort with the students’ families, enforcing the shared responsibility of academics. As the demand for services expands well beyond the core elements of reading and mathematics (the source of Sylvan’s competitive strength and experience) and as students from a greater range of grade and ability levels seek anytime, anywhere services, Sylvan expects to expand its offerings. In the past and currently, instructional support for many of these subjects can be provided at the Sylvan Learning centers, yet the demand is growing for the full set of options to be available to students outside of the bricks-and-mortar facilities. Online options can supplement the choices that a center can offer and provide the flexibility for students to learn at home as well as in the center. Moreover, Sylvan sees that this flexibility can match the changing nature of schools, provide a continuing high-quality experience for students with a variety of needs, and link more closely with schools for supplementary support needs. In addition to enhancing the range of offerings, Sylvan believes that an integrated approach that combines face-to-face instruction at the centers, computer-based instruction, and online learning can be used to provide a comprehensive student support program offering a full range of instructional content and strategies. Sylvan is creating a hybrid model that offers both the widest range

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of content options, with the flexibility of engaging in a one-to-one online instructional program, as well as a face-to-face experience at a center. As the technology and the content materials develop to offer even greater support for academic programs, students and their parents will find a dynamic environment with creative, individualized instructional experiences in both online and bricks-and-mortar locations. Under this strategy, greater efficiencies and accelerated learning are likely to result in the classroom teacher seeing greater results earlier in the school year. Those students wanting to advance more quickly through required and elective courses may also benefit from the hybrid approach. Technology is one of the drivers of this hybrid model. The emerging opportunities from new technologies, such as cell phones, iPods, more versatile and smaller laptops, and sophisticated Web 2.0 environments, may lead to a richer array of instructional strategies that students can utilize to improve their academic performance and skills.

leSSonS leARned Sylvan Online, along with other online service providers, will benefit from the lower costs of providing distance learning. Nevertheless, the availability of 1,100 bricks-and-mortar learning centers means that online options at the Sylvan Learning centers, along with direct instructional support, will yield more efficient interventions and a more effective set of outcomes. A hybrid approach positions the organization to offer the best of both service options in a consistent and powerful way. Even in difficult economic times, parents tend to put their children first because most see education as the gateway to advancement and success in life. Parents may reduce their vacation or delay purchasing a new car, but they will still commit their resources to the education of their children. Online offers another cost savings because, with the high price of gas, students

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now have an option to receive instruction from the comfort of their own home. As with many online programs, Sylvan Online struggles with constraints on its program and the ability to reach the widest audience possible. Lack of access to technology and the unavailability of high speed, high bandwidth connections limit the range of participants. While the current technology is fully inclusive—it works with dial-up modems as well as high-speed connections— newer instructional strategies and interactive possibilities are not easily added. Not all students have the opportunity to use the most powerful online systems. Parents in areas where access is limited, such as rural communities without a stable broadband connection as well as some of the bricks-and-mortar learning centers that do not currently have high bandwidth access, will need to find compromises that work for their students while awaiting the future development of their community’s infrastructure. In addition to connectivity, upgrading computer capacity is also a cost that must be borne by the students’ families, also constraining the widest access, the quality of audio (a central component of the instruction), and connection quality. Sylvan Online is on the verge of establishing a major position in online supplemental instruction. Its growth path is well defined; over the next few years, much more will be heard from Sylvan Online. The content and pedagogical approaches of the program are fundamentally sound and clearly effective in improving academic performance. Finding the right new components, whether they are more powerful platforms, new engaging instructional materials, access through new technologies, broader course offerings, or more sensitive assessments, will expand the clientele for Sylvan Online’s services.

ReFeRenCeS Bodilly, S., & Beckett, M. K. (2005). Making out-of-school-time matter: Evidence for an action agenda. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. Chen, M. (2007). Technology in the after-school landscape, Edotopia. Retrieved December 15, 2008, from http://www.edutopia.org/technologyafter-school-landscape Dodd, C., & Wise, D. (2002). Extended-day programs: Time to learn. Leadership, 32(1), 24–25. Farr, B., Brown, J., & Fontana, L. (2009). Research validation report: Sylvan mathematics programs. Baltimore, MD: Sylvan Learning. Farr, B., Levitt, E., & Fontana, L. (2009). Research validation report: Sylvan language arts programs. Baltimore, MD: Sylvan Learning. Little, P., & Harris, E. (2003). A review of outof-school time program quasi-experimental and experimental evaluation results. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project. Retrieved from http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/ afterschool/resources/snapshot1.html Puckett, C., & Rockman, S. (2006). Research validation report: Catapult K-12 online learning. Baltimore, MD: Catapult Learning. Rockman, S., et al. (2007). Star schools: Year 2 evaluation report. San Francisco, CA: Author. Rockman, S., et al. (2009). Star schools: Year 3 evaluation report. San Francisco, CA: Author. Schuch, L. (2003). After-school learning and beyond: Viewpoints. Naperville, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Time, Learning and Afterschool Task Force. (2007). A new day for learning: A report from the time, learning, and afterschool task force. Flint, MI: C.S. Mott Foundation. Retrieved from http:// www.edutopia.org/a-new-day-for-learning

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Vandell, D., Reisner, E., Brown, B., Piercde, K., Dadisman, K., & Pechman, E. (2004). The study of promising after-school programs descriptive report of the promising programs. Washington, DC: Policy Studies Associates, Inc.

This work was previously published in Cases on Online Tutoring, Mentoring, and Educational Services: Practices and Applications, edited by G. Berg, pp. 160-171, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.15

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil Luiz Antonio Joia Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation and Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil

ABSTRACT Brazilian companies are increasingly turning to web-based corporate training by virtue of the fact that they need to train their employees within tight budget constraints in a country of continental dimensions. However, most of these companies do not know what the critical success factors in these endeavors are. Therefore, this chapter seeks to investigate some key success factors associated with such digital enterprises. In order to achieve this, the multiple case study method is used, whereby two cases, both conducted within the same Brazilian company, leading to opposite outcomes – a success and a failure – are analyzed in depth. Accordingly, the two aforementioned cases are investigated by using quantitative data analysis based on bi- and multi-variate linear regressions, as well as t-tests.

The conclusions were that “Goal Orientation”, “Source of Motivation”, and “Metacognitive Support” were the three critical dimensions in these two web-based corporate training programs under analysis.

InTRoduCTIon Nowadays, market dynamics are becoming increasingly intense due to new strategic orientations and the pressing need for organizations to adapt themselves to new business models and regulatory frameworks. For this reason, it is of paramount importance for companies to become agile, as well as achieve low costs and high returns on investment associated with their employee training programs. On the other hand, the increasing speed of obsolescence in training content, plus the high

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch017

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Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

costs of face-to-face training programs, as well as the logistic hurdles linked with their deployment - mainly in firms operating in countries of continental dimensions - like Brazil - are major barriers to the implementation of such face-to-face training programs. Another aspect is that Information Technology (IT) is changing the way people search, locate, access and retrieve available knowledge, as well as altering the learning process and the way training is conducted (Hodgins, 2000). While employees take charge of their own learning process and professional development, the employers face new challenges in training and retaining teams with in-depth knowledge about their business (Hodgins, 2000). It is in this context of rapid change, with massive information loads and the search for training programs, that web-based corporate distance training comes into its own. Information Technology can solve most of the problems associated with the hitherto existing employee training undertakings, enabling the implementation of corporate distance training programs (Rosemberg, 2001). Despite being a key factor for developing feasible training programs, Information Technology per se is not a guarantee of success for these endeavors. Most of the time, it must be linked to pedagogical and didactical issues related to them. The specific characteristics of each training program must be analyzed in depth and considered as relevant as the implementation costs throughout the decision-making process (Clark, 1983). The structuring of web-based training programs is no easy task as according to several scholars various critical success factors must be taken into consideration (see, for instance, Carey et al., 1998; Penuel & Roschelle, 1999). In line with this, this article seeks to investigate what these critical factors are through the analysis of two distinct web-based training programs conducted within the same Brazilian company. Hence, the research question in this paper is: “What are the critical success factors associated

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with the implementation of these two web-based corporate training programs?” In order to achieve this goal, this work is structured as follows. First, there is a section addressing the theoretical references used in this article. Then, the research method is outlined. After that, the two cases under analysis are described, and in the next section the results accrued from them are compared. Then, in the last two sections, the authors discuss the outcomes of the research and present some final comments.

BACkgRound In order to analyze the theoretical aspects related to distance training, it is necessary to examine three interrelated topics: psychology, education and information technology (Wilhelmsen et al., 1998). More specifically, it is necessary to examine the main pedagogical approaches and the aspects of utilization of information technology as a way of applying same.

Pedagogical Approaches With respect to pedagogical approaches, the two paradigms that became fundamentally influential from the 20th century onwards will be tangentially analyzed. These paradigms do not only include the vision of how the learning process is achieved, but also offer an insight into the very nature of knowledge – essentially, if knowledge exists in an absolute form, or if it is something that is constructed and relative. These two approaches are traditionally referred to as instructivism/behaviorism and constructivism/cognitivism (Wilhelmsen et al., 1998). The basic distinction between instructivism/ behaviorism and constructivism/cognitivism lies in the concept of knowledge. For the former, knowledge is passive – automatic responses to external factors – whereas for the latter, knowledge is seen as an entity constructed by each student

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

throughout the learning process. Knowledge from the constructivist/cognitivist standpoint does not have absolute characteristics as in instructivism/ behaviorism, and cannot therefore be simply passed on from one person to another (Wilhelmsen et al., 1998). For the purposes of this article, the most important aspects of the instructivist/behaviorist approach are the concepts that the student must adapt to the environment and that learning is a passive process in which there is no explicit treatment or interest in the mental processes. The student, in this case, merely responds to the demands of the environment (stimuli). Knowledge is therefore seen as something absolute and immutable (see, for example, Skinner, 1968; Wilhelmsen et al., 1998). Thus, an instructivist/behaviorist approach to a given training program works well, provided that it has clearly defined objectives and its results are easily measurable. By way of example, the training videos of the American army used in the Second World War for repetitive tasks such as assembling a rifle could be presented (Rosemberg, 2001, p.20). Unlike the instructivists/behaviorists, the theorists of constructivism/cognitivism are of the opinion that learning is an active process. Constructivism/cognitivism is based on the concept that students construct their own knowledge, rather than the idea that the teacher passes on information and knowledge to the students (see, for example, Piaget, 1952; Papert, 1993). For the constructivists/cognitivists, the learning plan should always place emphasis on the student – rather than the content and format of the program – and on the instructor (University of Dayton, 2003). In this way, one progresses from a model in which the instructor is the center of the teaching program to a model in which the student is the center of same.

Assessment of web-Based Corporate Training Programs In many cases, the departments of a company need to develop corporate distance training programs via the web. More often than not, these programs are oriented by technical imperatives, namely the obligation to use Internet technology. In some organizations, the web-based training programs were designed specifically to justify the costs of the corporate intranet (Powell, 2000). However, the use of technology per se cannot be considered a justification for implementing any kind of training, as stated by Rosemberg, (2001), Bregman & Jacobson (2000), Bates (1995) and Kay et al. (1970), to name but a few. In order to assess two web-based training programs conducted by the same company later in this work, with a view to establish what the critical success factors associated with these endeavors were, it is necessary to adopt a specific framework. In this paper, the model proposed by Reeves & Reeves (1997) will be applied to identify and evaluate the distinct dimensions involved in webbased training, as explained below. This model has applications in the research, implementation and evaluation of web-based training programs such as those analyzed in this paper. It is important to stress that the model developed by Reeves & Reeves (1997) does not propose to evaluate either the outcome of a webbased training program, or its success or failure. Indeed, the overriding purpose of this model is to assess the different aspects and facets of this kind of program (Reeves, 1997). The adopted model includes ten dimensions of interactive learning on the World Wide Web, namely: (1) pedagogical philosophy, (2) learning theory, (3) goal orientation, (4) task orientation, (5) source of motivation, (6) teacher role, (7) metacognitive support, (8) collaborative learning, (9) cultural sensitivity, and (10) structural flexibility.

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Each of the ten dimensions in this model is presented as a two-ended continuum with contrasting values at either end, ranging from a fully aligned instructivist/behaviorist approach at one end of the spectrum to a fully aligned constructivist/cognitivist approach at the other. Needless to say, the world is rarely dichotomous and there is more complexity involved in training than any of these dimensions suggest. However, the individual dimensions themselves are not as important as the interplay among the ten dimensions that represent the major pedagogical approach of various webbased training programs. These dimensions are detailed below. a)

Pedagogical Philosophy (Instructivist <=> Constructivist)

The debate over instructivist and constructivist approaches to teaching and learning persists to this day (Kafai & Resnick, 1996). Instructivists stress the importance of objectives that exist separately from the learner. Little emphasis is placed on learners themselves, who are viewed as passive recipients of instructions or treated as empty vessels to be filled with learning (Sherry, 1996). By contrast, constructivists emphasize the primacy of the learner’s intentions, experience and cognitive strategies. According to constructivists, learners construct different cognitive structures based upon their previous knowledge and what they experience in different learning environments. It is of paramount importance for constructivists that learning environments be as rich and diverse as possible. Instead of an empty vessel, the learner is regarded as an individual replete with preexisting motivations, experiences, aptitudes and knowledge. Tasks to be accomplished and problems to be solved must have personal relevance to the learner. The constructivists believe that what we know is constructed – both individually and socially – based on prior experience.

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b)

Learning Theory (Behavioral <=> Cognitive)

According to behaviorists, the critical factor in learning is observable behavior, and instruction involves shaping desirable behavior through the arrangement of stimuli, responses, feedback, and reinforcement. A stimulus is provided (e.g. a short presentation of content), then a response is elicited - often via a question. Feedback is given as to the accuracy of the response, and positive reinforcement is given for accurate responses. Inaccurate responses result in a repetition of the original stimulus, and the cycle begins again. Cognitive psychologists place more emphasis on internal mental states than on behavior. Cognitive taxonomy of internal learning states includes simple propositions, schema, rules, skills, mental models and so forth. They claim that a variety of strategies – including memorization, direct instruction, deduction, drill and practice, and induction - are required in any learning environment, depending upon the type of knowledge to be created by the learner. c)

Goal Orientation (Sharp <=> Broad)

The goals for education and training can range from sharply focused goals to general higher-order goals. Hence, the goal orientation of web-based training systems varies in degree of focus from sharp to broad (Cole, 1992). d)

Task Orientation (Academic <=> Authentic)

The context of learning is enormously important to adults (Merriam, 1993; Giardina et al., 2002). Academic design depends heavily on having the learners carry out traditional academic exercises, whereas authentic design engages adults in practical activities such as preparing job appli-

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

cations, thereby situating practice and feedback within realistic scenarios. If knowledge, skills, and attitudes are learned in a practical context, they will be used in that context in similar situations. e)

Source of Motivation (Extrinsic <=> Intrinsic)

Motivation is a primary factor in any theory or model of learning (Amabile, 1993). All new educational technology promises to be intrinsically motivating. This dimension ranges from extrinsic (i.e., outside the learning environment) to intrinsic (i.e., integral to the learning environment). Motivation instruction is intrinsically elusive, irrespective of the delivery system. f)

Teacher Role (Didactic <=> Facilitative)

The teacher role continuum ranges from didactic to facilitative. In the former role, the teacher presents information and asks learners to memorize information and recall it later in tests. The latter role assigns cognitive responsibility to the learners, for them to be responsible for recognizing and judging patterns of information, organizing data, constructing alternative perspectives, and presenting new knowledge in meaningful ways, with the teachers being tutors of this process. g)

Metacognitive Support (Unsupported <=> Integrated)

Metacognition refers to a learner’s awareness of objectives, ability to plan and evaluate learning strategies, and capacity to monitor progress and adjust learning behavior to accommodate needs (Flavell, 1979). The metacognitive support dimension is unsupported at one end of the continuum and integrated at the other. Recapitulation of the students’ strategies at any point in the problem-solving process, as well as construction of web-based portfolios (Nevado et al., 2004) are examples of how support for reflection and

metacognition might be provided in web-based corporate training. h)

Collaborative Learning Strategies (Unsupported <=> Integral)

The Collaborative Learning dimension ranges from a complete lack of support for collaboration to the inclusion of collaborative learning as an integral feature. Cooperative and collaborative learning refers to instructional methods in which learners work together in pairs or small groups to accomplish shared goals (Kirschner et al., 2004). i)

Cultural Sensitivity (Insensitive <=> Respectful)

All instructional systems have cultural implications. In an insensitive approach the training is developed irrespective of the culture and diversity of the learners it is intended to address. On the other hand, a respectful approach is based on the diversity in the populations in which the system will be used so that the overall learning environment is enhanced. It is unlikely that webbased training can be designed to adapt to every cultural norm, but sites should be designed to be as culturally sensitive as possible (Brown & Voltz, 2005). j)

Structural Flexibility (Fixed <=> Open)

“Fixed” systems, still dominant in education, are usually limited to specific places, e.g., a classroom or laboratory, at specific times, e.g., 50-minute class period. Irrespective of time and/ or location constraints the learner can use “Open” systems. The World Wide Web provides opportunities for more asynchronous (open) learning, although some web-based learning tools are temporally fixed (synchronous), such as chats, video-conferences, etc.

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Table 1. Dimensions to evaluate the characteristics of web-based distance training (Adapted from Martin, 1998 and Joia, 2001). 0 ← Instructivist Knowledge is imparted by the instructor

Dimension

→10

Pedagogical Philosophy 0 - 10

Constructivist Knowledge is constructed – both individually and socially – by the students

Behavioral Emphasis on observable behavior

Learning Theory 0 - 10

Cognitive Emphasis on internal mental states

Sharp Direct instruction focusing on desired behavior

Goal Orientation 0 -10

Broad Simulations encompassing more than just a solution for the problem

Academic Emphasis on traditional academic exercises

Task Orientation 0 -10

Authentic Emphasis on practical activities

Extrinsic Motivation lies outside the learning environment

Source of Motivation 0 -10

Intrinsic Motivation lies in the student and the learning environment

Didactic The teacher is considered to be a knowledge repository

Teacher Role 0 -10

Facilitative The teacher is a mentor and tutor for the students

Unsupported There are no student progress tracking mechanisms or adjustments to individual needs

Metacognitive Support 0 -10

Integrated Student progress tracking mechanisms are implemented, as well as adjustments to individual needs

Unsupported Students work alone

Collaborative Learning 0 -10

Integrated Students work together in pairs or in small groups

Insensitive Training is prepared regardless of the culture and diversity of the learners it seeks to address

Cultural Sensitivity 0 -10

Respectful Training is based on the diversity of the populations where the system will be used

Fixed Program limited to specific places at specific times

Structural Flexibility 0 -10

Open Program independent of time and/or location constraints

Table 1 below depicts the ten dimensions defined for analyzing web-based training programs, as supported by Reeves & Reeves (1997). For each dimension (in the central column of the table), the opposite poles of the adopted ratio scale, ranging from 0 (a fully instructivist/behaviorist approach) to 10 (a fully constructivist/cognitivist approach) are described and their meanings explained.

ReSeARCh meThod The multiple case study method as described by Yin (1994) was adopted in this research, in

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which two web-based distance-training programs developed within the same Brazilian company were analyzed in-depth. Case studies are particularly suitable for answering “how” and “why” questions, and are ideal for generating and building theory in an area where little data or theory exists (Yin, 1994), as in this knowledge field. It also enables researchers to use “controlled opportunism” to respond flexibly to new discoveries made while collecting new data (Eisenhardt, 1989), as was done and is presented below in this work. Notwithstanding having a major exploratory facet, this study also presents explanatory char-

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

acteristics, as a causal relationship between the dimensions of the programs analyzed (Reeves & Reeves, 1997) and the respective outcomes are pursued. Yin (1994, p.46) argues that in the multiple case study method, each case must be carefully selected, so as to generate either similar or opposing results. In line with this, a Brazilian company was chosen (the identity of which is confidential) and two web-based training programs it developed and staged were selected, each one generating contrasting final results. The first case – hereinafter referred to as “Program A” – was considered a success as it achieved its main objectives. The second case – hereinafter named “Program B” – developed by the same company, was considered a failure, as most of its targets were not accomplished. In order to validate the “Key Success Factors in Web-based Corporate Training” construct, multiple data sources were used, and also a chain of evidence related to research questions was pursued. The existing records associated with these projects were analyzed in depth. The managers of both programs were located in the company and submitted to open interviews in January 2006, in order to address their perceptions about the rate of success of the training programs they were in charge of. .There was a single manager for the first case (“Program A”) and two managers for the second case (“Program B”). Questionnaires were prepared and circulated among the training users. These questionnaires were actually the Table 1 (Reeves & Reeves, 1997), whose dimensions were deeply explained to the respondents by the authors, in order they can rate them from 0 to 10, according to their perceptions associated with the training they were submitted to1. In addition to this, the users also revealed their perceptions about the rate of accomplishment of objectives of each program vis-à-vis the actual objectives proposed for the programs in their initial designs.

In line with the ideas proposed by Reeves & Reeves (1997) and, as already said, the minimum value of the scale (0) indicates that a dimension is fully aligned with the instructivist/behaviorist paradigm, whereas the maximum value of the same scale (10) proves that a dimension is fully aligned with the constructivist/cognitivist paradigm (Joia, 2001). Moreover, the maximum value of the scale (10) associated with the “Accomplishment of Training Objectives” indicates user perception of complete success for the training program, whereas the minimum value (0) points to user perception of total failure for the training program. The aforementioned questionnaires were answered by all of the 32 users of the first case analyzed (“Program A”) and all of the 31 users of the second case (“Program B”), during the course of January 2006. These trainings courses were chosen as the researchers had access to the students, as well as to most of the characteristics of the aforementioned training programs. While having a clear exploratory approach, this work also addressed some explanatory elements used to verify the possible causal effects between the dimensions of the theoretical model and the training outcomes. This was done to support the internal validity of this research, in accordance with the recommendations of Morra & Friedlander (1999). The first analysis conducted sought to compare user perceptions about the rate of accomplishment of objectives for the two programs, in order to verify whether or not the respective average of these grades could be considered statistically distinct. Once the difference between user perceptions regarding the rate of accomplishment of objectives for each program was recorded, a statistical comparison of user perception averages associated with each dimension of the theoretical model applied was performed. Since it had already been seen that the two programs presented statistical differences with respect to their outcomes, namely success and failure, the dimensions that didn’t

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present statistically significant differences within the two programs were discarded as not being critical success factors. Thus, from this prior comparison, two dimensions of the Reeves & Reeves (1997) model were removed, leaving eight dimensions to be analyzed further. In order to achieve this, a multivariate linear regression was used, where the rate of accomplishment of training objectives was the dependent variable while the grades given by the users to each of the eight remaining dimensions of the model served as the independent variables. In order to take the specificities of each training program into account, a dummy variable addressing the type of training program (TYPE) was adopted. For Program A, TYPE was considered 1, whereas for Program B, TYPE was made equal to 0. Thus, the different values found for the intercepts of the linear regression indicated the difference between the programs, with Program B being considered as the baseline (Hair et al., 1998, p. 167-168). The significance level of each coefficient associated with these dimensions (independent variables) was then calculated and analyzed, while the dimensions whose coefficients did not present evidence of linear correlation with the dependent variable (accomplishment of objectives) were discarded. The above procedure highlighted three dimensions, which could be considered critical success factors for the training programs analyzed. As a final quantitative validation, a simple linear regression with a dummy variable (TYPE) was performed on each dimension removed from the study for not being related to the accomplishment of training objectives. These simple regressions supported that these factors did not possess a fair linear correlation with the objectives of both training programs. Lastly, another multivariate linear regression with a dummy variable (TYPE) was run, considering merely the three aforementioned dimensions as independent variables. The outcomes obtained

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supported the central importance of these three variables as critical success factors.

CASe deSCRIPTIon Internet users and webBased Corporate Training in Brazil: An outlook Some developing countries, notably India, Mexico and Brazil, use Information Technology in a highly intensive manner. This fact alone might be construed as a decidedly positive opportunity for Internet-based initiatives. However, as these countries have large populations, absolute figures can lead the reader to draw mistaken conclusions. If, for instance, one compares Canada and Brazil, it can be seen that while Brazil has almost the same number of Internet users as Canada, nearly 50% of the population of the latter is digitally included (Joia, 2004), whereas less than 20% of the population of the former has Internet access according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2005). The number of Internet users in Brazil is estimated at around 32.1 million. This impressive number puts Brazil in first place in the ranking of Internet users in Latin America and fifth in the world. However, when comparing the number of users to the size of the population, the scenario alters considerably. It still represents a very small percentage of the total population of 187 million in a country with a GDP in the order of US$ 794 billion in 2007 (Afonso, 2001; Neri, 2003; IBGE, 2005; IBGE, 2007). With 6 million lines in use (e-Marketer, 2007), Brazil is ranked third after the United States and Canada in terms of countries with broadband access in the Americas. Despite the still precarious conditions of technological infrastructure in many regions of the country, corporate training via the web in Brazil has been growing at an annual average rate of 15% per year, in terms of trained

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

professionals (Bastos, 2003). This growth rate is undoubtedly due to the continental dimensions of the country (Bastos, 2003). Recent research conducted in 120 major Brazilian companies has shown that 70% of them are in some way involved with the inclusion or practical application of e-learning solutions, even though the geographical distribution of these investments has unquestionable correlations with the regional socio-economic model and the consequent investment and income distribution indices of each of the regions analyzed (Bastos, 2003). This research has shown that not only does the Southeast Region have a greater concentration of companies already using e-learning (87%), but also that it serves the largest number of trainees online in Brazil (31%) (Bastos, 2003).

The Company The company under analysis is a major Brazilian firm in the Information Technology industry. It has more than 30,000 employees with offices throughout Brazil. In 2003, the company posted total revenue of US$ 865 million and net income of US$ 76 million. Due to its nationwide presence, this company faces an ongoing challenge to implement face-toface corporate training programs, due to budget constraints. So, it is in this context that the two training programs, namely “Program A” and “Program B” were envisaged and implemented. The name of the company, as well as further details about it, are kept confidential, as agreed with its top executives.

“Program A” “Program A”, considered a successful case by the company, is a mandatory corporate distance training program for all managers, namely its main target audience. Any employee who is promoted to a managerial function is obliged to take this course within a maximum timeframe of one year.

This training program lasts nine months and consists of three distinct stages that encompass distance and face-to-face training. The focus of this program lies in the development of leadership skills. Accordingly, the following issues are addressed: the attributes that make an effective leader; the different kinds of leadership styles that are best used under certain conditions; the various theories of leadership practice and the pros and cons of each; and the leadership responsibilities related to administrative and management tasks. The training program is based on the premise that, rather than being an isolated event, learning is a continuous process throughout the professional’s lifetime. “Program A” uses several Information Technology tools, such as intranet that is heavily deployed to provide information considered essential for the managers of the company. Stage I of this program (Pre-Learning Laboratory) is developed on-line, in a distance-based training format. This stage lasts from five to six months and is an individual activity that demands between 48 and 56 hours of study. Stage II of this program (Learning Laboratory) is a face-to-face experience lasting five days. The professionals must have successfully completed Stage I before embarking on this second stage. This Learning Laboratory takes place in the Global Learning Center of the company, in the city of São Paulo. Stage III of this program (Post-Learning Laboratory), like Stage I, is developed on a distancetraining basis. This stage focuses on collaborative learning via the company’s intranet, as well as public forums and tools like instant messaging. Throughout the duration of the course, a mediator is previously assigned and available to take part in the program, both in person and online, in order to resolve any doubts the professionals may have, to supply the students with suggestions, and to help them solve general problems. According to an interview with the manager of “Program A”, this program is considered a success, having fully achieved its targets.

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Furthermore, thirty-two users of “Program A”, who attended the program during 2005, answered the questionnaire developed for this research and evaluated their participation on this training program as a highly positive experience (average of 8.5 and standard deviation of 1.32 on a ratio scale ranging from 0 to 10). Therefore, it may be considered that the objectives were achieved. All of the thirty-two respondents were managers of the company.

“Program B” “Program B” started at the beginning of 2004, initially as an effort to provide and make information about the company’s productive and administrative processes available to employees located in the various offices of the company nationwide. The design and development of the program was organized by the company’s IT (Information Technology) team, supported by the basic premise of using the corporate intranet to publish all the content considered relevant. The first version of the program gathered and consolidated the wealth of information about the company’s processes already published in the intranet under a single site with a unique index for conducting searches. For this purpose, a team of five employees from two different business units was formed to assist the IT area in the identification and classification of information. Once the information had been duly identified and classified, the IT area began to configure the program, so as to feature distinct courses categorized by subject. These courses could then be accessed by any employee via the intranet. Consequently, for each course implemented, a “Program Manager” was chosen to be in charge of developing the assessment questions (multiplechoice based), having privileged access to the answers given by the students.

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After an initial test period – based on just one course developed for a specific group of employees – three distinct courses were made available – two of them focusing on specific working processes of the firm (Order Fulfillment and Customer Service), and the third addressing administrative content (Employee Performance Assessment and Promotion) The main target of this training program was to reduce the costs involved in corporate training, as well as to speed up the adaptation and training time for newly hired professionals to become accustomed to the processes used by the organization. After less than one year, having failed to achieve its objectives, the program was redesigned. Thirty-one users of “Program B”, who attended the program during 2005, answered the questionnaire distributed by the researcher. In essence, they evaluated the experience of taking part in this program as negative since the aims were not achieved (average of 4.52 and standard deviation of 1.15 on a ratio scale ranging from 0 to 10). This evaluation from these employees tallied with the opinion of the program managers, as they stressed that the objectives of this program were not achieved.

ComPARISon oF ReSulTS Initially, it is necessary to analyze the differences singled out by both the program managers and users concerning the achievement of objectives of the training programs. According to the assessment of the manager of “Program A”, the objectives of the training were fully achieved and in his general evaluation the program was rated as “very good”. Conversely, the managers of “Program B” realized that the main targets of this program were not achieved, which led the program to be redesigned. Thus, according to

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

Table 2. Comparison of averages related to “achievement of objectives” according to the users of the training programs Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances

F

Achievement of Objectives

.202

Sig.

.655

t-test for Equality of Means

T

12.752

df

61

the managers’ perceptions, the difference related to achievement of objectives between the two programs becomes clear. In order to analyze user perceptions related to the programs, it is necessary to evaluate the difference between the average grades given by the students to each one of the programs. The average user evaluation grade regarding the achievement of objectives in “Program A” was 8.50 (s=1.32; n=32, on a ratio scale of 0 to 10), whereas the same value concerning “Program B” was 4.52 (s=1.15; n=31; on a ratio scale of 0 to 10). This difference between the averages seems to tally with the opinion of the program managers. However, it is necessary to apply a statistical test (t-test) to compare the average of each program, so as to establish whether or not they can be considered different according to a statistical level of significance. Table 2 below depicts the results accrued from the comparison of employee evaluation averages related to the achievement of objectives of the training programs. From the results presented in Table 2, it is clear that there is a significant statistical difference between user perception averages related to the achievement of objectives of the training programs (p < 5%). Furthermore, it can be observed that the interval of confidence doesn’t encompass zero, i.e., it is all positive. Thus, it is possible to support with a 5% level of significance that the averages are different and the average of “Program A” is

Sig. (2-tailed) (p) .000

Mean Difference

Std. Error Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower

3.98

.31

3.36

Upper 4.61

greater than the average of “Program B” (Sincich, 1995, p.532). It can be argued that with respect to “Achievement of Objectives”, “Program A” achieved better results than “Program B”. On the basis of this, the factors that influenced these results were researched, based on the theoretical model adopted in this article. Consequently, the evaluation averages of each dimension of the Reeves & Reeves’ (1997) model were analyzed in order to find out which ones actually had an impact on the results depicted above. Similarly, the dimensions that presented statistical significant differences in the sample averages for each program were examined, as these are the dimensions that can be considered to be influential in the achievement of objectives of each web-based corporate training program analyzed. Table 3 below compares the averages related to each dimension of the programs under analysis, according to the framework of Reeves & Reeves (1997). As can be seen in Table 3 above, there is no difference in the Pedagogical Philosophy and Structural Flexibility dimensions in the two cases, with a 5% level of statistical significance (p>0.05). Hence, these dimensions can be disregarded as critical success factors in web-based corporate training. Based on this result, a multiple linear regression between the Achievement of Objectives (dependent variable) and the eight dimensions that presented significantly distinct averages (indepen-

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Table 3. Comparison of the averages of the sample dimensions of the model Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances F

Sig.

t-test for Equality of Means

t

Sig. (2-tailed)

df

Means Program A

Means Program B

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower

Upper

Pedagogical Philosophy

.010

.919

.511

61

.611

1.96

1.85

-.34

.56

Learning Theory

55.065

.000

2.470

61

.016

2.55.

2.03

.09

.94

Goal Orientation

4.285

.043

6.239

61

.000

2.94

1.58

.92

1.79

Task Orientation

16.813

.000

4.963

61

.000

3.03

2.00

.61

1.44

Source of Motivation

8.686

.005

4.951

61

.000

2.41

1.26

.68

1.61

Teacher Role

28.837

.000

6.790

61

.000

4.68

2.12

1.81

3.31

Metacognitive Support

68.946

.000

9.747

61

.000

3.00

1.06

1.54

2.33

Collaborative Learning

129.092

.000

3.760

61

.000

3.88

3.10

.37

1.20

Cultural Sensitivity

20.583

.000

7.756

61

.000

2.23

1.23

.74

1.26

Structural Flexibility

.943

.335

-.751

61

.455

2.69

2.88

-.71

.32

dent variables) was run, in addition to a dummy variable addressing the type of training program involved. The intention was to verify which variables could be considered truly influential in terms of outcomes achieved taking into account the different contexts of the programs. Table 4 below depicts the summary of results and the statistical values accrued from this multiple regression with a dummy variable. As already said, the dummy variable TYPE was set up equal to 1 for the Program A and equal to 0 for Program B. This summary supports the validity

of using the eight dimensions of the theoretical model (Predictors) to forecast the achievement of objectives for each case studied (in the summary, the “R” column represents the correlation coefficient and the “R Square” column represents the determination coefficient). From these data, it can be argued that nearly 72% (0.715) of the variance of the “Achievement of Objectives” variable can be explained by the dimensions included in this regression. After validation of the model, an attempt was made to verify which coefficients, namely the

Table 4. Summary of the linear regression Model Summary (sample = 63 respondents; p-value=0.001) Model

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

1

.868(a)

.724

.715

1.25

a Predictors: (Constant), Cultural Sensitivity, Learning Theory, Source of Motivation, Goal Orientation, Teacher Role, Task Orientation, Collaborative Learning, Metacognitive Support, TYPE (dummy variable)

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Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

Table 5. Analysis of the statistical significance of the coefficients of the linear regression of the dimensions of the model Coefficients Unstandardized Coefficients Model

Standardized Coefficients Beta

t

Sig.

95% Confidence Interval for B

Co-linearity Statistics

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Tolerance

VIF

B

Std. Error

(Intercept) bA

4.960

.547

3.950

.000

2.998

6.657

(Intercept) bB

.687

.356

5.980

.000

.289

1.567

Learning Theory

-.0561

.298

-.019

-.254

.859

-.567

.490

.767

1.768

Goal Orientation

.511

.290

.256

2.334

.035

.076

.998

.589

1.978

Task Orientation

-.285

.299

-.098

-.901

.478

-.778

.312

.564

2.987

Source of Motivation

.878

.256

.402

4.342

.000

.489

1.876

.675

1.980

Teacher Role

.145

.15

.094

.855

.489

-.19

.334

.486

2.235

Metacognitive Support

.636

.256

.335

2.786

.007

.178

1.345

.345

2.678

Collaborative Learning

.190

.299

.093

.405

.770

-.556

.778

.556

2.123

Cultural Sensitivity

.290

.367

.089

.756

.478

-.489

1.098

.390

2.897

Dependent Variable: Achievement of Objectives

dimensions of the model applied, actually influenced the achievement of objectives of web-based training programs. Table 5 below presents the summary of the statistics related to the coefficients of the regression model. From the results depicted in Table 5, it can be deduced that, with a 5% level of significance, the Learning Theory, Task Orientation, Teacher

Role, Collaborative Learning and Cultural Sensitivity dimensions did not reveal evidence of any statistically significant linear relationship with “Achievement of Objectives” (Sig. > .05). It can also be seen that the intercepts (b) related to training programs A and B are: bA = 4.960 and bB = .687, reinforcing the finding that the degree of accomplishment of objectives was greater in

Table 6. Summary of the models of simple linear regression of the variables discarded in the multiple linear regression Model

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

1(a)

.245(a)

.060

.057

2.54

2(b)

.346(b)

.120

.118

2.90

3(c)

.456(c)

.198

.170

2.11

4(d)

.390(d)

.152

.120

2.34

5(e)

.399(e)

.159

.139

2.09

(a) Predictors: (Constant), Learning Theory, TYPE (dummy variable) (b) Predictors: (Constant), Collaborative Learning, TYPE (dummy variable) (c) Predictors: (Constant), Task Orientation, TYPE (dummy variable) (d) Predictors: (Constant), Teacher Role, TYPE (dummy variable) (e) Predictors: (Constant), Cultural Sensitivity, TYPE (dummy variable)

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Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

Table 7. Summary of the linear regression of the “metacognitive support”, “source of motivation” and “goal orientation” dimensions Summary of the Regression (sample=63 respondents; p-value= 0.000) Model

R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Std. Error of the Estimate

1

.851(a)

.724

.699

1.24

a Predictors: (Constant), Metacognitive Support, Source of Motivation, Goal Orientation, TYPE (dummy variable)

Program A than in Program B (4.273 points of difference) In order to strengthen the results accrued from this multiple linear regression, with respect to the lack of evidence of any linear relationship of the Learning Theory, Task Orientation, Teacher Role, Collaborative Learning and Cultural Sensitivity variables and simple linear regressions with dummy variables of each of these variables vis-à-vis the “Achievement of Objectives” were performed. Table 6 presents the summary of the results accrued from these five simple regressions, which was drawn up separately from Table 5 to make it easier for the reader to fully understand the influence of each discarded dimension in the “Achievement of Objectives”. As can be observed from analysis of the correlation coefficient (column “R”) and the determination coefficient (column “R Square”) of the five simple regressions, these variables did not effectively have any bearing on the “Achievement of Objectives” variable (“Adjusted R Square” smaller than 0.17). Lastly, a final statistical analysis was performed. Analyzing the results of the multiple linear regression with dummy variables of the three variables selected as being influential in the achievement of objectives of the training programs – Goal Orientation, Source of Motivation and Metacognitive Support – it can be seen that this model is very similar to the former multiple regression model with dummy variables (Table 4) which took eight variables into consideration. Table 7 portrays a summary of this model. The

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intercepts are consequently: bA = 4.854 and bB = .769 (a difference of 4.085 points).

dISCuSSIonS Despite the fact that distance education has been around for over a century (Matthews, 1999), the development of training programs has not achieved its full potential within organizations (Berge, 2002). Different technologies have been used since the creation of the first distance training program, though web technology is considered a watershed in this realm. While the technological progress has been impressive, the implementation of web-based distance training has only increased at a slow pace. A survey conducted by the interactive magazine Learning Decisions (www. learningdecisions.com) in February 2000, based on 1902 respondents, revealed that only 22% of large US organizations were working on the development of web-based corporate distance training programs. Besides the hype around Internet technology and its use in the business arena, the first trials using the Internet in corporate training arose at the end of the 20th century. However, most of these initial applications either failed or fell short of the expected outcomes (Cross, 2004). For over a century, society has been trying to understand precisely how human beings learn. As with most problems in the social sciences, there is no single answer. However, it is clear that some rationale behind this research question must be

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

developed. It must be remembered that western society (mainly the USA) has been heavily influenced by the instructivist/behaviorist paradigm, upon which its educational system was designed (Criswell, 2000). On the basis of theoretical references and case research analysis, it became clear that the deployment of web-based training programs is not merely a technological issue. As in any training program, the inherent objectives and characteristics that it is seeking to achieve must be analyzed by the designers, so as to permit selection of the most adequate learning theory and define the instructional design, as well as develop and deploy the training program adequately. Based on the comparison of averages, it was concluded with 5% level of statistical significance, that there was no difference between the Pedagogical Philosophy and Structural Flexibility dimensions in the two cases analyzed. The sample averages of the former dimension (1.96 for “Program A” and 1.85 for “Program B”) indicate that both programs were highly instructivist/behaviorist, namely most of the knowledge is imparted by the training, rather than constructed by the students themselves. In other words, most of the learners’ prior experiences were not taken into consideration in either case. This tallies with some authors who reveal the hurdles in developing a constructivist/ cognitivist web-based corporate training program in an environment where efficiency is pursued in order to be attained in a short time frame (see, for instance, Joia & Casado, 2007; Joia, 2001 and Criswell, 2000). Likewise, the sample averages of the latter dimension (2.69 for “Program A” and 2.88 for “Program B”) pointed to the fact that “fixed” training programs are still dominant in corporate training, as in neither of the programs could the learners use the systems irrespective of time and/or location. Thereafter, applying a linear multiple regression between the dimensions of the model developed by Reeves & Reeves (1997) and the achievement of objectives of both training programs, it

can be seen that five out of the eight remaining dimensions of the theoretical model did not have a significant influence on the results of either program. Actually, the dimensions that effectively had a major impact on the outcomes of training programs A and B were: Goal Orientation, Source of Motivation and Metacognitive Support. The low averages observed for the Goal Orientation dimension (2.94 for “Program A” and 1.58 for “Program B”) indicate that the objectives of both programs were more specific than generic. However, it is important to note that “Program A” aimed at achieving somewhat higher-order goals (namely leadership skills) than “Program “B”. Conversely, “Program B” set out to address sharply focused goals (namely the firm’s processes). In other words, with respect to this dimension, “Program A” was less instructivist/ behaviorist than “Program B”. This result duly corroborates the ideas of several authors who argue the need for a broader orientation for the success of a distance training program, i.e. one that elicits more than the mere solution of specific problems (see, for instance, Dick & Carey, 1996; Kay et al., 1970; Mager, 1972; Sancho, 1998, to name just a few). “Program B” – with an average of 1.06 – had hardly any Metacognitive Support, whereas “Program A” – with an average of 3.00 – revealed a certain level of implementation of this dimension. Once again, based on data collected from informal interviews, the users of “Program B” declared that there was no tool for students to track their progression during this training program Moreover, regarding Metacognitive Support, the actual description of the features available in “Program B” to students, from the program managers’ perspective, namely access via the intranet and multiple choice questionnaires, reveals and supports the lack of means for users to assess their learning strategies in a timely manner. On the other hand, “Program A” did indeed provide some opportunities for students to develop the kind of assessment addressed above. The tool

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Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

upon which this program was built allowed the users to track their outcomes at each stage of training, as well as the percentage of total time available to complete the course, and the estimated total time necessary to accomplish each stage of the program. Furthermore, “Program A” allowed the students to check back on content they had already studied on the course, thereby enabling them to control their learning process, as suggested, for instance, by Nevado et al. (2004), Campbell et al. (2000) and Costa et al. (1998). Lastly, “Program B” users’ assessment concerning the Source of Motivation dimension produced an average of 1.26, indicating that the source of motivation was mostly extrinsic. On the other hand, in “Program A” (average of 2.41), it becomes clear that there was at least some prior intrinsic source of motivation during the training program per se, probably due to the fact that these employees had just been promoted to managers. Thus, it can be considered that more than being motivated by the course, the students were supposed to be motivated by the company and their careers – a claim supported by interviews developed with five users of “Program A”. Conversely, the users of “Program B” did not appear to be motivated to take part in the training program, except for external motivation based on the mandatory nature of the program. Interestingly, this result complies with the ideas of Carroll (1968), Amabile (1993) and Keller & Suzuki (2004) about the importance of taking intrinsic motivation into account in any pedagogical model.

FuTuRe TRendS This chapter naturally does not claim to be the ultimate research in this knowledge field. The subject deserves a great deal more study and investigation. Research involving a larger number of companies and focusing on each specific dimension involved in the development of web-based distance train-

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ing programs might reveal other important issues related to this realm, in order to allow the organizations to better understand, improve and measure the outcomes of these endeavors. Furthermore, future research can verify whether there are differences between web-based corporate training programs conducted in developing countries (such as Brazil) and developed countries.

ConCluSIonS Hence, from the comparison of the two cases, the following items can be considered key success factors in these web-based training programs: •

• •

Clear definition of training content, target employees and objectives of the program, seeking more than merely the solution of specific problems; Development of a source of intrinsic, as opposed to extrinsic motivation; Implementation of web-based metacognitive support.

The three key success factors accrued from the analysis of the results of this research vis-à-vis the theoretical background enable the selection of the learning theory and the technologies to be used in this endeavor. It is interesting to note that according to Ertmer & Newby (1993) and Conole et al. (2004), the selection of a specific learning theory is not a key success factor by itself. Moreover, the realization that this dimension did not directly influence the outcomes accrued from selected programs A and B (as both presented instructivist/behaviorist characteristics) complies with Reeves’ (1997) frame, as it does not support the allegation that an instructivist/behaviorist program is necessarily better than a constructivist/cognitivist one and vice-versa.

Some Key Success Factors in Web-Based Corporate Training in Brazil

However, this is a point that must be the subject of in-depth investigation in future research addressing training in virtual environments. “Program A” presented a more constructivist/cognitivist approach than “Program B”, as witnessed by the fact that the averages of the three relevant dimensions in the former program were higher than the corresponding dimensions in the latter program. This tallies with some authors who have argued that the constructivist/cognitivist approach is best suited for web-based distance training (see, for instance, Costa et al., 1998). As with all research, this project has a few limitations that are duly set forth below. First of all, the number of respondents – 32 users of “Program A” and 31 users of “Program B” – led to a sample size limitation, preventing the authors from running one multiple linear regression for each training program. According to Hair et al. (1998, p. 166), there should be at least 5 observations for each independent variable. As there were eight remaining variables, a sample of at least 40 respondents for each training program was required. Accordingly, a linear multiple regression adding a dummy variable for “Program A” and “Program B” had to be run. The outcomes of this latter regression have shown the difference between the degree of accomplishment of objectives of either program (Hair et al., 1998, p. 167-168). Moreover, as programs A and B are not exactly equal, some other factors associated with their corresponding content and modus operandi, just to name two aspects, can also have had an influence on their respective outcomes. Furthermore, this paper attempted to establish the value perceptions of the employees regarding the outcomes of the two web-based training programs analyzed. There are some limitations in this approach, as some of the variables derived from the Reeves and Reeves (1999) model are not such simple variables as to be clearly understood by the respondents beyond all reasonable doubt, even after various meetings with the author.

Indeed, a certain degree of subjectivity and bias from the employees may have occurred (Scandura & Williams, 2000). Lastly, this is not a cross-cultural research project. Therefore the aspect of whether or not there is any influence accruing from the Brazilian setting in the outcomes of this research is not analyzed. The reason for this lies in the very fact that there are as yet very few works about webbased corporate training in Brazil in existence. In order that one can develop cross-cultural studies, it is important to have information about what is supposed to be compared. Thus, there is still much ground to be covered in this arena.

ReFeRenCeS Afonso, J. R. (2001). E-Government in Brazil: Experiences and Perspectives. Forum of Federations, April, Montreal, Canada. Retrieved October 9, 2003, from http://federativo.bndes.gov.br/ destaques/egov/egov_estudos.htm. Amabile, T. (1993). Motivating creativity in organizations. California Management Review, 40(1), 39–58. Bastos, L. E. M. (2003). Avaliação do e-Learning Corporativo no Brasil. Unpublished MBA thesis, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil. Bates, A. W. (1995). Technology, open learning and distance education. New York: Routledge. Berge, Z. L. (2002). Obstacles to distance training and education in corporate organizations. Journal of Workplace Learning, 4(5), 182–189. doi:10.1108/13665620210433873 Bregman, P., & Jacobson, H. (2000). Searching for Answers: Yes, you can measure the business results of training. Training (New York, N.Y.), 37(8), 68–72.

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Brown, A. R., & Voltz, B. D. (2005). Elements of Effective e-Learning Design. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 5(1). Retrieved may, 2006, from http:// www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/217/300. Campbell, D. M., Melenyzer, B. J., Nettles, D. H., & Wyman, R. M., Jr. (2000). Portfolio and performance assessment in teacher education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Carey, T., Mitchell, S., Peerenboom, D., & Lytwyn, M. (1998). Effectiveness of Learning Technologies: The Costs and Effectiveness of TechnologyBased Approaches to Teaching and Learning. Guelph, Canada: University of Guelph. Carroll, J. B. (1968). On learning from being told. Educational Psychologist, 5, 4–10. Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445–459. Cole, P. (1992). Constructivism Revisited: A Search for Common Ground. Educational Technology, 32(2), 27–34. Conole, G., Dyke, M., Oliver, M., & Seale, J. (2004). Mapping pedagogy and tools for effective learning design. Computers & Education, 43(1-2), 17–33. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2003.12.018 Costa, I. T., Fagundes, L. C., & Nevado, R. A. (1998). Projeto TEC-LEC Modelo de uma Nova Metodologia em EAD Incorporando os Recursos da Telemática. Informática na Educação: Teoria e Prática, 1(1), 83–100. Criswell, E. (2000). The Humanistic Tradition: A Vision for the Future. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 40(3), 74–82. doi:10.1177/0022167800403006 Cross, J. (2004). An informal history of eLearning. Horizon, 12(3), 103–110. doi:10.1108/10748120410555340

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Dick, W., & Carey, L. (1996). The systematic design of instruction. New York: HarperCollins Publisher. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550. doi:10.2307/258557 eMarketer (2007). Brazil Online. Retrieved October 29, 2007, from http://www.emarketer.com/Reports/All/Emarketer_2000459. aspx?src=report_head_info_sitesearch. Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from a Design Perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50–72. Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and Cognitive Monitoring: A New Area of Cognitive-Developmental Inquiry. The American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. doi:10.1037/0003066X.34.10.906 Giardina, M., Oubenaissa, L., & Bhattacharya, M. (2002). Designing a Framework for the Implementation of Situated Online, Collaborative, Problembased Activity: Operating within a Local and Multi-Cultural Learning Context. International Journal on E-Learning, 1(3), 41–46. Hair, J. F., Jr., Anderson, R. E., Tatham, R. L., & Black, W. C. (1998). Multivariate Data Analysis, (5th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hodgins, H. W. (2000). Into the future: A vision paper. Commission on Technology and Adult Learning. Retrieved October 9, 2002, from http:// www.learnativity.com/dow\nload/MP7.PDF. IBGE. (2005). Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios. Retrieved October 29, 2007, from http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/acessoainternet/.

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IBGE. (2007). Revisão do sistema de contas nacionais. Retrieved October 29, 2007, from http:// www.ibge.gov.br/. Joia, L. A. (2001). Evaluation of Hybrid SocioConstructivist Model for Teacher Training. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 9(4), 519–549. Joia, L. A. (2004). Bridging the Digital Divide: Some Initiatives in Brazil. Electronic Government, 1(3), 300–315. doi:10.1504/EG.2004.005554 Joia, L. A., & Casado, N. (2007). Fatores Críticos de Sucesso em Treinamentos Corporativos a Distância via Web: Evidências EmpíricoExploratóriasa partir de um Estudo de Caso. IN: Proceedings of the 31st.EnANPAD (Brazilian Academy of Management Meeting), Rio de Janeiro, September (pp. 23-26). Kafai, Y., & Resnick, M. (Eds.). (1996). Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in a Digital World. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kay, H., Dodd, B., & Sime, M. (1970). Iniciação à Instrução Programada e às Máquinas de Ensinar. São Paulo, Brazil: IBRASA. Keller, J., & Suzuki, K. (2004). Learner motivation and E-learning design: a multinationally validated process. Learning, Media and Technology, 29(3), 229–239. doi:10.1080/1358165042000283084 Kirschner, P., Strijbos, J. W., Karel, K. K., & Beers, P. J. (2004). Designing electronic collaborative learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(3), 47–66. doi:10.1007/BF02504675 Mager, R. F. (1972). Objetivos para o ensino efetivo. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: SENAI. Martin, K. (1998). “WBI or not WBI?” Issues of Teaching and Learning, 4(7). Retrieved September 2005, from http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au/NEWSLETTER/issue0798/dimensions.html.

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Reeves, T., & Reeves, M. (1997). Effective dimensions of interactive learning on the World Wide Web. In B. Khan (Ed.), Web-based instruction (pp. 59-66). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Reeves, T. C. (1997). A Model of the Effective Dimensions of Interactive Learning on the World Wide Web. The University of Georgia. Retrieved September, 2005, from http://it.coe. uga.edu/~treeves/WebPaper.pdf. Rosemberg, M. J. (2001). E-Learning – Strategies for delivering knowledge in the Digital Age. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sancho, J. M. (1998). Para uma tecnologia educacional, (Trad. B. A. Neves). Porto Alegre, Brazil: ArtMed. Scandura, T. A., & Williams, E. A. (2000). Research Methodology in Management: Current Practices, Trends, and Implications for Future Research. Academy of Management Journal, 43(6), 1248–1264. doi:10.2307/1556348

Sherry, L. (1996). Issues in distance learning. International Journal of Distance Education., 1(4), 337–365. Sincich, T. (1995). Business Statistics by Example. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Skinner, B. F. (1968). Technology of teaching. New York: Meredith Publishing University of Dayton. (2003). Beginning Instructional Design. Williams e-Learning Lab, University of Dayton. Retrieved February, 2004, from http://academic.udayton.edu/elearning/ onlineTraining/InstructionalDesign/. Wilhelmsen, S., Stein, I. Å., & Øyvind, M. (1998). Psychological Theories: a Brief survey of the changing views of learning. Retrieved February, 2006, from http://www.uib.no/People/sinia/ CSCL/web_struktur-4.htm. Yin, R. (1994). Case Study Research: Design and Methods, (2nd Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

This work was previously published in AAdult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes edited by T. T. Kidd; J. Keengwe pp. 188-207, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.16

Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India Shobhita Jain Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India

ABSTRACT This narrative of an engagement with the open and distance learning system and its highpoint of launching an online learning package in 2001 reveals an attempt to integrate various components of the multimedia format of course development. The uneasy task of meeting the various needs of diverse learners became possible by using the information technology tools to communicate and interact more effectively. Well-structured architecture of the Web site of the program, including its peer-evaluated threaded discussion board has been well accepted by the learners. Rudimentary in its overall design, this first ever social science online program in India may be, it has generated in the institution a live interest in encouraging further attempts at launching online programs of study.

InTRoduCTIon In the globalized world of the 21st century, education has become a tool for growth of developing

countries. In this sense, education is an economic necessity in a nation like India, where the numbers are large and resources available are fewer in relation to higher cost of education for all. Whether it is the ancient Gurukul system or the present-day classroom system, knowledge seekers have always gone to the place of learning for receiving education, but the classroom system is increasingly proving to be inadequate to meet the challenges of demands for universal education, continuing education, and equity in access to educational opportunities. With the entry of the open and distance learning (ODL) mode of education, instead of people going to the place of knowledge it has now become possible to take knowledge to people. The current educational scenario in India requires that ODL institutions strive to make full use of information technology to achieve higher productivity in a cost-effective manner. In this context this chapter narrates the story of the author’s engagement with the open and distance learning system and its highpoint of launching of an online learning package in 2001. Introduced at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to the distance-learning

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Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India

mode of education in the late 1980s, the author became interested in the ODL’s potential power for meeting the e-needs of India and educational needs of India, and after grasping, in the first five years of being at IGNOU, its unique features and their relevance to contribute substantially to the Indian educational system, an attempt was made to tap the potential of information technology tools to integrate within the ODL system. There were two challenges before us. Encouraged by the results of dogged pursuit, in some other programs of study at IGNOU, of making course development a participatory exercise (Jain, 2001), the first challenge facing us was to create shared learning environments for making possible a sustained exploration by learners around critical issues in the subject of study. For this purpose we planned to appropriately integrate various components of the multimedia format of course development. The second challenge was to meet IGNOU’s objective of addressing the learning requirements of diverse target groups. The World Bank approached IGNOU to offer a learning package for resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) managers working in the various development projects. The wide range of managers employed in government, private, and voluntary bodies to manage the R&R issues of displacement caused by development projects in India presented a wide range of potential takers of such a package. It was not easy to integrate the various needs of different groups of potential takers of this group in one learning package, and it seemed very useful to tap the information technology (IT) tools to communicate and interact more effectively with the learners employed in different institutions ranging from a non-governmental organization to the government of India both at central and state levels to financial institutions carrying out huge development projects of various kinds. The sociology and economics faculty of the School of Social Sciences at IGNOU accepted to develop the learning package, and the author of this

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chapter coordinated the project. In the light of these considerations, the goal of the collaborative learning processes focussing on the participation of learners became the underlying principle to conceptualize and develop the online learning package of a six-month post graduate certificate program of study in participatory management of displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation (PGCMRR, launched in July 2001). The chapter has four parts: basic information about PGCMRR, academic and administrative issues, lessons learned and evaluation of the program, and concluding remarks that incorporate policy implications of promoting networking and collaboration in the world of knowledge.

e-leARnIng PRogRAm As part of IGNOU’s commitment to offer courses to diverse groups of learners, and the initiative from the faculty led to launching of an online post-graduate certificate in PGCMRR through a financial support of the World Bank. Its objectives, target groups, entry requirements, and other information are given next: •

•

Objectives: The main objective of the program is to provide participatory management skills to the personnel involved in R&R work. The word “participatory” is of critical importance because no R&R is feasible without participation of those displaced. The PGCMRR students learn in this program the skills involved in taking a participatory approach, and they are expected to apply the same in their project work of PGCMRR. This, in turn, will hopefully prepare them to carry forward the same in real life to their work in the field of R&R. The target groups: The program has been targeted to: (a) those engaged in resettlement and rehabilitation (or R&R) divisions of development projects of the government and

Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India

•

•

private sectors as project officers, technical experts, field staff, and/or desk staff, and also (b) those working with the NGOs, industrial establishments, and other agencies involved in R&R plans of development projects. Entry requirements: The program is open to graduates with access to and basic competence in the use of computers and Internet. It is of six-month duration but can be completed in the span of two years. This flexibility refers only to the submission of the project work. Other course requirements have to be completed in the semester of enrollment. Those who cannot complete the online course requirements are by default the off-line learners of the program. To continue as an online learner, one has to pay a nominal fee to re-register. This option is available for four six-month cycles from the date of initial registration to the program. Date of launch and mode of delivery: The first batch of the program started in July 2001. All admissions in this batch were for online mode of delivery. From January 2002, admissions to the program were available in online as well as off-line mode.

Academic Issues PGCMRR is the first social science online program offered by any Indian University. The online delivery of PGCMRR presumed that in the near future Web-based courses are going to be the most efficient and cost-effective mode of delivery in the ODL system. One is of course well aware of the prevailing infrastructure-related deficiencies in developing countries, and keeping them in mind one can argue for Web-based delivery mode to co-exist with other forms and hope for its increased use as and when better infrastructure takes roots. Having stated the bias in favor of using the Internet as a delivery mechanism, the chapter discusses the following academic issues pertaining to PGCMRR’s online learning center.

• • •

The underlying principles of the design of online learning environment Design constraints of the learning center The special features of the site

underlying Principles of the design of online learning environment Before designing the online learning center, the first task of the program coordinator was to identify some guiding principles, which were in line with the target audience and the nature of the subject. The online learning center of PGCMRR had the following underlying principles: • •

•

•

•

Most learning tasks of the program need to be completed online requiring minimum face-to-face contact. Learners should be able to manage their own learning, share their experiences with other learners, and participate in discussions so that they are simultaneously both self-directed learners as well as participants in group learning process where they share with and care for fellow learners through online discussions. Not only do the learners need to manage their own learning, they also need the opportunity to construct their own knowledge, based on a variety of inputs. Sharing their insights and eliciting comments, the learners should submit their assignments after reconsidering their own views in the light of comments from the peer group. Teachers, or mentors as we refer to them in PGCMRR, should act as facilitators to ensure right educational advice at the right time in a right way. They need to give diagnostic as well as remedial help to the learners. Keeping in view the low bandwidth available to the learners, the learning center has to limit itself to minimum graphics and multimedia content to facilitate easy access.

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•

Going along with IGNOU’s supplementary approach to audio/video components of its multimedia learning packages, the PGCMRR learning center would use CD-ROM to deliver audio/video inputs, with just brief annotations of them on the Web.

design Constraints of the learning Center The Web-based technology has enabled us in designing the PGCMRR learning center to integrate two types of learning environments, namely, tele-learning-based, and Web-based, for both synchronous and asynchronous communication. In PGCMRR, the Web-based technology provides a learning process that is essentially hypermediabased instructional system that uses the attributes and resources of the World Wide Web. To develop this instructional system our second task was to build a framework or the theory guiding its structure. Mostly three schools of thought, behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, have been widely used for this purpose. Of the three, constructivism has been most suitable for online learning environments. It demands continuous interaction among instructional designer, content expert, and technical support person. In PGCMRR our approach has been an eclectic blending of the three learning theories (Mishra, 2002).

Special Features of the Site The program structure of PGCMRR comprises five courses with a total of 16 credits, and each credit is equivalent to 30 study hours for the learner. Of the five courses, four are theory courses and the last one is practical oriented project work. The project work is the application-oriented end of the four theory courses. The theory courses have a total of 48 lessons or units packed in 13 modules. All the five courses are available on the Web site. But in the light of low bandwidth and generally poor connection of the Internet in

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India, the media mix for PGCMRR has been so arranged that while course lessons are all available online, the audio and video components of the courses are on CD-ROM. As a result the audio/video section of the PGCMRR Web site has annotations only. The learners use the online learning center for completion of their assignments-related work and for interaction with mentors and among themselves. Online help (a feature added later on), available for two hours daily from Monday to Friday, helps those learners who are relatively new to the use of the Internet, to easily negotiate the various sections of the Web site. Important topics of R & R have been discussed in a series of guest lectures, which have been recorded for telecast for the learners as well as general public. The learning center for PGCMRR or the Web site http//www.rronline.ignou.ac.in (earlier domain http://www.rronline.org) has a simple but highly interactive design. Lest the learners get lost in the cyberspace, a constant panel on the left side helps them to navigate through the site. As we discovered that many learners had little skill of using the Internet for purposes other than e-mail, a help line button was added to facilitate them. Further, many learners miss the very first online activity of orientation program; another button of orientation program has been added to the menu. The design of the Web site in this sense is not a one-time activity. It is an ongoing process that incorporates new features as and when required for efficient running of the site and achieving the main objectives of PGCMRR in terms of participatory approach to R&R issues. The learners mostly use the announcements section as a notice board. Learners have given their suggestions to modify its contents. Their participation has helped us to make it more learner-friendly. For example, they suggested that notices regarding too many deadlines confuse them. Deadlines should not be arriving too soon for too many activities.

Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India

The program guide section is used by learners to keep a check on their timetable and also to understand the IGNOU system of open and distance learning. Any visitor to the site can consult it. This section provides access to few sample courses for the visitors to have a feel of the program. Only the registered learners of PGCMRR can access the section on courses. It has lessons in all the four courses and guidelines for project work. Design of each lesson promotes active learning as based on behavioristic approach each lesson has been divided into small chunks with self-assessment questions (SAQs) interspersed within it. As the learners work on SAQs and submit the answers, the system automatically provides immediate feedback about the correctness of the response. The learner can compare his or her answer with the one generated by the online system. Synchronous communication takes place during e-counselling sessions, which are not compulsory to attend. Learners are however encouraged by their mentors to use the facility to clarify their doubts and share their views and experiences with the mentor and fellow learners. For purposes of completing assignments all learners of PGCMRR in a batch are divided into groups of 10 to 15. In the first cycle the same groups received e-counselling by separate mentors. In the second cycle, for counselling two to three groups were merged into one because the learner participation in each session was only 25% to 30%. Since most of PGCMRR learners are working in the field, they are not able to access the Internet for attending e-counselling sessions. They contact the mentors upon their return and through e-mail clarify all their doubts and discuss complex concepts and issues. Completion of all assignments is a compulsory component of the program. All online learners complete them online only. The assignments are continuous in nature, and their main purpose is to test the learners’ comprehension of the concepts and help them to go through the courses. More

importantly, the Assignments button is so designed that the continuous process of assignments-related work establishes a community of learners who share their ideas and experiences among themselves, derive benefits from the points of view of fellow learners, and gain self confidence in articulating their own views in a congenial and friendly learning environment of one’s own peer group. The three sets of assignments carry 50% weight in the total evaluation. Of the three types of assignments in PGCMRR, namely participation in discussion forum (PDF), online computer marked assignments (OCMAs), and online diary (OD), the first one demands considerable participation by way of sharing of and commenting on each other’s work. The learners have most enjoyed this part of their work and found it very useful. All learners, graduate and experienced in field, are able to learn better from peer interaction. The system works like this that each course has one discussion forum, and learners participate in it as a group of 10 to 15 in each group. Each learner is to provide an outline in the first instance to a PDF question and comments on the postings of the other members of the group and evaluate them. Then, in the light of comments received each learner submits the full answer to the question. The mentor evaluates this. The average of the marks given by the learners and the mentor makes the total marks in one PDF. There is only one PDF question for each course, and the learner reads all outlines submitted by group members as well as writes comments on them. All this adds up to quite a lot of work in a spirit of sharing and understanding each other’s point of view. This is exactly what an R&R officer needs to do in relation to displaced persons, that is, share and understand their views on R&R. Overall the PDFs carry 20% weight in the evaluation of assignments. Each member of the group gets a different question to answer, and therefore participants in the discussion forum are able to cover the entire course by reading other members’ answers.

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OCMAs comprise an objective type multiplechoice test for all the four courses, with 25 questions for each course to be answered in 30 minutes. The tests are aimed and once completed cannot be modified. The questions appear one by one on the screen to be answered by the learner, and answers are evaluated by the system. No learner receives the same question. Overall the OCMAs carry 10% weight in the evaluation structure of assignments. The online diary is a concept to facilitate reflective thinking and preparation for the project work. Making a daily diary entry online about their project-work related activities, the learners are able to document their field experiences, and often they critically respond to situations faced in the field. The learners have the option of typing their entries online or in a word processor and submit them at one go. This flexibility has been incorporated after many learners found it difficult to access the Internet every day. The mentors evaluate the diary entries, which receive 20% weight in the evaluation of assignments. The program has no traditional three-hour paper test for term-end examination. The project work report is considered as final examination. It receives 50% weight in the overall evaluation. The project work report can be submitted any time after five months of the program cycle. Up to the period of two years from the date of registration, the learner has the flexibility of submitting the report in any one of the four semesters. This part of the program complements the online learning that takes place during completion of assignments. The learner has the option of submitting his or her report in different kinds of formats such as video film, audio, slides, pictorial depiction of an event, and so forth. Other important features of the learning center are: •

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The facility for online access to other related material on R & R searched, identified, and filtered by experts in the field.

•

• •

A private place for each learner with his or her complete details like name, address, enrolment number, log-in name, password, assignment grades, and so forth, with the facility of changing the password and address. A section on social chat among learners that emulates the cafeteria concept. The site has an in-built communication center for e-mail communication amongst the learners and mentors. This is the most used section of the site.

AdmInISTRATIve ISSueS Content experts and the coordinator of PGCMRR prepared during a series of workshops the course outline, its scope, learning objectives, and content structure. In addition, they prepared the assessment items and discussion questions. Subsequently the program co-coordinator conceptualized and visualized the learning process in terms of experiential exercises. Instructional designers played an important role by designing the front-end of the online course and identified course activities as per the need of the subject in collaboration with the program coordinator. Mishra (2002) designed a prototype of the Web site design, which was implemented for the delivery of the program. Digitalization of learning materials took place right from the beginning of the development process, and course writers prepared lessons and transmitted them electronically. The project coordination team completed the process of editing while a graphic artist prepared appropriate illustrations. After the due process of inviting proposals from Web site developers, a committee of information technology specialists, set-up by IGNOU, selected one firm to carry out the task of Web site development for launching PGCMRR, the online six-month postgraduate certificate program of study. The Web site development firm in collabora-

Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India

tion with the project co-coordinator executed the various tasks involved in technical production of the learning site as per the main structure of the prototype design. The faculty learned about the many challenges of online course development during its interaction with members of the Web site development firm.

PRogRAm evAluATIon We have access to the conclusions of the program evaluation, opinions of stakeholders, analysis of the use of virtual learning environment. After its two cycles, a team of an outside expert and an IGNOU faculty (who was not involved in planning, development, and delivery of PGCMRR) carried out the evaluation of PGCMRR (Swarnakar & Kumar, 2002). The evaluation experts

used a variety of evaluation tools/methodologies including personal online interviews with both groups, namely the candidates that registered in the course and the course writer/editors, who prepared/edited the lessons (see Example 1). The evaluation concluded that “PGCMRR course has fair level of sustainability as there remains demand for it by the candidates from government/private sectors/NGOs/donor agencies, and so forth. If the certificate course is upgraded to diploma level, the program will find more takers, thus it will sustain itself.” (See Example 2.) Later another IGNOU faculty undertook one more evaluation of PGCMRR’s online delivery (Mishra, 2005). This study has the following to say: This paper reports on the feedback study undertaken to learn from the experiences of the users of

Example 1. An Excerpt from the Evaluation Report All the online students were able to understand and appreciate the rationale behind the PDFs and online diary. One of them has stated, “The pattern of assignment is nicely structured and gives ample opportunity to improve by getting views from others also. Use for social cause One of the learners remarks, “PGCMRR course has really enlightened me about the knowledge of R & R, which is useful in the planning field. I can help my organization in resolving the displacement, R&R issues. Also, I can contribute by looking into the aspects where displacement could be avoided or minimized and mitigated. Guidelines enforce that R & R takes place in a proper way by involvement and participation of PAPs.” It gives an in-depth understanding of the development-induced displacement in the country, its vast impact on DPs and PAPs, and the interrelatedness of the issues. The concept of stakeholders, role of NGOs, and their importance are worth understanding. There is need to work for sustainable development to minimize the impacts of development induced displacement. The importance of participatory approach PRA exercise, RAP for better R&R program, and monitoring of R&R activities are imperatives. Another learner says, “I am very glad that I have been given an opportunity to do something for displaced/ project affected persons in the Jharia coal field.”

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Example 2. An Excerpt from the Evaluation Report Learning about project and people Being my first time experience in the development field, I have begun to understand a lot from the discussion on the topic (as it happens in my office) and have begun to follow projects with R&R with keen interest. I have put to use this learning in my project work assignment. I intend to contribute actively in preparation/review of RAPs in a participatory manner. It needs considering and incorporating in views and comments of all stakeholders carefully. The course content gives the confidence and inculcates a desire to get associated with the working for affected people. The impacts of displacement are many and interrelated. So are the ways of rehabilitation and the need to minimize its impact in the national interest, says another candidate.

the online learning environment. All components of the program have been completed by 50% of the respondents, and from the rest, at least 50% were working on the project work. This is an indicator of the seriousness of the respondents and the usefulness of their views to the university. The majority of the respondents (87.5%) indicated that given an opportunity, they would like to join another online program, and 56.3% said their expectations of joining the program have been met. (p. 570) The PDF section, which is a peer-evaluated threaded discussion (asynchronous) board, has been well accepted by the group. It is probably because of the nature of the target group of the program and the respondents, who are development workers, known for their ability to discuss issues emotionally and forcefully. At the same time, the synchronous sessions (e-counselling and social chat) did not receive much importance, as most of the development professionals are on tour in remote and difficult areas without access to computers and Internet. The respondents were satisfied with the role of the mentors in the ecounselling sessions, but they were not satisfied with the interaction amongst other learners. It shows that there was much room for improvement

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in the organization of the synchronous sessions. (p. 571)

leSSonS leARned The experience of running the program for the first two cycles provided us the following valuable lessons (Mishra & Jain, 2002): •

•

As most learners were new to the open and distance learning system, and many of them were also new to online learning, and they were also new to each other, the purpose of orienting them to the working of the Web site did not succeed. The learners used up the Internet time to get to know each other. As an alternative we have put all FAQs relating to the Web site, originally meant for the orientation program, in a separate button of the site menu. In addition, learners have now the facility of online help to facilitate the navigation through the site. Initially the learners were supposed to limit their answers to a PDF question to 8,000 characters. Almost all learners revolted to this limitation. Finding a solution to enable them to express themselves was our course

Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India

•

•

•

•

of action. Both the faculty and students insisted that the Web site developer should provide the facility to prepare the answers in either text or word files and upload the same, with text and graphics and so forth on the site directly. This allows them to save their answers on their local machines. In addition, they can now download all answers of the group members to read and evaluate them off-line. This has reduced the Internet time spent by each learner. The mentors need to be proactive and provide continuous guidance to the learners. The tutors/mentors should provide them enough time to study and answer assignment questions. Students of PGCMRR have provided us useful feedback on learning materials and assessment questions. They have thus helped the faculty to remove errors in the course material. Students using unfair means to answer the questions revealed possible loopholes in security systems. This led us to develop more secure systems to avoid unfair means. After holding a couple of such sessions we realized that mentors’ training was not adequate and they required more specialized training to handle such sessions so that they can remind learners of the e-space and limited time of synchronous meeting. We also learned that online learners need continuous help; and for one to one problem solving a line of communication through e-mail is a very good mechanism available to us. This tool has, in fact, provided more contact between learners and mentors. Online learners are at times in contact with the mentors on a daily basis. In the process mentors have discovered that they have learned a great deal from their students.

BeST/woRST PRACTICeS The following are the three-actions/practices in order of priority in the program that should be taken note of by others: •

•

•

Do not feel disheartened: The program coordinator went through a fair amount of trials and tribulations during the planning and developing phases of the program. The final phase of its online delivery proved to be quite an ordeal in terms of kicks from both the learners and the university system. The latter has yet to come to terms with the requirements of online delivery of its programs. Yet, the students have again enrolled for the subsequent cycles, taking us to yet more learning from our experiment. Face the reality of digital divide: The program was also launched in off-line mode from January 2002. Comparing the outcomes of the two modes of delivery in terms of participation of learners in the interactive learning process one is able to appreciate the merits of online delivery that provides much more interaction among the learners and between the learners and their mentors. All off-line learners of PGCMRR are simply a part of IGNOU’s faceless crowd of those enrolled in its various programs. We know for sure that counselling of off-line learners is a non-existent feature, and their learning is entirely based on their individual experience. It is completely devoid of group-based collaborative learning. The only sharing that occurs among off-line students is confined to copying out each other’s assignments. Yet we have to make the online delivery to co-exist with off-line mode because the Internet facility is still the privilege of only a few in India. Learn to continue to have faith in your vision despite criticisms of all kinds: PGCMRR has a well-structured architecture of its

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Web site; it has a committed band of faculty members; each year some students enrol in it, yet PGCMRR has the reputation of a low-enrollment program. The institutional set-up does not feel interested in declaring results of those who have completed the courses in all respects. This discourages fresh enrollment in larger numbers. Though it is clear that upgrading the certificate into a diploma level program would attract more students, the usual delays of the institutional machinery have taken more than two years to take a firm decision on this matter. Yet the efforts are on to add some more inputs and offer the program as a post-graduate diploma.

neTwoRkIng And CollABoRATIon And ConCluSIon nature of networking and Collaborative Arrangements to Run the Program Initially a team comprising the IGNOU faculty, its computer division, and the Web site developer collaborated to run the program, and all its teething troubles were gradually sorted out to the satisfaction of its learners and other stakeholders. From 2003, the university decided to make only the computer division and the faculty responsible for running the program. This has resulted in slackening of efforts. As a result there is little or no availability of access to the Web site for ecounselling sessions. The faculty has implemented the idea of bringing even the off-line students to e-counselling. This has worked nicely at least for the Delhi-based students, but of late owing to the shifting of the campus from its earlier location to the new complex, the system has not been functioning efficiently and students have had to

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take recourse to the e-mail mechanism. Yet, the hope is that once all units of IGNOU have shifted to its new location, it will be possible to make use of the full capacity of the various features of PGCMRR’s online delivery. Hopefully by that time the program will be offered as a diploma so that there will be more takers of the program. IGNOU has taken up the matter of training of its faculty in developing online programs. However rudimentary PGCMRR may appear in its design and delivery, it has the status of being a pioneer, and its spirit and dogged pursuit of objectives have brought the institution to offer further training to its faculty.

The need for Professional development All of us in the R&R project team were highly committed to our work, but were not trained or qualified to do what we aimed to achieve. We learned our skills while we worked on this project and focused on developing effective collaborative mechanisms to facilitate collegiality among the learners, and we endeavoured to share information through the use of online networks. We had no access to professional development in the use of ICTs, but after launching PGCMRR our university did organize a series of workshops to train IGNOU faculty in application of ICT tools. In fact, the coordinator of R&R project was invited to share her experiences with the participants of these workshops. So PGCMRR acted as a harbinger to staff development. It made the need for such training visible and concrete. PGCMRR championed a new form of teaching, and IGNOU has now initiated steps to promote and nurture these forms of developing and delivering its new courses. Post PGCMRR period has witnessed changes in the sense that some of IGNOU faculty have learned to be “resource specialists” and “response specialists” and the effort is that learners are less teacher-dependent and they engage in self, peer and tutor guided, and resource-based learning.

Delivery of a Social Science Online Program in India

This has been the unintended consequence of developing PGCMRR that quite a few of IGNOU faculty have now adopted new technologies and technology-based work practices. In terms of sustainability of PGCMRR, we need to pay heed to the considered opinions expressed in the program’s evaluation report. However, we need not worry about its low-enrollment status. PGCMRR is not a commercial, job-market oriented learning package. It is a socially useful training program that will attract only a few. Yet it will serve its purpose of contributing to participatory development that makes all development projects more humane and equitable. A pilot project of introducing an online program of study in social sciences has brought before us both our own naiveté about online learning processes and a variety of problems faced by the learners. It is only through the process that we are able to recognize the possible pitfalls and their remedies. The faculty and the students have been constantly revising their positions and views regarding the subject of study and also ways of studying it. Perhaps this is all that lifelong learning is about and during its course we can only learn more and not harm us in any way. With the hope of improving both contents of the course material and methods of learning them we intend to carry on our online learning system.

ReFeRenCeS Jain, S. (2001). Participatory learning and discourse on local and global culture of the disadvantaged. Indian Journal of Open Learning, 10(2), 159-173. Mishra, S., & Jain, S. (2002). Designing an online learning environment for participatory management of displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation. Paper presented at the 2nd Pan Commonwealth Conference on Open Learning held at Durban, South Africa from 28 July to 3 August 2002. Retrieved May 19, 2004, from http:// www.col.org pcf2/papers/mishra.pdf Mishra, S. (2002). A design framework for online learning environment. British Journal of Educational Technology, 33(4), 493-496. Mishra, S. (2005). Learning from online learners. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(3), 569-574. Swarnakar, R. C., & Kumar, K. (2002). Evaluation report of PGCMRR. New Delhi: Internal Report, IGNOU.

This work was previously published in Cases on Global E-Learning Practices: Successes and Pitfalls, edited by R. Sharma and S. Mishra, pp. 82-94, copyright 2007 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.17

Integrating Classroom and Online Instruction in an Introductory American Government Course Richard Engstrom Georgia State University, USA

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

This case outlines the author’s experience teaching a large Introduction to American Government course using a hybrid classroom/online approach. The benefit of adding a set of online modules to the course was that students were able to engage the material in ways that are more readily available in traditional, smaller sections of a course. The rationale behind each module, as well as the problems and successes that accompanied each of them, are presented. Finally, the technical and human challenges that accompany the approach and the overall benefits of adopting hybrid approaches to teaching and learning are discussed.

In the Fall semester of 2007, I implemented a new way of teaching a course commonly offered in the political science curriculum: Introduction to American Government. Usually taught purely as a lecture course, I replaced half of the lecture component with online modules that I designed. Those modules, I hoped, would provide the same opportunities for learning that are offered in regular sections of the class. The university was interested in seeing how feasible replacing classroom time with online instruction might be. Since I had experience teaching online classes and conducting research on classroom teaching, I conducted the initial trial-run of the idea.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-880-2.ch015

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Integrating Classroom and Online Instruction

In order to compare how the class went with what usually occurred in an Introduction to American Government class, I taught two sections; one section involved the online components, while the other was taught as a typical lecture course. I designed the half-online class with the intention of using the online modules to both provide the course material that would be missing due to the shorter lecture time, and with the intention of improving the course. Teaching what are usually large sections of a class like this one usually leaves something to be desired, pedagogically speaking: interaction is minimal, the opportunity to have students apply the material to their broader interests is difficult, and the willingness of students to ask questions or engage in a debate is rare. I saw the opportunity to add a significant online component to the class as a chance to address the usual limitations of large, introductory sections. As I discuss below, my experience implementing this new way of teaching was generally positive, but instructive to me and to others who may wish to implement such a mode of instruction in large classes. While many of the online modules I constructed worked well, the online environment provides challenges that an instructor will want to consider before taking on a half-online class. The potential benefits that exist for colleges and universities, as well as for students, suggest that this mode of instruction is worth the attention of educators. Attention to what works and what does not work will make the job of future instructors much easier and open the door for further improvements as more institutions of higher education adopt online instruction as a major component of their course offerings. Indications are that online teaching will, indeed, play a significant role in the future of higher education. A survey by Bonk (2001) found that online instructors expect their online teaching responsibilities will account for over 50% of their teaching by the year 2010; an expectation that lags behind trends evident in the world of corporate training (Bonk, 2002). This may well

be because as demand on institutions of higher learning is peaking, those institutions lack the facilities to accommodate the demand (Oblinger, Barone, & Hawkins, 2001). Online course delivery is certainly a readily available component of the solution that will have to be brought to bear on this problem. Teachers of large courses that place disproportionate demands on college and university facilities, like Introduction to American Government, would do well to prepare strategies that will allow for effective online approaches to teaching and learning.

BACkgRound Introduction to American Government is a class that is often required of undergraduate students in the United States. It is usually part of what is known as the “core curriculum,” the set of classes that college students must take as part of their program of study, regardless of their major or areas of interest. As citizens in a democracy, one assumes, some training in the details of that democracy is a useful component of the education we give to those who will participate in -and perhaps even lead- democratic institutions. Therefore, along with introductory courses in written communication, basic mathematics, and physical education, American students often find that they must satisfactorily complete a course that outlines the institutions and processes of American government. Indeed, several states require as a matter of law that students who receive an undergraduate degree from a public institution in their state successfully complete a course in American Government.

Course Content and goals The class is usually structured as a lecture course, where students take notes on a lecture given by the instructor two or three times a week during the semester. An academic semester usually begins

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with a discussion of the American Revolution, which is followed by overviews of the founding of the United States, the debate over the language of the Constitution, the nature of the Federal system that emerged from the constitutional debate. Then, depending on the instructor, the more current aspects of government and politics in the United States are tackled one by one: American political parties, public opinion, elections, civil rights and liberties, interest groups; and at some point the instructor works through the major governing institutions: Congress, the Presidency, and the Court system (as well as, perhaps, the Federal Bureaucracy). The end result, it is hoped, is an education that provides students, whatever their chosen vocation, with the ability to participate in the governing of a democracy in an informed manner. The goal of the course is ultimately to provide students with what is commonly called a “civic education,” one that, as Guttman (1987) says, allows for “the cultivation of the virtues, knowledge, and skills necessary for political participation” (p. 287).

large Classes The role Introduction to American Government plays in the general education of undergraduates both places demands on and provides opportunities for political science departments. Student demand for the class is constant and can strain the resources of a department, drawing faculty away from teaching courses that serve to meet the needs of those students who have chosen to focus on political science as a field of study. On the other hand, the class can be seen as a “gateway course,” drawing students into a sustained interest in the field given the introduction they received while meeting the general, university requirements for an undergraduate degree. Faculty members in political science departments, therefore, frequently find themselves teaching Introduction to American politics sections as part of their regular duties.

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Satisfying a course need that is often as large as the institution’s student body itself often leads to departments creating very large sections of the class. Though some schools have the resources to teach the class as a small seminar, it is not unusual for introductory American Government classes to be quite large. A common venue for the course is a two-hundred or more seat lecture hall, where faculty members are unable to connect with students on an individual level and students are relatively anonymous to both the instructor and most of their fellow students. In some of the very largest sections known to this author, where classes take place in a 600 student room, the instructor wears a microphone and delivers lectures from a stage, and he or she literally cannot see the students in the class because the room’s lighting renders the audience completely dark from the vantage point of the stage.

Assessment and outcomes Though the learning outcomes associated with Introduction to American Government are as varied as the instructors who teach the course, students are usually evaluated based on their ability to recall and apply the material on exams taken in class. American Government textbooks almost always supply instructors with banks of exam questions for this purpose (either printed or on CD), allowing instructors to select questions based on topic and level of difficulty. In most situations, other methods of assessment are not practical as instructors are usually unable to grade 200 or more essays on top of their other teaching responsibilities. Often, class grades are based entirely on two exams; a mid-term and a final, both of which are composed entirely of multiplechoice questions. An unfortunate consequence of this approach is that students learn that success in the class is tied to how successfully they can recall discrete information from the lectures or the textbook, rather than to how well they can work

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with the material, or apply it to an individual or collective purpose.

Challenges The need to teach so many students in the introductory class generally requires that political science professors teach the course early and often. Newly hired faculty are frequently asked to teach the course immediately upon being hired, the demand for the class being a known quantity, and the role of the new faculty member’s subfield in the curriculum being an unknown at this early stage. The new faculty member, unfortunately, is at several disadvantages when it comes to teaching the course. First, political scientists are almost always trained in a specific subfield, and their focus on that subfield comes at the expense of devoting attention to broader aspects of government. Distribution requirements for coursework and the comprehensive exam system assure that graduate students will not be overly narrow in their training, but few -if any- graduate programs can produce graduates who are expert in all of the topics covered in Introduction to American Government. A faculty member who has just spent several years studying and writing about the committee system in Congress can find him or herself teaching (and fielding student questions) about the extent of civil liberties protections after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the role of the tea trade in the politics of the American colonies in the 18th century, and the rules interest groups must follow when raising and spending money on behalf of candidates for elected office. As a result, faculty members find a large part of their teaching responsibilities involve teaching topics on which they are not completely familiar, and which require a great deal of learning on the part of the teacher as well as the student. Another disadvantage is that the students in the class are usually motivated only by the university requirement that they pass the course in order to receive their undergraduate degree. The

vast majority of students in introductory classes are uninterested in politics and government and participate in the class only to the extent that is necessary. To the extent that classes go well when students are engaged with and interested in the material, Introduction to American Government provides instructors with a challenge. A final disadvantage has to do with the resources available to instructors of the course. Graduate training in political science (like most fields) pays very little attention to the role teaching will play in graduate students’ future careers. New faculty have usually not considered how they will teach, how they will structure assignments, or how they will evaluate students. The course’s built in challenges (covering large amounts of material unrelated to the instructor’s research and training, and therefore unfamiliar to him or her, containing a large number of students -most of whom are not particularly interested in the material) make these considerations particularly important. It is difficult enough to become convinced that one has successfully gotten through to a small group of students in the major who are interested in learning the material in a course covering a subject matter on which we are most expert. When none of these conditions hold, the conditions for success are much smaller and the manner in which we conduct the class warrants much more attention. There are many options to consider when teaching Introduction to American Government, and researchers have examined these options in great detail. The class can utilize multimedia presentations on the part of the professor (Jordan & Sanchez, 1994), simulation exercises (Gordon, 2003), focused discussion assignments (Wilson, Pollock, & Hamann, 2007), and other approaches. Depending on the size of the class, the abilities of the students, and the resources of the department, among other things, instructors can implement many approaches to teaching the class in a manner that takes advantage of their strengths as a teacher and the various learning modes implemented by

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their students. Unfortunately, there is little time and few resources available for such considerations; and faculty tend to teach the class in the manner it was taught to them. By and large students get classes consisting of lectures that expound upon the material, chapter by chapter, in the book, and multiple choice tests to determine how much learning is taking place. In support of the many options instructors have in delivering the course material and evaluating students, researchers have found that some approaches do, in fact, work better than others. Experimental research on the effectiveness of particular innovations in political science courses include investigations of courses delivered over the internet (Pollock & Wilson, 2002), and the use of comparative material to provide counter-examples to the U.S. case (Engstrom, 2008). It seems that paying attention to how the course is taught can reap measurable benefits for the instructors and departments that do so. Innovation, it seems, can benefit students if one is careful about the nature and the goals of the innovation.

SeTTIng The STAge During the Fall semester of 2007 I taught an Introduction to American Government class at Georgia State University that heavily integrated online teaching components to a lecture course. I was interested in determining the feasibility of replacing traditional classroom lectures with online learning activities. To do this, I created a set of online learning assignments designed to supplement a condensed set of lectures. During the semester, I taught two sections of “Political Science 1101: American Government.” A class that met at 9:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays received one lecture a week and one online assignment a week. A second class that met at 11:00 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays received two lectures each week and no internet assignments.

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My goal was to integrate online teaching techniques into an introductory American Government class in such a way that the online segments of class would not only deliver the information normally provided by a lecture, but would also provide students with learning experiences that are not usually unavailable in a typical 1000 level section with large numbers of students. Though studies have shown online classes to be a comparable alternative to classes that provide more traditional methods of instruction in terms of teaching and learning effectiveness (Allen & Seaman, 2004), the goal in this case was to exceed what is normally offered in a typical, large Introduction to American Government class. The online components, it was hoped, would transform the course from one that required students who passively “learn,” to one that would offer a more interactive experience –a transformation others have found online courses to facilitate (Partlow & Gibbs, 2003). The change was expected to be transformative for the instructor as well, as the evaluation process changed from the two- or three-test model to one where weekly activities would be used, in addition to the tests, to evaluate the performance of students. This expectation conforms to what Sammons (2003) finds that online classes alter the role played by instructors as compared to traditional class settings. I integrated four online assignment formats.

Format 1: discussion Board In weeks when we used the online discussion board, students participated in an online discussion on the topic covered during that week. Students were required to post at least three messages on the discussion board, which would be open from Tuesday after class until the following Monday. Discussion board assignments were designed to get students to interact with one another and discuss the topics covered in the course. During these weeks I posted several initial discussion

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questions, and students picked a discussion to join. Since everything on the board was testable, students read the discussions in which they both did, and did not participate. Since students do not generally discuss much in large sections of firstyear level classes, this assignment encouraged them to consider what their fellow-students were saying and to engage their colleagues in exchanges about their positions.

Format 2: Paper exchange In these weeks students wrote short (1-2 pages) position papers on a topic assigned in class. Students then exchanged, by email, their paper with two classmates, who wrote short critiques and reactions which they returned to the author. Students revised their papers in response to the critiques and submitted the final draft. Student drafts were due to assigned classmates on Wednesday at midnight, and critiques were due back to authors by Friday at midnight. Final drafts were emailed to the professor by Monday of the following week at midnight. teaching and learning assignments were designed to get students to make (relatively) extended arguments in writing, and to thoughtfully critique each others’ work. These activities are rarely available to students in first-year sections. The assignments involved students finding and reading political opinion on the internet (with some direction given in class), and reacting to the arguments presented in the opinion pieces. Having multiple opinion columns available for students to choose from gave the assignment some breadth of coverage, as students read their opinion piece as well as the pieces read by their partners.

Format 3: web Research Students were assigned topics in class, and found information (as opposed to opinion) on the internet that could be brought to bear on the topic. Students then submitted a short (1-2 pages) position paper that incorporated the information into a position

that the student endorsed. Papers were due by Monday of the following week at midnight. The Web research assignment was designed to connect what is discussed in class to the wider world. Students are called on to provide more than argument in support of their positions as they progress through college, and this assignment required that they search and retrieve information relevant to the issues that come up in class –which they then applied as part of the assignment they turned in. It also encouraged them to go beyond their textbook when thinking about their positions on the subject matter covered in class.

Format 4: Collaborative online Study guide Students were divided into groups of between five and ten students, and the groups each produced a Web page or other collaborative online document designed to serve as a study guide for the week’s topic. Contents included outlining the main points of the chapter, brainstorming possible questions for the test, identifying difficult concepts and ways to understand those concepts. The document was assessed on the day of the test. Collaborative study guides offered students the chance to work with one another in a study group. Producing the study guide requires students to think about how to study for a test and to share their approaches with colleagues in the class. In first-year courses with large numbers of students, students usually do not know many other people in class and cannot easily form groups to discuss the material before tests. Also, the free-form nature of building the study guide allowed students to draw on their various strengths when working together to create a document that is helpful in preparing for the test.

Potential Benefits It is my belief that the online components of this course had the potential to have a number of positive consequences. First, I think that students could

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potentially learn the material as well or better than they would in a class run in a more conventional format. By dividing up how the material is presented, I expected students to be more engaged with the material and to retain and integrate more of it. Second, the online assignments and grade book allowed for faster feedback about student learning, as assignments were more numerous than in a normal introductory class and were graded as they were completed. Finally, since the course, as it is outlined here, is half-online many of the challenges of online grading can be overcome. Regular, fact-based exams in class are still possible, meaning that students are still responsible for learning the facts that are presented in class and in the textbook. The online assignments are not information-recall tasks, and collaboration is not a concern (collaboration is, in fact, usually an important aspect of the assignment).

CASe deSCRIPTIon Implementing the innovation first involved informing the students in the hybrid class that the course would be taught in a manner that differed from what they were used to. I announced that while the Tuesday class would meet as normal each week, the Thursday class would be replaced with regularly scheduled online activities. The mood in the room was overwhelmingly positive, as one might expect when an early morning class is taken off of students’ schedules. I outlined each online module, and each was viewed by the class as a better alternative to a regular class meeting. The online components of the class made use of each student’s university-provided account on the uLearn system. uLearn (formerly WebVista) is an online classroom management environment. It provides resources such as discussion boards, chat rooms, a messaging/email system, grade books, and online testing capabilities. The discussion board module in the class was conducted entirely on the uLearn system, and the paper exchange

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relied on students sending drafts of papers to one another and to the instructor using the uLearn messaging system. The Web research assignment and the collaborative study guide did not rely on uLearn, though students did use the messaging system to send in their research papers and online study guide URL Web addresses. These technological choices met the pedagogical goals of each of the modules. uLearn’s discussion board allowed for a discussion to take place that was both instructor and student led. Students often responded to prompts provided by the instructor, but were just as likely to begin a discussion topic of their own. The online discussion board allowed the instructor to add a discussion component to what would otherwise have been a class-experience dominated by lectures. uLearn’s messaging system allowed students to deliver drafts and critiques into one another’s message inboxes, while copying the instructor’s inbox as well. This allowed for an electronic transfer of information in a virtual space dedicated to the course, which was preferable to mixing the papers in with the students’ and instructor’s regular email. Students did the Web research assignment, in which they were required to search the internet for information relevant to an argument they had made in class, using the internet browser with which they were most comfortable. This allowed them to focus on the assignment rather than the tool necessary to complete the assignment. Similarly, no explicit technological choices were made by the instructor about how students completed the online study guide module. This allowed students to work with the internet tools with which they were most familiar, rather than focus energy learning how to use a particular Web site creation system. Since groups were large enough that at least one member was comfortable with some approach to Web site construction, students could focus on the intent of the assignment: working together to organize and present the material.

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All of the assignments had a broad, underlying goal: encouraging students to go beyond listening to lectures and memorizing information. The modules each provided students with the opportunity to work with the material covered in Introduction to American Government. By participating in online discussions, electronically exchanging papers, doing Web research, and cooperating on Web projects, students attended a large section of the class, while benefiting from course elements that are usually provided only in much smaller sections.

Technical Issues with the modules One initial, general challenge to the approach taken in the half-online class was the challenge technology presented for several members of the class. Older students were concerned because they had trouble understanding how an online class would work. Other students worried because the system I was going to use to implement most of the online content had failed in other classes they had taken in the past. Login problems, interface features that did not work, and other problems made them worry that their grade might be in jeopardy due to technical problems. Indeed, as outlined below, technical problems were to become a major challenge to the implementation of the online component of the class. Of all the modules, the discussion boards were the easiest to implement. Students were largely familiar with the idea of a discussion board and could understand how it would work. Many classes had implemented discussion boards, though usually to handle questions from students about the class rather than as a forum to discuss the material –much less one that was being graded for credit. Students were also largely of a generation that was very used to online discussions taking place outside of their academic life. From most of the students’ point of view, the online discussion board was a venue in which to discuss the material just

like a classroom was a venue in which to discuss the material. Students performed remarkably well on the discussion boards. Though many students’ desire to participate only in the manner and to the extent to which they would receive credit for their participation was easily discernible, that approach to in-class discussion is also common. With only some prodding on the part of the instructor, students were able to raise points about the material, assert counterpoints, and exchange opinions in a manner that simulated a classroom discussion. Interestingly, the discussion board provided several students with a forum in which they excelled. Often, in a large class, an instructor gets to know a few students: those who feel comfortable speaking up and asking questions in front of large numbers of other students, and those who are willing to attend faculty office hours to discuss problems they are having learning the material. The discussion board gave me the opportunity to recognize bright students who were not the sorts of students who would ask a question in a large lecture hall. I do believe that the discussion board gave many students a forum in which they could interact with the material in the class and with each other that would be unavailable in a normal, large, lecture-based Introduction to American Government class. The second online module was the paper exchange. This assignment also dealt with technology with which almost all of the students were comfortable and familiar. Students were able to complete their papers in computer word processing software and send them to other students with whom I had matched them. Since I received copies of all emails, I was able to evaluate first drafts, comments from fellow students, and final drafts. I was also able to see who did and did not participate in the assignment, so students were aware of the need to participate and to take the assignment seriously. On the whole, the paper exchange can be regarded as having been a success as well.

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This assignment did, however, suffer from a technical problem. In order to attach a paper to an email in the software used in the class, students were required to click on an “Attach File” button on the screen. For some students, the Attach File button worked as it was supposed to, but many students reported that the button was “grayed-out” and would not respond to attempts to use it. Only because a student in the class was technically proficient enough to understand the issues involved, we figured out that many students in the class had an older version of a utility program that usually works in a computer’s background: Java. Java usually updates and installs as part of an operating system and other programs running on a computer. Most users are unaware of Java, and certainly do not know which version they are running or how to install an updated version. I think that this sort of a problem is probably going to be endemic to implementing online components of classes, given the increasing complexity of the internet and its many evolving components and features. Working closely with a good IT department may be a requirement for teaching any course that is going to make use of online technology –unless becoming computer-literate enough to troubleshoot technical issues develops into part of the job description of university instructors. The third module asked students to engage in Web research to write a report on an assigned topic. This assignment also took place well in most of the students’ comfort zone. The only challenge they faced was the fact that I was not interested in them using the internet to identify opinion or points of disagreement, but rather to establish facts and find empirical evidence for their arguments. Though most were familiar with the concept of government Web sites, they had to learn how they could be useful. In this sense, the Web research module was perhaps the most successful of all the online assignments. Students were able to bring evidence to bear on positions they held, while using the internet in a manner that was new to them.

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This probably would not have happened in a class taught using more conventional means. Finally, the last online module grouped students together and asked them to create a collaborative study guide. Using the class’ online software, I randomized students into groups of about six to eight students three different times for this purpose. Students could then log in and see the names of the members of their group, and communicate via email and a discussion board created for their group. The details of the assignment were left to the students, as they would be the main beneficiaries of whatever effort they put into studying for the exam. This module was, by far, the least successful approach to online teaching that I implemented. First of all, it suffered from the flaw that plagues most group work assigned to students: students put very different amounts of effort into the project, yet receive collective grades. Students complained constantly of group members who were not contributing enough to the project, a problem that seemed to be greater in this context because of the anonymity provided by online communication and the fact that the class was so large. Projects were almost always the product of a few members of the group, with other members claiming that communication between members was limited and that they were not able to contribute as much as they wanted to. The technical issues involved in this assignment were numerous. First, the online class software provided me with the ability to “randomly” assign students to groups of a size determined by the instructor. My intention was to create a new set of groups each of the three times I used the assignment. It was only after looking at the projects the second time around that I realized that whatever procedure the software was using to randomize students produced the exact same groups every time. They were random, but only randomized once. Knowing that some groups would have trouble, my hope was to reshuffle the groups to give everyone a chance to start over,

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make different kinds of contributions, and learn among different sets of peers. Repeating the assignment with the same groups only reinforced the roles and problems that had existed during the first round. Worse, the software would not allow me to (easily) manually create new groups with the same resources that groups created by the software received (such as dedicated discussion boards), so the same groups did the collaborative study guide a third time. By then, those who did the most work during the first two study guide assignments did not even try to include the other members, and the other members were resigned to their limited roles.

CuRRenT ChAllengeS Instructor Incentives The biggest challenge to continuing to offer Introduction to American Government with a major online component lies first and foremost with the instructors. The fact that so many teachers have taught so many sections of the class means that many instructors have developed a comfort level with the classical approach to it. There is a steep learning curve to implementing online learning modules, and the online environments that are used to deliver course content each have their own peculiarities which must be learned and accommodated. It would be easy for an instructor only moderately interested in changing the delivery mode of his or her course to give up when faced with the numerous challenges to implementing the new approach. This is doubly true for instructors who are unfamiliar with online technologies, and who could not begin to troubleshoot the technical problems students bring to them when they cannot log in, find their virtual discussion groups, or upload completed assignments. The incentives for an instructor sticking with the tried and true approach are significant, and implementation would probably have to include benefits for instructors

in return for overcoming the, often steep, online teaching learning curve. The reason benefits would be necessary is that there is a powerful tradition of allowing university professors to conduct their classes in the manner in which they choose. Requiring hybrid classroom and online courses would be met with some enthusiasm, but much resistance, on college campuses. To the extent that instructors could be convinced that adding online components to traditional classes improves learning, improves the experience of teaching the class, or reduces the workload normally required to teach, one could expect their support. But if the innovation involves more work, more headaches, and has no demonstrable effect on how well students learn the material one can expect very little enthusiasm on the part of those who would be expected to implement the innovation.

Student Concerns Given the likelihood that hybrid online classes would be adopted on a case by case basis, depending on the interest of the instructor, another challenge an organization would have in implementing online learning components into a course like Introduction to American Government would be dealing with the concerns of students who receive either the traditional, or the new, method of course delivery. From one point of view, a diversity of delivery methods might be seen as a great benefit to an organization. Students who are more or less comfortable with online learning environments could choose one or another section of the class, depending on their learning styles. Indeed, research has shown that students come to the university with a variety of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to learning, and it makes sense for a university to offer varied approaches to teaching to accommodate those differences (Kemp, Morrison, & Ross, 1998). Different approaches to teaching Introduction to American Government are certainly being

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implemented already, as some instructors implement debate components, others require reaction papers to the readings, and still others create groupbased assignments on the course material. But my experience implementing online components as a major part of a standard Introduction to American Government class was noted both by students in the class, and students in other classes, as a major departure from normal differences between sections, and at several points students indicated their concern that the other group was receiving benefits from their class’ approach that were not being offered to them. Interestingly, this concern was expressed equally by students in the hybrid class (who expressed the concern that the online assignments were more work than is usually required in an introductory class) and by those in the more traditional classes (who said that it was unfair that their class met more often than the halfonline class). From each point of view, the grass seemed greener on the other side. A university implementing sections of classes that are a dramatic departure from others being offered should be prepared to deal with these objections. An interesting challenge that I encountered when implementing my half-online class was that it conflicted with another university initiative to improve student learning. Alongside my university’s interest in seeing the effect on implementing online learning in introductory courses, it also implemented a program that offered study sessions for students in a series of introductory classes, including Introduction to American Government. The problem with the study group, from the point of view of the hybrid online class, was that it highlighted the differences between sections in the class. Students, it seemed, talked as much about the differences between the online section and the non-online sections as they did about the material the courses had in common. Though many students who contacted me regarding their concerns about the differences between the classes found out through normal conversations with friends, the study sessions provided a

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week-by-week presentation of how the courses involved working with the material in dramatically different ways. It is easy to see how innovators at the university level can look at a university class schedule and assume that “Political Science 1000” means exactly the same thing at 8 AM as it does at 3:15 PM. Course delivery innovations, especially when implemented in some classes and not in others, can run into trouble with such assumptions.

unreliability of Computer Systems and the Internet The fact that technologies often do not deliver on their promises in the way we might hope is another challenge facing an organization wishing to implement hybrid online teaching methods. As in my example, when assigning students to smaller groups “randomly” did not re-randomize every time I requested that new groups be formed, it is frequently the case that software does not process requests the way one might assume. Relying on technology to a greater extent means that the programming decisions of those who write software for a living, rather than teach, can impede an instructor’s attempts to teach a class. A similar challenge, from the student’s point of view, is that successfully participating in a class means that one must overcome problems logging in to online course delivery software, losses of internet connections, and computer viruses. A computer not responding at a crucial time in the class (as the clocks ticks down to midnight on the date a class assignment must be submitted, for example), can have major implications for a student’s grade. Related to this challenge is the fact that technological difficulties can serve as a convenient excuse used by students when a course depends on online communication and work submission. Students are unable to say “I handed that assignment to you, you must not have gotten it” in the same way that they can say “I did email

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that paper to you, it must have gotten lost due to some computer problem.” Indeed, students who were struggling in the course did frequently cite technical difficulties that prevented them from performing at a higher level. Luckily, I was familiar enough with the university’s technology to troubleshoot real problems (and detect false ones), but it would certainly be a problem for an instructor who cannot tell a real account of a failed hard drive from a false one. This could cause an instructor to effectively lose the ability to set deadlines, as those who fail to meet them have constant access to an easy excuse that would be grounds for an extension.

ConCluSIon Despite the numerous challenges to implementing an Introduction to American Government course (or another, similar, introductory course in another discipline), I do believe that there are several aspects of the innovation that suggest the prospects for long-term adoption of this sort of a course are good. First, in many universities classroom space is at a premium, and implementing halfonline course formats in large sections, as in the example discussed here, frees up classroom space for other sections. By implementing half-online introductory classes university-wide an institution could effectively double the space available for large classes. A classroom that hosts a class that physically meets on Tuesday and Thursday under normal circumstances could be used to host two sections of the same size, one meeting on Tuesday and the other on Thursday (each making up for the missed traditional classroom time with online activities and coursework). This reason alone will probably serve as a powerful driver for innovations that involve replacing in-class work with online work. Fortunately, the benefits of half-online sections of large, introductory classes extend beyond the financial interests of university administrators.

As I hope is apparent from the discussion above, using major online components in classes like Introduction to American Government can serve to improve the learning experiences of students. Online activities can be constructed to address those things that are most pedagogically troubling about large classes: the impersonal nature of the instruction, the intimidating size of the classes, and the difficulty of establishing opportunities for an exchange of points of view between students; these are all problems that can be addressed with carefully considered online supplements to a traditional, large introductory class.

ReFeRenCeS Allen, I., & Seaman, J. (2004). Entering the mainstream: The quality and extent of online education in the United States, 2003 and 2004. Wellesley, MA: Sloan Consortium. Bonk, C. J. (2001). Online teaching in an online world. Bloomington, IN: CourseShare.com. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from http://www. publicationshare.com/docs/faculty_survey_report.pdf Bonk, C. J. (2002). Online training in an online world. Bloomington, IN: CourseShare.com. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from http://www. publicationshare.com/docs/corp_survey.pdf Engstrom, R. N. (2008). Introductory American government in comparison: An experiment. Journal of Political Science Education, 4, 394–403. doi:10.1080/15512160802413675 Gordon, A. (2003, August). Playing politics: An active learning approach to teaching introduction to American government. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA. Guttman, A. (1987). Democratic education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Jordan, D. L., & Sanchez, P. M. (1994). Traditional versus technology-aided instruction: Effects of visual stimulus in the classroom. PS: Political Science and Politics, 27, 64–67. doi:10.2307/420461

Pollock, P. H., & Wilson, B. M. (2002). Evaluating the impact of internet teaching: Preliminary evidence from American national government classes. PS: Political Science and Politics, 35, 561–566.

Kemp, J. E., Morrison, G. R., & Ross, S. M. (1998). Designing effective instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wiley.

Sammons, M. (2003). Exploring the new conception of teaching and learning in distance education. In M. G. Moore & W. G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (pp. 387–400). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Oblinger, D., Barone, C. A., & Hawkins, B. L. (2001). Distributed education and its challenges: An overview. American Council on Education. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from http://www. acenet.edu/bookstore/pdf/distributed-learning/ distributed-learning-01.pdf Partlow, K. M., & Gibbs, W. J. (2003). Indicators of constructivist principles in internet-based courses. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 14(2), 68–97. doi:10.1007/BF02940939

Wilson, B. M., Pollock, P. H., & Hamann, K. (2007). Does active learning enhance learner outcomes: Evidence from discussion participation in online classes. Journal of Political Science Education, 3, 131–142. doi:10.1080/15512160701338304

This work was previously published inCases on Online and Blended Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices, edited by, pp. 283-295, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the RuhrUniversity Bochum, Germany Diana Ziegleder Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Felix Feldmann-Hahn Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

exeCuTIve SummARy This case study looks at the postgraduate program in Criminology and Police Science at the RuhrUniversity Bochum, Germany. This practice oriented course of study is designed as a distance learning course (blended learning) and therefore focuses on techniques of e-learning. The case study describes the history of origins and examines the educational situation before this master’s program was established and how an idea became reality. It is one of the very few possibilities in Germany to receive a deeper insight into criminology and police science. Despite the fact, that the students are all professionals and thus working mostly full DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-872-7.ch011

time, the technical premises make a discourse possible as in on-campus programs. These innovative forms of learning are the focal point of the following case study. It is our aim to provide insight into how a master’s program could be set up and to promote new concepts of e-learning in the field of criminology.

BACkgRound To date there are two other courses of study dealing with criminology in Germany besides the master’s program in Criminology and Police Science at the Ruhr-University Bochum. In addition to two master’s programs in the Social Science department of the University of Hamburg (M.A. in International Criminology - consecutive since 2005/as research

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

studies from 1984-2005 & a non-consecutive Master since 2007), a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Criminology and Criminal Justice is taught at Greifswald since 2006. It was a long road to the emancipation of these programs however. The idea of a full and independent course of study in criminology is relatively new in Germany. Whereas in other countries – especially the United States of America (Bufkin, 2004), but also many European countries1 – teaching criminology (and/or criminal justice) has a long tradition and has therefore brought up almost uncountable programs, a full course of study in Germany was for a long time not in sight. The education of criminological aspects was mostly restricted to basics and, for various reasons, was insufficient or had little practical relevance (Feltes, 2005a, p. 1). For a long period of time, teaching criminology at most universities was attached to the law schools. Predominantly in the first semester, law students received (and still receive) the possibility to learn about the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior. However, at most universities there only existed one course dealing with criminology – mainly giving the students a brief introduction and supporting the lectures in criminal law. Most other students, although confronted with deviant behavior in their jobs, e.g. of psychology or prospective teachers, did not and still do not get a mandatory criminological introduction during their studies. Looking at the praxis showed that the situation within institutions such as the police was also not satisfying. There were numerous skill enhancements, which were however mostly orientated on current problems and events. Most students considered the criminological component to be difficult to understand or irritating (Feltes, 2005a, p. 1). Seldom was there a systematic, theoretical preparation of problems and experiences – especially not with the focus on criminology. For a long time, there was no profound, interdisciplinary

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reflection of the causes of deviant behavior. The need (as well as the calls [see Löschper, 1986]) for a postgraduate, full course of study grew, after the aspect of interdisciplinarity had developed within the academic discussion (so called “Kommunale Kriminalprävention”) and had started to be implemented into every day police work in the mid 90´s. Nonetheless a course of study which was orientated like that in the first place was still missing. These needs also could not be met by police intern study programs (like the German Police University), since they are only open to police officers. Prospects from other occupational backgrounds did not have the chance to attend those programs. Therefore there was a gap in the educational system in both teaching criminology as well as interdisciplinary focused study courses in Germany. Although having realized that within the respective undergraduate studies the courses in criminology did not present much more than a glimpse (and therefore needing extension) and according to the change in the way of dealing with crime in an interdisciplinary way, it took until the turn of the millennium to change. Since the beginning of the new century these changes are becoming apparent in Germany, too. Slowly, the idea established that knowledge of deviant behavior is important not only to police officers, but also to a variety of other occupations, such as social work, teaching, psychology and that, a postgraduate program was necessary. In Bochum, this change is irrevocably linked with the name Professor Dr. Thomas Feltes M.A. Feltes holds the chair for criminology, criminal policy, and police science at the law faculty at the Ruhr-University Bochum since 2002. With degrees in law as well as educational science and being headmaster of a police academy for many years, he combines experiences within academia and practice. The Ruhr-University seemed to be the right place for developing ideas about a master´s program in criminology, because of its history and

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 1. Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

its geographical position. The city with a population of almost 400.000, is situated in the west of Germany right in the heart of the so called Ruhr Area. The coal and steel industry boomed in the mid-nineteenth century and made the Ruhr Area Germany’s most important industrial region. The industry provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for people coming from all over Europe – mainly the eastern countries – making Bochum and the Ruhr Area a melting pot. The demand for coal decreased after 1958, and the Ruhr Area found itself in a deep structural and financial crisis. The opening of the RuhrUniversity in 1965 was therefore a great hope in the midst of that crisis. It was supposed to push ahead the structural change in the region. Among other things (car industry, etc.) it helped the region to stay the most populated area in Germany and the third largest in Europe2.

Located in the centre of this cosmopolitan metropolitan region of over five million people, the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB) recruits students from home and abroad. It combines people from different nationalities as well as backgrounds and does not only assure a good infrastructure (libraries, etc.), but continual improvement of the quality of research and teaching. The university, known as the first new university in post-war Germany, represents innovation and is among the top research universities in Germany. It exceeds excellence in research and diversity in its international contacts. Since it is advanced like no other university in Germany by implementing the Bologna Process (19th June 1999), it seemed like an ideal place for putting the idea of a master´s program in criminology into action. (See Figure 1)

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

SeTTIng The STAge Planning, Application and Accreditation The planning and structuring began mid 2003 with the development of a draft for a master´s course in criminology and police science. At this early stage it was important to think of the constituting elements of a new course of study. Besides the curriculum, participants had to be thought of and contacted as well as possible cooperations. The curriculum took an especially long time to be developed. This early stage is probably the hardest one, since it is the basis on which the next steps can be successfully taken. Besides the principle topic of criminology, the developers decided to put emphasis on police science and on an interdisciplinary concept. The need for a postgraduate program dealing with criminology results from the current belief that effective measures towards crime prevention and reduction can only be developed in a network between research, police, justice, politics and social work (Feltes, 2008, p. 8). This calls for an integrated concept of learning for professionals coming from these different areas in order to develop their points of view and their knowledge upon the other. Only by understanding the way of working and the way of thinking of other professions, can a problem-free and goal-orientated communication be established. The need of communication between the disciplines (extending beyond the practical everyday contact) is also apparent (cp. Feltes, 2005, 2008). Therefore the idea behind the master’s program was to enhance the knowledge and understanding of each other’s profession in order to improve everyday’s work, but also in order to rethink the daily routine, working conditions, methods of problem solution as well as theories. The combination between criminology and police science meets this demand and assists in supplementing, new approaches and a better understanding into the very often

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hierarchical institutions such as the police force (cp. Feltes, 2008). The idea of teaching police science was especially new in Germany, although being a topic of research for several decades in many states of the U.S. The idea to research the connections within and attitudes of the police towards social groups, the coverage of the police on the news, the reputation of the police among the population and particularly the efficiency and way of acting of the police only evolved a couple of years ago in Germany (Schwind, 2007, p. 13). By deciding to include police science into the master’s program, this branch of science receives further attention and demonstrates the innovative focus of the program. After designing, reflecting on and initiating the first steps towards a program on a rather internal level, the next steps for the master’s program required the acceptance of the faculty as well as the university. Since the Chair of Criminology had been annexed to the Law School of the Ruhr-University Bochum, the latter was the next to be involved in the process. In July 2004, the Law School Conference decided to apply the master’s program as a postgraduate course. Only two months later the committee of teaching of the university discussed the application and finally approved it in November 2004. Another committee (for planning, structure and finance) accepted the request on 6th December 2004. The procedure then got more detailed. In January 2005 the study conditions had to be worked out, but there was still one bigger step to be taken if the program was to start operating. The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic (KMK) framed, that according the Bologna process new courses of study need to run through a process of accreditation (KMK, 2003/2008). This required the permission of the rectorship for establishing and accrediting the master’s program. This was given still in January 2005. The accreditation procedure was opened

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

on 4th April 2005 and covered the full application for accreditation. Based upon this written presentation of the planned program, scientific external experts visited the Ruhr-University on 24th June 2005. After talking to the rectorship and stakeholders included in the design and programming of the master’s program, the external experts agreed to recommend the master’s program to the accreditation company AQAS. The incoming costs were covered by the university, the faculty and the chair. The main criteria for the accreditation were profile and aims of the program, the quality of the curriculum, the personal resources, the occupational orientation and the quality assurance. The disadvantage of this procedure lies in the high expenditure of time and money. Nonetheless these disadvantages can also be seen as advantages. Applying for an accreditation requires a detailed and coherent concept. By integrating the “three instances”, (law school/ faculty, university, accreditation company) this concept was evaluated by several stakeholders, which in this case led to considerable improvement in quality (Feltes, 2005a, p. 9). For example, the law faculty discussed whether students without a general university degree but a degree of a university of applied sciences (a second type of post-school university, the graduation mostly obtained by possible students like police officers and social workers) should be able to attend the new program. After a controversial discussion the conference agreed upon a 50/50 regulation, enabling a more diverse structure of students. The application quality was not only influenced at a primary level (conferences within the faculty), but especially at second (university) and third level (accreditation company). At the third level intense discussions arose and provided the program with a lot of excellent suggestions – e.g. introduction of a module “methods and key skills” and a better balance of social and police items.

After more than two years of planning, the master’s program “Criminology and Police Science” finally received accreditation from October 2005 until 2010 as an advanced course of studies for postgraduate students.

Application Process and the Beginning of the lectures Since the program was scheduled to start in October 2005, the application procedure already started in July 2005. Each applicant had to meet the admission requirements – a university or college (university of applied sciences) degree and a minimum one year of working experience. Professionals who were mainly interested to study the MA were police officers, lawyers, teachers, social scientists and social workers. Already the amount and content of the applications in the first year (and the future ones as well) reflected the need for such a program and a variety of personal and occupational motivation. The analysis of these applications (Feltes, 2005a, p. 8) shows that lawyers for example aspire an additional qualification for their job as an attorney (especially criminal lawyers) or as a criminal judge/public prosecutor. Others regard the program as an appropriate opportunity before starting a career or in between two jobs. Applications however, are not only handed in by people just having passed the legal clerkship and the (second) state examination (bar exam), but also professionally experienced lawyers seeking further education partly to assist in receiving a Ph.D. or during stays abroad. People with a socioscientific background (psychology, social work, education etc.) mostly apply in order to enhance career options by a specialization. Whereas these groups had different possibilities of getting further qualifications (although not in criminology) before, the occupational group probably benefiting most from the new program are the police officers. The master’s program is, from their point of view, the only way to get additional qualification

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 2. From idea to reality: steps towards the master’s program in Criminology and Police Science at the Ruhr-University Bochum (extended overview/original by Feltes 2005b).

and a possibility to improve their opportunities of advancement as police internal programs are restricted to very few officers

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Besides the specific motivations all occupational groups are united by their personal interest in this topic and the desire to improve their daily

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 3. Second graduation ceremony in Bochum, Germany (2008)

work. The applications (letters of intent) furthermore mirror the hope for impulses for their work, new perceptions and new solutions or ideas in order to reduce and prevent crime (Feltes, 2008). The age spectrum varies from mid 20’s to late 50’s and therefore is as balanced as the professions. The selection considers according to the guidelines of the accreditation, the overall result of the first degree and the professional experience, the present or the intended profession and the motivation as shown in the application (Feltes, 2008, p. 11). In the first year, the program was designed as an on-campus program with a duration of one year. Most of the 25 students lived in the Ruhr Area and therefore had the possibility to take part in the program without the need to drive a long way to Bochum. Here again the geographical position of Bochum proved to be helpful. This first group of students graduated in February 2007 with a

ceremony. At the graduation they received an internationally accepted master’s degree: Master of Criminology and Police Science. During that first year it became apparent, that the master’s program had closed a gap in the German educational system. Since the experiences were good and the feedback of the participants was positive, the master’s administration decided to extend the program to a distance-learning course. Therefore in 2006/2007, two groups started: one on campus and the second one distance learning (see below), opening up the program to a larger group of students.

Current Situation Since January 2008, the master’s program exists in the form of a blended learning course. Therein the MA is completed in four semesters whereas the fourth semester is intended for writing the master’s thesis.

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

These changes, first the extension to a distance learning course and then to the design as a blended learning course of study, were logical consequences from the experiences of the first years. The number of applicants has increased rapidly. With the design of an on campus course of study, the capacity was relatively low and a lot of very motivated and qualified applicants had to be denied. Moreover, the second year (on campus) demonstrated that this design brought the participants (most of them working full-time and having a family) to the edge of their capacities. On the other hand it soon became clear that only two phases of attendance in the distance learning course had a negative effect on the group’s coherence and the learning effect. By combining the idea of on campus and strict distance learning course of study, the new blended learning course – starting at the beginning of January – unites the potencies of the former designs. Today there are maximum 60 students per year. In addition to a complete week at the beginning (and a second one after the third semester), there are four additional phases of attendance per year designed to uphold the contact among the students as well as between the students and the lecturers. These changes caused an extension of the study time from one year (respectively strictly distance learning 1 ½) to two years. However, this change makes the newly designed program more flexible with time. This flexibility is provided moreover by a reinforced use of e-learning (see below). The students now have the possibility to work out their own time frame for learning. They are no longer dependent on the times when lectures are being held, but can structure their work according to their personal, familial and occupational needs as well as their reading and working habits. With all this in mind, the students nevertheless have to complete a full MA Program and the performance of learning has to be organized very well and has to stay on a high level. Statistically it is planned that students need about 15 hours a week (Workload) with seven working days a week.

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During this time the students acquire not only criminological understanding, research experience and writing skills, they also learn techniques of time management and computer skills. Compared to many other programs the cost is relatively low and varied only slightly during the first years. Currently (February 2009) the overall fee is 3700 Euros. This amount is broken down into 1100 Euro for the first three semesters, whereas the fourth, reserved for writing the master’s thesis, only costs 400 Euros.

lecturers/Academics and mentoring/Supervision The fees are considerably low when looking at the high quality of academics working in the master’s program. Coming from many different occupational backgrounds and therefore representing the interdisciplinary orientations of the program, all of them possess a broad range of experience both within theory and practice. Lecturers with an outstanding scientific background as well as experience in practice make the master’s program an enrichment for the educational system. The administrative matters of students and lecturers are organized by two research assistants, also coming from an interdisciplinary background (sociology and law). They take care of the organizational matters concerning the program varying from the planning of the phases of attendance to working on new ideas for further improvement of the master’s program. An additional student assistant cares for the technical support and all matters concerning the status of the students. This team is the first contact in case of arising questions, problems or needs of students and lecturers.

CASe deSCRIPTIon The master’s program includes nine modules and the master’s thesis, for which the students acquire

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

a total of 60 credit points (CP’s) (Workload: 1.500 hours, 1 CP = 25 hours). The focal point of the applied studies is to build up the following skills and competences: •

•

•

Specific expertise in connection with theoretical knowledge, which enables the adoption of scientific insights within the occupational practice Methodological and analytical skills of a context specific application of methods and knowledge Specific occupational key qualifications, especially the ability to cooperate with stakeholders from other fields and the debate with external, non-scientific, demands.

The content of the studies serve the goal to identify problematic constellations (being relevant for practitioners or/and academia) and to solve them – next to a substantiated knowledge and the acknowledgement of different scientific schools. This goal is reached through: •

• •

Relevant practical/occupational setting of priorities within the training of basic and subject-specific knowledge. Case studies and project work as examples for the solution of problems Practical oriented master’s thesis, especially in cooperation with external professionals/experts.

According to the goals of studies the lecturers do not only have scientific qualifications but also have the experience to use them in their practical work. The master’s program contains the following basics: • •

Modules in form of courses Master’s thesis and oral examination.

The courses consist of the following didactic elements: • • •

•

Lectures (video lectures, connect files) Projects Lecture seminars - guided reading; basic readings (classic and modern works) in order to deepen the understanding of the theoretical background and at the same time to facilitate the transfer towards current practical questions. Compendium letters and exercises.

Efficiency controls are made with oral and written exams in between and at the end of each module. The program combines elements of distance learning as well as on-campus learning. This allows the students to continue working. Most lectures are available for the students on the internet since the courses are implemented with the help of modern e-learning techniques. The use of modern e-learning methods enables students to study this field exceeding their regular lectures. Lectures and readings as well as exercises and small research projects are discussed via the specialized e-learning platform “Blackboard”. Furthermore, most courses are broadcasted on the internet via the Multimedia-Web-communication-system „Acrobat Connect“. Additional seminars at the Bochum University take place where personal contacts are deepened, special courses are taught in person (e.g. scientific work, training of soft skills) and exams are written.

Content There are nine mandatory modules on topics surrounding criminology, police science, research methods, social science (including sociology, psychology, educational studies) and legal studies (including constitutional law, criminal law and police law).

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 4. Modules within the two years program

Module 1 “Introduction to Criminology”: The students learn about conditions, correlations and interactions between offence, offender, victim, social environment and societal control of deviant behavior. They discuss basics and theories of criminology as an independent scientific field as well as the measurement and review of criminality. The students become acquainted with the institutions of social control and prosecution. Further topics are criminal geography, crime and age, gender and nationality as well as repression and prevention. The courses impart scientific and additional practical knowledge in the fields of criminology, deviant behavior, criminal policy and police science. Additional to theories and new insights from research, the students are trained in methodology and soft skills for the critical grading of scientific findings and for the practical implementation in a criminological oriented profession. Module 2 “Criminolgy, Criminalistics and Prevention – single offences”: Based upon the selected single offences or groups of offences aspects of criminology as well as criminalistics are discussed and deepened. Additionally the students are acquainted with current developments in criminalistics. A special emphasis is put on the rework of current relevant cases within the latter, criminology or criminal policy. Further aspects are concepts, tasks and methods of criminalistics, starting from offence to intelligence (e.g. involved

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actors, measures, investigative approaches). Police measures (e.g. observation, questioning) are discussed from a criminological and a criminalistics point of view. The students additionally learn to compare criminalistics perceptions and work versus criminological-sociological and legal methods of perception. Module 3 “Juvenile Law, Applied Criminal Policy and Prognosis”: The students ascertain the importance of the basic rights and their impact upon other legal areas. Juvenile law (JGG) comprises aspects of youth welfare as well as youth penal law. The students are taught the premises of the use of single measures according to the JGG and learn to connect juvenile penal law with youth welfare and the institutions or stakeholders of youth criminal justice. They reflect critical decisions in the areas of juvenile criminal justice and develop strategies for the improvement of the procedures. The module additionally comprises the complete area of single offence criminology. This includes scientific basics for the criminological survey of individual offenders in their social relations. It takes up case history, analysis, diagnosis, prognosis, police work and special preventive intervention as well as the implementation of this knowledge in expertise, opinions or special preventive decisions (including legal background). The students are trained in criminological methods like exploration techniques or document analysis, as a foundation

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

for diagnosis and prognosis (including forensic psychiatry and psychology). Module 4 “Classic and Modern Criminology and Police Science”: The students discuss basic problems, theoretical approaches and developments in criminology and police science and turn their obtained knowledge into practice. Therefore the students work in-depth through classical and modern readings, which have a special meaning for the development of the scientific disciplines or/and for practice. Module 5 “Applied International Police Science”: Together with the students, elements and aspects of an independent police science are debated and developed. Therein the students gain knowledge of different national and international approaches towards police science and they learn to assess their relevance towards practice. The students are taught the central definitions, history, legal background, organizational and working means, and strategies of policing, as well as problems with police science in a national and international context. A focal point is made on transformation of knowledge into practice and on international comparative police sciences. Furthermore the module includes several lectures on “Policing (all over) the World”, which is an elearning project initiated by the Chair of Criminology at the University Bochum as well as the Centre of Criminology at Cape Town University, South Africa. The students watch an interdisciplinary series of video lectures from police research and police science. The contributions are composed by experienced police scientists and experts in the English language, which originate not only from criminology and police science but also from such fields as law, social science, philosophy or psychology. Learning contents deal with police procedures and the understanding of police work in different cultures and societies. Other learning points comprise work procedures, structure and forms of training and education of state and private security agencies as well as the comparison

of juridical systems and philosophies regarding police work. Module 6 “Current Problems in Criminology”: The students learn to understand the current criminal proceeding of crime according to international law within a historical perspective and to describe essential tendencies within the development of crime. They debate basic problems of criminal proceedings on the basis of the work and jurisprudence of established ad hoc tribunals and courts as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC). They critically discuss the relevance of criminological-sociological contents and methods. Additionally the students get to know the work of NGOs in the areas of policing and penal system. They deal with national and international mechanisms of violating human rights and discuss current cases of violations of human rights. Based upon concrete projects the students deal with the development and the methodological implementation, and assess the results of projects. Along with selected material, they gain knowledge of the historical influence/reception within the field of politics “home security and police”. Next to this the students develop frameworks of the stakeholders and actions of this policy field, in order to get to know and realize chances and barriers of action. Finally, methods in consulting police and politics are presented and discussed (including controlling and project management). Module 7 “Applied Methods in Social Science”: This module integrates three parts. First, the students engage in a content- and methodologicalspecific discussion on criminological regional analysis/research on dark figures as preparation for the independent design and implementation of an empirical study project (7c). Second, the students learn basic theoretical and methodological implications for research in social sciences. They develop an understanding for methods, their usefulness and their function. The students gain knowledge of objectives, history and streams of interpretative sociology, approaches, definitions,

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concepts and ideas, quantitative and qualitative methods of research, including data analysis. They develop scientific question wordings and design a research plan in order to generate knowledge. Third, the students train their learned knowledge of methods and apply it with the help of an individually designed and implemented research project. Module 8 “Police Law and Sociology”: In police law the students address danger defense by the police and other factors of policing. They learn the basic definitions of danger defense as well as public security. They study the different forms of the concept “danger” and the assignment of dangers towards responsible persons. References towards the law of criminal proceedings as well as international, especially European police work are made. Additionally, the law of intelligence services is presented in overview. In sociology the students get to know a variety of basic sociological perspectives, theories and findings. The students read basic texts of sociology and learn sociological ways of thinking. Basic questions are “What is Sociology?“, “What does Sociology deal with?”. Along current questions and discourses within criminal sociology students acquire knowledge and train the application of theories. Module 9 “Key Qualifications and Academic Writing and Working”: The students get a tool box for effective communication and negotiation. They learn the basics as well as different styles of negotiation. The students are trained in strategies, tactics and mechanisms of success for leading a negotiation. The reflection of their own style of communication leads towards an optimization of future reactions in different settings of communication. The students learn the basics of conflict resolving, the analysis of conflicts and methods of problem solving and they find out about the classical setting of “mediation”. The promotion and development of competences in this field enables the students to integrate the learned mechanisms of conflict solving within their professional life. Next to social key qualifications the students train

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the basics of academic writing and working – techniques fundamentally for writing the master’s thesis. The students acquaint themselves with and train themselves in techniques for scientific reading, writing, literature research and training in composition and formulation of important sorts of texts (e.g. excerpts, exposé).

SPeCIAlITIeS e-learning with Blackboard Although designed first as an on campus course of study, the master’s program “Criminology and Police Science” is now a full distance learning program (blended learning). Whereas former distance learning courses were based on printed material sent by mail, the multimedia revolution of the past years has made postal exchange almost unnecessary. Recognizing that almost 70% of the German population use the internet nowadays (DESTATIS, 2007), almost the whole course now runs online. The fact is due to the innovative adjustment of the Ruhr-University. Especially since the turn of the millennium the university has steadily expanded its multimedia equipment. The most important accomplishment was the introduction of the program Blackboard. This e-learning platform makes the internet a virtual lecture room and therefore constitutes the basis of the master’s program. First tested during the introduction of criminology for law students in 2002/2003, Blackboard has now become irreplaceable for the on-campus, as well as the distance learning courses of the university and consequently for the master’s program in Criminology and Police Science. Blackboard (a system by Blackboard Inc., US) however, offers much more possibilities than just putting learning material online in a compressed and well-arranged form, therefore making it accessible for the students from any place at any

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 5. Screenshot Blackboard

time. The lecturers can create their own courses and therefore have influence on the structure as well as the material put online and the time when the material should be unlocked (and therefore be visible to the students). Besides information about themselves (vita etc.) they can write announcements or contact the students via a discussion board. On the other hand the students can chat among themselves so that the discussion boards, up to a certain stage, replace the discussions within the lecture halls. Furthermore, there is the possibility to arrange working groups with only few students which allows the lecturer to output several assignments which are dealt with by certain students at one time. Even tests can be arranged with Blackboard, covering a lot of essential functions (such as a time limit). Because these tests cannot fully replace a real testing situation (because of the control needed) the important tests in the pictured

master are normally carried out during the phases of attendance. However, running these online tests for minor tests will be a further notion in the future.

Acceptance of Blackboard Today the students have the possibility of getting used to Blackboard even before the master’s program starts. The students chosen by the administration committee get an e-mail including a PowerPoint presentation with an explanation of how to create an account and to login to the system. Because of its constituting character, the students get a further introduction during the first week of attendance at the beginning of the program. At this point, they can ask questions which arose during their own experiences at home.

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 6. Usage of Blackboard (Feltes/Feldmann-Hahn, 2008)

Because of these previous introductions, the experience with Blackboard is, both from administration’s and the student’s view, very pleasing.

usage of Blackboard This positive acceptance of Blackboard is reflected within the statistics of its usage. Looking only at the accesses to Module 1 (Introduction to Criminology), more than 100.000 hits within four months mirror the interests, the motivation and the curiosity towards Blackboard as well as the master’s program in general. With 75 users in total (including lecturers) this means there are more than 1000 accesses per person within that period. Because of the program’s design as a blended learning course of study it is interesting to take a closer look at the exact time when the students access Blackboard. The fact that most students are working full time is reflected in the time-frame in which the students accessed the system. Whereas during the day (10 am – 5 p.m.) the activity was high (around 3000), it even increased between 6 and 8 p.m. During this time 3500-4200 accesses were recorded by the program – some 30 per cent of all daily accesses (Feltes & Feldmann-Hahn,

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2008). Not till after 10 p.m. did the accesses decrease – even the most assiduous student needs to sleep or at least have some time off. Surprisingly the weekends do not show a higher access rate than weekdays. Still high with 6100 accesses they are nonetheless used more seldom for studying than the working days. It seems, as if some students prefer studying after work during the week to studying at the weekend. This assumption was proven true when evaluating the habits of studying of the students. Most of them quoted that they need the weekends (at least Sunday) for the family or other private matters. The obviously higher rates on Thursdays probably have their cause in the fact that the working material was unlocked weekly on this day. Therefore it can be assumed that most students have directly downloaded the material on Thursdays.

Adobe Connect In addition to Blackboard, the master’s program uses the software “Adobe Connect”, also financed by the Ruhr-University. This software enables to put recorded lectures online so that the students can watch them liter-

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Figure 7. Screenshot Adobe Connect

ally from their own living room. The lectures are recorded in advance, edited later by staff at the chair and then put online. The finesse is that the recording comes along with the PowerPoint presentation used in the lecture. A typical lecture is presented to the students in the form of a three part “Split screen” (see Figure 7). There is the PowerPoint presentation, a “talking-head-video” of the presenter and moreover the structure. With this the students get the possibility to navigate within the lecture, to repeat or respectively skip certain sections, or to stop the presentation and continue at a later point of time. Although the videos cannot be downloaded, they are available with an adequate internet access from anywhere in the world since they are saved on the university’s server. As well as with Blackboard, the acceptance of Adobe Connect is overwhelming. Students appreciate that the disadvantages of actually be-

ing inside the lecture hall (such as chatting of the person sitting next to you, not having the possibility to repeat a certain passage) are not transferred to the presentation. Therefore recently one of the students announced Connect is “simply genius” (Feltes, 2008, p. 14). The combination of Blackboard and Connect constitutes a complete new era of distance learning courses. Whereas in former times distance learning students only received material printed per mail (which took time), nowadays they have this material online with the possibility to access anytime (Blackboard), and anywhere.

Police Science An additional focus on Police Science (additional to criminology) takes into account the changed view on the role of private and state actors of social control. Therein the program recognizes

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Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

the importance of interdisciplinary studies as well as the understanding between the different professions dealing with crime. Lecturers from research and practice guarantee an interdisciplinary access to criminology and police-science with focus on theory and methodology as well as practice-orientation.

evAluATIon All courses are evaluated in order to ensure the quality of the courses and lecturers as well as to survey the current demand of the students. Therefore the students fill out a questionnaire via the online platform “unipark” (a change to a questionnaire within Blackboard is planned). The questions lead from more widely spread questions on the use of the online-tools towards more specific questions on each module. Therein the students evaluate the concept of the module, the lecturer and the use of media. They review their own conduct of study for this module, their learning outcome and finally the major course assessment. This evaluation is an important tool for the improvement of the quality of the master’s program.

CuRRenT ChAllengeS In the framework of the re-accreditation of the master’s program, many data and documents around our program are being collected. The number of applicants, the high number of alumni and the results of the evaluations allow us to conclude that “it works”. So far, acquiring students has not been difficult, but with the changes in BA/MA in Germany (Bologna Process) we have to prepare for new paths towards new programs in order to integrate BA graduates. Further considerations are related to more cooperation with other institutions as well as an internationalization of the program. As everybody who has established a new program knows, changes always need to be made, starting

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from the first project idea in mind until the implementation the actual program. These changes (e.g. more meetings, more e-learning etc.) have to be documented and justified. The thoughtful comments of our students have helped us to improve our program. Being still a program with a small institutionalized administration, we stay flexible to react with improvements. Our greatest challenge is to uphold the good quality of lecturers and students and we try our best to fulfill this. We see ourselves as a learning institution, whereas we constantly adjust to new scientific contents and methods as well as to the requirements of the students (cp. Feltes, 2008, p. 11).

weB SITeS Website of the Master´s program ”Criminology and Police Science” at the Ruhr-University Bochum. URL: http://www.makrim.de (27.02.2008).

ReFeRenCeS Bufkin, J. (2004). Criminology/criminal justice master’s programs in the United States: Searching for commonalities. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 15(2), 239–262. doi:10.1080/10511250400085971 DESTATIS (Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland) (2007). Fast 70% der Bevölkerung ab 10 Jahren nutzen das Internet. Pressemitteilung Nr. 486. URL: http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/ Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Presse/pm/2007/11/PD 07__486__63931,templateId=renderPrint.psml (27.02.2009).

Teaching Criminology and Police Science for Postgraduate Students at the Ruhr-University

Feltes, T. (2005a). Kriminologie als interdisziplinäre Wissenschaftspraxis – wie der Masterstudiengang „Kriminologie und Polizeiwissenschaft“ an der juristischen Fakultät der Ruhr-Universität Bochum eine Brücke zwischen Theorie und Praxis schaffen will. Bewährungshilfe, 52 (4), 359-369. URL: http://www.thomasfeltes.de/pdf/veroeffentlichungen/Bewaehrungshilfe_MA_Studiengang. pdf, p. 1-14 (27.02.2009)

KMK (Kultusministerkonferenz) (200372008). Ländergemeinsame Strukturvorgaben gemäß § 9 Abs. 2 HRG für die Akkreditierung von Bachelorund Masterstudiengängen (Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz vom 10.10.2003 i.d.F. vom 18.09.2008). URL: http://www.akkreditierungsrat.de/fileadmin/Seiteninhalte/Dokumente/kmk/ KMK_LaendergemeinsameStrukturvorgaben.pdf (27.02.2009)

Feltes, T. (2005b). Stand eines Masterstudienganges „Kriminologie und Polizeiwissenschaft“ an der Ruhr Universität. URL: http://www.kriminologie.com/neues.htm (27.02.2009).

Löschper, G. (1986). Kriminologie als selbständiges, interdisziplinäres Hochschulstudium: Internationales Symposium vom 8. - 10. Mai 1986. Pfaffenweiler, Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft.

Feltes,T. (2005 c). Studiengänge im deutschsprachigen und nichtdeutsprachigen Bereich. URL: http:// www.kriminologie.com/studiengaenge.html (27.02.2009).

Schwind, H. D. (2007). Kriminologie. Eine praxisorientierte Einführung mit Beispielen. 17. Edition, Heidelberg, Kriminalistik Verlag.

Feltes, T. (2008). Kriminologie und Polizeiwissenschaft im Verbund: Erste Erfahrungen mit dem Masterstudiengang „Kriminologie und Polizeiwissenschaft“. In H.-G. Jaschke (Ed.), Polizeiwissenschaft an der Polizei-Führungsakademie und der Deutschen Hochschule der Polizei – Eine Zwischenbilanz, 142-163. URL:http://www. thomasfeltes.de/pdf/veroeffentlichungen/2007_ Feltes_Beitrag_fuer_Jaschke_Endversion_1.pdf, p.1-14 (27.02.2009). Feltes, T., & Feldmann-Hahn, F. (2008). Kriminologie aus der Ferne - Der weiterbildende Masterstudiengang setzt auf Blended-Learning. Rubens, 15(127), 5.

key TeRmS And deFInITIonS Blended Learning:: Blended Learning unites on campus and distance learning courses of study with the help of new and innovative forms of e-learning.

endnoTeS 1

2

Overview in German language on URL: http://www.kriminologie.com/studiengaenge.html - e.g. Leuven/Belgium Cp. Official Web site of the Ruhr-University Bochum, RUL: http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/profil/portrait/regionale_verantwortung_en.htm

This work was previously published in Cases on Technologies for Teaching Criminology and Victimology: Methodologies and Practices, edited by R. Sette, pp. 177-193, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.19

Blending Classroom Activities with Multi-User Virtual Environment for At-Risk Primary School Students in an After-School Program: A Case Study

Lee Yong Tay Beacon Primary School, Singapore Cher Ping Lim Edith Cowan University, Western Australia

ABSTRACT This chapter documents how a group of 14 academically at-risk Primary 5 students have been engaged in academic related tasks in an after-school program mediated by a game-like 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), Quest Atlantis (QA). The case study explores the possibilities and potentials of using the game-like 3D MUVE for the re-engagement of this group of academically at-risk students. From the observation notes, interviews with the students and students’ activities in the MUVE, the two main elements in the MUVE that have been found to engage the students are: ‘play and fun’ and ‘recognition and affirmation of performance.’ However, these engaging elements alone could not DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-852-9.ch012

purposefully engage these students. Non-ICT activities such as orientation tasks, support by teachers, and the careful selection of authentic assignments are necessary to further enhance their engagement with their learning.

InTRoduCTIon Various studies of Singapore schools have shown that the main factors that influence students’ academic performance include socio-economic status and attitudes toward school life. However, there are studies that have shown that teachers and teacher knowledge do make a difference regardless of social background. Hill and Rowe (1998), and Cuttance (1998, p. 1158-9) indicate that ‘up to 55% of the variation in individual learning outcomes lies be-

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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tween classrooms within schools’. It would appear that if teaching effectiveness can be improved by developing teacher knowledge about how to engage students in richer and more relevant learning tasks, the outcomes for students will be improved. The focus on standards, grades, and outcome measures is in direct opposition to the idea of designing learning environments that are more likely to engage students. Learner engagement is paramount to learning success; where engagement entails mindfulness, intrinsic motivation, cognitive effort and attention. By undervaluing rich complex, and engaging, processes and strategies for learning, classroom activities that require active inquiry and deep conceptual understandings are often rare in schools. By contrast, the gaming industry has informally engaged students and motivated them to invest significant amounts of time in tasks which relate to effective game play but not to tasks on which they are typically assessed. This revolution began with the simple two-dimensional arcade games and has progressed to the virtual reality three-dimensional (3-D) multi-user role-playing game of today. Harnessing the excitement and engagement among students playing computer games bears considerable potential for schools to capture the intensive engagement of students (Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006). 3D multi-user games with their multimedia elements situated within a community of players provide opportunities for players as learners to engage in literacy through modalities of interpretation and expression (Gee, 2003). This paper documents how a group of 14 academically at-risk Primary 5 students (aged 11) are engaged in academic related tasks in an afterschool program mediated by a 3D game-like multi user virtual environment (MUVE) – Quest Atlantis (QA). At-risk students are those who constantly not performing up to the expected academic standards over the years. The findings suggest that for the after-school program to engage these students, the MUVE has to be supported by non-ICT faceto-face activities designed and carried out by the

teacher – taking up the learning opportunities and addressing the limitations of both virtual and face-to-face learning environments.

lITeRATuRe RevIew Quest Atlantis: multi-user virtual environment Quest Atlantis (QA) is a 3-D virtual learning environment developed by the Center for Research on Learning and Technology (CRLT) at Indiana University. The Center is committed to explore and develop appropriate applications of ICT to improve teaching and learning in diverse settings. This environment is built for students, ages of 8 to 12, who have given up on themselves as learners. It is the belief of CRLT that QA with its deep content and challenging game-like activities will motivate these academically at-risk students. Students explore and move around freely in the 3D virtual world as questers with their own avatars. There is also an online synchronous chat for students to discuss topics of interest and collaborative works. On the right hand side of this environment, students can access their emails, forums, view their accumulated points and lumins, quests, as well as update their personal information. QA allows students to travel to various virtual spaces and carry out educational activities known as quests. Each quest is a curricular task designed to be entertaining and yet educational in nature. In order to complete these quests, students have to complete real world activities that are socially and academically meaningful. All quests involve both content-area findings and personal reflection by the student. This is done with the aim of fostering critical thinking and meta-cognition. Developers of QA believe that students learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process, with an emphasis on inquiring into domain-related problems. The basic philosophy of inquiry-based learning is to make learning more

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meaningful, more transferable to various situations out of a specific context, and more conducive to self-directed life-long learning (Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006).

The engaging elements in Computer games and game-like environments Several authors suggest that there are engaging elements found within such a game-like MUVE (Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Dickey, 2005; Gee, 2003; Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006; Malone & Lepper, 1987). The following engaging design elements are found within the QA MUVE according to the frameworks and methods as proposed by the various authors mentioned above. These design elements are: (1) affiliation and cooperation with others; (2) challenge; (3) clear goals and standards; (4) competition; (5) opportunity to try and try again; (6) control and choice; (7) play and fun; (8) fantasy; (9) moving up the levels; (10) multimodal output and input; and (11) recognition and affirmation of performance. Cordova and Lepper (1996), in their experimental study examine the effects of 3 complementary strategies on the learning process – contextualization, personalization, and provision of choices – for enhancing students’ intrinsic motivation. The experiment involves five conditions: (a) generic fantasy – no choice; (b) generic fantasy – choice; (c) personalised – no choice; (d) personalised – choice; and (e) no-fantasy control group. In the basic control condition, students are engaged in two computer-based learning games in an unembellished form. In the other four experimental conditions, the same learning activities are embedded in simple fantasy contexts. It is observed that there are no significant differences between the experimental condition and the students’ gender or grade. However, significant differences are observed in the students’ intrinsic motivation, learning, perceived competence, and level of aspiration for students in all the experimental groups.

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The authors add that there is no reason to believe that these findings are dependent on the use of the computer. However, the authors also caution that the use of motivational embellishment strategies of the sort used in their experiments may not always have such beneficial effects. For example, these techniques may not be effective with older children or adults, given that the interest in such fantasies may decrease with age. It may also not be as effective for children who are already highly motivated and task-oriented as it could be seen as more of a distraction and time-wasting nuisance to them. There are also issues of novelty and habituation as it is likely that the positive effects of such techniques may diminish over time if they are used too frequently. “From one perspective, the addition of extra gamelike elements is seen as likely to be distracting and to impair learning. At the very least, it will make learning less efficient. From the other viewpoint, the addition of such motivational devices is seen as likely to enhance children’s attention to the material presented and their active processing of it. ….. In addition, the provision of a concrete and familiar visual representation or a conceptual “point of view” may further promote retention of the material learned or enhance the child’s ability to transfer that learning to other settings.” (Lepper & Chabay, 1985, p. 220) Dickey (2005) observes that the following aspects of game design fit into the existing model of engaged learning: (1) Focused goals, (2) Challenging tasks, (3) Clear & compelling standards, (4) Protection from adverse consequences for initial failures, (5) Affirmation of performance, (6) Affiliation with others, (7) Novelty & variety, and (8) Choice. Gee (2003) suggests 36 learning principles from good video games (video and computer games) that can be applied in the learning of content areas in the classrooms. Good video games have a great deal to teach us about how

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to facilitate learning, even in domains outside games, even in school (Gee, 2003). Real learning is often associated with pleasure which ultimately is a form of play. However, schools often dismiss this principle. Good games are complex, challenging, and long; they can take 50 or more hours to finish. If a game cannot be learned well, then it will fail to sell well, and the company that makes it is in danger of going broke….. good games have to incorporate good learning principles in virtue of which they get themselves well learned. (Gee, 2003, p. 57) Proponents of engaged learning also argue that learners can become meaningfully engaged in the learning environment by being provided with activities that allow them to play an active role and make judgments about progress toward defined goals (Schlechty, 1990 as cited in Dickey, 2005). Lim, Nonis, and Hedberg (2006) list the following elements that help in the engagement of students in the QA 3D MUVE. They are: (1) Immersion and Interaction; (2) Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Scaffolding (3) Game-like Experience and Rewards; and (4) Opportunities for Collaboration. According to the authors, the QA allows students to be immersed and interact within the 3D MUVE. They add that: QA is different from traditional role-playing games as it allows the students to leave the virtual environment and accomplish quests in the physical world. For example, a student will look for a quest online and read the resources available. Thereafter, he/she may proceed out to the real world, carry out an experiment or conduct an interview. The data collected is then interpreted and analysed before he/she submit the completed quest to the council online. (p. 6) Lim, Nonis, and Hedberg (2006) caution that the extent to which these opportunities are

taken up depends on how QA is situated in the learning environment. Participation in QA may trigger changes in the activities, curriculum and interpersonal relationships in the learning environment, and may be reciprocally affected by the very changes it causes (Lim, 2002). Malone (1981) generates three main elements that “Make video games fun”: Challenge, fantasy, and curiosity. Malone and Lepper (1987) synthesise the various factors to design environments that are intrinsically motivating from many research studies. Factors such as challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, and recognition are found to promote intrinsic motivation amongst learners. They define intrinsic motivation simply in terms of what people will do without external inducement. Intrinsically motivating activities are those that people engage in for no reward, but the interest and enjoyment that accompany them. It appears that computer and video games could be used as tools to engage students in educationally related activities. Hopefully by being engaged and spending more time and effort in such activities, students can achieve better performance in school related activities. The wide prevalence of research initiatives, conferences, books, and software that focus on educational games suggest that computer and video games will have a part to play in education, just as all media before they have been used for learning (Dempsey, Haynes, Lucassen, & Casey; 2002; Rieber, 1996; Rosas et al., 2003; Squire, 2005; Stewart, 1997). Table 1 is an attempt to summarise the engaging design factors and elements found within QA according to the frameworks and methods as proposed by the various authors mentioned above. The engaging design factors and elements are: (1) affiliation and cooperation with others; (2) challenge; (3) clear goals and standards; (4) competition; (5) opportunity to try and try again; (6) control and choice; (7) exploration, discovery, curiosity, play, fun, and variety; (8) fantasy; (9) moving up the levels; (10) multimodal output

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and input; and (11) recognition and affirmation of performance. A brief description of design factors and elements found in QA are listed in Table 1. These design factors and elements are also discussed and evaluated for its effectiveness in engaging and motivating the students in performing academic related activities within the after-school program and within QA. The impact of these proposed design elements found within QA would be looked into and further discussed in the later sections to evaluate their potential in engaging and motivating students in completing academic related activities and tasks in an afterschool setting.

The eSSenTIAl FACToR TowARdS A SuCCeSSFul AFTeR-SChool PRogRAm Research studies seem to suggest that after-school program is a good way to re-engage and motivate at-risk students (Beck, 1999; Cole, 1998; Cooper, Valentine, Nye, & Lindsay, 1999; Cosden, Morrison, Gutierrez, & Brown, 2004; Girod, Martineau, & Zhao, 2004). This is regardless of whether the focus of the program is on academic performance, bonding towards school, or usage of technologies, in a community setting, or within a school setting. More importantly, it is the commitment of the teachers or other adults who are running such programs with the basic aim of enriching the young minds, boosting their confidence, and valuing school related activities. Beck (1999) reports that formal after-school programs can make a difference in the academic performance of students and some schools are even implementing their own on-site after school curricula. She conducts a study at the Manchester Youth Development Centre and identifies six salient elements for the successful implementation of such initiatives. The factors are: (1) provision for both structure and autonomous space, (2) focus on academic achievement, (3) program is

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culturally consistent, (4) large core of committed authoritative adults, (5) child centred activities, and (6) safe place. There are clear rules and routines within the program and at the same time, have autonomous space that may be described as “wiggle room”. The academic component offers the extra time on task and instructional support provides additional educational opportunity. Time is also given for students to complete their homework. It is important to be aware and understand the culture, family background and belief systems of the students. The presence of adults who genuinely care for the students and are capable of disciplining them, if the need arises, is also important. The students and the children are the focus of this program. Lastly, safety includes protection from outside hazards and safety within the environment. Cole (1998) reports the successful implementation of the Fifth Dimension and KLICK! after-school programs respectively. The Fifth Dimension combines both practical and pedagogical concerns in the design of computer-mediated activities. The need to merge students’ interests in play and arcade-style games with interest in educationally effective games is considered. The second goal is to create activities with opportunities for written and oral communication about the goals and strategies used in problem solving. Third, is the awareness of repeated findings that girls engage in computer-based activity less than boys. Hence, the promotion of communicative writing is one area of computer involvement to attract the girls. Fourth, it is also the aim of the program to design the activity to be intrinsically motivating for the children who are involved in the program. Cooper, Valentine, Nye, and Lindsay (1999) report the relationships between five after-school activities (homework, television viewing, extracurricular activities, other types of structured after-school groups, and jobs) and academic achievement. After-school activities that are directly related to achievement (homework),

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Table 1. Engaging and motivating design elements that are found in QA No.

Design Factors and Elements

Brief Description of Design Factors and Elements found in Quest Atlantis

1.

Affiliation and Cooperation with Others (Dickey, 2005; Gee, 2003; Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006; Malone & Lepper, 1987)

There are two forms of communication available in – synchronous and asynchronous. Both forms of communication have the potential of engaging students in collaborative tasks where learning is viewed as a social process that involves building connections: (a) connections among what is being learned and what is important to the learner; (b) connections among what is being learned and those situations in which it is applied; and (c) connections among the learner and other learners with similar goals.

2.

Challenge (Dickey, 2005; Gee, 2003; Malone & Lepper, 1987)

In order to rebuild and restore the lost wisdom, the Atlantian council came up with a series of quests to challenge students to participate in their quests and share their knowledge with the Atlantian on how to save Atlantis. The inquiry nature of the quests provides opportunities and challenges for students to research into other cultures, analyse newspaper articles, interview members of the community and use software to come up with a meaningful document. The inquiry-oriented learning processes of information collection, interpretation, and analysis, and personal reflection to foster critical thinking and meta-cognition empower and enhance learning engagement. The quests in QA also provide template-based response documents with guiding questions, web links and keywords as scaffolds to direct students’ attention to the successful completion of the quests. The Atlantian council opened a virtual environment known as the OTAK Hub as a form of communication between Earth and Atlantis. Students are able to interact with the digital artefacts in the OTAK.

3.

Clear Goals and Standards (Dickey, 2005)

Goals and standards are clearly spelled out for each and every quest assigned to the students.

4.

Competition (Malone & Lepper, 1987)

This point system (lumins and cols) is transparent to all users within the environment. It provides some form of competition among the users as well. The points that they obtain from playing a game often appeal to them and motivate them. It is very common to observe that they compare and compete with their peers to demonstrate progress and superiority in the game.

5.

Opportunity to try and try again (Gee, 2003)

Students are required to continuously refine and resubmit quests that are not accepted by the Atlantian council (a role played by the teachers).

6.

Control and Choice (Dickey, 2005; Gee, 2003; Malone & Lepper, 1987)

They can also create their own avatars (virtual characters) and control them. The avatars can perform basic actions like wave, dance, jump with joy, and etc. Found in the eleven worlds (with three villages in each world) are games and simple interactivities to enhance the curiosity of the students.

7.

Play and Fun (Dickey, 2005; Gee, 2003; Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006; Malone & Lepper, 1987)

The 3D virtual world allows students to explore, discover, and enhance their curiosity. The 3D world provides a platform for play and fun. There is a variety of quests in the 11 worlds available within QA.

8.

Fantasy (Lim, Nonis, Hedberg, 2006; Malone & Lepper, 1987)

QA attempts to situate the students in the fantasy of rebuilding and reconstructing the “arch of wisdom”. Students are introduced the back-story at the onset of the program. Students are known as questers to restore order in the virtual world of QA.

9.

Moving up the levels (Gee, 2003; Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006)

The quests assigned to students follow a step-by-step sequence from easier ones to more difficult and complex quests.

10.

Multimodal Output and Input (Gee, 2003)

The quests within QA do not consist of only text. Teacher prepared worksheets, URL links to relevant website, hands-on sessions, and interaction within the 3D world are found in the quests assigned to students. Students are required to produce multimodal output such as screen capture, scanned images, hand drawn posters, and etc. Students’ outputs are not restricted to text only.

11.

Recognition and Affirmation of Performance (Gee, 2003; Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006; Malone & Lepper, 1987)

Through the point system called lumins students are given recognition for their contributions when they successfully submit the quests to the Atlantian council. For the other activities, they can collect cols, gems and minerals, jewellery, trading cards, maps, and etc. in their Q-Pack These increase the probability of student engagement.

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fostering of a positive identification with school (extra-curricular activities and other types of structured after-school programs), or both are positively related to students’ achievement in school. On the other hand, activities that displace school (television viewing), replace school identity with other identities (employment or jobs), or both are negatively related to achievement. According to the authors, it seems safe to say that parents and educators can profitably focus on the students’ after-school activities as a potentially important influence on achievement. Cosden, Morrison, Gutierrez, and Brown (2004) report their reviews on the effects of afterschool activities on school success. They observe that most of the after-school programs that address academic needs are designed to serve at-risk students and youths. These programs are typically broad-based and designed to promote self-esteem, enhance school bonding, and motivation which serve as a protective role to help students maintain their academic standing. After-school homework programs seem to benefit children who are at risk for school failure. Although after-school homework programs provide structure, supervision, and academic assistance, there are other types of extracurricular activities that may be beneficial to these children and would be unavailable if they were to attend the homework programs. The authors stress the importance of non-academic extracurricular activities – including sports, service clubs, and art activities – that are often associated with school engagement and achievement. These activities increase connectedness to the school and help to build students’ strengths, self-esteem, and positive social networks. Girod, Martineau, and Zhao (2004) also report their positive findings on the KLICK! (Kids Learning In Computer Clubhouses!) program. KLICK! is a computer clubhouse supporting positive, engaging, and innovative after-school activities for teenaged students. The students spend time, voluntarily, at the computer clubhouse creating web pages, surfing the internet, chatting on-line,

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filming and editing digital movies, and playing games. The KLICK! clubhouse is filled with networked computers, scanners, digital cameras, laser printers, and a server. Latest software to manage and edit digital video, author web pages, and chat interactively with other clubhouses are also available. There are numerous projects going on in a clubhouse. Many KLICK! Teens who contribute to the consortium newsletter, participate in video games and robotics competitions, are employed by teachers and community members to provide computer training and assistance. In addition, they also maintain the extensive local clubhouse and community websites.

The STudy The purpose of this study rather than a specific methodology defines this research study. The main aim of this study was to look into the effectiveness and subsequent formative improvements of the intervention of using the 3D game-like MUVE In order to understand and describe the processes which involved teachers, students and the 3D MUVE, a more qualitative research approach was used to engage and motivate 14 academically atrisk students in an after-school program.

Background of the Study This study is a collaborative project with a primary school in Singapore, the Centre for Research on Learning and Technology (CRLT) at Indiana University, and National Institution of Education / Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. It builds on earlier research studies on the implementation of Quest Atlantis in the United States (Barab, Thomas, Dodge, Carteaux, & Tuzun, 2005) and Singapore (Lim, Nonis, & Hedberg, 2006). This was a one year case study conducted in 2006. A total of 14 students were identified based on their previous year’s academic performance.

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They were the ones with the lowest examination scores among their cohort of about 240 students. Students in this after-school program were required to stay back for one and a half hour twice weekly.

Students’ engagement with Quests The QA after-school program started off with orienting the students to the 3D virtual environment as well as the expected behaviour of the students when they were online or within the QA virtual learning environment. It was made clear to the students that the quests were related to the work done in their normal classes. However, they would be using more of the computer and other forms of technologies to complete their quests (or assignments). At the very beginning of the orientation, all the students were shown a video of the back story of Quest Atlantis. The back story was about the deterioration of the Atlantis after it was handed over to the previous ruler’s son and daughter with the passing of the former leadership. Students, who were also known as questers, in this 3D online virtual environment, were to help the Atlantian Council to restore the ‘arch of wisdom’ by completing the quests that were assigned. The restoration of the ‘arch of wisdom’ would stop the deterioration of the Atlantis world. A structured inquiry approach was adopted during the initial phase and many of the subsequent sessions. Students were usually gathered in front of the computer laboratory and the teachers who were conducting the lesson would outline the basic agenda of the session and what was expected from the students. The teachers would then demonstrate how certain tasks could be completed. After which, the students would be assigned a computer each to login into the 3D virtual environment to complete the tasks they were assigned. Following the orientation quests, students were also taught technical skills such as how to take a photograph (screen capture) of the characters

within the virtual world, make a bracelet as well as collect maps, trading cards, user manuals, gems, minerals, and discovery tools. The students were also given a round-neck QA T-shirt each after the orientation phase of the program. This was done to promote students’ sense of belonging to the QA after-school program. The same number of lumins and cols were awarded automatically by the system when the quests submitted were accepted by the Atlantian Council, which was role-played by the teachers who were running the after-school program. Additional cols were also given to the students by the teachers when they had successfully completed additional tasks assigned by the teachers or when they exhibited desirable behaviour such as helping a friend in completing their quests. Teachers could award cols but not lumins. Students did not complete all the orientation quests as suggested by the teachers as they were often distracted by the 3D space and animated digital artefacts within QA. As a result, some of the students only started doing the orientation quests after many reminders from the teachers. After the orientation phase, the students were often re-gathered in front of the computer laboratory for a short briefing before each session. It was as a form of advance organiser on how certain quests could be done, followed by the students working with the computer on the quests at their own time. Lim (2004) suggests the use of advance organiser as a strategy to teach student “learn how to learn online”. He also suggests the use of scaffolding to address students’ lack of knowledge. As a form of scaffolding given to the students, teachers assist the students when they needed any assistance. The students were also given the freedom to explore and do their own quests with permission from the teacher. But, only a handful of the students took the initiative to work on the quests of their choice. The students were also encouraged to attempt any quest when they were at home. However, it was observed that the students preferred to follow the instructions

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of the teachers. Only students who were more independent attempted a few additional quests on their own accord after seeking permission from the teachers. Many, if not all, the students were often observed to be engaged with the 3D space in the virtual environment and playing with their favourite online games, such as Maple SEA, HABBO Hotel, Adventure Quest, to name a few. Students usually engaged themselves in these online game sites before and after the program. They would come in earlier and stayed back later to make use of whatever possible opportunities they had to visit these game sites. At times, they visited these sites when they thought that the teachers were not watching. Other than earning their lumins through the submission of quests, they also spent considerable amount of time collecting digital artefacts and cols in their respective Q-Packs. However, they were also aware of the expectations of the teachers, that is, to attend the program and submit the quests as expected of them. For the students, the computer and QA were used as tools to access and play their favourite online games. In addition, students also used the QA 3D space to work on and submit their quests, get their lumins, cols and digital artefacts, and communicate with their QA classmates and other questers who were online. The students were attracted by the game-like design elements and this could be further exploited to draw out the intended outcomes. Students’ engagements with the quests were basically teacher guided. Some of the students were more enthusiastic in doing the quests so as to earn more lumins and cols which allowed them to luminate the petals of their respective Shard Flowers, change their avatars, and exchange for digital artefacts in the virtual environment. However, some were less engaged with the quests but were more interested in the collection of digital artefacts from exploring the 3D space of the virtual learning environment. It was evident that the game-like design elements alone could not engage the students in academic related activities.

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ReSeARCh deSIgn And meThodS A case study approach is used in this study to look into the effectiveness of the intervention of the use of a 3D MUVE to re-engage a group of academically at-risk students in an after-school program. The students were selected based on their academic performance. This project aims to re-engage this group of students in academic related tasks and activities. A case study approach is used as this program is a “case” of the implementation of a 3D MUVE in an after-school setting within a school context. The interest is on both the commonalities and uniqueness of this case. Most importantly, it is on what we can learn from and share about this case. Although case study seems to be a poor basis for the purpose of generalization to inform about future practices, the case will be studied at greater length and the recurrent activities, problems, and responses will be considered. Hence, generalization could then be drawn up. “For the most part, the cases of interest in education and social service are people and programs. Each one is similar to other persons in many ways and unique in many ways” (Stake, 1995, p. 1). Case study research is not a sampling research. Hence, it is not the primary intent of this case study to understand other cases. According to Stake (1995, p. 4), it may be useful to try to select cases that are typical or representative of other cases, but a sample of one or a sample of just a few is unlikely to be a strong representation of others. The most important criterion of using a case study as a research method is to maximise what we can learn. Certainly, the intervention experience with this group of students could be used to inform the educational practitioners about the future practices and remedies for this group of students regardless of which school they belong to. A constant theme that appears in the literature of case study research is triangulation, the use of multiple sources of evidence in data collection (Yin, 1994; Stake, 1995; Gillham, 2000b; Merriam, 1998). The most important advantage

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presented by using multiple sources of evidence is the development of converging lines of inquiry. Findings or conclusion is likely to be much more convincing and accurate if it is based on several different sources of information. With multiple approaches within a single study, we are likely to illuminate or nullify some extraneous influences (Yin, 1994; Stake, 1995). In this case study, triangulation addresses the problems of validity and reliability. The different research methods used in this study acted as a means of triangulation. The findings were derived and triangulated from the various research methods listed below. For instance, observation notes of the after-school program was triangulated with interviews with the students, and the students’ activities in the virtual environment to enhance validity and trustworthiness of this study. The following research methods were used in the data collection and analysis: 1.

2.

Observation notes: Observation allows the gathering of rich data in natural settings. Rich data means a better description and understanding of what goes on in a particular process. The focus of the observation notes were on the teacher-student, studentteacher interactions, and behaviour of the students during the after-school program. Observation notes were recorded after each after-school session for analysis. Interviews and interactions with students: Interviewing could be one of the most common and most powerful ways to try to understand the individual or a group (Fontana & Frey, 1994). One of the main purpose of the interview sessions with the teachers is to reconcile a common discrepancy between what they say about themselves and what they actually do (Gillham, 2000a). Hence, the interviews with the teachers and also students would act as a form of triangulation

against what is observed from the researchers’ perspective. All the 14 students who were involved in the QA after-school program from the beginning were interviewed informally and individually throughout the study. These interviews were conducted either during the after-school program or immediately after the after-school sessions. Each student was interviewed at least twice. They were interviewed individually so that the responses from the student could be independent and not influenced by the others. In addition, it was also to avoid the very dominant or opinionated students from biasing the results obtained from the interviews as the more reserved students might be hesitant to talk. These sessions took the form of informal interviews; basically in the form of an informal chitchat session during the after-school program to check on the students’ responses and reactions towards their progress and how they felt about the program. The students were one of the most important elements in this research, especially in the area of their motivation and engagement with the use of the 3D MUVE. The interview questions were generated after observation of the students in the after-school program and interactions with the students during the after-school program. The questions asked were mainly on how they felt about the after-school program, what were the factors that motivated them to attend the sessions and what were the elements found within QA that motivated and engaged them in the completion of quests 3.

Students’ activities in the MUVE: The QA virtual learning environment provides a very comprehensive teacher module that captures each and every student’s activities within the online learning environment. For instance, detailed students’ activities, such as the number of quests assigned, number

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of quests each individual student had attempted, and the number of lumins awarded could be retrieved from the teacher’s module. Students’ chat log could also be retrieved through this module. This module was used to retrieve information on the number of quests students had completed, the number of lumins they earned, number of cols they had collected in their respective Q-Packs, and the number of logins to this virtual learning environment. The whole research setting happened naturally with many variables within the school context in an after-school remediation program that was conducted twice weekly. Constant discussions and reflections were done to fine-tune the implementation of this program and the introduction of the type of quests that best captivate the attention of the students. One central focus was to look into how the different elements within the QA environment motivate and engage the students with school related activities and how these elements could inform theories in educational MUVE design, engagement, and motivation. In addition, the students were not treated like subjects. Instead, they were treated as partners of this program and were constantly consulted on how they would like the program to be. In this case study, data analysis with each method, between methods and with the case took place together with the data collection and data processing. The ongoing analyses helped to remove biases and errors that had crept into the fieldwork and fine-tune the research methods to reflect a better understanding of the setting. The data collected was continually subjected to cross checking with the various sources of data. In short, the points of discussion were derived from the various sources of data, which were cross-examined within each method and between methods. The design elements within QA that could engage the students were established

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through interview sessions with all the students and this was further triangulated with their activities with QA, and the observation notes.

FIndIngS And dISCuSSIon This chapter reports the findings – students’ interaction with the engaging elements in QA from the observation notes, interviews with students, and students’ activities in the MUVE.

Students’ Interaction with the engaging elements in QA Several game-like elements were found in QA. These elements were outlined in the earlier section. They would be discussed in relation to the QA after-school program. It was observed that students seemed to be engaged with seven of these eleven game-like elements found in QA. The play and fun elements found within the QA’s 3D space attracted and engaged the students. In addition, the recognition and affirmation of performance also motivated the students to attempt and submit their quests. Other design elements such as the affiliation and cooperation with others, challenge, clear goals and standards, competition, and control and choice also showed potential for engaging the students. The reactions of the students to these design elements would be discussed in greater detail in the following sections that follow.

Affiliation and Cooperation with Others The after-school program had created some sort of exclusiveness and affiliation amongst this group of students. The 3D online game-like virtual learning environment, that is, QA, also provided the group with an identity in the school, especially amongst the Primary 5 students. The after-school program was commonly known as

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“QA” to the selected students, other students in the school, and fellow teachers. It was observed that students worked in pairs doing their quests and other activities on many occasions during the after-school program. The virtual environment also provided a possibility for co-questing, that is, forming groups for the submission of quests within the environment. Some of the students, used the communicative tools found within the environment on their own accord, especially the synchronous chat that provided just-in-time and on-demand type of interactions with other participants of QA which included students in the after-school program, as well as local and overseas students who were also present in the virtual environment. Collaboration amongst the students was mainly via the online chat. However, the content of the emails, chats, and telegrams was mainly socially motivated rather than content related discussions.

Challenge The element of challenge was not very evident in engaging this group of students, especially for those quests that were closely tied to the school curriculum and syllabus. Although the quests were designed to challenge the students, quite a number of them were rather similar to the type of assignments given in their daily classes. As many of the quests were mainly text-based inquiry type of questions, some of the students found it difficult even to achieve the minimum requirements. It was the reminders and assistance by the teachers who conducted the program that drove the submission of these curriculum related quests amongst the students. However, students seemed to be more engaged with the more authentic type of quests, such as those that required students to help clean up a nearby river banks and solve mysteries within the virtual environment. Students were observed to be more challenged by these quests.

Clear Goals and Standards The goals and standards required were clearly spelt out for each quest, with narration to help students who could not read well. The objectives of each quest were further reinforced and elaborated by the teacher who conducted the lesson to help the students focussed on the tasks that they had to do. Students also helped one another to clarify doubts they had through face-to-face interactions during the after-school program. Although this element was not very apparent and did not come out distinctively, it had indirectly helped the students to be more focused towards the tasks they were supposed to complete.

Competition The point system, that was the lumins and cols, was transparent to all the users within the virtual environment. Students did compare their performance amongst themselves, although it was not very apparent and did not really come out strongly in the interviews with the students. Two girls did share that they liked the competition with others. Yvonne shared that she could show off the number of lumins and cols to her friends. “… if I luminate…, I will show off and go tell others,” she exclaimed. One of the students also reflected that it was a form of contest to her to get more lumins as compared to her friends. “When you get more lumins mean you win,” she shared.

Opportunity to Try and Try Again In QA, students were given the opportunities to continuously refine and resubmit their quests that were rejected by the Atlantian council members who were role-played by the teachers. They were allowed to resubmit their quest as many times until they were accepted by the council. There were no penalties for any quests not accepted by the council.

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However, several students commented that it was very frustrating when they were asked to resubmit their quests repeatedly. For instance, although several students shared that they would continue to submit even after many rejections, they was not forthcoming in terms of behaviour in the resubmission of quests. One of them lamented that, “… I tried doing the quests and submitting them but sometimes the council does not accept them.” When I asked him whether he would resubmit his quests, his answer was positive that he would resubmit even for the third or fourth time. He also expressed his frustration regarding the rejection of the quests he had submitted.

Control and Choice Students liked the control and choice over their avatars and where they wanted to go in the online game-like virtual environment. However, the same could not be said for the quests that they needed to do. Basically, there were two different groups of students. One group of students was rather independent with their submission of quests while the other group was less focused and spent quite a considerable amount of time just loitering and wandering about within the 3D environment. There was this constant struggle that when the students were given a choice, many of them would spend too much time on the 3D space rather than on the completion and submission of the quests.

Play and Fun The hot favourite amongst the students was to explore, discover, and satisfy their sense of curiosity, especially in the 3D environment, where they played around with the gym, cars, and boats. The student quickly shared what they could do with the cars and boats in the 3D environment with the others and shortly, all of them would be taking

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turns to have a ride on either the cars or the boats. They were also able to explore and discover new things within the MUVE. It was actually the students who taught the teachers, including myself, many features/elements that they had found in the virtual environment. Throughout the after-school program, it was observed that students were very interested in the 3D environment, especially playing with the cars, airplanes, yacht, and gym. Those who were a little more creative even played hide-and-seek within the 3D environment. At times, the students visited other game sites when teachers were not looking at them. The 3D MUVE could really engage the students. Unfortunately, it was not in doing their quests. The virtual environment could entice them to be involved in computer game-like play such as controlling the cars, airplanes, and yachts. The 3D environment was a constant distraction. However, we could not imagine the MUVE without it. The 3D environment played quite a significant role in attracting the students to come to the after-school program as they were allowed to explore, discover, and satisfy their sense of curiosity. There were instances where the students were so distracted by it that teachers had to disable the 3D space so as to get them to focus on the quests. The 3D environment was the main attraction and without it, the students seemed to be very restless during the period where the 3D space was disabled. Students found it very captivating even if they were to just move around and explore the 3D environment with their friends. Students exchanged notes on how and what to do in the various worlds that were available to them. Some had even gone into the hidden worlds through online chat with their overseas counterparts. We learned a lot from the students in this aspect. The 3D environment was play, fun, and possibly variety to the students. From the above findings, the 3D environment was indeed a source of attraction, especially to the students.

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Fantasy Generally, the students understood the back story of Quest Atlantis. However, it was observed during the interviews that some were not very convinced with the existence of the Atlantian council. Below were the interview dialogues between the interviewer and two of the students. The dialogues were their thoughts about the fantasy and back story of Quest Atlantis and the Atlantian council. “I don’t believe there is a Council,” one of them shared during her interview. “All those teachers involved in QA. They mark the quests. I don’t believe that there is Council… I don’t believe that. That are not real, it is false.” When interviewed, the other students reflected that she was still doubtful and she confirmed that a couple of her friends did not believe in it. Some of the students even approached teachers to ask whether they were the ones who gave feedback on their assignments online. Through the interactions with the students, it seemed that this element of fantasy was not prominent in engaging the students to submit their quests.

Moving Up the Levels The whole design and plan for the after-school program was to engage the students in a step-bystep manner with the easier quests to be done first, followed by the more complex and difficult ones. Simple orientation quests were first introduced, followed by the more complex quests. This approach had, in its limited ways, encouraged the students to attempt some of the quests.

Multimodal Output and Input A variety of quests was assigned to the students, ranging from online worksheets type to quests that required the students to interact with the digital characters in the 3D environment. Students were also required to produce multimodal types of output as part of their submissions such as screen

captures, scanned images, and hand drawn maps. It had, to some extent, engaged students who were not inclined to text and writing.

Recognition and Affirmation of Performance Most, if not all, students reflected that the lumins, cols, avatars, and digital artefacts did motivate them to submit quests that were assigned to them. This was especially evident from the interview sessions with the students. Although the main focus during the after-school program was for the students to complete their quests, the students actually spent quite a considerable amount of time learning from one another and exchanged ideas on how they could go about collecting more items in their Q-Packs and how to use their cols to exchange for things that they wanted. One of the students was delighted when he gained enough lumins to change his avatar to one with an eagle on its shoulder. The student actually figured out on his own how he could change his avatar. This created some talks and discussion amongst the students, too. As much as the teachers would like to draw out the intrinsic motivation of the students in academic related activities, it seemed to suggest that extrinsic forms of motivation such as the points system within the 3D MUVE, that is, the lumins and cols were more able to encourage the students to submit quests, even those who were not so engaged and motivated. The lumins earned allowed the students to luminate their respective petals of the Shard Flower. In addition, the lumins also permitted the students to change their avatars (changing to one with an eagle on the shoulder). Some students shared during their interviews that they would like to do more quests so that they could get more lumins to change their respective avatars. Cols were the currency in the QA environment that allowed the students to rent land, buy digital artefacts, to name a few. Students were also interested in getting more cols to buy more

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digital artefacts and land. The digital artefacts they collected and bought were kept in their Q-Packs. One of the more savvy students even conducted a sharing session on how to use cols to buy land within the environment as many of the students would like to know how to do it. They spent considerable effort and time to collect all these in their respective Q-Packs. Students were more engaged with the non-academic activities that seemed to be more meaningful to them than the academic ones. The findings suggested that the play elements found within the QA’s 3D space attracted and engaged the students. In addition, the recognition and reward system also motivated the students to attempt and submit their quests. Other design elements such as the affiliation and cooperation with others, challenge, clear goals and standards, competition, and control and choice also showed potential for engaging the students. However, it was observed that these engaging elements alone, which were found within the QA MUVE, were not sufficient in engaging these students in completion of quests (i.e., inquiry-based tasks and activities). The students’ engagement with the quests found within the virtual learning environment is discussed in greater details in the next section.

non-ICT ACTIvITIeS ThAT FuRTheR FACIlITATed The STudenTS’ engAgemenT The above discussion highlighted how a technological tool such as QA could be used to facilitate the learning of a group of academically at-risk students depended very much on how it was being used. Although the QA virtual learning environment provided the students with opportunities to engage themselves in the learning process, it could not be assumed that these opportunities would be taken up (Crane, 2000). Lim (2004) also put forward that learners may lack the learning strat-

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egies, knowledge, and attitude to work through the online learning environment. It was observed that non-ICT activities planned and carried out by the teachers were crucial in further facilitating the engagement of the students. Without these non-ICT activities, the effectiveness of the ICT tool would be compromised. In order to better engage these students, orientation program was planned and conducted to address the issue of lack of learning strategies in the students by providing the necessary opportunities for students to learn and explore the QA virtual learning environment. The QA after-school program started off with orienting the students to the 3D virtual environment as well as the expected behaviour of the students when they were online or within the QA virtual learning environment. Lim (2004) suggests that in order to address the lack of learning strategies, students need to be provided with “learn how to learn online” sessions so that students do not get lost due to the navigation aspects of the interface. A structured inquiry approach was adopted during the QA sessions. Students were usually gathered in front of the computer laboratory and the teachers who were conducting the lesson would outline the basic agenda of the session and what was expected from the students. The teachers would then demonstrate how certain tasks could be completed. Advance organisers in the form of relevant and inclusive introductory materials to provide students with a structure that could guide them on a given learning activity as they work through the learning environment. After which, the students would be assigned a computer each to login into the 3D virtual environment to complete the tasks they were assigned. In order to address the lack of knowledge, teachers and the researchers monitored the progress of each student and provided necessary technical and content knowledge when students were in doubt with navigating within the virtual environment or uncertain with the quests they were working on.

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As for the lack of appropriate attitude, Lim (2004)suggests the use of authentic activities such as problem-solving (solving of authentic problems) and simulating activities. In order to enhance the students attitude towards their quests the teachers and researchers designed authentic and problem-solving type of quests to even better engage the students. Students were shown a video of the back story of QA to situate them as questers seeking knowledge to restore the ‘arch of wisdom’ so to stop the deterioration of the Atlantis world.

lImITATIon oF STudy There were three main limitations in this research. Firstly, this case study provided little basis for generalization. Nevertheless, the context of the study is elaborated in detail to address this limitation – a rich content is provided. According to Stake (1995, p. 4), it may be useful to try to select cases that are typical or representative of other cases, but a sample of one or a sample of just a few is unlikely to be a strong representation of others. However, the primary intent of this case study was not to understand the other cases. The main purpose was to maximise what we could learn from this case study on how the use of a 3D MUVE could be used to re-engage academically at-risk students in school related work. The second limitation was our assumptions and biases as we are directly involved implementation of the research. Recognizing that our assumptions and biases could affect the data collection and its outcome, the data collection process, data analysis within each method, between methods, and within the case took place alongside data collection and data processing. Having ongoing analysis had two advantages. First, they helped to undo errors in the field. Observation notes were recorded after each session and completed very promptly. This allowed time for us to look through these notes and reflect upon how the data collection processes

could be fine-tuned along the way. Second, the ongoing analysis provided opportunities to refine the research methods to reflect a better understanding of the context. There were continuous efforts to triangulate the observations and the interviews conducted. However, at times, it was obvious that the interpretation of the researchers as well as that of the participants mediated all the data. To address this, we constantly questioned our own assumptions. I also regularly checked our observations with the teachers who were involved in this research project. The third limitation was the students who were involved in the after-school program. They were a group of students who were the weakest among their cohort and were not very fluent in their English language as many did not speak English at home and with their friends. This was an issue during the informal interviews with them as they needed much probing and remained rather quiet with open-ended type of questions. This limitation was recognised during the on-going data collection process and other sources of data, such as the students’ online activities via the QA teachers’ module, were used to complement the interviews.

ConCluSIon And FuTuRe TRendS This paper has highlighted the potentials and possibilities of the use of a game-like virtual environment in the engagement of a group of academically at-risk students. The engaging elements within the virtual environment attracted the students but additional non-ICT activities are needed to support them in the completion of academically related tasks and activities, which are known as quests in this virtual environment. QA was more than a tool to the students. Some of the design elements within this gamelike MUVE, such as the 3D space, lumins, cols, avatars, and digital artefacts became something

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that the students sought after. The students who were involved in the after-school program were not intrinsically motivated towards the quests but they were extrinsically motivated by the 3D space, lumins, cols, avatars, and digital artefacts. Hence, these elements could be further capitalised to bring about the desired behaviours amongst the students. In essence, QA played the role of a tool to facilitate learning, it also played the role of enticing and attracting the attention of the students. Lepper, Corpus, Iyengar (2005) suggest that “working to enhance both intrinsic motivation and the internalisation of extrinsic motivation may help to maximise – or, at least, to minimise the loss of – children’s motivation to learn” (p. 193). The authors further propose that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can and do coexist. They argued that although not all activities could be designed or made intrinsically motivating, the internalisation of extrinsic motivation could be potentially useful and informative as a supplement to intrinsic motivation. In other words, the engaging elements mentioned above could be used as a supplement to enhance the intrinsic motivation of the students. Non-ICT based activities such as orientation activities, advance organisers, learning how to learn in an online virtual environment, teachers’ guidance, and use of more authentic tasks are also necessary and crucial to further bring out the potentials of this game-like MUVE. This observation again illustrated the importance of the need to develop appropriate pedagogical strategies to better engage our students. Hence, further studies could be conducted to look what teaching pedagogies would be more suited to bring out the potentials of such game-like MUVE to enhance the extrinsic and the intrinsic motivation of the students for learning in a school setting. An in-depth study could also be carried out to look into what are the necessary socio-cultural conditions for such an educational innovation to flourish within a school setting. In addition, a more comprehensive experimental study could also be

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conducted to look into the effectiveness of such a program in enhancing the academic results of these pupils.

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Rieber, L. P. (1996). Seriously considering play: Designing interactive learning environments based on the blending of micro-worlds, simulations, and games. Educational Technology Research and Development, 44(2), 43–58. doi:10.1007/BF02300540 Rosas, R., Nussbaum, M., Cumsille, P., Marianov, V., Correa, M., & Flores, P. (2003). Beyond Nintendo: Design and assessment of educational video games for first and second grade students. Computers & Education, 40(1), 71–94. doi:10.1016/ S0360-1315(02)00099-4

Squire, K. (2005, August). Changing the game: What happens when video games enter the classroom? Innovate, 1. Retrieved on August 30, 2006, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index. php?view=article&id=82 Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. Stewart, K. M. (1997). Beyond entertainment: Using interactive games in Web-based instruction. Journal of Instruction Delivery System, 11(2), 18–20. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

This work was previously published in Comparative Blended Learning Practices and Environments, edited by E. Ng, pp. 231249, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.20

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School: Japan’s First Undergraduate DegreeAwarding Online Program Shoji Nishimura Waseda University, Japan Douglass J. Scott Waseda University, Japan Shogo Kato Waseda University, Japan

ABSTRACT In 2003, the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Japan, established the e-School, Japan’s first complete undergraduate correspondence courses enabling students to acquire their bachelor degrees solely through e-learning. Supported by the widespread availability of high-speed Internet connections, it has become possible to transmit videotaped lectures with an image quality close to that of television, not only throughout Japan, but also throughout the world at affordable rates. In addition, the lecture contents are transmitted in an image quality that allows students to easily read what is written on the blackboard. Waseda’s

e-School has many features that contribute to its success. Among these are the coupling of online and on-campus courses enhancing the educational experience of all students. In addition, online courses are relatively small—most courses are capped at 30 students—and new courses are created to respond to students’ needs and interests. This article outlines the e-School’s curriculum, management structure, and system and reports on the current status of the courses by analyzing the results of a questionnaire survey conducted after one year from their establishment and the state of credits registered and earned by students.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

InTRoduCTIon Waseda University, one of Japan’s oldest private universities, started to issue “Waseda Kogiroku” (“transcripts of lectures”) for off-campus students in 1886, only four years after the University was founded. Waseda Kogiroku continued to be issued until 1957 and was ultimately distributed to a total of 2.7 million learners. Such learners include many distinguished leading researchers and scholars in Waseda University and Japan, such as Soukichi Tsuda, the famous historian specializing in Japanese and Chinese intellectual histories. Waseda Kogiroku, along with the “itinerant lectures” given in various regions in Japan, deserve special mention in the history of lifelong education in Japan. Since 1949, Waseda University was engaged in providing continuing education by its School of Political Science and Economics II (abolished in 1973), the School of Law II (abolished in 1973), the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences II, the School of Commerce II (abolished in 1973), and the School of Science and Engineering II (abolished in 1968), all of which were evening courses, as well as the School of Social Sciences established in 1966 (classes were offered both in the daytime and evenings). However, these courses were offered oncampus and the University had no correspondence courses as a university under the post-war system. The advent of widely-available Interent connections was to greatly change the University’s educational delivery options. In the United States, e-learning using the Internet has been actively introduced by higher education institutions since the middle of the 1990’s. In particular, with regard to distance education, the University of Phoenix has introduced e-learning in a successful manner (Sperling 2000, Yoshida 2002). Japan’s entrance into Internet-based education was slower to start, ideed, Japanese law didn’t allow universities to offer Internetbased education until 2001. Amendments to the standards for the establishment of universities

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by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in March 2001 specified that “a class utilizing the Internet” (i.e. a kind of e-learning) could be recognized as one form of “a class conducted by using media (remote teaching).” This allowed universities’ correspondence courses to use the Internet as the primary means of delivering course content for all credits required for graduation (i.e. 124 credits) (Shimizu 2002). Changes in access to high-speed Internet connections also contributed to the development of Internet-based education in Japan. According to the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Japan, as of the end of March 2003, the accumulated number of subscribers of broadband Internet connections amounted to approximately 6.9 million (DSL: 6,589,867, FTTH: 305,387) (Economic Research Office, General Policy Division, Information and Communications Policy Bureau, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, Japan 2004). The spread of broadband Internet connections made it easier to deliver dynamic picture images in high quality to the average home. Various Japanese universities have conducted Internet-based education. In Japan, national universities were given independent status in April, 2004 and these universities have become eager to highlight their school’s features, which has created increasing interest in e-learning and distance learning (Shimizu 2004). Some universities, such as Yashima Gakuen University, Japan Cyber University, Nihon University Graduate School, Shinshu University (Nagano Prefecture) and Nagaoka University of Technology (Niigata Prefecture), have started to offer e-learning-based curricula coordinated by each school. Yashima Gakuen University is a correspondence university established in April 2004. The students can graduate by using the Internet without the need to study on campus. The program’s characteristic learning method

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

is multiple simultaneous communication known as Media Schooling (Asai 2005). Japan Cyber University was recently established in 2006. Nihon University Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies was the first correspondence graduate school in Japan. Nihon University Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies was established in 1999. Shinshu University, Graduate School of Science and Technology on the Internet (SUGSI) was established in 2002, and the undergraduate course on the Internet (Shinshu University, School on the Internet; SUSI) was established in 2004. In particular, the Internet Graduate School of Shinshu University allows students to complete their master courses solely by taking classes over the Internet (Fuwa et al. 2004, Ueno 2004). While other Japanese college programs offered Internet-based education, Waseda University was the first to offer a complete undergraduate degree program using the Internet. Through the activities carried out by the Digital Campus Consortium established in 1999 and the active use of on-demand lectures that were started mainly by Waseda’s School of Letters, Arts and Sciences since 2001 (lecture delivery using on-demand streaming), Waseda University had already accumulated various know-how regarding classes utilizing the Internet and had established infrastructure such as a transmission system (Matsuoka 2001). These programs helped establish Waseda’s e-School degree program which was the first university in Japan to establish correspondence courses enabling undergraduate students to graduate solely by taking classes utilizing the Internet. This online undergraduate degree program was developed by the faculty of the School of Human Sciences—established in 1987—which was an appropriate choice given the School’s emphasis on a wide variety of social concerns. The School of Human Sciences was established, in part, concerns that humanity had been impaired by a number of social problems as it moved

toward the 21st century. Waseda University advocated the broad study of human sciences with the lofty goals of alleviating such a situation, restore humanity, and help cultivate people who can be engaged academically in education and research with respect to every kind of issue regarding humankind. Initially, with the goal of solving various kinds of problems with modern society and establishing a sustainable society, the School of Human Sciences pursued education and research focused on comprehensive and academic perspectives as approaches that are different from deepening each segmented field of science. Later, the rapid change in the world and Japan society particularly in the last 10 years brought a significant change to the contents of the education and research at the School of Human Sciences of Waseda University. The School of Human Sciences, then, was reorganized in 2003 into three new departments that were developed based on the results of the education and research accumulated so far and set such new fields as new targets for education and research. Specifically, the School of Human Sciences decided to address “environment,” “health and welfare” and “information,” to better address the urgent issues of the 21st century. It is considered that generally every member of society is conscious of problems in environment, health and welfare, and information. When compared with students without work experience, people who are employed or who are in a position of supporting their family are considered to be conscious of such problems more deeply and urgently due to various experiences they have accumulated in the real world. On the other hand, however, these working people often had limited opportunities to learn how to challenge such problems. The spread of broadband access to the Internet through ADSL and the amendments made to the standards for establishment of universities enabled students to acquire their bachelor degrees by attending classes at any time they like while at home.

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Under these circumstances, it has become possible to provide a place for learning about the academic and technical approaches to working adults and other members of the society who are highly conscious about problems regarding environment, health and welfare and information. This article outlines the correspondence courses of the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University (generally called “e-School of the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University”; hereinafter referred to as e-School.), the first ever university correspondence courses in Japan established in April 2003 enabling students to acquire their bachelor degrees by taking only “classes utilizing the Internet” reports the actual achievement in two years, and discusses e-learning as an educational method. This article will focus on the first four years of operation, from the induction of the first class to their graduation four years later. The following sections of this article outlines the e-School’s curricula, management structure, and system, and reports on the current status of the courses by analyzing the results of a questionnaire survey conducted after one year from their establishment and the state of credits registered and earned by students.

oRgAnIzATIon STRuCTuRe Faculty organization and Administrative Structure The e-School was launched in April 2003 at the same time of the reorganization of the School of Human Sciences and the integration of full-time faculties; all of the full-time faculty members (69 in total) teach classes for both e-School and oncampus courses. The burden on faculty members is adjusted to balance the classes for correspondence courses and on-campus courses, and the number of classes assigned to each faculty is almost the same as the average number of classes assigned to

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each faculty member overall at Waseda University (90 minutes per class, 7 classes per week, for one academic year). In addition, from among the full-time faculty members, an Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and an Associate Dean of Student Affairs are assigned as executive members of the School of Human Sciences and they are engaged in the operation of the School. With regard to the administrative work, the creation of lecture contents and the system’s operation, aside from the two full-time staff members in charge of e-School, are managed by professionals dispatched by a company funded by Waseda University (hereinafter referred to as the “University’s affiliated company”) as these tasks require know-how that is different from the on-campus courses. Creation of lecture content, management and operation of the lecture delivery system, and Learning Management System (LMS), training of mentors discussed below, personnel management, and publicity activities are mainly performed by such dispatched personnel. For creating lecture content, two directors, two camera operators, one editor, and one person in charge of copyright including license acquisition for third parties’ literary works work on a regular basis in an exclusive studio in the Tokorozawa Campus of Waseda University where the School of Human Sciences is located. The lecture delivery system and Learning Management System (LMS) are operated by three staff members of the University in charge of these systems in cooperation with staff members of the company that established the server and is hosting the same. In addition, three other staff members assist with clerical work.

Academic Coach University faculty are assisted in their teaching of the e-School’s courses by “Academic Coaches.” The position of instructor under former university correspondence courses was reinterpreted to be an

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

“Academic Coach” so that it matches the system of the e-School that focuses on classes utilizing the Internet. During the semester, in cooperation with the professor of record, Academic Coaches act as contact persons to receive and answer questions posted on the Bulletin Board System (BBS) or sent by e-mail as well as taking the role of mentors to provide other learning assistance, instruction, and advice. Academic Coaches are required to respond to questions from students within 48 hours, however, inquiries are usually within the same day in most cases. Every semester, all people assuming positions as Academic Coaches get together for a one-day training session on the overall picture of the eSchool, curriculum, coaching on the Internet, and how to utilize LMS, among others. Then, they take a two-week online training course using the training lecture contents placed on the actual system in a manner that is similar to actual class management. These training programs and recruitment are handled by the University’s affiliated company under the supervision of the School of Human Sciences. As it is desirable that an Academic Coach is a researcher in a field closely related to the field of the professor of record, currently the positions of Academic Coaches are assumed mainly by students taking a doctoral course at Waseda University upon the recommendation of their academic advisor. In the future, as our e-School becomes more widely recognized by people, we plan to recruit people for the position openly and manage Academic Coaches as a human resource bank. As of December 2006, 138 people have registered as Academic Coaches, of which 55 people belong to the Graduate School of Human Sciences of Waseda University, 37 people belong to other graduate schools of Waseda University, 22 people belong to graduate schools of other universities, and 24 people are housewives who have complete graduate schools or are active professionals in fields that are close to the subject. From among these registrants, the Academic

Coaches in charge are chosen for each subject/ class after interviews with the faculty members in charge of the subject/class for each semester in consideration of the class schedule and the number of classes to be opened.

CuRRICulum Allocation of Subjects The e-School’s curriculum is basically the same as the curriculum for on-campus courses, and requires the same number of credits (124) for graduation. One of the features of the School of Human Sciences’ curriculum (both e-School and on-campus) is that students are allowed to freely choose subjects regardless of whether they are offered by the department in which the students have enrolled (an unusual situation in Japan) and that all subjects taken are included in calculating the number of credits required for graduation. With regard to research methods and senior thesiss research courses, students can also take subjects taught by faculty members that belong to departments other than their own department. However, as the maximum number of students for these subjects is predetermined, where the number of students wishing to take such subjects exceeds the maximum, students belonging to the department offering such subjects will have priority. With regard to specialized lecture subjects, there is no enrollment limit and classes are opened in accordance with the number of students wishing to take them. The number of subjects allocated for oncampus courses is 457, and 341 for the e-School. The reason for this differences is that there are time schedule and class size restrictions for the on-campus curriculum. In contrast, e-School students can register for subjects without being affected by the time schedule and class size, so fewer courses need to be available to accommodate full registration by all students.

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The number of courses allocated for the eSchool was determined based on an admission limit of 300 students. As the e-School allows students to take courses across departments, the following is a simplified estimation for the School as a whole. 69 courses are offered in the categories of Seminar I, II and Graduation Thesis Research, wherein one subject is taken by 4.3 students on average. The enrollment limit for each subject in the category of Research Methods is 20, and 59 courses are offered in this category (these courses alternate through half being offered during one year and the remaining courses being offered the following year). Students are required to take 2 courses from this subject category by the time of their graduation. The capacity for providing enough space is indicated by the calculation: 300(students) * 2(courses)) /59(courses)= 10.2. In addition, the number of specialized lecture courses is 98 and students are required to take at least 98 credits (49 courses) by the time of their graduation. Based on the calculation of 300(students) * 49(courses) / 98(courses) = 150, we have judged that where the enrollment limit per class is 30, we can secure the capacity by offering five classes per each subject on average. The features of the allocation of courses are shared by both on-campus courses and correspondence courses: Students do not need to distinguish between the department to which they belong and other departments in selecting the subjects they take. In extreme cases, students can graduate by taking only subjects offered by other departments. However, with regard to research methodology courses, seminars and senior thesis research, there are enrollment limits for such course (research methodology is about 20 students, seminars and senior thesiss research is about 10 students). It was necessary to establish the curriculum for the e-School to respond to the needs of students based on the assumption of having various types of students with a wide variety of backgrounds. One of those changes was a subject selection step that is different from students in on-campus courses,

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most of whom graduate in four years. We introduced the concept of “levels” as a substitute for the concept of grades under on-campus courses. There are four levels and each level corresponds to the relevant year under on-campus courses, but, in order to advance to the upper level, students need to have earned a prescribed number of credits in the subject categories as designated by the current level. The definition of “levels” for e-School is shown in Table 1. While on-campus courses require students to learn two foreign languages (8 credits in total) that are freely chosen by each student from German, French, Chinese, Spanish and English, the eSchool only requires that the students take English courses (4 credits). The methods for experiments, surveys and research (subject group), which are the elective, required subjects (2 subjects, 8 credits), are allocated over the first to third grades under on-campus courses, but are allocated to Level 2, which corresponds to the second grade, for the e-School courses.

method of Conducting Classes A class in the e-School mainly includes lectures and assignments given by faculty and discussions through BBS. As this system is based on interaction among the faculty, Academic Coach and students, it is necessary for students to actively participate in the class. Classes with regard to specific subjects are conducted as below: 1.

English Education The only required foreign language course in the e-School is English. For the English subjects, 4 credits (2 subjects) need to be taken in Level 1. Classes are conducted by a language school company, and the students’ performance is evaluated by the faculty group in charge of English in the School of Human Sciences. Under the learning system provided by the language school company, native English

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

Table 1. Definition of “levels” for e-school Level 1 The required subjects of Level 1 are: Statistics I, II (2 credits for each) English IA, IIA, IB, and IIB (one credit for each) and specialized subjects (13 courses, 26 credits). Upon earning sufficient credits for these courses (34 credits in total), students are allowed to take courses included in Level 2. Level 2 The required subjects of Level 2 are: Research Methods (2 subjects, 8 credits) and specialized subjects (13 courses, 26 credits). Upon earning sufficient credits for these courses (34 credits in total), students are allowed to take courses included in Level 3. Level 3 The required subjects of Level 3 are: Seminars (2 subjects, 8 credits) and specialized subjects (10 subjects, 20 credits). Upon earning sufficient credits for these courses (28 credits in total), students are allowed to take courses included in Level 4. Level 4 The required subjects of Level 4 are: Senior Thesis Research (8 credits) and specialized subjects (10 subjects, 20 credits). Note: Upon earning all credits for Levels 1-4 (124 credits in total), students will be eligible to graduate.

2.

3.

speakers living all over the world serve as tutors and provide each student with reading/writing training by e-mail and listening/ speaking training by telephone. All tutors are professional English teachers with a Master’s degree. Statistics For statistics, 4 credits (2 classes) need to be taken in Level 1. Statistics are learned in Level 1 as the core methodology for experiments, tests and surveys and as basic literacy for understanding and processing quantitative or qualitative data. The subject is taught by using PSI (Personalized System of Instruction) (Kogo 2003) designed for online learning, and each question is separately answered by instructors online, through which it aims for students to be actively involved in learning the subject completely. Specialized Lecture Subjects Each specialized lecture class is taught for a half-year period and earns 2 credits. The total number of subjects is 98 (see Table 2). These courses are in the form of lectures

4.

which are allocated to each department. The volume of a lecture equivalent to one class under on-campus courses is divided into several segments of about 15 minutes (the length of a lecture for one week is 60 to 90 minutes) and new lecture contents are delivered weekly. Lecture contents are accompanied by a Bulletin Board System (BBS), an assignment submission system, and a handout distribution system. Classes are formed for each subject on a 30-students-per-class basis. An Academic Coach is assigned to each class to coordinate BBS discussions and to give instructions to reports submitted by students. The Department of Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences has slightly more subjects than other departments because it has a teacher-training course (information study for high school students). Research Methods Courses for students to learn basic research methodology are categorized in one subject group called “methods for experiments,

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Table 2. List of Specialized lecture subjects Department of Human Behavior and Environment Sciences

Department of Health Sciences and Social Welfare

Department of Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences

Archaeology

Behavior Therapy

Basic Psychology

Architectural Ergonomics

Bioethics

Cognitive Psychology

Behavioral Development

Cognitive Behavior Theory

Cognitive Technology

Communication

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Communication Network

Constitution

Cytology and Histology

Database

Country Hills Conservation

Developmental Biology

Distance Learning

Cultural Anthropology

Ergonomics

Educational Media Science

Developmental Psychology

Health Administration Medicine

Educational Method for Informatics I

Ecological Anthropology

Health and Welfare Industrial Technology

Educational Method for Informatics II

Ecological Science

Health Sciences and Promotion

Educational Psychology

Egyptian Civilization

Human Science of Lifestyle Related Disease

Guidance and Career Counseling

Environment Management Planning

Immunology

Human Information Processing

Environmental Information Science

Infectious Disease

Information and Man

Environmental Psychology

Introduction to Social Work Methodology I

Information and Profession

Environmental Sociology

Physiology

Information of Colors

French Culture

Psychology

Information Society and Information Ethics

Geosphere-Biosphere System

Psychosomatic Medicine

Instructional Design

German Society and Culture

Public Assistance

Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Education

School Counseling

Introduction to Computer Systems

Life Course Theory

Social Security I

Introduction to Teaching

Motivation Theory

Social Security I

Introduction to the Information System

Professional Sociology

Social Welfare System

Learning and Media

Psychology of Space

Social Work for the Aged I

Mathematics for Information Processing

Pyramid Civilization

Social Work for the Aged II

Measurement and Evaluation of Education

Regional/Global Environment

Special Activities

Mechanical Analysis of Sports Motion

Safety and Disaster Prevention

Sports Practice I

Multimedia

Seminar on Topical Subjects

Sports Practice II

Principles of Education I

Social Development

Therapeutic Recreation

Principles of Education II

Structure and Functions of the Brain

Welfare for the Disabled I

Programming I

Welfare for the Disabled II

Programming II Response to Harsh Environment Safety and Human Factors Sensational Information Processing Sports Practice III Teaching Practice I Teaching Practice II Teaching-Learning Process The Developing Adult Web Design

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5.

surveys and research” collectively. Some of such subjects include preparatory training for seminars. Each subject belonging to this group is taught for a half-year period and provides 4 credits. Level 2 requires 2 classes to be taken. Methods for experiments, surveys and research have 59 courses in total, and half of them are offered once every two years and the other half are offered in the alternate years. From among these courses, students are required to choose 2 in Level 2. In these classes, not only the methodology for each research field is learned, but also basic knowledge of the underlying theory is acquired. Limiting the number of students per class to 20 at maximum, these classes focus on discussions through BBS and the learning of research methods by working on surveys and assignments. Each class has an Academic Coach. Delivery of lectures, submission of assignments, etc., are all conducted online. However, with regard to subjects that include experiments using equipment or that are required to be conducted face-toface, such intensive schooling is conducted using the university’s Tokorozawa Campus, Oiwake Seminar House, etc. In such cases, the number of days for face-to-face schooling is limited to the minimum (about 2 days) and the required class hours are secured mainly through online classes. Seminars I, II The curriculum includes seminars in order to promote the determination by students of subject of their senior thesis research, the understanding of the current status of research in the research field as preferred by each student, and the effective implementation of research. Seminar are more than just small courses taken by upper-division students. Seminars at Waseda University are yearlong courses that allow third year students to work intensively with one professor on a

6.

particular theme. After finishing their thirdyear seminar, fourth year students continue to work with their professor to write a senior thesis, a key graduation requirement for students in the School of Human Sciences. For seminar subjects, seminar I (half-year period, 4 credits) and seminar II (half-year period, 4 credits) are required to be taken in Level 3. The seminars have 69 subjects for seminar I and II respectively, which are assigned to all faculties each year. The methods of conducting the classes are the same as for the methods for experiments, surveys and research. Basically, one faculty member takes care of 2 or 3 students wherein individual instructions are given which link to the bachelor’s research of each student. Senior Thesis Research As mentioned previously, a senior thesis is a key graduation requirement. Senior thesis research is a full-year subject earning 8 credits. Like seminars, the number of courses for senior thesis research is 69. The instructions for students’ research are given by telephone and e-mail as well as through the video meeting system using the Internet.

educational Considerations In the e-School, in order to provide a strong motivation and more detailed instructions than those provided in face-to-face classes, class size is kept to 30 students on average (specialized lecture subjects) and one Academic Coach is assigned to each class. Where many students wish to take a certain subject, it is handled by increasing the number of classes not by increasing the number of students in a class. Class size is kept to 30 students because it was found that, based on the on-demand classes offered by Waseda University for the past three years (dozens of courses), the number of students that can be easily taken care of by one Academic Coach was 30. Based on the

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facts that, in the United States, the most advanced nation in online classes, online learning is easily discontinued unless there is strong motivation and that the dropout rate in correspondence courses is historically high (Priluck 2004), our e-School adopted the basic concept of promoting individual treatment and mutual learning between students: Academic Coaches provide mentoring mainly focusing on academic aspects. In addition, in order to help students keep their motivation and to alleviate the sense of isolation, a BBS is utilized for communication not only between students and faculties but also among students to serve as a ground for interaction with faculties, other students and alumni. Furthermore, homerooms (30 students per homeroom at maximum) are established and a full-time faculty member is assigned to each such homeroom. An Academic Coach is also assigned to each homeroom to serve as a contact person for providing various types of support to students. Additionally, student support, such as use of facilities including libraries, awarding of scholarships, and assistance to extracurricular activities, is provided to the extent possible.

ClASSeS

ii.

iii.

High degree of freedom with respect to study time (learners can learn at their own pace), and Communication with faculty is supplementary (mainly for questions where it exists at all).

In contrast, e-learning that models a campus situation includes a virtual environment that includes: i. ii.

iii.

Blackboard/platform (moving image contents). Classroom (communication between faculty and students as well as among students through BBS, etc.). Faculty room (Learning Management System).

This is called “campus model” e-learning here. The features of this model are: i.

ii.

Teaching materials are prepared on the premise that communication between faculty and students exists (contents are not designed for independent use). Reasonable degree of freedom with respect to study time (students are bound by semesters and required to study on a weekly basis. Communication with instructors is essential.

e-learning Based on a “Campus” model

iii.

Traditional e-learning mainly uses self-learning materials (contents) based on the instructional design in high-quality finished form, and the focus is placed on independent learning by the learner rather than instruction by the teacher. This can be termed e-learning in the “desktop” model wherein learners study by opening “text books” at their desk. The features of this desktop e-learning model are:

The desktop model is highly effective for acquiring specific skills, such as in-company training, as learners can proceed with study at their own pace. On the other hand, in a Japanese university curriculum, learners are required to take about 10 courses per semester in order to graduate in 4 years and learners need to take courses in a well-planned manner. Where general learners need to learn many subjects systematically, it is considered that they can pick up their study pace more easily and can learn more effectively with the campus model of e-learning which emulates

i.

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Teaching materials (contents) in high-quality finished form;

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

the traditional on-campus educational situation and to which learners are accustomed. In addition, under this model, learners are given some sort of assignment for each course every week and learners can maintain the pace naturally by working on the assignment by the deadline. Furthermore, the campus model is desirable for Waseda’s e-School as its curriculum has many subjects that are near-equivalents to on-campus courses.

lecture Contents As the e-School shares the curriculum with oncampus courses, basically lecture contents can be created by filming and editing classroom lessons. However, lectures are also filmed in a special studio for various reasons such as problems in arranging a camera crew. Regardless of whether filming is conducted in the classroom or in a studio, lectures are filmed by the same professional camera crew and then edited and encoded for use with Real Media at 400 x 300 pixels resolution and at 15 frames/second. Figure 1, which is one frame of the lecture contents in the resolution actually transmitted, shows that the screen image is sufficient to allow students to read what is written on the blackboard. In addition, the bandwidth to be used by streaming is 384 Kpbs. Traditional e-learning contents used

Figure 1. A snapshot from a lecture shown in the resolution actually transmitted to students

a norrower bandwidth (56 kbps), and in order to work within this limitation, materials needed to be treated as still images. Bceause of this restriction, it was necessary to integrate the images and audio of the faculty members and computerized teaching materials by using an authoring system which was a large obstacle in creating e-learning contents that simulated a classroom setting. Larger bandwidth allowances enable e-School coures contents to replicate the activities and contents used in the classroom or studio, anything that can be filmed by a video camera such as the lecturer, blackboards, OHP and images projected on the screen. Once the lecture contents have been video taped, they must be processed and uploaded to the servers. Originally this process took days or weeks to complete, but as the production staff become more experienced, contents can now be published on the day after the lecture was filmed. This speedy processing increases the faculty members flexibility in amending or replacing online contents. It also provides the online students with the most up-to-date information available to on-campus students. This quick production and delivery system is one of Waseda’s e-School’s key elements. Although one-day processing is possible, most courses are completed in one academic year for use in the following academic year. However, for subjects that address current topics, the filming is conducted flexibly to suit speedy delivery. Japanese on-campus courses tend to meet for 90 minutes once each week (one key exception is the seminar course described above). As part of the e-School’s lecture processing, lecture contents corresponding to one day’s lesson within an on-campus courses is divided into several files of about 15 minutes each which are placed on the server. The reasons behind such division of segments include

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•

• •

short lengths of about 15 minutes help to reduce the need for rebuffering if there is a network problem, lecturers can more easily redo selected portions of a lecture, and it helps reduce student fatigue by giving them a break every 15 minutes similar to a TV program.

Questionnaire Survey to evaluate Classes A questionnaire survey regarding the e-School’s classes was conducted for each course at the end of each semester during the 2003-04 academic year. The questionnaire survey system on the e-School Website was used allowing the respondents to respond voluntarily on an anonymous basis. The total number of responses was 661 out of a potential number of 1,123 students for the spring semester and 569 out of 1,094 for the fall semester, indicating response rates of 58.8% and 52.0% respectively. In addition to items regarding the quality of lecture contents, the survey included various items such as the BBS (43 items). Some of the characteristic survey items and answers included were, “Is the course generally well-planned?” and “Overall, was the course helpful?” For the first question (course is well-planned), the mean score was 5.7 out of a high score of 7. The second question (course is helpful) also averaged a score of

5.7 out of 7. Thus, both questions received highly positive responses which was the tendency for the survey overall. In order to check if there was any difference in the lecture contents filmed in the classrooms and those filmed in the studio, the data was analyzed in detail. Although 36 courses were offered in 2003 (the first year of operation), 25 subjects were covered by this analysis, excluding subjects that used Web materials only and that had both classroom-filmed lectures and studio-filmed lectures. The items that were analyzed included four items as shown in Table 3. Eight classes were filmed in classrooms (total number of responses was 270) and seventeen classes were filmed in the studio (total number of responses was 653). The median values and mode values shown in Table 2 indicate that all four items covered by the analysis received a positive evaluation with scores of 4 through 6 out of 7. In addition, with regard to the comprehension of subjects, given the survey results that both classroom-filmed and studio-filmed lectures scored a mode value of 6, it is considered that the lecture contents were satisfactory for students to comprehend the subject matter. In order to check if there was any difference in quality between classroom-filmed contents and studio-filmed contents, the two groups of lecture contents were examined based on the Mann-Whitney U test. As a result, a significant difference was recognized only with respect to

Table 3. Analysis of the results of questionnaire survey on lecture contents evaluation Questionnaire items

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Classroom

Studio

p-value

Could you comprehend the subject? (I could not – I could)

5(2)/6

6(1)/6

0.1672

Image quality (bad – good)

4(2)/4

5(2)/4

0.0309

Sound (bad – good)

5(2)/4

5(3)/4

0.8352

As your impression on the whole, was the lecture interesting? (Boring – Interesting)

6(2)/7

6(2)/7

0.9987

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

the image quality at the 5% level. It is considered that where a lecture is filmed in a classroom with students present, due to the restrictions on the location of the camera and lighting, the image quality of the film tends to be lower than lecture contents filmed in a studio. On the other hand, no difference was indicated with regard to sound. The reason for this is attributed to the fact that the faculty members wear the same type of wireless pin microphone on the chest both in the classroom filming and studio filming. For each questionnaire item, respondents were asked to answer by indicating any one score out of scores of 1-7, wherein the former answer in the brackets corresponds to score 1 and the latter correspond to score 7. X(Y)/Z in the table indicates the values of median value(X), quartile value(Y), and mode value (Z), respectively, and p-values are based on the Mann-Whitney U test. With regard to the image quality, it was demonstrated that lecture contents filmed in classrooms have a slightly lower image quality than lecture contents filmed in a studio. On the other hand, with regard to the comprehension of a subject

and the impression of the lecture as a whole, no significant difference was recognized between the classroom-filmed lectures and studio-filmed lectures. Based on these analyses, it is considered that the lecture contents of our e-School are of the quality needed for learning, although there is room for improvement with regard to lecture contents filmed in classrooms, in particular.

delIveRy SySTem And leARnIng mAnAgemenT SySTem (lmS) Server hardware As the server hardware of the e-School system not only stores lecture contents but also records students’ online activities, the hardware is configured by placing importance on stability and security. The hardware is designed in such a manner that the devices are basically duplicated and the entry is protected by firewalls (see Figure 2). In addition, in order to deliver streaming contents of 384 kbps

Figure 2. System configurations

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without any delay, the bandwidth for connection to the Internet backbone is 100 Mbps which has proven to be more than sufficient to handle daily traffic: A test with 300 people accessing the system at the same time was conducted and favorable results were obtained. Actual loads were analyzed during the first and second academic years to confirm that the system was operating as designed. Access records from the middle of April 2004 to the middle of May 2004—a period just after the start of classes having a relatively high amount of traffic—were examined and showed that the number of access attempts peaked at 77 per hour (April 25, 2004, 22:00-23:00), and no processing delays were experienced during that time period. In addition, the bandwidth used for streaming peaked at 10.78 Mbps throughout 2004. Therefore, even if the number of students doubles four years after establishment of the e-School, the bandwidth is sufficient to cope with it. Indeed, the e-School’s system operation has been uninterrupted since its creation.

lmS The LMS used in the e-School is unique to Waseda University and is called the On-demand

Figure 3. Front page screen

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Internet Class (OIC). The OIC has functions that are equipped with general LMS, including lecture contents references, handout distribution, attendance management, report submissions, quizzes, Bulletin Board System (BBS), learning history management and questionnaires. The OIC is described in greater detail below. 1.

Front page of the on-demand lecture system Figure 3 shows the screen that appears after login. The screen shows the menu shared by the whole system (on left, under the OIC logo), information and a list of registered subjects, etc. A. Information: indicates important information from faculty members in charge or system administrators. In order to ensure all pieces of information have been checked, any unread information is marked “unread.” 1. When the title is clicked, the details of the information are displayed. 2. The details of the information may be sent to the e-mail address registered as profile information if it is so arranged by the author of the information.

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

3.

B.

The front page displays unread information only. To check all pieces of information within the posting period, “See all information” option needs to be clicked. List of registered subjects: subjects for which the student is registered are listed. By clicking the name of a subject, a screen to take a class (list of lectures) is displayed. From this screen, students can refer to assignments and the syllabus, use the BBS, confirm and submit report

2.

assignments, answer questionnaires and work on quizzes. Weekly course content page For each subject, the class contents are organized on a week-by-week basis. The lecture contents to be delivered for the week are about 60 to 90 minutes in total length. Each week’s contents are divided into several chapters, enabling students to view at different times. Figure 4(a) shows the original Japanese version and Figure 4(b) shows similar content with the system’s language setting on “English.”

Figure 4(a). Weekly course content screen shot

Figure 4(b). Weekly course content screen shot in English

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Assignments: assignments, reference materials, etc., are displayed. To see the details, the “reference” button needs to be clicked. A. Lecture contents: When a “lecture” button is clicked, the video of the lecture for the chapter is replayed. B. BBS: When a “reference” button is clicked, the BBS is displayed. The BBS can be read if it is not within the writing period. C. Report functions, etc.: reports, questionnaires and quizzes are also dealt with on the website. D. Learning history: status of attendance at the lectures and submission of reports can be confirmed.

Student enrollment The number of students enrolled in 2003 was 169 in total consisting of 40 for the Department of Human Behavior and Environment Science, 85 for the Department of Health Science and Social Welfare, and 44 for the Department of Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences, of which 164 were on the register as of April 2004 and 152 were on the register as of February 2005. This indicates that about 10% of the total students enrolled have left school for some reason. In 2004, the number enrolled was 143 in total consisting of 35 for the Department of Human Behavior and Environment Science, 64 for the Department of Health Science and Social Welfare, and 44 for the Department of Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences, of which 140 were on the register as of February 2005 with 3 students having left the school. The total number of students on the registry was 567 in 2006.

STudenTS Selection

Area of Residence, Age, and occupation

Student application and admissions processes are different for the e-School and the on-campus academic programs. e-School applicant screening is conducted based on a statement of purpose 3,000 Japanese characters and a study plan of 1,000 words submitted by each applicant. Then, in the second stage of selection, face-to-face interviews are conducted. The ratio of successful applicants is shown in Table 4.

According to the results of a survey conducted in the spring of 2004, 80% of the students on the registry lived in the Kanto region (in and around the city of Tokyo) with 108 out of 292 living in Tokyo itself. However, students from nearly all of Japanese 47 prefectures were enrolled, although in most cases by only a couple of students. All e-School students are Japanese, but some of them

Table 4. Acceptance ratios for the three departments

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Year

Human Behavior & Environmental Science

Health Science & Social Welfare

Human Informatics & Cognitive Sciences

2003

1:1.33

1:1.22

1:1.38

2004

1:1.38

1:1.36

1:1.32

2005

1:1.71

1:1.48

1:1.51

2006

1:1.57

1:1.26

1:1.42

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

lived and studied in other countries. Students who currently live aboard include: 1 in Morocco, 1 in England, 1 in the United States and 1 in Australia. About 62% of the total students were 30 years old or older at the time of their enrollment and about 80% of them were employed. The male-female ratio is almost 1:1. It is notable that about 27% of the students on the registry have already graduated from a four-year university.

Questionnaire on learning Conditions In the beginning of July 2003, a questionnaire survey of the students was conducted with regard to the number of courses for which they had registered and the length of time they had spent for studying. The number of respondents was 83 out of the 164 total students on the registry at that time. The most common answer was nine courses, the second most common was 10 followed by eight. This number of courses is roughly equal to the total courses taken by on-campus students. Regarding the day of the week on which they study, there is not much difference according to the day of the week except that slightly more time is spent for studying on the weekends. The peak time for their study was between 22:00~24:00 probably because many students are employed. In addition, regarding the hours spent studying per day, the most common answer was between two and three hours with the next most common

response being between three and four hours. From the above results, it was found that typical students of the e-School study an average of one or two classes for two to three hours everyday including Saturdays and Sundays.

State of Registration The average number of credits earned by e-School students was similar to those earned by on-campus students. From among the new entrants in 2003, the number of students who registered for subjects in both the spring semester and autumn semester was 150. The total number of credits for which they registered was 5,514 credits (about 36.8 credits per 1 student). On the other hand, the total number of credits acquired in the same period was 4,484 credits (about 29.9 credits per 1 student). This means that the ratio of acquired credits to registered credits was 81%. In addition, 82 students, which accounts for about 55% of the total students, acquired 30 credits or more in 1 year. From among students who enrolled in 2003, 53 students (about 31% of the total enrollment) graduated in 4 years and the accumulated rate of graduation is expected to be 70% or more in 6 years. From among those who graduated in March 2007, 20 people advanced to graduate school (mainly the Graduate School of Human Sciences of Waseda University). For comparison purposes, students who entered on-campus courses in 2003, the number of students in the registry was 745

Table 5. Enrollment data for the three departments

Year

Human Behavior & Environmental Science

Health Science & Social Welfare

Human Informatics & Cognitive Sciences

Total Enrollment

2003

40

85

44

169

2004

35

64

44

143

2005

44

83

41

168

2006

34

79

30

143

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E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

and the number of total credits registered was 26,481 credits (about 35.5 credits per student), of which 21,995 credits were acquired (about 29.5 credits per student). This ratio of acquired credits to registered credits is almost the same as the ratio for the e-School courses. In addition, from among the 646 new entrants in 1999, 512 (about 79%) graduated in four years although this data refers to a previous course.

dISCuSSIon And ConCluSIon With the improved information infrastructure and changes to relevant educational laws, the environment was conducive to creating Japan’s first undergraduate degree-awarding e-learning course. We were hopeful that our on-campus curriculum (which focuses on the environment, health and welfare, and information) would appeal to working adults and other members of society as these topics are currently of great interest. Through this new online learning environment, Waseda University would be able to offer new opportunities for lifelong learning in the era of the Internet. At the same time, however, we were anxious about whether we would be able to provide an education that would be satisfactory to those enrolled. Our experiences over the last five years, confirmed in part by the answers from the questionnaires described above, lead us to believe that we have been generally successful in our efforts. As 82% of the students are employed Waseda’s e-School is meeting a larger need for lifelong education in Japan. Some people argued that an education system that forces learners to follow a relatively strict schedule (i.e. not self-paced learning) is not suitable for lifelong education targeting working adults. However, many students of our program in their 30’s and 40’s and at their working prime manage to work and study at the same time. The e-School enables students to graduate without taking on-campus schooling and we stressed this point as a feature. However, in our

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experience, many students want to visit the campus and meet with their classmates and instructors if they have a chance. This is inferred by the fact that, in 2003, about 60% of the students on the registry took physical education classes that required attending intensive, two-day, on-campus classes held on the weekends. Intensively conducted for two days (Saturday and Sunday) after taking online lectures and completing physical exercise assignments for about 10 weeks for the teacher-training course. 30 students in a teacher certification course were asked why they came all the way to attend on-campus schooling, many students replied that they wanted to meet their friends with whom they normally communicate only on the BBS. In addition, many students stated that the education system of the e-School is perfect for those who want to come to school and learn every day if possible but cannot do so due to their occupation and who seek a learning style that is similar to on-campus courses. This interest in distance learning coupled with a desire for more personal contact is an ongoing challenge for the e-School faculty. It seems that many students joined the e-School because they were attracted to the relatively small class size and the importance put on person-to-person communication both between students and faculty and students and students. In order to better meet these needs, we are trying different media to enhance the communicative experience. For instance, we now allow the upoloading of video clips taken by cell phones or digital cameras to the BBS (up to 1MB) in order to express themselves and exchange opinions. These efforts have been met with positive feedback from many students. In another example, seminars with one teacher taking care of one or two students, we plan to utilize not only e-mails and BBS but also video chat and telephone. Of course, we continue to work to improve the lecture contents, but at the same time, we need to provide a communication means for more personal exchanges.

E-Learning Practice and Experience at Waseda E-School

The acquisition of credits by students in correspondence the e-School courses is the same level as students in on-campus courses. It is true that the rate of graduation in four years under the e-School courses, at 31%, falls short of the graduation rate under on-campus courses but is remarkably high for university correspondence courses (the rate climbes to 43% when 19 students who graduated in September 2007 are included). We hope to see the graduation rate in six years exceed 70%. We interviewed many students on various occasions and found that generally, students have a strong sense of purpose for learning in the e-School and they are all hard workers. Typical the e-School students study from around 21:00 to around 24:00 after work and dinner at home, and study on weekends intensively to make up for any delay during weekdays. It is true that, for one course, it takes about 90 minutes to view the lecture contents (many students take notes) plus about 1 hour to work on the quizzes and reporting assignments which are given to students each time in standard classes. As the average student takes nine classes, they must make considerable effort just to keep up. In addition, it is notable that the quality of their reports submitted on various occasions is very high when compared with that of students in on-campus courses. We assume that it is probably because students are not just viewing lecture contents passively, but also actively exchanging opinions and deepening their ideas on the BBS, etc. So long as the high degree of satisfaction felt by students as reflected in the results of the questionnaire survey as well as the state of the acquisition of credits and learning conditions are examined, the current status of the e-School is favorable. As the e-School has not yet reached the end of its first four years from its establishment, we cannot determine that the the e-School has been a success. However, given the situation of the last two years, we think the e-School is on the right track, and we are sure that it will turn out

to be a success as it has such excellent students as stated above.

ACknowledgmenT The authors would like to thank the e-School staff who have supported the operation of e-School, the Academic Coaches who have made great efforts in managing classes, and to the faculty members who have worked hard to create the highest-level course contents possible. We also want to thank our students: As educators, we feel very fortunate to meet such excellent students as you.

ReFeRenCeS Asai, K. (2005). The Current Situation and Issues of e-Learning System at Yashima Gakuen University. Media research, 1(2), 59-71. (in Japanese). Economic Research Office (2004). General Policy Division, Information and Communications Policy Bureau, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, Japan. WHITE PAPER Information and Communications in Japan. Fuwa,Y., Kunimune, H., Niimura, M., Wasaki, K., Shidama, Y., & Nakamura, Y. (2004). Current Status and Future Plan of the Graduate School on the Internet, Shinshu University. Media Research, 1, 11-18. (in Japanese). Kogo, C. (2003). Conducting Classes through Web-based Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) in Universities. Annual Journal of Educational Psychology, 42, 182-192. (in Japanese). Randi, P. (2004). Web-Assisted Courses for Business Education: An Examination of Two Sections of Principles of Marketing. Journal of Marketing Education, 26, 161-173.

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Matsuoka, I. (2001). Digital Campus. Toyo Keizai Inc., Tokyo. (in Japanese). Sperling, J. (2000). Rebel with a Cause: The Entrepreneur Who Created the University of Phoenix and the For-Profit Revolution in Higher Education. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Shimizu, Y. (2002). Polices to Support e-Learning and Foresight Thereof. Information Processing, 43, 421-426. (in Japanese).

Ueno, M. (2004). Small Scaled e-Learning Management. Articles Compiled for the 29th National Conference of the Japanese Society for Information and Systems in Education, (pp. 125-126). (in Japanese). Yoshida, A. (2002). e-Learning in Higher Education - the Advent of Virtual Reality. Information Processing, 43, 407-413. (in Japanese).

Shimizu, Y. (2004). Support by e-Learning in Higher Education and Sharing of Educational Contents. Media research, 1, 1-10. (in Japanese).

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 7, Issue 3, edited by Q. Jin, pp. 44-62, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.21

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction:

A Case Study of Teaching Mathematics in an Online Learning Environment Willem-Paul Brinkman Brunel University, UK Andrew Rae Brunel University, UK Yogesh Kumar Dwivedi Swansea University, UK

ABSTRACT This article presents a case study of a university discrete mathematics course with over 170 students who had access to an online learning environment (OLE) that included a variety of online tools, such as videos, self-tests, discussion boards, and lecture notes. The course is based on the ideas of the personalised system of instruction (PSI) modified to take advantage of an OLE. Students’ learning is examined over a period of two years, and compared with that in a more traditionally taught part of the course. To examine

students’ behaviour, learning strategies, attitudes and performance, both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in a mixed methodology approach, including in-depth interviews (N = 9), controlled laboratory observations (N = 8), surveys (N = 243), diary studies (N = 10), classroom observations, recording online usage behaviour, and learning assessments. The paper aims to increase understanding of whether PSI, supported by an OLE, could enhance student appreciation and achievement as findings suggest.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

InTRoduCTIon As Online Learning Environments (OLEs), such as WebCT® and Blackboard®, are becoming more widely used, the role of teachers changes as they adapt to their new mode of teaching (Coppola, Hiltz, & Rotter, 2002). It remains a challenge however for teachers to use these technologies effectively (Hiltz & Turoff, 2002), and benefit from the suggested advantages of OLEs over traditional classroom learning. These include being more learner-centred, providing flexibility as to the time and the location of learning, being cost-effective for learners, and potentially serving a global audience (Zhang, Zhao, Zhou, & Nunamaker, 2004). This article arises from the experience obtained in delivering a mathematics module for both computer science and information systems undergraduate students in a U.K. based university. The first term of the module, which focuses on discrete mathematics, makes extensive use of OLE tools, such as online self-tests, video clips and a discussion board, whereas the second term, which focuses on statistics, is taught by a more traditional lecturer based approach. Comparing the data obtained in the two terms during the academic years 2003-2004 and 2004-2005, gives an insight into how students perceive these OLE tools and into how they affect students’ learning strategy and the learning outcomes. The teaching method used in the first term is based on the principles of the Keller Plan (Keller & Sherman, 1974), also known as the Personalised System of Instruction (PSI). Although these principles were already published in the 1960s (Keller, 1968), the observations presented here suggest that they can be highly relevant when teaching is supported by an OLE. The principles of PSI can be summarized as “(1) mastery learning, (2) self-pacing, (3) a stress on the written word, (4) student proctors, and (5) the use of lectures to motivate rather than to supply essential information.” (Keller & Sherman, 1974, p. 24). PSI has been applied to courses in various

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areas such as psychology (Kinsner & Pear, 1988; Pear & Crone-Todd, 2002), physics (Austin & Gilbert, 1973; Green, 1971), mathematics (Abbott & Falstrom, 1975; Brook & Thomson, 1982; Rae, 1993; Watson, 1986), and computer science (Koen, 2005). PSI has received extensive attention in the literature. For example, 10 years after its introduction Kulik, Kulik, and Cohen (1979) could base their meta-analysis on already 72 different papers, and today PSI is still a topic that receives research attention. In all these years teachers have successfully used PSI, although often they have made some modifications so that it fits into their academic environment (Hereford, 1979). The trend towards high marks has been a recurring observation. The original PSI description talks of a self-paced learning approach where students have to prove mastery of learning material that is divided into small learning units. For each learning unit students receive written material, which includes the learning objective for that unit. Students study the material on their own or in groups, and when they think that they have mastered the unit they take a test. An instructor or a student assistant, called a proctor, immediately marks this test in the presence of the students. If they answer all questions correctly, they receive the written material for the next unit. If they fail, the marker provides them with formative feedback and asks them to study their material again before they re-take the test. Passing the test also gives students the right to attend lectures as a reward. This is possible because no essential material is taught in the lectures; only a few lectures being scheduled and their main purpose is to motivate the students. The use of student proctors clearly has both economic and educational advantages, though care has to be taken to avoid misconduct by proctors. Proctors are not always used as is shown by Emck and Ferguson-Hessler (1981) who reported that at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (The Netherlands) the proctors were replaced by a computer as early as 1970. In a mechani-

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

cal engineering course, the computer randomly selected a number of questions from a question book. After the students entered their answers onto an answer card, they gave it to the test-room assistant who fed it into the computer. Within less than a minute the test results were printed on a computer terminal. In addition to checking students’ answers, computers have also been used to facilitate the testing process. For example, Pear and Crone-Todd (2002) have used the computer to provide proctors, who were automatically selected by the computer, with the completed tests of other students, and afterwards to return the proctors feedback to the students. They relied on human proctors instead of a computer because they used essay style questions. The idea of Computer-Aided PSI (CAPSI) has also been picked up by others (Kinsner & Pear, 1988; Koen, 2005; Pear & Novak, 1996; Pelayo-Alvarez, Albert-Ros, Gil-Latorre, & Gutierrez-Sigler, 2000; Roth, 1993) and this might even become easier to implement if teachers could use an off-the-shelf or standard OLE. For example WebCT, short for Web Course Tools, is an online course management system in which automatically marked quizzes can be set. It also has other online tools such as a discussion board, a calendar, student home pages, e-mail, chat rooms, online submission of coursework, and a place to store files, such as lecture slides, which students can access online. Providing an effective teaching approach that suits such widely used OLE could therefore be of obvious benefit to teachers. Although OLEs have been the topic of a number of publications, an OLE in combination with PSI has received limited attention (e.g., Pear, 2003). Research on standard OLEs is, however, advancing. For example, Hoskins and Van Hooff (2005) found a relation between academic achievement and the use of a discussion board. Johnson (2005) also made this observation. Additionally she found that an increased use of the OLE coincided with an increased feeling of peer alienation, that is the experience students have of feeling isolated from other students. She also observed that students who

felt more course and learning alienation (experiencing the course as irrelevant) made less active use of the OLE and also obtained lower grades. Again this relates to the Hoskins and Van Hooff (2005) observation that their achievement oriented students made more active use of the OLE. They therefore worry that an OLE might only engage students that are highly motivated and academically capable. This concern is supported by the findings of Wernet, Olliges, and Delicath (2000) that graduate students valued OLE tools such as a course calendar, hyperlinks, e-mail, and online quizzes more highly than undergraduate students. Other reports (Debela, 2004; Jones & Jones, 2005) on students’ attitudes towards e-learning environments are more positive as students believe that these environments can improve their learning, and also that these environments are more convenient and accessible. Another OLE tool is video. The use of video in a PSI-based course is not new. For example Rae (1993) has used videotapes as a key support to his written course material. On the videos, which students could watch in the university library, he solved exercises and gave short summaries of each learning unit. He found that this approach resulted in high examination marks while he could reduce the tutorial support to an economic level. Instead of using video to present the learning material, Koen (2005) has used it to increase the feeling of being present at the university for students who participate in a distance PSI-based course. He placed video cameras in the student computer room, the room of the proctor and in the room of the professor. The distance learners on this course could see these live images via their OLE. Unfortunately in his report Koen did not provide results on the effect the streamed video had on the students other than that he was forced to remove the cameras in the student computer room after complaints by a handful of students who did not want to be observed. Of course video has been used in non PSI-based courses as well – for example, in the medical field students responded

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Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

positively on the use of streamed video (Green, Voegeli, Harrison, Phillips, Knowles, & Weaver, 2003; Schultze-Mosgau, Zielinski & Lochner, 2004), and in a survey on courses in economics offered via the Internet in the USA in the Fall of 2000 semester, Coates and Humphreys (2003) found that 18% of the 189 courses used streamed video. To summarise, although research has been done on PSI, CAPSI, and OLE tools there is currently limited understanding about their use and effect on student learning when they are combined in a CAPSI-based course that is supported by a standard OLE. This motivates the present study of a PSI-based module that makes substantial use of a standard OLE. The study looked at students’ attitude, their learning strategy, and their academic achievement in relation to OLE tools. Before presenting the results of the study, the following section will provide some background information on how the module was set-up; this is followed by a section describing the research approach used. The article concludes by briefly discussing the main findings and the resulting modifications that have been made to the module.

AdAPTIon oF PSI APPRoACh To The ole The first year module, Foundations of Computing (School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, U.K.), is taught over two terms. The CAPSI-based first term focuses on discrete mathematics and looks at logic and set theory, whereas the conventionally taught second term focuses on statistics and looks at probabilities, correlations, and regression analysis. In the first term the principles of the PSI (Keller 1968; Keller & Sherman, 1974) were implemented in the following way. •

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Students used specially written material, divided into four modules, each module

•

•

including five learning units, each with clearly stated learning objectives. Units one through four were theoretical while units five, for motivational purposes, focused on the application of those theories in computer science. Instructors (graduate teaching assistants) in the seminars used specially developed written diagnostic tests for each module to examine, together with the students, their understanding of the material. In contrast to the original PSI principles, these tests were not part of the formal assessment, but students were advised to demonstrate sufficient mastery before they received the written material for the next module. The lectures were mainly motivational, covering only the application units, and aimed to give students study advice.

Computer-assisted learning tools and video have been developed to support these traditional elements of PSI. In the OLE students had access to learning tools such as online-self tests, streamed video clips, a discussion board, as well as to the written material, lecture slides, and old exams. 125 video clips, mostly less than five minutes in length, were used as the main medium to give essential information (introductions, summaries, and solutions to exercises). The videos were simply made and designed to give the students the impression of having the lecturer at their side explaining rather than imparting new information; experience over 25 years has shown such video clips to be remarkably effective with PSI (Rae, 1993). For 16 of the learning units (the theoretical units) videos were available in both years that were examined in this case study, but the videos for the other four learning units (the applications units) were available only in the second year, thus providing an opportunity to study their effectiveness by comparing students attitude and learning between the two years. Because students could only access the streamed videos on campus, they

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

could also obtain a DVD for use at home. Although the computer support services charged students £5 duplication cost for the DVD, students were encourage and allowed to copy the DVD freely from each other, or borrow it from the library. Each learning unit also had a related OLEbased self-test. A test consisted of around five questions, and completion of the test would give students access to the self-test of the following learning unit. These questions were multiplechoice type questions marked automatically by the computer. Another OLE tool that students could use was the online discussion board. Instructors actively encouraged students to post their questions on the online discussion board and told students that they would not answer questions directly e-mailed to them. Although instructors invited students to answer questions posted on the discussion board, they promised that they would answer questions on a daily basis between Monday and Friday. This approach had advantages for both the students and the instructors. Students could read the questions and answers previously posted, and the instructor only had to answer a question once, instead of the alterative, responding to numerous individual e-mails regarding the same question. Each week students had three contact hours, a one-hour lecture delivered by the lecturer in a large lecture theatre, a one-hour seminar in which they could take the written diagnostic tests or get help from the teaching assistant (TA), and a one-hour lab in which they could watch the videos, take the online self-test, and work on their coursework. Eight TAs ran the seminars and lab sessions, each TA being responsible for a group of between 18 and 25 students. To reduce the often-mentioned problem of procrastination in PSI (Hereford, 1979), the students had to take three formal assessments in the first term. They consisted of two pieces of coursework (project 1 and 2), which students could do in pairs, and a one-hour midterm test on module 1 and 2. Furthermore, students had to demonstrate mastery

of the first term material as part of a three-hour final exam at the end of the year. The element of pair work was deliberately introduced to counteract concerns that PSI might mitigate against the social interaction between students in which they benefit from exploring conceptual problems with peers (Sheehan, 1978). The second, more traditionally taught term centred on a weekly two-hour lecture that covered all material. In the one-hour seminar, students worked again in groups of 18 to 25 students, under the supervision of a TA on so called problem sheets, answers to which students could also find on the OLE at the end of each week. The OLE also provided the usual tools including a discussion board and weekly lecture slides. TAs also ran the one-hour lab session, in which students worked on exercises with the statistical software application SPSS® and Excel®, or could take computerised selftests developed in Mathletics (Kyle, 1999). This environment was also used as part of the formal assessment of the second term, students taking two tests that the computer marked automatically. Students also had to submit a statistical report as a piece of coursework, and finally to take the three-hour final exam at the end of the year.

ReSeARCh APPRoACh And InSTRumenTS Biggs’ (2003) 3P (Presage, Process, and Product) model of teaching and learning was used as a starting point to structure the research into categories of factors that could influence learning. The model follows the chain in learning. It starts with the factors before the learning takes place, which are split into student factors, such as prior knowledge and interests, and teaching context, such as assessment procedures, teaching sessions, and computer-assisted learning tools. These factors influence students’ learning activities, in other words their approach to learning. The 3P model sees this engagement as an essential factor that

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eventually determine the learning outcomes, the new skills and knowledge that students master. To study these factors, data was collected in a variety of activities, including online student surveys, interviews, diary studies, observations in the class, a controlled usability test, tracking online behaviour, and assessment results. The online student surveys (Appendix Table 8 and Table 9) were OLE delivered and students completed them anonymously at the end of each term. A total of 243 responses were collected, 85 in the first term survey of 2004 and 60 in same survey in 2005; 54 responses were collected in the second term survey of 2004, and 44 again in 2005. Please note that from now on the academic year 2003-2004 will be referred to simply as 2004 and 2004-2005 as 2005. An important part of the research was to see whether CAPSI would change students’ learning activities and strategies. A good teaching context should encourage deep learning, where students focus on underlying meaning and principles; the learning environment should move students away from surface learning (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 2003), where students act with the intention of passing the module with the minimal amount of effort or engagement. In a previous study on this module, Hambleton, Foster, and Richardson (1998) had found that PSI could have a positive affect on students’ learning. They had asked students to complete the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI) (Ramsden & Entwistle, 1981), an earlier instrument to measure approach to learning. After analysing this data they found that students scored significantly higher on the “comprehension” learning scale for the PSI-based module than for a more traditionally lecture-based module on statistics. They therefore concluded that PSI could have a positive impact on students learning strategy. To follow up on this research the R-SPQ-2F inventory (Biggs, Kember, & Leung, 2001) was included in the end of term surveys, with the exception of the first term survey of 2004. The inventory is a 20-item questionnaire that scores students both

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on a deep approach and surface approach scale. These two scales are derived from two subscales, which the inventory provides for each approach: the students’ motivation and their strategy. While the survey data provides a general insight from a sizable sample, between 25% and 48% of the population, the semistructured interviews conducted with nine students in the summer break of 2004 provided an in-depth understanding of students’ learning strategies and attitudes. The students had all passed the module in 2004 and agreed to complete the R-SPQ-2F inventory and to be interviewed by a PhD student on the premise that he would not disclose their names. These students were interviewed for half an hour on the phone, and focussing on the student approach to learning, the teaching approach, student characteristics, and the OLE tools (Appendix Table 10). For their participation in the interview students received a £5 incentive, paid as all other incentives in this study from a university research grant that supported this research. Another source of data was the diary study. Where surveys and interviews provided information from only one point in time, in the diary study 10 students agreed to provide weekly information throughout the course of 2005. Collecting data in the diary study however proved to be more difficult. Although initially 10 students started with weekly reports, only three students continued to do this into the second term. Still 105 weekly reports were collected. For their participation students received a £10 incentive for each term and they were promised that their names would not be disclosed to the instructors. The diary study was conducted by a PhD student who also made weekly observations in the lab. The number of students that attended the lab and their activities were recorded in the logbook. Another PhD student was asked in the summer of 2004 to conduct a usability study of the OLE of the module. Eight masters students who had not attended the module were invited into a usability laboratory and asked to study the first learning unit of module one and

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

to take the related online self-test. During the test, she watched the students from an observation room through a one-way mirror, and recorded any comments made by the students. Afterwards, she interviewed the students and asked them to highlight specific problems they had encountered. The ease of use and the students’ satisfaction in using specific OLE tools were also examined in the usability test with a component-specific usability questionnaire (Brinkman, Haakma, & Bouwhuis, 2005) (Appendix Table 11). This questionnaire included six ease-of-use questions from the Perceived Usefulness and Ease-of-Use (PUEU) questionnaire (Davis, 1989) and two questions from the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) (Lewis, 1995). The test took around two hours and students were given a £12 incentive for their participation. Student behaviour was also followed by recording Web traffic. In 2005, four weeks into the module, Web access of several pages was tracked, including the home page, the self-tests, and the main page for the video clips. All these data collection activities were set up to get both a broad and indepth understanding of how students perceived the module and how they actually engaged with it. Finally, the results of the coursework and the exam gave an insight into the students’ academic performance. Because data was collected both in the CAPSI taught first term and in the traditionally taught second term, it was possible to examine the effect these different teaching contexts had on learning activities and outcomes.

FIndIngS Student Factors In 2004 176 students (73% male, 27% female) were registered for the module and in 2005 177 (79% male, 21% female). The students had various educational backgrounds. For example, in the four end-of-term surveys conducted in

2004 and 2005, 50% of the students stated they had an A-level, short for Advanced Level, a noncompulsory qualification taken by students in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which is the usual university entrance qualification. Students usually take A-levels in the final two years of secondary education, after they have obtained a General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), which is taken at an age of around 16. On the other hand, 17% of the students had a certificate or diploma of the Business and Technician Education Council (BTEC), 10% of the students had a General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ), 14% of the students had done an Access course, and 9% of the students had overseas qualifications. But a basic requirement for the degree course was that students at least had a GCSE maths level or equivalent, for example, a graduation diploma from a good U.S. high school. For some students, however, it had been a while since they obtained their qualification. For example, one student in the in-depth interview mentioned: “but things such as tables, and probability I did in GCSE. However, I have forgotten it.” Some students were therefore invited to attend workshops to refresh their knowledge on basic mathematical concepts relevant for this module, such as linear equations, linear function, powers, and logarithms. In 2005, this invitation was based on the results of an online OLE test that students took in the first lab. In the test, the students scored on average 24.96 (SD = 10.91) points out of 40 points maximum. Students that obtained a score below 20 were advised by e-mail to attend the workshops, which were also open to other students. Some of the students did not live on campus, and therefore spent time commuting. Attending class or doing group work was more difficult for some of these students. For example, one student mentioned in the interview: I was off campus and I had to travel by bus, which took around one and a half hours each

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day. This was one reason why I was not attending the lectures, coming to university means wasting three hours in travelling and in that much time I can do some work. It did stop me from going to lectures …. Almost all students in the interview mentioned that access to a computer was vital for passing the module. Computer access outside the lab sessions seemed adequate. In the four surveys, only two responses indicated that they never had access to a PC or laptop outside the lab session, 21 responses indicated having access sometimes, but the majority, 219 responses replied that they had regular access. Although this seems a reassuringly high number, the percentage of students that have never had access might be higher since the data from the online questionnaires could be biased. On the other hand, students that lived on campus had access to computer rooms, where they could work outside the normal class hours. Most students who were interviewed and lived off campus also stated they had a computer at home, except for one student, who stated: “I did not have a computer at home, so I had to come to university everyday to study. So it was a waste of my time travelling.” This is clearly a disadvantage. Where students in conventionally taught courses cannot study anywhere and anytime because they have to attend lectures, computer-assisted learning makes students dependent on computer

access, which unfortunately goes against the idea of anywhere, anytime learning. The time students spent on learning was also limited as students were engaged in other activities as well. For example one student mentioned: “I cannot spend enough time on each module, as I did not have free time left after doing my job. Also after doing my job, I would get tired and would not feel like studying.”

Teaching Context The difference in students’ appreciation of the teaching context – things such as assessments, the OLE tools, and lectures – between the CAPSIbased first term and the conventionally taught second term shows that students on average were more positive about the first than about the second term teaching context. Table 1 shows the average scores obtained on the end of term survey items that related to the teaching context. The scores of these six items were used in a MANOVA, which showed a significant main effect for the terms (F(df between-groups = 6, df within-groups = 204) = 26.91, p < .001). ANOVAs on the individual items revealed this effect also in the scores of the overall module quality (F(1, 209) = 18.00, p < .001), the usefulness of lectures (F(1, 209) = 70.92, p < 0.001), the usefulness of seminars (F(1, 209) = 11.00, p < .01), and the usability of the OLE (F(1, 209) = 55.28, p < 0.001). Students rated all these items

Table 1. Mean rating (SD) of teaching context of the first term (N between 134 and 145) and second term (N between 91 and 98) in the 2004 and 2005 surveys Item

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Scale

Term 1

Term 2

Overall module quality

1 (poor) – 4 (very good)

2.98(0.78)

2.55(0.81)

Usefulness lectures

1 (useless) – 4 (very useful)

3.35(0.75)

2.44(0.83)

Usefulness seminars

1 (useless) – 4 (very useful)

2.85(0.89)

2.46(1.03)

Usefulness lab sessions

1 (useless) – 4 (very useful)

2.53(0.84)

2.45(0.90)

Usefulness discussion board

1 (useless) – 4 (very useful)

2.72(0.72)

2.82(0.90)

Usability OLE

1 (very low) – 5 (very high)

4.13(0.90)

3.12(0.87)

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

higher for the CAPSI-based term than for the conventionally taught term. Items only related to CAPSI, also received high average ratings, such as the usefulness of printed material (M = 2.98, SD = 0.80), the online self-tests (M = 3.32, SD = 0.70), and the video clips (M = 3.07, SD = 0.86). In the interviews, students were also very positive about these online tools. They liked the onlineself tests to test and extend their knowledge and they suggested including more random and more difficult questions in the tests, because as one student put it “I do not like to do the same question ten times.” The students found the discussion board also useful, especially those students that lived off campus. Some students post messages, whereas others (sometimes called “lurkers”) just checked it frequently to keep up to date, looked at the type of questions that were posted, or read previously posted answers to questions they also had. In the interview students were also positive about the video clips. They liked these because they helped them revise before exams, or when they had missed a lecture. One student frequently watched the video clips because he/ she did not attend the seminars and tried to understand and solve the problems by watching the videos. Students also used the videos if they ran into problems as the following diary entry shows: “The difficulties [sic] encountered this week was rules of inference; however I resolved by watching some exercise videos.” On the other hand, one student who lived off campus mentioned that he/she had not purchased the videos on DVD because the five pounds charge for the disc was too expensive. Many students in the interview also mentioned the desire to have online access to the video off campus. Apparently students did not regard watching videos as a normal lab session activity, which became clear from their reluctance to bringing headphones (these were necessary because the computers in the lab were not equipped with speakers). However, the policy of bringing in headphones did not seem to work, as illustrated by the following remark in the ob-

servation logbook for the second lab of the first term: “Student suppose [sic] to bring headphones so they can listen Video but none of them brought [sic], instead they were trying to read the videos.” In fact, during all his observations, the observer never noticed a student bringing in headphones. During the course of 2004 some students informally mentioned some concerns about the usability of OLE tools. A student in the interview mentioned: “at the beginning of the year students should be given a demo of WebCT, how to use it and the things available on it. Many students did not use it because they do not know how to use it.” This was therefore investigated further. A usability test was conducted in the summer break of 2004. Overall the students in this test were positive about the set-up of the OLE tools. However, their major usability concern related to the difficulty of finding and navigating to particular items in the site. This is not uncommon for OLE delivered courses (Engelbrecht & Harding, 2001). Therefore, after the test, the navigation panel and the overall structure of the site was redesigned in an attempt to make it more consistent. In the usability test participants were also asked to rate the ease-of-use and their satisfaction of a number of OLE tools. The results are given in Table 2. Since students rated items on seven point Likert scales, the rating of above 3.5 seems to indicate no serious usability problems with the six items.

learning Activities The first step in examining the student learning activities was analysing the scores on the R-SPQ2F questionnaire that was included in the end of term survey for the first and the second terms in 2005. An ANOVA was conducted to see the effect of the learning context on the two learning approaches scales. The ANOVA with repeated measure took as between-subject variable the terms and as within-subject variable the scores on the deep approach and surface approach scales. The analysis reveals a significant effect (F(1, 98) =

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Table 2. Mean (SD) ease-of-use and satisfaction rating of the OLE tools by eight students in the usability test Item

Ease of Use

Satisfaction

Study guide

5.48(1.09)

4.63(1.41)

Video

5.69(0.94)

5.31(1.36)

Lecture slides

5.62(0.69)

5.43(0.79)

Online self-test

5.48(0.72)

5.25(1.07)

Discussion board

5.73(0.79)

5.06(1.45)

OLE progress overview

5.40(0.96)

5.38(0.69)

46.41, p < .001) for scores between the two scales. Examining the means showed that the students scored, on a scale from 10 to 50, 28.8 (SD = 0.73) points on the deep approach scale and 23.2 (SD = 0.58) on the surface approach scale. However, the analysis failed to find a significant effect (F(1, 98) = 1.42, p > .05) for the terms, or for a two-way interaction (F(1, 98) = 0.66, p > .05) between approaches and terms. ANOVAs on the subscales motivation and strategy resulted in similar outcomes. This means that survey responders were on average more inclined to apply a deep instead of a surface approach through both terms. Thus the difference of the overall learning environment between the first and the second term did not seem to change the students learning approach. The next step in the analysis was to look for possible relationships between the learning approach and elements of the teaching context. Tables 3 and 4 show the Pearson correlations between the subscales of the learning approaches and the elements. Both the surface motivation and strategy seem to have a negative Pearson correlation with students’ interest and perceived lack of difficulty of the first term subject matter. For the second term the only significant Pearson correlations between teaching context items and surface learning was a positive Pearson correlation between perceived usefulness of the seminars and motivation; and a

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negative Pearson correlation between perceived usefulness of the lectures and learning strategy. The relative small number of significant Pearson correlations in Table 3 may suggest that the surface learning approach was less driven by the teaching context, or perhaps that these relationships are not linear as a Pearson correlation assumes. The high number of significant Pearson correlations between the deep learning scale and teaching context items suggests the opposite for deep learning (Table 4). Both for the first and second terms, there are positive Pearson correlations between the deep approach on one side and on the other side: perceived quality of the module, perceived lack of difficulty and students’ interest in the subject matter, previous familiarity with the subject matter, perceived usefulness of the lectures and seminars, and attendance at lectures. However, there are also some distinctions between first and second term. For example, the deep learning approach for the second term seems associated with attendance at lectures, seminars, and lab sessions, whereas for the first term the deep approach is only associated with the attendance of the lectures. Therefore it seems that in the conventionally taught second term, classes were mainly attended by students that were intrinsically motivated and applied a deep learning strategy, while for the CAPSI-based term this factor was

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

Table 3. Pearson correlation between surface learning approach and items of the teaching context of first term (N ranges from 58 down to 52) and second term (N ranges from 43 down to 39) in 2005 Teaching context

Motivation Term 1

Overall module quality

Term 2

Strategy Term 1

Term 2

0.16

-0.21

0.08

-0.23

Lack of difficulty of subject matter

-0.26*

-0.26

-0.46**

-0.18

Interest in subject matter

-0.28*

0.00

-0.37**

-0.17

Previous familiarity subject matter

-0.23

0.22

-0.11

0.20

Usefulness lectures

-0.03

-0.17

0.14

-0.30*

Usefulness seminars

-0.21

0.34*

-0.25

0.28

0.10

0.28

0.09

0.06

Attendance lectures

-0.04

-0.10

-0.09

-0.28

Attendance seminars

-0.10

-0.07

-0.08

-0.29

Attendance lab sessions

-0.19

0.09

-0.21

-0.21

0.07

0.07

-0.06

-0.01

-0.01

0.10

0.10

0.08

Usefulness lab sessions

Usability OLE Usefulness discussion board

*p. < 0.05, **p.< 0.01

Table 4. Pearson correlations between the deep learning approach and items of the teaching context of first (N between 52 and 58) and second term (N between 39 and 43) in 2005 Teaching context

Motivation

Strategy

Term 1

Term 2

Term 1

Term 2

Overall module quality

0.39**

0.38*

0.30*

0.40**

Lack of difficulty of subject matter

0.33*

0.33*

0.21

0.43**

Interest in subject matter

0.53**

0.23

0.33*

0.33*

Previous familiarity subject matter

0.46**

0.29

0.31*

0.38*

Usefulness lectures

0.27*

0.42**

0.19

0.35*

Usefulness seminars

0.35**

0.37*

0.22

0.25

Usefulness lab sessions

0.04

0.21

0.08

0.26

Attendance lectures

0.31*

0.29

0.34*

0.41**

Attendance seminars

0.01

0.36*

0.23

0.41**

Attendance lab sessions

0.17

0.41**

0.23

0.42**

Usability OLE

0.29*

0.16

0.15

0.18

Usefulness discussion board

0.36**

0.37*

0.19

0.25

*p < .05, **p < .01

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of less importance to explain class attendance. Table 4 also shows that the usability of the OLE and usefulness of the discussion board positively correlated with intrinsic motivations. This also seems to explain the perceived usefulness of the written study material, the online self-tests, the introduction, and Question and Answer (Q&A) videos that were provided in first term (Table 5). Apparently deep learners appreciate these online tools. However because no difference was found in the learning approaches between the terms, it is unlikely that these tools have a large impact on students’ adoption of a learning approach. The 10 students in the diary studies each week spent on average 9.3 (SD = 4.85) hours on the module. This was spread over lectures (M = 1.7 hours, SD = 0.78), seminars (M = 1.0 hours, SD = 0.60), labs (M = 1.3, SD = 1.26), and a considerable amount of self-study (M = 5.2, SD = 4.23). Applying an ANOVA on the survey data from the two years gave more insight into the impact of the learning context on class attendance. The analysis was conducted on the student’s average percentage of the lectures, seminars, and lab sessions attendance combined. An ANOVA with as independent variable years and terms revealed

a significant main effect for terms (F(1, 239) = 37.38, p < .001) and for years (F(1, 239) = 19.21, p < .001), and also a significant two-way interaction effect (F(1, 239) = 9.64, p < .01) between terms and years. Examining the means of the first term shows that attendance remained stable over the two years. In the first term of 2004 it was 79.9% (SD = 16.2), and 83.2% (SD = 14.2) in 2005. Attendance at the second term classes was lower, but increased. In 2004, attendance was 56.4% (SD = 25.2) and in 2005, it was 75.5% (SD = 22.5). This agrees with students’ attendance observed in the lab in 2005. In the first term this was on average 70 students, significantly (F(1, 16) = 12.28, p < .01) more than the 45 students on average in the second term. The difference between terms could suggest that CAPSI may change study behaviour. Of course there could also be other factors, such as previous knowledge. For example in the interview a student mentioned: Actually the first semester math was new for me so I attended regularly all lectures in the first semester. However most of the statistical stuff in the second semester was not new for me, there-

Table 5. Correlation between learning approach and items of the teaching context of first term in 2005 (N between 48 and 58) Surface approach

Teaching context

Motivation

Strategy

Motivation

Strategy

Usefulness written study materiala

-0.26

-0.15

0.26*

0.28*

Usefulness online self-testsa

-0.26

-0.09

0.35**

0.18

-0.05

-0.18

0.28*

0.21

0.15

-0.18

0.28*

0.23

Usefulness summary video

0.10

0.14

0.26

0.13

Number of introduction video watchedb

0.04

0.04

0.10

0.22

Number of exercise video watched

0.01

-0.15

0.11

0.01

0.02

-0.05

0.12

0.09

Usefulness Q&A video

a

Usefulness introduction video

a

a

b

Number of summary video watched

b

Pearson correlation, bSpearman correlation, *p < .05, **p < .01.

a

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fore I only attended a few lectures in the second semester. Another factor might have been the aim and style of the lectures. In the CAPSI-based term, lectures were for motivation, while in the other term, lectures were for covering the subject matter. Because of this, lectures in the first term were shorter, around one hour, while the lectures in second term were longer, around two hours. This point was illustrated by another comment made in the interview: The first semester lecture was extremely useful and interesting. However the second semester lecture was too lengthy, for me it was too much to attend a one and a half hour lecture without any break. After an hour I get tired, I lost my concentration and interest. Also in the statistics lecture there were less interaction between the students and the lecturer, students only ask questions at the end of the lecture not during the lecture. However it would be more useful to have questions and answer during the lecture. Still the difference in attendance could also relate to students’ tendency to initially follow all classes, and later on to stay away more often when they have become more familiar with university life and the course. A similar reduction was also found when examining the number of messages posted on the discussion board. In 2004 staff and students together posted 330 messages, whereas in 2005 this number had risen to 763. The promotion of the discussion board in 2005 seems therefore to have been successful. However, comparing the various periods in the year, the percentages of messages were rather similar. For example, in 2004, 49% of the messages were posted in the first term, whereas 47% in 2005. Next, the percentage for the second term was 37% for 2004 and 33% for 2005 (the remaining messages were posted in the revision and exam period). As with class attendance, students were more active on

the discussion board in the first term than in the second term. The discussion board, however, could not replace face-to-face meetings entirely. For example, one student wrote down in a diary: “even though there is webct’s discussion board it is not the same as being explained a difficult problem over s [sic] few notes on the internet” referring here to the alternative of discussing it with the instructor in the seminar. Students’ behaviour was also affected by assessment deadlines, or as one student in the interview said: “I work harder when I have exams and not as hard when I do not have exams.” This behaviour was also observed in Web traffic. Figure 1 shows the recorded accessing of the home page, the self-tests, and the main page of the online videos. The peaks of the home page hits clearly relate with the assessments events. The use of videos, and particular the use of online self-tests had peaks especially before the midterm test and for the final exam. During the Christmas and Easter break, online activity dropped and picked up again when classes resumed. The holidays were also quiet periods on the online discussion boards. Students in the interview were positive about the spread of coursework throughout the year, instead of only a single final exam. Even a student who applied mainly a surface approach said in the interview: I like very much the idea of having both coursework and exams. If I do not have the coursework then I would have left everything to study at the end. Because of the coursework, which was spread in several tasks, I studied this module constantly and therefore I learnt it better than other modules with only an exam at the end of the year. The frequency of students’ attempts at the online self-tests was relatively high for the first modules of term one, but it steadily declined, until halfway through the third module only around 25% of the students were still attempting the tests (Figure 2). The initial access policy of having to

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Figure 1. OLE usage of module between week 4 and 34 in the year 2004-2005, with on the x-axis the assessments events (project 1, midterm test, project 2, mathletics test 1, mathletics test 2, statistical report, exam)

Figure 2. Percentage of students that attempted the online-self tests in 2005 (M stands for module, and U for unit)

% of students

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% M4 U5

General test

M4 U4

M4 U3

M4 U2

M4 U1

M3 U5

M3 U4

M3 U3

M3 U2

M3 U1

M2 U5

M2 U4

M2 U3

M2 U2

M2 U1

M1 U5

M1 U4

M1 U3

M1 U2

M1 U1

0%

online self-test

pass previous online-self tests might have created this decline. Not all students liked this mastery policy. One student stated in a diary: “I find it a little overwhelming that I must get 100% [sic] in a lab test to regard that particular test as a pass!!!” Although it was never a 100% mastery policy, this was changed early on in the year. Instead of mastery, students should at least have attempted the previous self-tests. In the revision period, even this condition was dropped, to give students unconditional access to prepare for the exam. At the same time, students got access to a general

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self-test with 20 random questions taken from all tests. From Figure 2 this seems to have attracted more attention from the students. Around a third of the students in 2005 took this test. Possibly students attempted the self-tests for module one and two as preparation for the midterm test. After that there was no immediate assessment deadline to motivate most students into taking the other tests, and their attention might also been drawn to coursework deadlines of other modules as the following diary entry clearly shows: “For weeks 7, 8 and 9 I haven’t really been attending lectures,

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

Figure 3. Mean exam score, with a 95% confidence bar, on first term topic and second term topic obtained by students in academic year 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 term 1: CAPSI-based 60

term 2: Traditionally taught

points

50 40 30 20 10 0 2003-2004

2004-2005 year

seminars or labs. Reasons for this are that I have been too busy with work and other modules.” With the end of year exam approaching, students might have ignored the remaining unfinished self-tests and went immediately for the general test. Others might have completely ignored or forgotten the self-tests and used other means to revise for exams or focussed all their attention on the second term material.

learning outcomes Several reports can be found in the literature about the positive impact PSI has on students’ marks. Kulik et al. (1979) concluded in their meta-analysis of 75 comparative studies that students score on average 8% higher in a PSI course than in a conventionally taught course. The exam results of the module agree with these findings. Figure 3 shows the exam results of the CAPSI taught part and the more conventionally taught part of the module. In 2004 the average difference between the two is 14 points on a scale of 100, and in 2005 it is 20 points. An ANOVA with repeated measure confirms this observation. The ANOVA with as dependent variables the exam marks related to the two terms of the module, and as independent variable the year of the exam, revealed a significant

main effect for the two terms of the module (F(1, 332) = 424.09, p < .001). One reason for this might have been the differences in the teaching approach, or simply that one topic was easier than the other. The analysis also showed a significant difference between the years (F(1, 332) = 13.09, p < .001). On average students scored lower in the exam in 2005 than in the previous year. This could mean that the performance of the student cohort was different or the overall exam was more difficult. Still, the more interesting results of the analysis was a significant (F(1,332) = 13.69, p < .001) twoway interaction effect between the year and the topic of the questions. Where the exam scores for the CAPSI taught part remain more or less stable over 2004 (M = 52.1, SD = 19.0) and 2005 (M = 48.9, SD = 19.2), the exam scores of the other part drops from a 38.0 points (SD = 16.9) average to a 28.7 points (SD = 15.0) average. This could be attributed to several factors, such as a variation between the two years in the students’ academic abilities and the ability of the teaching context to adapt to this; a temporary change of the lecturer in the first five weeks in the second term of 2005; or a combination of these factors. The impact of video clips and online self-tests was apparent in the midterm test of the first term. In this test students had to answer four out of six

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questions under exam conditions. Two of the questions related to the application units, which were taught only in the lectures and were supported by OLE tests and video material only in 2005. While in 2004, 71% of the students attempted one or both of these application related questions, in 2005 this had risen to 80%. Although it just fails to reach a significant level in a 2 × 2 Chi Square analysis, χ2 (1, N = 345) = 3.81, p = .051, the trend shows that these OLE tools could have an impact on students confidence in attempting questions. Still, giving them without testing the material in the written diagnostic test does not seem to improve the exam results. An ANOVA with repeated measures on the average score obtained in the 2004 and 2005 exams on the four questions covering the first four theoretical learning units of the first term, and the score on a question covering the application units, units five, only revealed a significant main effect (F(1, 332) = 74.38, p < .001) for the topic of the questions. Students scored on average 10.5 (SD = 3.9) out of 20 points on the units one till four related questions, and 8.7 (SD = 4.9) out of 20 points on the units five question. But more importantly, no significant two-way interaction effect (F(1, 332) = 0.87, p > .05) was found between questions and exam year. This means that the introduction of

the video clips and OLE self-tests in 2005 did not seem to improve students’ performance in the end of the year examination. The focus on the students learning strategy seems justified. In the end of term surveys students were asked to indicate their grades obtained for the midterm test and statistics report coursework. As mentioned in a previous section, the surveys also included the R-SPQ-2F (Biggs et al., 2001) learning approach inventory. Table 6 shows Spearman correlations between the coursework grades and the learning approach. In the first term, based on the CAPSI principles, grades negatively correlated with a surface approach. Students that were motivated mainly by a fear of failure and applied a narrow target, rote learning strategy had a tendency to obtain lower grades in the midterm test. However no significant Spearman correlation was found between the midterm grade and the deep learning approach. Table 6 shows the precise opposite pattern when it comes to the statistical report coursework grade and learning approach. In the more conventionally taught term, the grade positively correlated with the deep approach. Therefore it seems that the CAPSI learning environment was less supportive when students applied a surface approach, in other words, when they picked items and rote learnt them, from a

Table 6. Spearman’s correlation between learning strategy and coursework grades Scale Surface approach

Midterm test (term 1)a

Statistical Report (term 2)b

-0.28 *

-0.07

Motive

-0.32 *

-0.15

Strategy

-0.28 *

-0.02

Deep approach

0.10

0.32 **

Motive

0.26

0.28 **

Strategy

-0.01

0.33 **

obtained in end of the first term survey of 2005, with N between 51 and 53; b obtained in the end of the second term survey of 2004 and of 2005, with N between 88 and 91. *p < .05. **p < .01. a

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fear of failing, students were less likely to obtain high grades with CAPSI. However, success in a CAPSI course did not seem to rely on students’ deep learning strategy. This might be explained by the behaviouristic tradition in which PSI was developed, placing an emphasis on the environment rewarding good behaviour (Keller & Sherman, 1974) and less on student comprehension and cognition. In the second term, students seem to get higher grades because of their deep learning strategy. In short, whereas in the CAPSI environment, the deep learning strategy is less important, in the traditional taught environment this seems to be a prerequisite for academic achievement. Table 7 shows the Pearson correlations between OLE use and the exam marks for the first and second term. For both terms the access to the home page of the OLE site, the use of the self-tests and the discussion board correlated significantly with academic achievement. However, the size of the Pearson correlations is relatively small, and interestingly the use of the first term online self-test correlated significantly with the exam marks of the second term. Although the size of this Pearson correlation is smaller than the Pearson correlation between the exam marks of first term and use of the self-tests, it suggests that OLE use is perhaps mainly an indicator of students’ overall motivation and only for a small portion a direct predictor of academic achievement.

dISCuSSIon This study started from the question as to how CAPSI might affect student attitude, learning and performance. From the findings it seems that students were more positive about the CAPSI-based term than the traditionally taught term. They also found facilities used in the CAPSI term such as the printed material, video, online self-test and the discussion board, useful. Although the analysis of the survey data did not reveal that CAPSI changed the students’ learning approach, class attendance and the use of the discussion board were higher in the CAPSI-based first term than the second term. Whereas lectures, seminars and lab attendance in the lecture-based term correlated with a deep learning approach, in the first (CAPSI) term this correlated only with attendance at the motivational lectures. In short, the CAPSI learning environment seems to engage students but not to change their motivations or learning approach noticeably. This is promising because in the traditionally taught term, engagement seems to be a function of the student’s deep learning approach, which coincided with high academic achievement. In the CAPSI term this link was less strong; whether or not students applied a deep learning approach did not determine their academic achievement, though students that applied a surface approach in the CAPSI-based term obtained lower marks. In other

Table 7. Pearson correlation between exam marks related to first and second term and OLE use (N = 334) OLE use

Term 1

Term 2

Hits on the home page of the OLE site

0.23**

0.12*

Number of messages read on discussion board

0.32**

0.24**

Number of messages posted on the discussion board

0.20**

0.21**

Percentage of first term online self-tests attempted

0.34**

0.22**

*p < .05. **p < .01.

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words, for students to be successful in the CAPSIbased term, deep learning approach seems less important, however, applying a surface learning approach seems less effective. The correlations found in the first term between the deep learning approach and perceived usefulness of OLE tools (Table 5) seem to confirm the earlier report by Hoskins and Van Hoof (2005). The results support their concerns that the OLE might only be taken advantage of by highly motivated students. However, the Pearson correlations between OLE use and exam marks (Table 7), although significant, were relatively small. Therefore there seems little support to justify fears that an OLE would be an obstacle to student learning. Instead it seems that the teaching principles, rather than the use of OLE tools, are the determining factor. Marks for the CAPSI taught term were higher than those for the traditionally taught term. Therefore, the main lesson learned from the study appear to be that the principles of PSI can effectively be used in an online learning environment, creating higher marks and students’ appreciation. The findings related to the videos and the OLE self-tests suggest that students perceived them as useful, and students might feel more comfortable in taking an assessment on a topic discussed in the videos. However, these OLE tools alone do not have a large impact on student performance. It seems more likely that they are more successful in combination with diagnostic tests; bringing the student from only passively watching the videos to actively studying them to pass the diagnostic test. This agrees with the overall observation that students’ learning activities were largely driven by assessment deadlines. The data on the online self-tests suggests that OLE tools were used more if students could clearly link them with the next upcoming assessment exercise. Kraemer (2003) also notices this effect. Completion rates of OLE material in her course were higher when librarian students were required to go through them for a grade. It seems that the call for aligning teaching, assessment, and learning objectives (Biggs,

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2003) should include online teaching tools as well. Students should see the benefit in using these OLE tools for passing their assessments; otherwise, only the highly motivated students might use them.

limitations of the Study As in any empirical study, this study also has limitations. The main limitation is that the results are restricted to those students who responded to the surveys, interview and diary studies. These students were probably more motivated and performed better than average. For example the average module mark of the participants in the interview was 66.2 (SD = 11.6) compared to a class average of 52.5 (SD = 17.1). The results of the surveys could also have a positive bias towards OLE tools, as the surveys were OLE delivered. Students that did not like or have problems using the OLE tools, might therefore be underrepresented in the survey response. Another limitation is the ability to control variables. For example, for obvious pedagogical and ethical reasons individual students could not be withheld or provided OLE access to study the effect these OLE tools had on student learning and performance. Furthermore, the material taught in the CAPSI-based term and traditionally taught term could be a confounding variable as students could be more familiar or interested in a particular topic, which might have influenced their learning activities. However, the study applied a mixed methodology approach, grounding the analysis on data from various data sources. This has the advantage that limitations of one data source could be overcome by using another data source in some cases. Next, this is a case study about teaching mathematics to first year Computer Science and Information System students on a U.K. based university. Although this is very specific, it could be of wide interest as mathematics is taught in many courses in different fields including science, engineering, business studies and economics.

Web-Based Implementation of the Personalised System of Instruction

Further development The findings of the study have already led to considerable changes in the module. First of all, the second term has also become CAPSI-based, with the written material broken up into ten units, each with its own written diagnostic test, online self-test, and supporting videos. The videos again consisted of an introduction and a summary clip for each unit and a number of Q&A videos. Developing the videos took around one and half week preparation, a week shooting them in a recording studio, and one and half weeks editing and converting to MPEG format. The 57 clips, including a general introduction video, are again available online on campus and on a separate DVD. Eighty headphones have been bought and made available to students to borrow in the lab, since it was observed that students did not bring their own headphones. The question database for the first term has also been extended. Instead of the standard four or five questions, questions are now randomly drawn from a question database that has 20-30 questions for each unit. As others have reported (Engelbrecht & Harding, 2001), some problems were also experienced with displaying mathematical symbols in the OLE quizzes; unfortunately, some students are still reporting that they are unable to see some symbols on their computer at home. Developing the question database also took considerable time, but it is regarded as a long-term investment. Partly because of pressure to run the module with less staff, but also because of the findings, the question database is now used for supervised tests in the lab as part of the formal assessment. Students have four attempts throughout the year to take or retake these supervised OLE tests, and these replace the midterm test, and the project 2 coursework in the first term, and the two Mathletics tests in second term. For students this has the advantage that the online self-tests are directly aligned with the formal assessment – indeed they are drawn from the same question database. For staff it removes

the burden of marking, while students seem to perform equally well on OLE-based and paperbased tests (Poirier & O’Neil, 2000). Again data from online surveys is being collected and the use of the OLE is being tracked to improve the module and to run it on an economically viable level. The principles of PSI continue to be used in the module not only because of its good track record since its introduction in the sixties, but also because it provides an effective framework for taking advantage of the tools offered by OLE.

Conclusion The main conclusion of the study is that PSI can be used to enhance both student appreciation and achievement in a course that is supported by OLE. Students’ performance was significantly higher for the CASPI taught material than for traditionally taught material. Furthermore, the study found that while a deep learning approach was significantly correlated with good grades on the traditionally taught material, this was not the case for the CAPSI material; the conclusion is that even those students who are not taking a deep approach may in some way be helped to learn mathematics by a CAPSI course.

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Biggs, J., Kember, D., & Leung, D. Y. P. (2001). The revised two-factor study process questionnaire: R-SPQ-2F. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 71(1), 133-149. Brinkman, W.-P., Haakma, R., & Bouwhuis, D.G. (2005). Empirical usability testing in a component-based environment: Improving test efficiency with component-specific usability measures. In R. Bastide, P. Palanque, & J. Roth (Eds.), Proceedings of EHCI-DSVIS 2004, Lecture Notes Computer Science 3425 (pp. 20-37). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Brook, R. J., & Thomson, P. J. (1982). The evolution of a Keller plan service statistics course. Programmed Learning & Educational Technology, 19(2), 135-138. Coates, D., & Humphreys, B. R. (2003). An inventory of learning at a distance in economics. Social Science Computer Review, 21(2), 196-207. Coppola, N. W., Hiltz, S. R., & Rotter, N. G. (2002). Becoming a virtual professor: Pedagogical roles and asynchronous learning networks. Journal of Management Information Systems, 18(4), 169-189. Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340. Debela, N. (2004). A closer look at distance learning from students’ perspective: A qualitative analysis of Web based online courses. Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 2(6). Emck, J. H., & Ferguson-Hessler, M. G. M. (1981). A computer-managed Keller plan. Physics Education, 16(1), 46-49. Engelbrecht, J., & Harding, A. (2001). WWW mathematics at the university of Pretoria: The trail run. South African Journal of Science, 97(910), 368-370.

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Kinsner, W., & Pear, J. J. (1988). Computer-aided personalized system of instruction for the virtual classroom. Canadian Journal of Educational Communication, 17(1), 21-36. Koen, B. V. (2005). Creating a sense of “presence” in a Web-based PSI course: The search for Mark Hopkins’ log in a digital world. IEEE Transactions on Education, 48(4), 599-604. Kraemer, E. W. (2003). Developing the online learning environment: The pros and cons of using WebCT for library instruction. Information Technology and Libraries, 22(2), 87-92. Kulik, J. A., Kulik, C.-L. C., & Cohen, P. A. (1979). A meta-analysis of outcome studies of Keller’s personalized system of instruction. American Psychologist, 34(4), 307-318.

Poirier, T. I., & O’Neil, C. K. (2000). Use of web technology and active learning strategies in a quality assessment methods course. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 64(3), 289-298. Rae, A. (1993). Self-paced learning with video for undergraduates: A multimedia Keller plan. British Journal of Educational Technology, 24(1), 43-51. Ramsden, P. (2003). Learning to teach in higher education (2nd ed). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Ramsden, P., & Entwistle, N. J. (1981, November). Effects of academic departments on student’s approaches to studying. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 368-383.

Kyle, J. (1999). Mathletics – a review. Maths & Stats, 10(4), 39-41.

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Schultze-Mosgau, S., Zielinski, T., & Lochner, J. (2004). Web-based, virtual course units as a didactic concept for medical teaching. Medical Teacher, 26(4), 336-342.

Pear, J. J. (2003). Enhanced feedback using computer-aided personalized system of instruction. In W. Buskist, V. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching (vol. 3, chap. 11). Washington, DC: APA Division 2, Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

Sheehan, T. J. (1978). Statistics for medical students: Personalizing the Keller plan. The American Statistician, 32(3), 96-99.

Pear, J. J., & Crone-Todd, D. E. (2002). A social constructivist approach to computer-mediated instruction. Computer & Education, 38(1-3), 221-231. Pear, J. J., & Novak, M. (1996). Computer-aided personalized system of instruction: A program evaluation. Teaching of Psychology, 23(2), 119123. Pelayo-Alvarez, M., Albert-Ros, X., Gil-Latorre, F., & Gutierrez-Sigler, D. (2000). Feasibility analysis of a personalized training plan for learning research methodology. Medical Education, 34(2), 139-145.

Watson, J. M. (1986). The Keller plan, final examinations, and log-term retention. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 17(1), 60-68. Wernet, S. P., Olliges, R. H., & Delicath, T. A. (2000). Postcourse evaluations of WebCT (Web Course Tools) classes by social work students. Research on Social Work Practice, 10(4), 487-504. Zhang, D., Zhao, J. L., Zhou, L., & Nunamaker, J. F. (2004). Can e-learning replace classroom learning? Communication of the ACM, 47(5), 75-79.

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APPendIx Table 8. Questions of the online surveys No

Included in survey

Question

Answer type

1

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

All things considered, how would you rate the quality of the [first/second] term of this module?

A

2

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How would you rate the level of difficulty of [the second term of] the module in your case?

B

3

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How would you rate your interest for [the second term of] the module?

C

4

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How useless/useful did you find the lab sessions [in the second term]?

D

5

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How useless/useful did you find the seminar sessions [in the second term]?

D

6

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How useless/useful did you find the lectures [in the second term]?

D

7

T1-04.

Roughly what proportion of the lecture/lab/seminar sessions have you attended?

E

8

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

Roughly what proportion of the lecture sessions did you attend [in the second term]?

E

9

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

Roughly what proportion of the lab sessions did you attend [in the second term]?

E

10

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

Roughly what proportion of the seminars sessions did you attend?

E

11

T1-05,

How useless/useful did you find the end of the lecture questions?

D

12

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How much of the subject matter covered in the [first/second] term did you already know?

E

13

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

What is your educational background?

F

14

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

Do you have access to a PC / laptop outside the lab sessions to work on?

G

15

T1-05.

Do you have access to a PC / laptop with a DVD player outside the lab sessions to work on?

G

16

T1-04, T105.

Which grade did you receive for the mid semester test?

H

continued on the following page

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Table 8. continued 17

T2-04, T205.

Which grade did you receive for Mathletics test 1?

H

18

T2-04, T205.

Which grade did you receive for Mathletics test 2?

H

19

T2-04, T205.

Which grade did you receive for Statistical Report coursework?

H

20

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How would you rate the usability of the WebCT environment for this module [in the second term]?

C

21

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How useless/useful did you find the WebCT discussion board of this module [in the second term]?

D

22

T1-04, T105,

How useless/useful did you find the self-tests on WebCT?

D

23

T2-04, T205.

How useless/useful did you find the Mathletics self-tests (not the assessments)?

D

24

T1-04.

How useless/useful did you find the videos?

D

25

T1-05.

How useless/useful did you find the videos that discuss questions?

D

26

T1-05.

How useless/useful did you find the videos that gave an introduction?

D

27

T1-05.

How useless/useful did you find the videos that gave a summary?

D

28

T1-05.

Roughly how many video clips that give an introduction to a module/unit have you watched?

I

29

T1-05.

Roughly how many video clips that discuss a question have you watched?

J

30

T1-05.

Roughly how many video clips that give a summary of a unit have you watched?

I

31

T1-04, T105.

How useless/useful did you find the example questions of the mid semester test?

D

32

T1-04, T105.

How useless/useful did you find the written material (Modules 1-5)?

D

33

T1-04, T105.

How useless/useful did you find the book “Discrete mathematics with application” by S.S. Epp?

D

34

T1-04, T105.

How useless/useful did you find the book “Computer Science: an overview” by J. Glenn Brookshear?

D

35

T1-04, T105, T2-04, T2-05.

How useless/useful did you find the feedback [regarding the assessment of your coursework/ you received on your Statistical Report coursework]?

D

36

T2-04, T205.

How useless/useful did you find the Lecture Handouts used in the second semester?

D

37

T2-4, T2-05.

How useless/useful did you find the Lab Session Notes used in the second term?

D

38

T2-04, T205.

How useless/useful did you find the Seminar: Problem Sheets in the second term?

D

continued on the following page

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Table 8. continued 39

T2-04, T205.

How useless/useful did you find the example exam questions on WebCT?

D

40

T2-04, T205.

How useless/useful did you find the Study Guide?

D

41

T2-04, T205.

How useless/useful did you find the template document you could use to create your Statistical Report?

D

42

T1-04, T105.

Any comments that you like to make about the module?

K

43

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find that at times studying gives me a feeling of deep personal satisfaction

L

44

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find that I have to do enough work on a topic so that I can form my own conclusions before I am satisfied.

L

45

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

My aim is to pass the course while doing as little work as possible.

L

46

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I only study seriously what’s given out in class or in the course outlines.

L

47

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I feel that virtually any topic can be highly interesting once I get into it.

L

48

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find most new topics interesting and often spend extra time trying to obtain more information about them.

L

49

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I do not find my course very interesting so I keep my work to the minimum.

L

50

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I learn some things by rote, going over and over them until I know them by heart even if I do not understand them.

L

51

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find that studying academic topics can at times be as exciting as a good novel or movie.

L

52

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I test myself on important topics until I understand them completely.

L

53

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find I can get by in most assessments by memorising key sections rather than trying to understand them.

L

54

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I generally restrict my study to what is specifically set as I think it is unnecessary to do anything extra.

L

55

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I work hard at my studies because I find the material interesting.

L

56

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I spend a lot of my free time finding out more about interesting topics which have been discussed in different classes.

L

57

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find it is not helpful to study topics in depth. It confuses and wastes time, when all you need is a passing acquaintance with topics.

L

58

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I believe that lecturers shouldn’t expect students to spend significant amounts of time studying material everyone knows won’t be examined.

L

59

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I come to most classes with questions in mind that I want answering.

L

continued on the following page

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Table 8. continued 60

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I make a point of looking at most of the suggested readings that go with the lectures.

L

61

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I see no point in learning material which is not likely to be in the examination.

L

62

T1-05, T204, T2-05.

I find the best way to pass examinations is to try to remember answers to likely questions.

L

Note: Questions 43-62 were taken from the R-SPQ-2F inventory (Biggs et al., 2001). Reproduced with permission from the British Journal of Educational Psychology, © The British Psychological Society. The responses on these questions where use to calculate the score on the learning approach scales in the following way: Deep Motive (DM) = Q43 + Q47+ Q51 + Q55 + Q59; Deep Strategy (DS) = Q44 + Q48 + Q52 + Q56 + Q60; Surface Motive (SM) = Q45 + Q49 + Q53 + Q57 + Q61; Surface Strategy (SS) = Q46 + Q50 + Q54 + Q58 + Q62; Deep Approach = DM + DS; Surface Approach = SM + SS. Question phrases within [ ] were adapted to the context of the term. T1-04 = Term 1 in 2004; T1-05 = term 2 in 2005; T2-04 = term 2 in 2004; T2-05 = term 2 in 2005.

Table 9. Answer types used in the online surveys Answer type

Answer options

A

1) poor; 2) fair; 3) good; 4) very good; 5) not applicable.

B

1) very difficult; 2) difficult; 3) average; 4) easy; 5) very easy; 6) not applicable.

C

1) very low; 2) low; 3) average; 4) high; 5) very high; 6) not applicable

D

1) useless; 2) some parts useless some parts useful; 3) useful; 4) very useful; 5) not applicable.

E

1) 0-20%; 2) 21-40%; 3) 41-60%; 4) 61-80%; 5) 81-100%; 6) not applicable.

F

a) A levels; b) BTEC; c) GNVQ; d) Access; e) Other.

G

1) never; 2) sometimes; 3) regular; 4) not applicable.

H

1) F; 2) E; 3) D; 4) C; 5) B; 6) A; 7) not applicable.

I

1) 0-4; 2) 5-9; 3) 10-14; 4) 15 or more.

J

1) 0-4; 2) 5-9; 3) 10-14; 4) 15-19; 5) 20-24; 6) 25-29; 7) 30 or more.

K

Open answer

L

1) never or only rarely true of me; 2) sometimes true of me; 3) true of me about half the time; 4) frequently true of me; 5) always or almost always true of me.

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Table 10. Interview questions Category Students approach to learning

Teaching approach

Student Characteristics

No

Question

1

Many students have different ways how they approach their studies. There is not a single best approach, some people like going to lectures, seminars, and lab regularly, but other like to work on their own at home. Some people spread the learning across the year; others like to focus their learning activities at the moment before an assessment. Can you tell me how you approached your learning of this module, and also why did you approach it like this? Let’s start how you began the year and progress through the year up to the days of the exams.

2

What were the reasons for you to attend a lecture/seminar/lab session?

3

What were your motivations to start studying this module? Or what were the thinks that stop you from studying?

4

How much time did you spend studying on this module and why did you spend this amount of time to the module?

5

In the first semester, [name lecturer] only looked at one part of the material in his lectures -units 5- the other parts, units 1-4, was covered by seminars and lab sessions. Whilst in the second semester [name lecturer] covered all topics in her lectures, while the seminars and lab session focuses more on details and practical issues. Please tell me how you perceived this approach of teaching?

6

This module was assessed via both 50% coursework and 50% exams. Coursework included 6 tasks (Tarski, Mid term exam, Project two, Mathletics test 1 & 2, and Statistical Report). How do you perceive this approach of assessment?

7

Why do you like or not like this approach; and what suggestions would you like to make?

8

Were you clear about the assessment process before you undertook them?

9

Student of level one come from various educational backgrounds, for instance some might study math subject in GCSE and A level and some may not. What was your educational background?

10

If you look at your background and the material in the module, which thing did you already know and which things were new for you?

11

Students also differ in terms of where they stayed during their study period, on campus or off campus. Students that live off campus have different travelling rime to come to the university. What was your situation?

12

How might this have affected your study?

13

Some student only had access to a PC and Internet at the university; others have also access to these facilities at home. What is your situation?

14

How might this have affected your study?

15

Some students work or engaged in other activities during their study period, such as working, hobbies, sport, or other studies activities. What was your situation?

16

How might this have affected your study?

17

Some students have many friends and they study and do coursework in groups, whilst others do their study alone. What as your situation?

18

How might this have affected your study?

continued on the following page

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Table 10. continued OLE tools

Closing question

19

Different modules have different way to support student learning activities. This module offered WebCT and printed material of lectures, problem sheets and lab notes at the beginning of the semester. Different student used these resources and facilities differently. How would you explain your way of using these and why did you use WebCT? What are the facilities you particular used and which didn’t you use, and why?

20

Did you use any of these facilities?

21

Why did you use them?

22

Do you have any suggestions to improve these facilities?

23

Is there anything else what you like to mention, which was not covered by the previous questions?

Table 11. Questions used in usability test Scale

Ease of use

Satisfaction

No

Question

1

Learning to operate [name OLE tool] would be easy for me.

2

I would find it easy to get [name OLE tool] to do what I want it to do.

3

My interaction with [name OLE tool] would be clear and understandable.

4

I would find [name OLE tool] to be flexible to interact with.

5

It would be easy for me to become skillful at using [name OLE tool]

6

I would find [name OLE tool] easy to use.

7

The interface of [name OLE tool] was pleasant.

8

I like using the interface of [name OLE tool].

Note: Questions 1-6 were adapted from the Perceived Usefulness and Ease-of-use (PUEU) questionnaire (Davis, 1989) (Reproduced with permission from MIS Quarterly). The answer option for questions 1-6 was a 7-point Likert scale ranging from Unlikely to Likely with 1) extremely; 2) quite; 3) slightly; 4) neither; 5) slightly; 6) quite; 7) extremely. Question 7 and 8 were adapted from the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) (Lewis, 1995) (Reproduced with permission from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. and the author). The answer option for question 7 and 8 was a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1) strongly disagree to 7) strongly agree. The phrase “[name OLE tool]” in each question was replaced by name of the OLE tool. The score on the Ease-of-use scale was calculated by taking the average response on questions 1 till 6, and the score on the Satisfaction scale was calculate by taking the average response on question 7 and 8.

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 2, Issue 1, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 39-69, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 4.22

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology: A Description of a Web-Based Tool to Educate Fathers of Children with Autism Richard E. Ferdig Kent State University, USA Hilary G. Amberg University of Florida, USA Jennifer H. Elder University of Florida, USA Susan A. Donaldson University of Florida, USA Gregory Valcante University of Florida, USA Roxanna Bendixen University of Florida, USA

ABSTRACT Most research on family interventions of children with autism has focused on the role of the mother, and little is known about the effects of training fathers. Through a series of National Institutes of Health–funded studies we have demonstrated treatment success by focusing on fathers who are

trained at home. Although our research has been successful, this work introduces questions related to how best to train fathers when on-site, in-home training is not a viable option due to geographical distance or a variety of other logistical constraints. This article describes the development and initial use of an Internet-based tool to offer this training more broadly. We briefly describe past research

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

as well as the need for the implementation of an Internet-based tool. We then describe the system, document early indicators of success, and discuss metrics we are using with our fathers. The article concludes with a discussion of future goals and research needs.

InTRoduCTIon Recent research has indicated that 1 of every 150 children is diagnosed with autism (http://www. autism.com). The developmental disorder has become so commonly diagnosed that April has been designated Autism Awareness Month, and April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day (http:// www.worldautismawarenessday.org). Although there are a wide variety of treatment options for autism, including educational and behavioral interventions, medications, and therapies, some may lead to great improvement while others may have little or no effect (Elder, 2002). As the number of reported cases of autism has increased, the amount of autism-related research has also increased (Rapin, 2002). In addition to research related to the possible causes of autism, researchers are also interested in finding successful and appropriate ways to help children with autism learn and function better in society.

understanding the Involvement of the Family One significant area of current research is the involvement of the family. Calabrese (2006) reports that, in general, when schools, parents and students communicate and work together, children benefit academically, socially, and emotionally, leading to a young child’s success in school. Children whose parents are involved in their academic life have a more positive attitude about school, improved attendance, and show better homework habits than other students with less involved parents. Also, parents involved in school related activities report

having more self-confidence in parenting as well as an expanding understanding of the home as an environment for student learning (Calabrese, 2006). Lastly, teachers more involved with parents report a greater understanding of a family’s culture and a deeper appreciation of parents’ time and abilities. This is also true for research on autism. While it was once common to separate parents and children in order to focus treatment, now the role of the parent is emphasized as an important part of a child’s treatment (Harris, 1984; Harris & Glasberg, 2003). Researchers discovered parental involvement in home intervention programs were successful, especially in helping children with autism function more independently in the community as adults (Ozonoff & Cathcart, 1998). Children with autism appear to be more likely to benefit from interventions that are initiated at an early age, are intensive in frequency and duration, target various developmental areas including language, behavior management, and social skills, and include the children’s parents1, who can facilitate the generalization process of learned skills (Levy, Kim, & Olive, 2006). It has also been shown that children in intervention programs with parental involvement benefited from increases in their measured intelligence, which in turn improved their ability to participate in general education (Levy et al., 2006). Parents are effective intervention agents for multiple reasons. First, parents can provide additional hours of treatment at low cost. Also, while it is impossible for a child’s therapist or agency to provide service throughout a child’s lifetime, a parent can be involved for many years, providing consistency that is needed (Ozonoff & Cathcart, 1998). Lastly, parents involved in their child’s intervention report increased feelings of competence and success, as well as decreased feelings of depression, stress, and ineffectiveness (Ozonoff & Cathcart, 1998). Much of the research on parental involvement has come from examining mothers as the primary

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caregivers. Even in training programs that involve both parents, usually it is left to the mothers to train the fathers (Seung, Ashwell, Elder, & Valcante, 2006). Recent work, however, has focused on fathers and the effect of their involvement on child development (Lamb, 1987; Tiedge & Darling-Fisher, 1996). Researchers suggest that when fathers are involved in their children’s lives, the children have enhanced well-being, increased cognitive development and higher levels of empathy (Bellotti et al., 2003). Father involvement may also be associated with less depression and more child initiative when compared to children who grow up in households where the father is not involved (Seung et al., 2006). In our own in-home work with fathers, we have provided evidence that fathers acquired and successfully implemented the training skills they were taught and children with autism exhibited improvement in their pre-communication skills (Elder, Valcante, Won, & Zylis, 2003; Seung et al., 2006). Additionally, when fathers of children with autism are involved in their children’s lives, they report increased feelings of parental competence, self-worth, and marital satisfaction than fathers who are not as involved (Seung et al., 2006). The same study demonstrated that almost every child continued to produce more words in the maintenance phase with a father-focused intervention versus one that trained mothers. In sum, results of our research indicate that the in-home training for fathers of children with autism was effective and valued by the participating families.

parents remembered how to teach their children and the children had retained the skills they had initially acquired, most of the parents had stopped their formal teaching sessions (Harris, 1984). Another limiting factor, particularly within our work, is that it requires in-home visits. This becomes potentially problematic at two levels. First, we have a successfully demonstrated intervention; however, if the father does not acquire all of the requisite skills, or the father’s skill level remediates over time, it requires another at-home visit for re-training. Second, success should equate to the delivery of this intervention to multiple households; staffing issues prevents such issues. The challenge, therefore, is to develop a system that trains fathers, provides opportunities for fathers to work with other family members, helps fathers remediate their skills and knowledge when necessary, and impacts multiple families. In this article, we will describe such a system that has been built and is currently being pilot-tested with fathers. We will explain the specific features of the system, highlighting both parent and researcher use. Although the Web-based project is still in its early stages, the article concludes with the proposed methodology and initial findings.

Family Intervention Challenges

To respond to this challenge, a novel, online system has been built to provide a technology-based intervention for fathers of children with autism. Past research has demonstrated the success of adults and children learning through technology and learning online (Hartshorne & Ferdig, 2006; Ferdig, 2006). Perhaps the most salient example comes from the work on educating pre-service teachers (Ferdig, Roehler, & Pearson, 2006). Educators found that many of the classrooms where

While research suggests that parental involvement in an autistic child’s intervention is effective, research also identifies some negative aspects of parental involvement in interventions. Evidence indicates a problem of maintenance of appropriate intervention behavior (Harris & Glasberg, 2003). In follow up research with past intervention families, researchers have found that although the

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AdAPTIng A SuCCeSSFul InTeRneT-BASed InTeRvenTIon FoR FAmIlIeS oF ChIldRen wITh AuTISm

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

they sent pre-service teachers to observe, learn, and teach did not contain master teachers who practiced reform-oriented literacy instruction. Therefore, pre-service teachers would often resort back to unsuccessful teaching strategies. Even in classrooms with exemplary instruction, it was difficult to give pre-service teachers experience with the pedagogical and student diversity they would eventually experience in their own classrooms. Finally, even in the best case scenario of a diverse and pedagogically strong classroom, there was no guarantee that the pre-service teacher would know what to pay attention to (Ferdig, Roehler, & Pearson, 2002). To meet this need, researchers developed a Web-based system where pre-service teachers could explore—and re-explore—reform oriented literacy instruction. Researchers found that preservice teachers excelled given the opportunity to see exemplary models of instruction, particularly in areas of understanding pedagogical and student diversity (Ferdig et al., 2006). Moreover,

pre-service teachers could use the online experience to re-investigate areas of interest over time; they could also introduce their in-service counterparts to video-based examples justifying their teaching practice. Finally, pre-service teachers who utilized the system left with a deeper understanding of literacy instruction and overall pedagogy (Ferdig et al., 2002). Based on the success of these Web-based projects, we set out to develop a Web-based system to work with fathers of children with autism.

description of the System The Autism Family Training project is a project created to train fathers of children with autism and is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Upon first entering the project Web site (Figure 1; http://autism.coe.ufl.edu), users can learn more about the project, the team, and how to participate in the research. Registered users can also log-in to the system. There are two main types of users

Figure 1. Screenshot of homepage

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for the system. First and most obvious, there are parents. The site is first used by the father in the family; once he is trained, the mother receives training (usually by the father) as well as access to the site. A second main user for the site is the researcher. Further explanations of both roles are provided in the remainder of this section.2

description of the System: Parent log-in Once parents log-in, they are provided with a number of options to support their training. First, parents can check the latest news or calendar events posted by researchers. News items mainly include changes to the site and the highlighting of new features for parents. Calendar items remind parents of upcoming events with researchers such as phone calls and in-home visits. Second,

Figure 2. Parent log-in and event calendar

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parents logging in have the opportunity to have a shared file center with researchers. Parents might upload test results, pictures, or other materials for the researchers to see. Researchers, conversely, might post specific analyses, instructions, or news material for that specific parent. The third feature, and the most important for the training, is the use of instructional and personal videos (Figure 3). There are three sets of instructional videos related to skills the father will learn in working with his child. Areas covered include: “Imitation With Animation & Following the Child’s Lead”, “Expected Waiting & Commenting on the Child”, and “Putting It All Together.” Each set contains an instructional video as well as two example videos, showing the parents exemplary instruction related to that set of skills. There are also personal videos in the system. Personal videos are videos of the actual father

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

Figure 3. Instructional videos

interacting with his child. Where the instructional video collection is available to any registered user, these videos are only available to the father and eventually the mother of the child. Personal videos provide an opportunity for researchers to demonstrate examples of the father’s positive efforts. They also obviously represent a way to highlight areas that need improvement. At this time, personal videos are filmed by researchers during home visits, brought back to the research office, analyzed, and put online. A future goal is for parents to be able to send in their own videos or to set-up web cameras in the home to interact with researchers. Privacy is obviously critical. Personal videos are only accessible by the families that uploaded them or by the families that are present in the video. To maintain privacy, we not only use password protection, but we

also ensure privacy through Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. The videos are distributed via a Real® video server (http://www.real.com). With the Real® platform, videos begin streaming to home users within a few seconds, regardless of the length of the video. The videos are converted in such a way as to be “smart” to the server. In other words, the server can differentiate when a person logs in with a high speed or low speed connection and adjust the video accordingly. Others have chosen to send out videos via CD-ROM. We chose to use a Web-based approach for a number of reasons. First, we can instantly update videos as we find better examples of the instructional approaches. Second, as highlighted, we can adapt the user’s connection speed and provide either smaller videos or full-screen videos if they have capability. Third, CD-ROM based videos require parents

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to have the videos in hand. And, after the father trains the mother, they would both need access to the videos. Delivering Web-based videos gives almost ubiquitous access, provided the father or mother has access to the Internet. However, this could be at home just as easily as it could be at an Internet café. Finally, although we are not currently piloting our work internationally, Internetbased videos give us instant access to participants without worrying about mailing videos. The use of videos for instruction was important because it has been one of the most effective approaches researched thus far related to increasing family and educator communication is the use of technology. For instance, in a study conducted by Calabrese, students were sent home with videos pertaining to the school’s policies and curriculum, as well as messages to the parents that help them with their children. The video also included ways parents can contribute to their children’s success in school (Calabrese, 2006). Parent surveys indicated students and their families enjoyed the videos, watching them more than once, and the parents also learned new information about their children’s school programs (Calabrese, 2006). In another study, videos served as a shared context for the users and researchers (Ferdig et al., 2002). That same study provided evidence that the users went back to the videos as a way to refresh their knowledge and skill sets. On each video page, users have the ability to take notes on videos. This provides fathers with an opportunity to reflect upon the instructional videos; they can also take notes to remember what went well or what needed to be worked on in specific personal videos. At any point in time, they can see their entire collection of notes listed chronologically, viewing growth and progress over time. Research has indicated that providing an opportunity to write about the videos encourages reflection and thus potential change by the user (Ferdig et al., 2006). If a parent wishes to communicate with a researcher about videos or about the research

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process, we have provided an online discussion forum (in addition to phone calls and e-mails). The discussion forum is also used by researchers as a way to initiate parent inquiry and reflection on instructional and personal videos, resources, and shared files. At this present time, as to not confound the research study, parents may only communicate with the researcher and vice versa. Once a parent has completed the study, a goal is to open up communication between all parents. Multi-family communication (with our without video) may encourage continued reflection, encouragement, and support with training difficulties. A final component to the parent side of the Web site is the resource library (Figure 4). The goal for this section of the site is to provide parents with supporting material, either related or unrelated to the instructional and personal videos. If, for instance, researchers have created an assistance worksheet to go with a certain video, it would appear in two places. First, it would appear in the actual video itself. Notice in Figure 3 that there are no resources directly tied to this video. Any resources used to support the training of this particular set of skills would appear here. The second place a resource would appear is in the resource library. Any resources that are not tied to videos obviously appear here as well. Resources may include word processing documents, pictures, PDFs, and Web sites. At any point in time, parents may also seek Web site help, change their password and other information, and log-out.

description of the System: Researcher log-in The second main group of users is researchers. The researchers have three main functions on their side of the Web site. Those functions include: a) managing families; b) managing content; and c) managing research. Managing families relates to the day-to-day interactions with family members. This begins by researchers adding families to the

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

Figure 4. Resource library

Web site. Notice in Figure 5 that a researcher sees the username, family name, access level, and first & last names3. The username is obviously the name that the parent uses to access the site. When a researcher adds the parent, s/he adds an email contact and a temporary password. We use a family name so that personal files and videos can be sent out to groups of parents or caregivers. We do not use last name as a grouping function as some parents obviously have different last names. Finally, the researcher decides and frequently changes the access level. There are six options for access level that define what a person is able to see on the site; those are described in Table 1. The basic idea behind access levels is that both parents have usernames created with an access level of 0. Once the father has completed the faceto-face, in-home training with the researchers, he is given an access level of 1 to view and review the video and accompanying materials. After he has successfully completed the materials and has

moved on to level 2, the mother gains access to level 1. In this way, she is a step behind so that the father can train her on what he is learning. Her access is mainly for review purposes after she has worked with the father, much like the father’s access is for review after being trained by the researcher. In addition to adding and editing families, “managing family” functions also include scheduling events, adding news, interacting with families through the discussion forum, and adding files. The news function is to announce things globally to all users. The discussion forum is used much like a message board to communicate back and forth between parents. We decided to use a discussion forum instead of a message board so that at a certain level (e.g., 4), we would have the option of opening up the conversation to all parents (inter- and intra-parental conversations). There are two types of files added to the Web site that are specific to family groupings. The first set is called “parent files” and refers to any file

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Figure 5. Researcher management of users

Table 1. Definitions of access levels Access Level

Definition of Access Level

0

User has rights to log-in but cannot access Training.

1

User has rights to log-in and complete/review Training #1

2

User has rights to log-in and complete/review Training #1 or #2

3

User has rights to log-in and complete/review Training #1 or #2 or #3

4

User has rights to log-in and complete/review all training modules

9

Reserved for researchers on the site to test all parent functions

that the researcher would want to share with the parent. This could include documents, training materials, or test results, although all three would again be specific to that parent. The second set of files is called the “personal videos.” These are videos that are currently captured in-home by researchers, analyzed, and then uploaded back to the specific parent grouping. Where adding files refers to family files and thus falls under the category of “managing families,” there is other content that is distributed to all users and thus falls under the category of “managing content.” Researchers needed the ability to be able to dynamically and frequently

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add content without being forced to program or hardcode the Web site. Therefore, the researcher site provides the opportunity to upload two different types of content dynamically to the Web site—instructional videos and resources. The Real® video server is obviously located on a different machine. Therefore, the researcher wanting to add videos first has to upload the content via file transfer to the server. Once the video is in place, the researcher logs-in to the Web site and clicks to add an instructional video. The researcher lists the official video name, the filename it is listed as, and a main grouping. We currently have three groupings related to instructional strategies

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

(Imitation With Animation & Following the Child’s Lead, Expected Waiting & Commenting on the Child, and Putting It All Together). The researcher can also designate the order of the videos under the given grouping. Researchers can also upload resources. There are two locations for a researcher to upload resources. First, if a resources is related to a specific video, they can upload the resource on the add/ edit video page. Or, they can add a stand-alone resource (see Figure 6). Both videos and resources have access levels tied to them. As previously discussed, an access level of 0 means that the resources are available from the first second the user has been created. Higher access levels require training to be completed before the resource or video can be viewed. The final category of the researcher side of the Web site is “managing research.” Our research has already demonstrated positive results of working

with fathers of children with autism. However, we know less about the role of technology in supporting this work. Therefore, the researcher site contains two tools to support the evaluation and analysis of the use of this site. First, researchers can examine parents’ notes. Much like a “think aloud” protocol in qualitative methodologies, the notes section reveals parent thinking as they watch videos. Because parents have different usernames, researchers can not only investigate user inquiry and reflection, they can also explore various facets of family dynamics. The second tool gives the researchers the opportunity to check parent access logs. A researcher selects a username and a timeframe (e.g., all time, last week, yesterday, etc.). Using built-in features of SQL (we specifically chose to use SQL due to onsite expertise; others have had similarly positive experiences with other database tools), a report is created that highlights an overview of the use of the site as well as a specific list of when the

Figure 6. Researcher/instructor addition of resources

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parent was on, which pages they visited, and how long they stayed on each page (see Figure 7). This “click-stream” analysis’ gives researchers an insight into whether parents are engaged and what specific features are engaging parents.

ReSeARCh And evAluATIon Research description. Our research has already demonstrated the positive impact on children with autism after working with their fathers (Seung et al., 2006; Elder et al., 2003). The purpose of this project is to build upon that research and to ask and answer three important questions. 1.

2.

Can fathers who receive in-home training be re-trained using only a Web-based intervention? Can fathers use this system to scaffold their interaction with other family members (e.g., mothers, siblings)?

Figure 7. Researcher evaluation of user access

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3.

How does the sole use of an online system with the fathers impact their children with autism compared to an in-home only or an in-home/online hybrid model?

The first two questions will help us understand the role of this tool for impacting the development of children with autism. More important than asking if this tool works, we will use the first two questions to help us answer how this tool can best be used. From that analyses, we will be able to assess the viability of offering this training tool to fathers (and families) from around the world that do not have access to in-home researchers. Research metrics. There are three sets of metrics used to measure the use of this system: outcome measures, online measures, and technology survey instruments. Outcome measures used to determine the efficacy of the intervention include direct observations of parent and child behaviors and several established instruments. These are summarized in the Table 2.

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

Table 2. Variables, instruments, and measurement for outcome measures Variable

Instrumentation

Measurement

Social turn-taking of father and child

Ecological Communication Orientation (ECO) Language Sampling Summary (Gillette & MacDonald, 1989)

Parent-child interactions evaluated and recorded by a speech/language pathologist using a Likert scale

Parent Skills* imitating/animating, following child’s lead, expectant waiting, commenting versus questioning Parent Behavior Responses Classes* initiating, responding (videotaped) Child Behavior Response Classes: initiating, responding Other Child Behaviors non-speech vocalizations, intelligible words, stereotypy, tantrums (video)

Recorded using The Observer computerized observation program

Frequency counts of target behaviors.

Parental satisfaction with process and outcome of parent training

Therapy Attitude Inventory

Parental self-report questionnaire using a Likert-type scale

Parental views of training process with preliminary information

Semi-structured interview

Assessment using parent self-report

Parental stress

Parenting Stress Index-SF (PSI)

Parental self-report questionnaire using a Likert-type scale

Family cohesion

Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales II

Parental self-report using a Likert-type scale

Web-based Feedback System (WFS) Feasibility

Parent Training (PT) Online Satisfaction Survey # of Web-site hits

Parental self-report using a computerized Likert-type scale & computer-tracked objective data regarding WFS use

The second set of metrics relate to online measures. As previously discussed, the system provides an opportunity to view parental thinking through analyses of the notes taken by parents as they watch training and personal videos. The system also provides access to the discussion forum, providing an evaluation of the interactions between parents and researchers. Finally, the site provides data to help understand when parents logged in, what features of the site they used, and how long they used each feature. A final set of measures comes from two technology surveys given4. One of our hypotheses is that parents who have technology experience and expertise will use the system differently than those parents who are relative novices to computers or at least to online tools. Therefore, the first technology measure we give them is a pre-test understanding

of their computer knowledge. The instrument is called the Technology and Semantic Web Based Application Survey; it was developed at Oxford (White, 2007). The TSWBAS asks questions about users’ knowledge and experience with online and social networking tools. After they have finished with the training, we also wanted to know more about their evaluation of the online system. Although we have data to describe their use of the system, a post-test instrument would let us know more about their feelings regarding their online experiences. The instrument we used is called the Post Study System Usability Questionnaire (Lewis, 1995). The instrument, which is in the public domain, is essentially a satisfaction questionnaire that allows us to test usability of the system.

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Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

ConCluSIon And FuTuRe dIReCTIonS As discussed, autism has gained unprecedented public attention in recent years and poses challenges, not only for the children and their families, but society at large. Responding to this need, we have developed a promising Internet-based tool to equip and empower families of children with autism by engaging fathers. As noted, our current research design includes working in a blended situation with fathers. Future plans include working with Internet-only families and comparing their results with those obtained with our traditional training approach. If effective, this new training delivery method will reach a larger audience and ultimately improve of lives of this most population of children and families. Although we are only in our pilot stages of research in use of the tool, we have provided the methods and initial results of our study.

methods There are two main stages of this federally-funded study. In the first stage, a total of 24 families will receive father-focused in-home training. Five of these families will also receive online experiences. As an example, Family XYZ receives a visit from the researchers to collect baseline video and other data. The parents are given access to the pre-test technology survey; once they have completed it, they are given usernames with access levels set to 0. During visit 2, the researchers train the father on a specific technique, using general video and also specific examples from the baseline video taken in visit 1. After the training is completed, the fathers are given an access level of 1 and are encouraged to train the mothers. More video is taken of the father’s interactions with his child. During visit 3, the father receives the second level of training, again using general videos as well as personal videos taken in visit 2. After training, he is moved to level 2 and the mother

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is moved to level 1. This continues for all three training visits. After the father has completed all the training, the mother is then given her final access level of 4. The first stage of the four-year research project is nearing completion. The second stage will commence within the year. The goal of the second stage is to repeat the process with five additional families, but without the in-home training. The goal is to take what has been learned from working with the in-home group and apply it to the online only families.

early Results The research is still in process. Early results indicate, as can be expected, that most parents are spending their time online watching the videos. Due to the fact that these parents are in a blended situation and see the researchers frequently, the relative non-use of the discussion forum can be expected. Additionally, although past research has demonstrated the importance of the notes section (Ferdig et al., 2002), our parents have yet to use this feature. It is an early indicator to us that as we begin to work with our online only parents, we will need to find a way to engage them in both the discussion forum and the notes posting. They may do this automatically as they will not have face-to-face access to the researchers. Current fathers may also engage more with the system after they have finished their training and time has passed (for remediation purposes).

Implications In this article, we have presented a Web-based tool to engage fathers of children with autism. We have provided a thorough description of the tool as well as metrics and our pilot data. Often when we think about Web-based learning and teaching, we think about teachers and students in K-12 or post-secondary education. However, the move to Web-based instruction has opened the opportunity to engage others into the discussion. The adage

Autism and Family Interventions through Technology

that it takes the entire village to raise a child is often widely accepted, but difficult to implement. Web-based tools provide opportunities to open instruction directly to those that influence our students on a daily basis. In our study, the Web-based instruction is a supplement to the face-to-face environment. Further research needs to first explore the support structure necessary to engage busy parents and caregivers. Second, we need further exploration of the kinds of metrics used in said scenarios. Finally, we need further practical investigations of how to best utilize video. Webcams, pocket cameras, and online video hosting sites have made sharing information easy; we need to know more about privacy in these situations. We end this article with an open call for parents of children with autism who wish to join us on this journey.

ReFeRenCeS Bellotti, J., Vogel, C., Burwick, A., Nagatoshi, C., Ford, C., Schiff, B., et al. (2003, October). Dedicated to dads: Lessons from the Early Head Start Fatherhood Demonstration. Report to the Head Start Bureau, Administration on Children, Youth and Families. Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research. Calabrese, N. M. (2006). Video technology: A vehicle for educators to enhance relationships with families. Education, 127(1), 155–160. Elder, J. H. (2002). Current treatments in autism: Examining the scientific evidence and clinical implications. The Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, 34, 67–73. Elder, J. H., Valcante, G., Won, D., & Zylis, R. (2003). Effects of in-home training for culturally diverse fathers of children with autism. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 24(3), 273–295. doi:10.1080/01612840305276

Ferdig, R. E. (2006). Assessing technologies for teaching and learning: Understanding the importance of technological-pedagogical content knowledge. British Journal of Educational Technology, 37(5), 749–760. doi:10.1111/j.14678535.2006.00559.x Ferdig, R. E., Roehler, L., & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Scaffolding preservice teacher learning through web-based discussion forums: An examination of online conversations in the Reading Classroom Explorer. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 18(3), 87–94. Ferdig, R. E., Roehler, L. R., & Pearson, P. D. (2006). Video and database-driven web environments for pre-service literacy teaching and learning. In M. C. McKenna, L. D. Labbo, R. D. Kieffer, & D. Reinking (Eds.), International handbook of literacy and technology (Vol. 2, pp. 235-256). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gillette, Y., & MacDonald, J. D. (1989). ECO resources. San Antonio, TX: Special Press. Harris, S. L. (1994). Siblings of children with autism: A guide for families. Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House. Harris, S. L., & Glasberg, B. A. (2003). Siblings of children with autism: A guide for families (2nd ed.). Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House. Hartshorne, R., & Ferdig, R. E. (2006). Hypermedia applications in web-based teaching and learning environments: The role of databases as intermediaries. Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education, 5, 63–76. Lamb, M. E. (1987). The father’s role: Crosscultural perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Levy, S., Kim, A., & Olive, M. L. (2006). Interventions for young children with autism: A synthesis of the literature. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 21(1), 55–62. doi:10.1177/10883576060210010701

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Lewis, J. R. (1995). IBM computer usability satisfaction questionnaires: Psychometric evaluation and instructions for use. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 7(1), 57–78. Ozonoff, S., & Cathcart, K. (1998). Effectiveness of a home program intervention for young children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 28, 25–32. doi:10.1023/A:1026006818310 Rapin, I. (2002). The autistic-spectrum disorders. The New England Journal of Medicine, 347(5), 302–303. doi:10.1056/NEJMp020062 Seung, H. K., Ashwell, S., Elder, J. H., & Valcante, G. (2006). Verbal communication outcomes of children with autism after in-home father training. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 50, 139–150. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00767.x

Tiedge, L. B., & Darling-Fisher, C. (1996). Fatherhood reconsidered: A critical review. Research in Nursing & Health, 19(4), 471–484. White, D. (2007). Results of the ‘Online Tool Use Survey’ undertaken by the JISC funded SPIRE project. Oxford, UK: Author.

endnoTeS 1 2

3 4

Italics added. We have developed the back end of the system using ASP.Net® (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/default.aspx) as the programming language and SQL (http:// www.sql.org/) as the database. Names are blurred for privacy. Special thanks to Erik W. Black at the University of Florida for helping select and create online versions of both instruments.

This work was previously published in the International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 3, edited by E. M. W. Ng, N. Karacapilidis, and M. S. Raisinghani, pp. 55-69, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Section V

Organizational and Social Implications This section includes a wide range of research pertaining to the social and organizational impact of Web-based education. Chapters included in this section analyze the social psychology of online collaborative learning, provide guidelines for synchronous and asynchronous teaching in Web-based courses, discuss classroom management in Online courses, and present various student and faculty perspectives and experiences with online learning software. The inquiries and methods presented in this section offer insight into the implications of Web-based education at both a personal and organizational level, while also emphasizing potential areas of study within the discipline.

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Chapter 5.1

Perspectives on the Realities of Virtual Learning: Examining Practice, Commitment, and Conduct Kristina K. Carrier University of Idaho, USA

ABSTRACT Thought-provoking awareness and reflection often initiate meaningful discourse and positive models for change. Globally diverse practitioners teaching online courses may benefit from examining how online practice, commitment, conduct, and standards can affect teaching, learning, and the adult student experience.

InTRoduCTIon Online, virtual, Web-based, or computer-facilitated education has opened doors to intellectual inclusion for adults who are often excluded from participating in formal education, professional development, and training programs. Nontraditional students seeking advanced scholarship or career development opportunities are increasingly attracted to the convenience of online study and discover online education is manageable in conjunction with life’s commitments.

Virtual classrooms command respectful communication between people who will likely never meet face-to-face. Interacting as global strangers necessitates individual disclosure and reciprocal information sharing. Considering worldwide surges in identity theft, online peers often wonder how secure personal information is when revealed in controlled but vulnerable spaces. Implementing security and privacy protocols help to protect online participants from Internet intruders. Monitoring course quality encourages instructive integrities and delivery of exemplary online curricula. Because emerging theories and technologies quickly change educational landscapes, regular updates are needed to ensure learning materials are fresh and relevant. Without monitoring and periodic evaluation, online classes may not reflect institutional or best practice ideologies and fall short in fulfilling the needs of adult students. Without personally engaging in the online student experience, it is sometimes difficult for instructors to understand the impact alternative methods of curriculum delivery, interpersonal communication, and behavior has on adult learning. This chapter

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch003

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Perspectives on the Realities of Virtual Learning

may serve as a catalyst for instructor awareness, critical reflection, meaningful discussion, and positive change.

BACkgRound Learned societies are borne through access to education, reference libraries, and diversely insightful dialogue. The Internet has revolutionized learning for citizens with access to the World Wide Web. Numerous estimates indicate that over 20 million people use the Internet daily for research activities, entertainment, education, and communicating with others. Emerging educational trends support worldwide expansion of online degree and professional development programs. According to Merriam, Caffarella & Baumgartner (2007), “more dollars are spent on adult learning and continuing education programs than elementary, high school, and post secondary education combined” (p. ix). Adult learners often participate in education and training courses to increase employment opportunities, “deal with changes in the stages of adulthood” (Dominice, 2000, p. 49), boost personal esteem or to realize a childhood dream. Online courses greatly benefit students who desire flexible scheduling, self-paced learning, and are especially invaluable to students who cannot be present for on-campus courses. Although Dewey theorized that “all genuine education comes about through experience” (Dewey, 1938; Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007, p. 162), reporting objective evidence is often preferred over relying on subjective experience. Existing research and discussion suggests that most faculty members, researchers, instructors, and interrelated online education experts have never taken a graded online course as an adult student learner. Never having a personal online learning experience may disadvantage instructors of adults. As part of teacher training and professional development programs, adult educators may

benefit from taking graded courses in actual or simulated online learning environments. Adult learning theory demonstrates that teaching adults is facilitated through integrating course content with real life experience. Reciprocal acts of equality, honesty, and respectful communication are valued in learning communities. Inclusion, positive feedback, and sincere praise build confidence and encourage reticent students to participate. To gauge student learning, course effectiveness often warrants institutional e-Learning performance assessments. Courses transferred into learning management systems (LMS) that don’t convert well into online formats may provide students with an unintentional but inferior scholarly experience. High instructional competencies elevate the reputation of institutions offering Web-based outreach and training. Existing literature chronicles thousands of ‘what to do’ suggestions on becoming an accomplished online instructor. Notable is the e-Learning Guild’s, 834 Tips for Successful Online Instruction collected from diverse member practitioners or “tipsters” (December, 2005, pp. 65-70). To educate, uplift, and empower everyone involved in online education, adult educators may benefit from critically reflecting on real life ‘what not to do’ narrative. Educators and professional training specialists may regard the experiences and mistakes of others as valuable tools for learning and improvement.

The Business of Adult learning Adult pedagogy, sometimes referred to as andragogy, builds on assumptions that adult learners routinely create meaning by combining coursework and life experience with practicum. As a result, self-directed learning has become “a highly researched adult education topic” (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007, p. 128). Transitioning from teacher-directed to studentdirected learning transforms traditionally student-

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dependent teachers into course facilitators for adult students actively contributing to learning and scholarship. Brookfield (1995) argues that critically reflective teachers recognize study courses don’t merely “happen” but “arise from individualized preferences and conflicting interests” (p. 40). Web-based instructors demonstrate outstanding leadership skills and are (a) technologically competent, (b) committed to lifelong learning, and (c) willing to challenge the status quo. Exemplary online courses include: • • • • • • •

• • • • • •

Quality curricula and instructors S welcoming online classroom Curriculum designed to capitalize on adult life and professional experiences Opportunities for creativity and open debate Online discussions derived from readings and student-posed questions Interactive assignments Interesting and well functioning links to current research, resources, and supplementary exercises High levels of organization and trust Punctuality Timely responses to student inquiries Instructor-student communication comparable to face-to-face Multimedia presentations Recorded mini-lectures

For instructors and training specialists, the absence of personal online experiences can initiate unrealistic biases and expectations. It is a mistaken belief that online courses require less instructor involvement and virtually teach themselves. When specific components of existing face-to-face courses do not play well online, instructors must revise, redesign, add curriculum or reinvent existing courses to effectively present complex subjects. Moreover, increased demands for immediate response to student inquiries can

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extend virtual office hours and the work week. As with traditional courses, online assignment and deadlines must be met but, otherwise, students are in control of their surroundings and study schedules. Successful adult learners must develop positive self-concepts and self-actualizing behaviors that encourage them to “reach out toward the environment with confidence [and trust] that the interaction will be productive” (Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun, 2004, p. 291). Online courses are often perceived as less rigorous than seated courses—an assumption that may or may not be accurate. To balance life with learning, successful online learners develop advanced time management and independent learning skills. As required in traditional or on site courses, online students must also schedule quiet time for study, be mindful of ongoing deadlines, produce quality work, and perform well on timed exercises.

The Instructor-Student enigma and Trust Replicating the face-to-face learning experience in computer-mediated environments requires personal disclosure to and interaction with global strangers. Adult students devote time, money, and energy to online learning often under the direction of an unfamiliar person with whom they may never speak beyond message boards and through e-mail correspondence. Course design, construction, and execution must be flawless. Instructors jumping into the deep end of the pool without possessing the skills and technological competencies to manage online programs may create confusion and decrease course credibility. Mutual trust is a critical to all learning environments. A hint of dishonesty or impropriety can damage an adult learning community by weakening teacher-student bonds. Although institutional policies governing conduct are applicable to instructors as well as students, teacher integrity is presumptively gauged at the highest levels.

Perspectives on the Realities of Virtual Learning

First-Time online learners and Communication Competencies begin with “understanding the context in which communication occurs” (Martin & Nakayama, 2004, p. 418). Theorists suggest that “much of popular culture tends to minimize the challenges associated with the communication process” (Dainton & Zelley, 2005, p. 1). Communication facilitates teamwork and “structural outcomes including individual, instructor, and group goals in addition to authority relations, roles, communication networks, and climate” (Littlejohn, 2002, p. 300). Learning adults dread the possibility of selfhumiliation in public spaces. First time adult students frequently express trepidation about participating in new and unfamiliar learning environments. Through research, Lemme (2006) states that “self-esteem buffers anxiety in response to threat” (p. 85). To promote student confidence and decrease anxieties, the following course statements are offered for guidance and support:

To First Time Online Students For adult learners, anxiety and intimidation often accompany decisions to study as a novice in an online classroom. If you are one of these students, what you are feeling is shared by many first time online learners. Taking an online course is fundamentally the same as taking a face-to-face course but without faces. Please relax and try not to worry!

Computer Technology and Software Literacy Navigating through an online course management system requires basic computer skills; you are not expected to be a computer technology expert. You are welcome and encouraged to contact instructors with questions not covered in the online course tutorial.

Practical Advice It may take a couple of weeks to develop confidence in your online abilities. Anxiety is a normal response when facing the unfamiliar so please don’t allow anything to intimidate you or disrupt your learning. Saving assignments on a plug-in USB, external hard drive, or CD is suggested. Not saving or making copies of coursework files has created tremendous grief for many students. As we all know, computers can make everything disappear without notice or cause. If you are concerned about losing discussion board postings, type your comment in Word and, then, copy and paste it into the online textbox. Then, if you experience a computer malfunction, you still have a copy of your original message.

Acronyms When using industry-specific professional, organizational, institutional, or other acronyms, write them out at least once at the beginning of discussions so everyone is included and understands the context of your reference.

Pop Culture Communication Although cultural savvy is important, online learners must examine the manner in which communication styles represent scholarship. With the absence of nonverbal cues, online participants often revert to computer constructed icons, or ‘emoticons,’ and Internet lingo (e.g. ‘lol’ for ‘laughing out loud’) to clarify the context of written messages. Less savvy adult peers may be disadvantaged when called upon to decipher the meaning of computer generated pop culture symbols and expressions used to convey tone and mood. Briefly explaining meaning or feelings in writing is inclusive and better received.

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Discussion Board The discussion board is a place for students and instructors to virtually interact as academic cohorts. Participants must be thoughtful and respectful in their responses to posts that may differ from their opinions and philosophies. Choreograph your words to reflect critical examination of course issues. Always avoid personal attacks, insults, demeaning responses, and any form of academic or personal intimidation.

Plagiarism and Copyright Concerns The use of another person’s ideas, writings, manuscripts, dissertations, Web page content, exams, concepts, language, text, or theory and passing it off as your own without acknowledging or giving credit to the original author is considered plagiarism. We live in a cut-and-paste, drag-anddrop culture but cutting and pasting text from online documents or Websites into assignments and presentations is forbidden. Plagiarism is a serious infraction punishable by failure and expulsion from academic or training institutions. Cutting and pasting photographs, artwork, or adding other copyrighted media to your document or presentation without the copyright owner’s written permission may constitute violations related to intellectual property, ownership, and copyright laws. At its finest, plagiarist acts are deceitful and clearly detrimental to your academic progression and reputation as a scholar or working professional. Faculty members, instructors, administrators, publishers, managers, authors, students or any person stealing the intellectual property of another person without attribution is subject to misconduct policies and applicable laws.

anecdotes, and declarations shared in academic spaces are strictly confidential. Students are cautioned not to post anything about themselves or others they would not want published in a public domain or distributed freely to a worldwide audience. Because of privacy rights and identity theft, personal information about students or professional peers cannot be shared with anyone outside the course.

Conduct and Perception In nontraditional classrooms, confidence-building acknowledgment and sincere praise are cornerstones for success. “Experience is not just a matter of what events happen to you; it also depends on how you perceive those events” (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2006, p. 49). How do you perceive the following? Scenario 1: An online instructor returns graded essays to English-speaking students translated into the native language spoken in the country where the instructor received a doctoral degree. Reflection: Could the instructor’s action be construed as suspicious, an honest mistake, or an attempt at plagiary? Scenario 2: On a course discussion board, a student openly discusses allowing unauthorized course outsiders to participate in online course exercises. Through a registered student an online instructor gains access to another institution’s course activities as an unregistered nonpaying outsider.

Privacy

Reflection: Could outsider activities performed within secure online learning communities constitute breaches of privacy and be potentially contributory to identity theft?

Although the Internet is a public space, online courses are not. Identifiable information, personal

Scenario 3: After students are asked to post personal photos as part of an online profile, students

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ask the instructor to reciprocate so they can also view a relatable image. The instructor responds by posting the photo of an animal.

Scenario 8: Married and unmarried instructors and adult students use online learning environments to pursue private relationships.

Reflection: How might adult students interpret this action; could it negatively impact the learning community?

Reflection: Do institutional policies governing instructor-student or employee relations also apply to online learning environments? Could this conduct create discomfort or a hostile learning environment?

Scenario 4: Without explanation, students wander aimlessly through cyberspace for days waiting for introductory instructor contact, a class welcome, course information, and belated instruction. Reflection: What message might this inaction send to students: A lack of interest and motivation, an emergency has occurred, disorganization…? Scenario 5: An instructor requests that online courses not be customized with date specific designations because having to regularly and systematically input data would feel highly constraining. Reflection: Could this action be perceived as a time saving strategy or convey a lack of dedication to practice? Scenario 6: Instructors reveal that levels of interest and participation in their online courses would be substantially greater if they were just beginning their careers. Reflection: Can periodic evaluations actually assess interest and commitment? Scenario 7: Adult students are often required to rely on research and peer reviewed studies no older than five (5) years; yet, online instructors use outdated technology statements, texts, statistics, broken Web links, and obsolete data having little or no relevance to the present discussion. Reflection: Should online instructors be held to the same standards as adult learners or professional peers?

Scenario 9: Previously acquainted instructors and students form alliances and operate as course cohorts while inadvertently excluding new students from meaningful discussions. Reflection: In what ways can lack of inclusion disrupt an online learning community? Scenario 10: A member of an assigned learning group is only contributory to the learning dialogue before the weeks discussion board closes but receives grades comparable to students who regularly participate throughout the week. Reflection: Are performance pressures related to student and professional evaluations forcing grade inflation?

ConCluSIon The Internet is a conduit for learning through universal access to vast networks of people and information; thus, the World Wide Web is becoming an advantageous path for professional development activities and scholarly pursuits. As global markets for online education increase, demand for quality courses and instructors also increase. High performance standards, commitments to practice, and ethical conduct legitimize virtual curricula and the environments in which learning takes place. Successful adult students are highly organized, self-disciplined, and committed to learning.

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Degree or certificate-seeking adults appreciate independently structured study options available to them through online classrooms. As global practitioners journey through this new teaching frontier, they must provide confidence-building support to adult students newly initiated into online learning communities. The first step to successful teaching is calming student anxieties and alleviating confusion. Instructors can damage course credibility by attempting to develop basic computer skills and technological competencies while actively teaching an online course. Interacting cohesively as teachers and online peers requires advanced communication skills. To fulfill course requirements, students must be participatory in the process; instructors must also contribute to the discussion and fairly assess student performance. Online education is important to adult learners. Confidence is vital to student achievement; reciprocal trust builds advanced networks for scholarship. Instructors who are not enthusiastic about online teaching may want to reassess their participation in virtual learning environments. Adult students must be regarded as customers who are paying substantial sums for a specialized service. Without students or customers, institutions and businesses struggle financially and people become unemployed. Education is an expensive investment. Students must receive high quality products that instructors would purchase for their family members or themselves. To initiate positive models for change, sharing and examining conduct, commitment, and practice provides working professionals with valuable thought-provoking insight. Reflect on the following question: Would you personally pay a month’s wages or more to take your online courses or training as a graded adult student or career professional? Although online specialists, researchers, and instructors may collectively report similar experiences, practitioners are encouraged to examine, assess, and consider the following while critically

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reflecting on personal ideologies, professional practice, and best practice development: •

• • • •

Have you recently completed computer software training and developed online course management skills? Are your textbooks and course materials fresh, relevant, and up-to-date? Are your instructions and assignments well written and clear? Have you checked course content for syntax, spelling, and grammatical errors? Are Web links to outside resources current and functional? For further consideration:

•

• •

•

•

•

• • • • •

All participants in online education must be mindful of tone and language in written communication. An online course will not automatically teach itself. Online teaching may not be for you if regularly updating schedules and continual monitoring of course discussions are restrictive. Simple navigation and clear instructions ease anxieties experienced by first time online learners. Before the course begins make certain course materials are organized and complete. Inform students immediately if an emergency necessitates instructor and scheduling changes. Create a welcoming and inclusive learning community. Steer clear of favoritism. Grade or evaluate objectively and fairly. Prevent access to student profiles and identities by unregistered course outsiders. Remember that enrollment, tuition, and fees sustain institutions and pay instructor wages.

Perspectives on the Realities of Virtual Learning

•

• •

•

Never plagiarize, take credit for, borrow from, or publish another person’s original manuscripts, research, ideas, or work product without attribution or permission. In adult learning, equality matters; subservience is unwarranted. Always remember to pay compensation offered to teaching assistants or contracted employees for assistance with an online course. Sexual harassment policies may also apply to written communication.

And, above all, hold yourself to the highest professional standards. In conclusion, keep the following in mind: •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Professionalism and ethics: Motivated and committed online instructors inspire adult students. Adult learners: Always treat adult learners the way you would want to be treated if you were an adult student taking a graded or ungraded course online. Love for learning: Interesting and enthusiastic instructors can cultivate a culture of lifelong learners. Encourage creativity: Building flexibility into courses and training will accommodate the integration of adult life experience into curricula and personal development. Be responsive: It may be prudent to have an assistant or alternate contact person monitor course e-mail and discussion boards to help students needing immediate assistance. Tell the truth: All adults appreciate honesty in business, personal, and academic dealings. Equality: New students inside and outside an instructor’s industry or field of study appreciate being included in camaraderie afforded to familiar students or employees. Blended or hybrid courses: Consider access, travel, and geographic limitations

•

when designing a blended or hybrid course that combines online coursework with faceto-face meetings. It may be impossible for some adult students to travel or attend meetings in courses that may be suitably and wholly offered online. Ready, set, teach: Have all components of your online course teaching-ready. Building an online course, while actively teaching it, creates stress for everyone and can disrupt the learning environment.

ReFeRenCeS Brandon, B., Hyder, K., & Holcombe, C. (Eds.). (2005). 834 tips for successful online instruction. The eLearning Guild. WebEx Communications. Retrieved May 27, 2008, from www.webex. com. Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Dainton, M., & Zelley, E. D. (2005). Applying communication theory for professional life: a practical introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Dominice, P. (2000). Learning from our lives: using educational biographies with adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2006). Leadership: enhancing the lessons of experience. New York: McGraw-Hill. Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2004). Models of teaching. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Lemme, B. H. (2006). Development in adulthood. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Littlejohn, S. W. (2002). Theories of human communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

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Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2004). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: a comprehensive guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This work was previously published in Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes, edited by T. T. Kidd and J. Keengwe, pp. 23-31, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.2

Bothering with Technology:

Building Community in an Honors Seminar John J. Doherty Northern Arizona University, USA

ABSTRACT

InTRoduCTIon

This chapter discusses the role that technology can play in a first-year Honors seminar. For the purposes of the chapter, blended learning is defined as re-tasking face-to-face time or out of class time to build community and meet course objectives more effectively. The challenge in an Honors seminar, however, is to apply this when technology is not considered a viable solution to potential course challenges. The chapter presents four strategies to build community through interaction and engagement: (1) icebreakers can be moved online to build more student interaction; (2) online journals can facilitate better engagement with the course and the texts; (3) documents can be delivered online to model good practice and promote sustainability; and (4) quizzes can be used to develop metacognitive skills outside of class. Technology, it is concluded, allows instructors to explore effective and engaging mediated instruction in multiple formats.

The inherent emphasis of any Honors program in the United States is a face-to-face interaction between faculty and students (NCHC, n. d.). Many Honors programs or colleges across the nation see this as essential to any Honors experience for their students. It is an emphasis in need of re-examination when one considers the benefits that technology can provide the Honors instructor and student. However, it is also an emphasis ingrained in Honors, which reflects a bias in education generally that assumes online education is somehow less rigorous than face-to-face traditional instruction. Technology in higher education has become more of a given than an exception—especially as instructors try to leverage student interest in technology to engage them in learning. There has also been a concomitant rise in research discussing the ways in which instructors can leverage these technologies to better engage their users in learning. Moore et al. (2008), for example, refer to what they term as “new learning” which is student-centered and technologically enriched.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-880-2.ch012

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Bothering with Technology

In saying this, it does need to be emphasized that students are not homogeneous. Thus, while I will argue in this chapter that engaging students and Honors students in particular, with technology is a must in contemporary higher education, it should be remembered that there needs to be support built into the learning of and use of technology. This chapter will review the author’s uses of technology to enrich the learning experiences of students in a first year Honors course in critical reading and writing. I will show through an examination of this case that Honors instructors can use technology in order to engage their learners in the work of a busy course. As the 2003 National Learning Initiative Annual Review notes: Technologies ... enable learners and teachers to enhance their learning and to learn different things in different ways. Technologies make it possible for us to envisage different strategies that help learners learn and to organize learning experiences that address areas likely to be difficult to master. This is why we bother with technologies: they have the potential to expand choices about how we teach and learn. (Educause, 2003, p.10) As an aside, I would like to distinguish between face-to-face, Web-enhanced, blended, and fully online instruction. The first and last of these terms are generally obvious: the first is a class where instruction occurs in the classroom and through activities such as reading and homework outside of class; the last is a course that is delivered completely online, where the students never formally meet face-to-face. The other two terms are not so obviously dissimilar. Both refer to instruction that falls somewhere in between the first and last terms. However, for the purposes of this chapter I define Web-enhanced as instruction that makes use of Web resources or a course management system to deliver support and perhaps activities without replacing face-to-face time. Blended instruction takes on a slightly less more accepted definition of using online resources and experiences to actually

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re-task (rather than formally replace) face-to-face time. Indeed, I would argue that such a definition also allows us to consider blended learning where homework or out of class activities can also be re-tasked to accomplish course objectives that might traditionally be placed in class. In this chapter, the strategies to be discussed fall into these latter two categories. I have replaced instruction time in class with online activities to build community. Below I discuss the use of the Blackboard Vista discussion tool to replace in class icebreakers. I also use the discussion tool’s journal feature to create more engagement with the texts and the teacher. In many instances these also replace some preliminary discussions in class. I was also able to replace activities such as the “syllabus dump” that can overwhelm students on day one of the class. Rather, I use Vista to quiz students on the syllabus, asking them to read it outside of class. The quiz tool can also be used to build metacognitive skills, and I describe an example of that in writing instruction. Finally, for Web enhanced, I share how a course management system can be used to not only deliver documents, but to build on that ideal to make a course more student centric through enhancing turnaround times on graded assignments.

BACkgRound Hays (2004) suggests that case study and ethnographic research methods are similar, except that the latter asks broader questions, is more culturally focused, and can involve more time in the field. Yin (2003) shows that the former gets at the rich data of ethnography through multiple methods, including the examination of documents and reports, interviews, observations, and quantitative methods such as surveys. This chapter is an amalgam of both, in part predicated by the fact that what is here described is based on my own practice. I have argued elsewhere that case studies can represent the researcher more

Bothering with Technology

than the case (Doherty, 2008, p. 33). Thus, it is important to reiterate here that what is described below is part of my own practice. Where quoted, information from the students has been edited only to maintain confidentiality; I have obtained release to use all such quotes or I am drawing on anonymous surveys or end of semester evaluations. All references to the institution where the program is taught are also deliberately vague in order to maintain confidentiality.1 The framework for my argument is student centered learning, which should be at the core of any learning experience, and certainly that of an Honors experience. There have been many buzz terms doing the rounds of higher education forums, such as learner or learning centered, that seek to reinforce the constructivist belief that the student belongs at the center of any learning experience. All further refine these terms to focus on life-long learning skills, emphasizing both the student and learning together at the core of the higher education mission—which is why I prefer the term studentcentered as it is rhetorically putting the student first by placing the instructor in a facilitation role that acknowledges the diverse learning needs and skills of students (for a technology-based examination of this term, see Motschnig-Pitrik & Holzinger, 2002). The Honors program in which I have taught since 2004 draws upon William Cronon’s “Only Connect” as a core document in its introductory seminars to explain just this idea to the students. Cronon seeks to redefine the term liberal education by fronting the program-based definition that many students experience—for example, at this institution liberal education is in part seen as a 35-credit hour requirement of all undergraduate students, and these credits are met from a cafeteria of courses, required and elective. For Cronon, however, a liberal education has a much more humanist focus; he provides a list of ten qualities of a liberally education person that can lead to this goal, such as the ability to read and understand, listen and hear, write clearly and movingly, and

be able to talk to anyone (Cronon, 1998). By using this document as a guiding philosophy for the program, it suggests that an overall goal is one of creating intentional learners, as well as lifelong learners that have a deep understanding of the human condition. Honors at my institution are part of a program, not a college. As of writing, it was staffed by a faculty Director, Associate Director, two Instructors, two staff specialists, and a varying number of part time instructors and student peer mentors and staff. 2 The program has about 550 students in total, a fraction of the overall university population of 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The university, with a Carnegie ranking as a Doctoral I institution, has about 6,000 of the total population in distributed learning programs. The Honors program, however, is campus based. In my years of teaching all students have been traditional college age first years, mostly graduates of high school advanced placement or Honors programs, and in the throes of dealing with typical first year experience and college transition issues. For the first time, this last semester (Fall 2008) I had one sophomore. The program works as a liberal studies replacement, with students expected to take up to 21 Honors hours minimum. The remainder of their liberal studies hours can be elected at Honors or regular undergraduate levels. The university thus provides many cross-listed courses or courses with a designated Honors component that can meet a student’s Honors requirement.

CASe deSCRIPTIon As one of the part-time instructors, I teach one of two required courses in the program—first year courses that are considered replacement for the university writing requirement. This course, always offered in the fall semester, has worked for years from a relatively standard syllabus (see Appendix A), across 8-10 sections of about 15 students per

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section. In my four years I have taught sections with 12, 15, 18, and 17 students. The syllabus has opened up more recently to allow instructors a greater variety in choosing texts, but we are essentially asked to choose texts and films that cover a broad chronological range. The intent of the range is to give students an historical context of the reading materials, to make connections between past and present, and to understand the thematic, conceptual, literary, historical, cultural, and philosophical roots of their reading materials. Students are expected to read an average of 30-60 pages per class period. More details are available in Appendix A. The majority of the grade assigned in the class is based on student writing, so there is also a requirement to include a writing text and to devote a significant amount of course time (I use this phrase deliberately here as opposed to “class” time) to writing and writing instruction. These assignments include three formal papers, each of 5-7 pages in length; 13 informal writing assignments (i.e. non-graded writing practices) that can be up to 2 pages in length; an annotated bibliography; and a self-assessment piece that introduces a portfolio of student writing at the conclusion of the course. From a requirement perspective, this is a very intense course, and many students over the years have expressed their outright fear after perusing the syllabus. For example, one student wrote: “When I first entered the room for this rigorous Honors course, I was scared. I was not sure of what was expected of me.” Therefore, an emerging challenge in this course was to make it more student-centered and less assignment focused—a major challenge considering the grade-driven approach of these students. I used “Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education” (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) as a guiding document in implementing this philosophy. Chickering and Gamson share

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guidelines that could significantly impact how students learn and how faculty communicates with their students and each other in support of learning. This interaction has been a part of educational literature and theory for a very long time (see, for example, Moore, 1989; Schwab et al., 1978) has applied these specifically to online learning, where he focuses on the interactions between learners and learners, learners and instructors, and learners and content. Gunawardena and McIsaac (2003) later added the milieu of Schwab et al. (1978) to this model as learner to technology interactions. It is, therefore, through a focus on interaction that technology can be used as a tool to support and, I would argue, help us re-think our pedagogy when it comes to face-to-face learning. Garrison and Anderson (2003) note that technology can support and even somewhat enhance traditional practices such as the lecture; however, they suggest technology also can take us back to the future, to a learning theory framed on communities on inquiry, or, as they note, a “community where individual experiences and ideas are recognized and discussed in light of societal knowledge, norms, and values” (p. 4).

CuRRenT ChAllengeS Such a community is very difficult to create. One of my own goals in teaching first year classes is to introduce the complexity and variety of a university experience. Through that I can also open up the opportunities presented by a liberal education, especially in the light of Cronon’s humanistic definition of liberal education as a place to begin making connections. Such a goal, however, requires a group of students to make those connections amongst themselves and with their texts. And it places the onus on the instructor to sometimes make situations strange or uncomfortable. But doing this necessitates a classroom of trusting students.

Bothering with Technology

I have tried a variety of ways to build such communities. As a university, we had made the decision to deliver all electronic readings through our course management system (initially WebCT Vista, then Blackboard Vista) a few years ago (from the Honors Program Self Study, Appendix E, Library Support). This necessitated the need for all courses to have a Vista shell each time they are delivered. In other words, even though my class was a face-to-face class, I still had access to Vista—and, indeed, needed my students to access Vista in order to get some of my supplemental readings. That opened up opportunities to do more with Vista, such as delivering paper prompts, the syllabus, handouts, and other activities such as those documented above. But it also suggested ways in which I could rethink my pedagogy through enhancing my face-to-face time, and even, at times, re-tasking some faceto-face activities to Vista—thus freeing up my in class time to focus on areas I felt more in need of face-to-face time. I describe here some strategies that I’ve used in my Honors seminar that have at their core a student-centered use of technology to blend or enhance my face-to-face instruction. This study is necessarily descriptive in focus. I have tried to connect what I have been learning from implementing some of the strategies here presented with what is being discussed in educational literature. What is evidenced here may not necessarily be generalizable to another course or program, even in an Honors program similar to the one here described. In saying this, however, the four strategies I have outlined here are, I think, very effective ways to interact with students through the use of technology.

Strategy one: Icebreakers Icebreakers are important to the establishment of the learning community and climate (Knowles, 1980). I have used in class icebreakers during my first few sessions, but I have had resistance

to that when it becomes the umpteenth icebreaker students have experienced. It is interesting to note that when I initially began my teaching in Honors I had the first class of the program at 9 AM on a Monday morning. For a majority of my students, this was also their first university course. But for all students (over the course of three semesters) it was their third or fourth icebreaker of the weekend. They had gone through these activities in various orientations, and by that point had developed a cynical attitude towards them. Such an attitude was a barrier to the development of the community necessary for success in this class and program. Technology, however, can help here. The purpose of an icebreaker is to begin to build a community of learners. However, does it need to happen in the first class, and if so, should it only happen in the first class? A community cannot form in one day, never mind one 50 or 75 minute class. Conrad and Donaldson (2004) note four phases of engagement in online learners that are equally applicable to the traditional classroom: the newcomer, the cooperator, the collaborator, and the initiator or partner (p. 11). Essential to this is the newcomer, which they argue takes at least two weeks to negotiate through, with the instructor acting as the social negotiator. One activity that I adapted from Conrad and Donaldson involved moving the icebreaker to Blackboard Vista, the course management system that I was using to deliver documents and have students deliver documents to me. Following some brief peer led introductions during our first meeting I assigned students a Name That Movie activity in a Vista based discussion (see Appendix B). The discussion tool we used was in the Blackboard Vista course management system, which can allow for threaded discussions, blogs, and journals. For this discussion I used the threaded tool, in part to also introduce the tool to the students. Also, this assignment was not graded, yet still received such phenomenal interactions. It generated 307 messages from a class that initially had 18 students (one later dropped out) over the

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course of 5 days, between our Thursday meeting and our next meeting on the Tuesday following. My only adaptation to this activity was to have the students come to class to discuss their final responses. Walking into the Tuesday class after this activity was a different experience from the week before—I had a very noisy room, students visiting with their neighbors, discussing their movie titles and music tastes.

Strategy Two: Journals

their life for so long that it became ingrained in their nature. I guess I sort of lost a little hope for the human race when I read that because how are we supposed to stop wars if the people in them just accept it as a way of life. This then led to the following interaction in the journal between the same student and myself:

Almost immediately following, we entered into our first major writing assignment, a critical reading of Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier—chosen as a part of our campus summer reading program, and seen by many of our faculty and staff as somewhat controversial due to its violence and general subject matter. I decided to begin our class discussions online—but considering the controversial nature of the book I also wanted to make this interaction between me at each individual student. For this reason, I used the journal feature. Appendix C-1 is a copy of a section of my syllabus introducing the online journal and explaining its purpose. As can be seen from this, the journal was an integral part of my strategy to engage students in the texts and in class activities. All were asked to post one question to the journal about their text, and to try to write an answer too. With A Long Way Gone, for example, one student wrote:

Author: Doherty, John Joseph Date: September 4, 2008 9:05 AM

Subject: A Long Way Gone Date: September 3, 2008 1:57 PM

I don’t think anything can erase memories of what happened to someone. Eventually they just become a part of who they are. It’s a big problem and I can’t really thing of a solution other than stopping wars all together which is probably impossible.

I guess the thing that surprised me the most in “a long way gone” was when they brought all those boys to the recovery center thing, they continued to fight each other. I would have thought that the war and the fighting was something they were trying to escape but it seems that it was part of

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Or, what if it becomes so ingrained that we cannot escape it without help. We hear a lot today about the PTSD our troops suffer from when they return from the war zone -- we are better able to recognize this today, but I’d argue all returning troops have that problem -- even our WWII grandparents and great-grandparents. As adults we perhaps have a little more ability to control this -- though even then we still need a lot of help. What about children? Author: STUDENT Date: September 4, 2008 1:50 PM

This particular student chose to examine the idea of societies disintegrating in a paper he later wrote about this book—clearly influenced by

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his reading of this text. He also shared in class some interesting reactions to hearing Beah speak when he visited our campus a few weeks after this interaction. Technology here, I think, changes the pedagogical use of a journal. Journals are relatively typical in humanities and education classes, and are especially good at promoting self-reflection. Mills (2008), for example, documents that journaling as a pedagogical tool came from out of English in the 1980s. However, she also notes that students can tend to view journaling as busy work. Drawing on the Kiersey Temperament Model (cited in Mills, 2008), she suggests a number of strategies to overcome this, including allowing for expediency/ cleverness and focusing on immediate needs and issues. For the former, I would also add that one should allow for creativity—one of my students recently complained about the restrictiveness of the college paper structure. I opened up the journal to allow him an outlet for his more creative tendencies. This led to an increased effort in trying to use his perceived creative strengths work within the confines of the academic journal. My online journal was a little more structured than most (see Appendix C-1). Doing it online, however, allowed me to browse it more frequently, and to keep an eye on the students’ progress in the course. Indeed, sometimes reading the journal entries on a Monday evening would suggest ways I would have to change class on Tuesday to deal with emerging misunderstandings. Also, I was able to read and interact with the students’ journals without having to remove the journal from them—such as if they had been keeping a physical journal that they would have to submit. Students were also required to do two reflective writings that drew on their journal content, one at mid-semester and one at the end. Both were the same assignment, except the end of semester one was cumulative for the entire semester. The end of semester prompt for this assignment is presented in Appendix C-2. Students averaged a posting a week in their journals, which is confirmed by my

doing a similar assignment in the previous year and by an evaluation survey conducted by another instructor also using the Journal feature. In this latter survey, students suggested they tended to access their journal once a week (see Appendix D). In saying this, however, in my most recent (Fall 2008) class, 7 students were averaging more than two entries per week. Indeed, for quite a few of these students the journal replaced email and in class questions as the primary mode of contact between me and them. All initially resisted the journals—as suggested by Mills (2008) they saw the journals as busy work. However, by the end of the semester, and the aforementioned reflective writing prompt, the value of the journal was universally acknowledged, even by students who had not completed as much of the work as others. These latter students actually expressed regret in not using the journal more, as they had heard anecdotally from their peers that the journals became an effective place to document their ongoing development as critical readers and writers.

Strategy Three: documents management Using these tools effectively requires the instructor to model the value of using the tools to the students. I would argue that this could also build in some of the learner support mentioned briefly above. It is important to introduce the tools noted here in a low stakes manner—for example, if students are going to be required to make extensive use of the discussion tool then the icebreaker activity could be built to also introduce the discussion tool. A major goal of our university is sustainability. Also, this generation of students has a very strong sense of the value of sustainable activities. It was a comment on a previous end of term evaluation that suggested to me ways in which I could use the course management system and other tools to improve my own use of paper—and coincidentally save the program some printing costs.

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I decided to make all my papers due in Vista, not in class. This meant fewer actual pieces of paper—though it did require me to become more comfortable grading writing assignments online, using the MS Word Track Changes feature. As an aside, I also had to learn how to create PDF documents in order to create versions of the paper to return to the students in a way that required them to read my comments and edits rather than just accepting the changes in Word. There are also other ways to do this, such as using a Tablet PC in order to write margin comments, but I fast became comfortable in doing it the Word way. And, importantly for the students, even I have a hard time deciphering my own handwriting (see Bridge & Appleyard, 2008, p. 648). This also allowed me to explore the option of making papers due closer to the time when I would be actually grading them, thus closing the feedback loop by getting my graded versions back to students when the work was still relatively fresh in their minds. My class would run from 2.20 to 3.35 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, I usually would get to my grading on Saturday mornings. Therefore, instead of the papers sitting on my desk for two days or more, I made them due on Vista at 9 AM on Saturday, usually about an hour before I was to grade them. I could then return them before class on the following Tuesday, and students soon learned to look over my graded comments and to come prepared to discuss some of the writing issues I was noticing. Indeed, they came to prefer the online feedback, especially as they saw it happening much faster than in other classes with more traditional paper submissions and returns.

Strategy Four: Quizzes I also used the course management tool to deliver the syllabus. For much of the same reasons as I spoke of above when speaking of icebreakers, I do not cover the syllabus on the first day of class. Rather, students are expected to read it online and

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then complete an online quiz that addresses the essential issues I would normally have addressed. Also, by introducing the quiz tool in a low stakes but essential assignment such as this, I had the added bonus of building student comfort with the tool and was therefore able to use it more frequently. This might on first blush seem a little strange in an Honors writing course. However, using the quiz tool allowed me to push some of my writing instruction from in class to online. I was using a writing text that had a good test bank supporting it. The publisher allowed me to download a Vista compatible set of questions covering some of the major issues the text itself explicates. In each of my major assignments I had the students focus on particular components of the writing process. For example, in their first formal assignment the most significant portion of the grade was in their thesis and introductions, typically an area in need of work with first year students. Students were therefore required to do these readings in complement to classroom activities, and then to take the online quiz. The quiz was not worth any points in the final grade, but success on the quiz did mean that students would then get access to the Assignment Drop Box for the paper they were writing (see a sample of this quiz in Appendix E). In other words, until the students completed the quiz to 90% satisfaction they would not be able to submit their paper (worth a significant amount of points). Students were allowed two tries, and if on the second they were still having issues, there would be an intervention by myself or one of my upper-class peer mentors, where we could work on that writing issue and then manually release the Assignment Drop Box. A metacognitive component to this—adapted from the work of Lovett (2008)—was also added, where students had to complete a journal entry with the paper that discussed their process in completing the paper, what they learned from the text, handouts and quiz, and how they applied those lessons to their paper. A follow up entry would follow, where the

Bothering with Technology

students would review my grade and make a plan for their next formal paper.

ConCluSIon These strategies are examples of where technology can help with interaction and engagement in a very busy seminar. The essential point here is that they need to be predicated on the idea of a community of inquiry. This class was so successful in building community that their engagement became intrinsic to their motivation to attend class. By the end of the semester one student had dropped out due to circumstances beyond her control. Of the remaining 17, not one was absent for the entire semester. So, why bother with technology? The four strategies outlined here were designed to refocus the course on the students. Therefore, it is fair to hear from the students, via an end of semester evaluation. Students were asked to rate how effectively their class time was used. Of 15 respondents (out of 17 in the class), 67% rated it at least Mostly or Always. In regards to interaction, 80% rated participation from the class and instructor at Mostly or Always encouraged. In saying this, some noted in open comments that the documents management though the course management system was a hindrance. An equal number reported that using the system was effective. I have given relatively short shrift to the need for student support in the use of technology. There is a basic assumption that first year students are technologically savvy. However, my students were not prepared to use Blackboard Vista and needed some scaffolding to build their comfort level in it. That needs to be a part of my practice in future iterations of this course. In saying that, however, I saw a great deal of student engagement. I have already noted that I did not register one absence the entire Fall 2008 semester. I only really became aware of this record about 8 or 9 weeks into the course—when students have usu-

ally discovered the absence policy in the syllabus (see Appendix A) and begin to take advantage of it. I suspect that students saw their in class time as being more effectively used, and that the out of class online activities, such as the Journal, prepared them well for what we did in class. In some ways, I feel that they started to become more intentional learners. The overwhelming response to the icebreaker activity was certainly something that proved invaluable to both the in class discussion of Cronon’s Only Connect and Beah’s A Long Way Gone. By the end of the semester this was a group fully connected with and respectful of each other. Activities that demanded trust, such as peer review, became much more invaluable and engaging, in that the students saw their success as intertwined with that of their peers. From a student perspective, therefore, there was a sense that the technology helped with interaction and engagement, but they were relatively undecided as a group to the uses in respect to documents management. For the former, one student did think there should have been more interaction online, noting in the end of semester evaluation that: “The [upper class peer mentors] kind of fostered a sense of community. … They made announcements about fun things going on at NAU. I think they should’ve utilized VISTA more and interacted with the students through that media.” For the latter, the ambivalence was mostly due to the barriers that the course management system put in the students’ way when they were submitting assignments: “Much of the assignments posted on Vista hindered me, as well as the Wiki portfolios. Online assignments are not my strong points.” Technology can provide a way to not only enhance the classroom experience. It can allow instructors to explore mediated instruction outside

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of the context of the classroom time by using a course management system. Even a course as intensely classroom based as an Honors seminar can utilize technology in pedagogically appropriate ways that will make it worth bothering with.

ReFeRenCeS

Hays, P. A. (2004). Case study research. In K. deMarrais & S. D. Lapan (Eds.), Foundations for research: Methods of inquiry in education and the social sciences (pp. 217-234). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education: Andragogy versus pedagogy. (2nd ed.). New York: Association Press.

Bridge, P., & Appleyard, R. (2008). A comparison of electronic and paper-based assignment submission and feedback. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(4), 644–650. doi:10.1111/j.14678535.2007.00753.x

Lovett, M. C. (2008, May 5). Metacognition and monitoring: Understanding and improving students’ skills for learning: Educause learning initiative events. Retrieved January 21, 2009, from http://net.educause.edu/eliweb085

Chickering, A., & Gamson, Z. (1987). Seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 39, 3–7.

Mills, R. (2008). It’s just a nuisance: Improving college student reflective journal writing. College Student Journal, 42(2), 684–690.

Conrad, R.-M., & Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Moore, A. H., Fowler, S. B., Jesiek, B. K., Moore, J. F., & Watson, C. E. (2008, April 17). Learners 2.0? IT and 21st century learners in higher education. ECAR Research Bulletin, 2008(7). Retrieved January 21, 2009, from http://connect.educause. edu/Library/ECAR/Learners20ITand21stCentur/46519.

Cronon, W. (1998). Only connect: The goals of a liberal education. The American Scholar, 67(4), 73–80. Doherty, J. J. (2008). Facilitating interaction: A case study on the role of the reference librarian in online learning environments. Saarbrucken: VDM. Educause. (2003). The new academy: The NLII annual review 2003. Retrieved January 21, 2009, from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/ nlii_ar_2003/index.asp Garrison, D. R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Gunawardena, L., & McIsaac, M. (2003). Theory of distance education. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (pp. 355-395). New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan.

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Moore, M. G. (1989). Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1–6. Motschnig-Pitrik, R., & Holzinger, A. (2002). Student-centered teaching meets new media: Concept and case study. Educational Technology & Society, 5(4), 160–172. National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). (n. d.). What is honors? Retrieved December 19, 2008, from http://www.nchchonors.org/whatishonors.shtml. Schwab, J. J., Westbury, I., & Wilkof, N. J. (1978). Science, curriculum, and liberal education: Selected essays. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Yin, R. K. (2003). Applications of case study research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

endnoTeS 1.

Thanks must go to the many students and staff of this program, especially to the students of my Fall 2007 and Fall 2008 courses. A special appreciation is due to Kevin Ketchner for not only working through some of the ideas in this chapter with me but for helping with the final version of this chapter.

2.

Much of the data describing the program is from a Spring 2007 Self Study created in support of the program’s seven-year review by the National Collegiate Honors Council. This 43-page document and accompanying appendices (A through P) are not included here in order to maintain confidentiality of the institution and program herein described.

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APPendIx A Common Syllabus for First Semester honors Course Note: this has been edited to delete any identifying information [ - - ] University University Honors Program Honors 1--: Seminar in Critical Reading and Writing, I Instructor: Office Hours: Class Meeting Time: Phone/Office: Course Prerequisites: Admission to the Honors Program

Course description: Honors 1-- is a reading- and writing-intensive course designed to introduce you to a liberal studies education. An important part of this course is your acquisition of specific skills: close (i.e., critical) reading, analytical writing, cogent speaking (i.e., effective oral communication), attentive and active listening, and critical thinking. The readings for this class, as well as the tasks required of you, have been carefully chosen and arranged in order to make possible your attainment as well as enhancement of these skills within a learning environment that encourages your understanding and appreciation of key issues at the heart of a liberal studies education. Your 1-- instructors come from a variety of disciplines and professions. They will help you define and explore these key issues in a manner that reflects their unique training, specialties, and perspectives.

Course orientation and goals: In this course, your readings, writings, and class discussions will address, both broadly as well as specifically, the theme of the human condition and the ideas and issues arising from this theme: e.g., the nature and function of being human; societies, communities, and communication; morals, ethics, and ethnicities; power; gender; or identity, to name a few. We will explore this theme through literature spanning a number of centuries and across disciplines. Through your readings, written assignments, and discussions this semester, you will work to clarify these issues, refine your thoughts and attitudes about them, and consider these issues within the context of the world around you. By the end of this course, you will: •

•

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Demonstrate improved and refined capabilities in essential lifelong skills, including close (critical) reading, analytical writing, cogent speaking (effective oral communication), attentive and active listening, and critical thinking. Recognize the complexities of the human condition from a variety of perspectives: literary, historical, cultural, moral, social, and so on.

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•

Appreciate the role that you play as a member of the Honors, [University], and [local] communities, and as a citizen of the 21st century.

Course Requirements: The following requirements are common across all sections of HON 1--. 1. 2.

HON 1-- and HON 1-- may be taken in any order. If, within the first two-three weeks of classes, your instructor deems that you need extra writing instruction, you will be required to register for ENG 100, a 1-credit-hour, pass/fail course designed to help you improve your writing skills. You must take and complete this course during this current semester. We also encourage any students to take this course if they believe they need extra writing instruction during the semester. 3. You will read the syllabus carefully and familiarize yourselves with the HON 1-- attendance policy. 4. You will read materials – books, essays, articles, chapters, etc. – that cover a broad chronological range and a number of important themes. Individual instructors will tailor the reading materials according to these guidelines as well as to their specific needs in each section of HON 1--. 5. You will write a 3-page paper during the first 2 weeks of classes on the [University] Summer Reading Program text, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah. You will submit 2 copies of this paper to your instructors. 6. You will write 3 formal, analytical essays (5-7pp. each) that explore topics and issues related to your readings and discussions. The second and third papers may also introduce you to the rudiments of research-paper writing. You will also revise each of these papers through a peer-review process. 7. You will complete a minimum of 13 pieces of informal writing, each 1 ½-3 pp. long. 6 of these 13 informal exercises and writing assignments will address the categories of composition – introduction/thesis, paragraphing, style/voice, mechanics, analysis/logic, and supporting evidence – that will be part of your formal writing assignments all semester long. 8. You will complete an annotated bibliography on a topic, book, or issue related to your class readings or discussions, which contains a minimum of 5 secondary sources. 9. You will submit a collection or portfolio of writing at the end of the semester that consists of (a) your first draft and revised copies of your Summer Reading text assignment, (b) all of your first draft and revised informal writing assignments, (c) your first draft and revised copies of your formal papers, (d) 1 copy of your best formal paper, and (e) a 1-2pp. “Self Statement.” 10. You will be expected to participate thoughtfully and intelligently in all class discussions.

Assessment and grading: The goals and objectives listed above will be assessed and/or graded in the following manner: 1. 2.

15% of total grade: 1 5-7pp. formal essay on 1 text/reading. 20% of total grade: 1 5-7pp. formal essay on 2 texts/readings.

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3. 4.

20% of total grade: 1 5-7pp. formal essay on 2 or more texts/readings. 15% of total grade: 1 5-item (minimum) annotated bibliography on a topic related to class readings/ discussion. 5. 15% of total grade: participation. This portion of your grade will include some or all of the following: class attendance; active and informed class discussions; active and informed participation in study groups; write-ups of your study group meetings; on-time submission of formal and informal writing assignments; diligent attention to peer reviews of essays; an awareness of and respect for differing opinions; one 10-minute book report; submission of writing assignments for the Honors Program Assessment procedure. Individual instructors will specify the requirements for this aspect of your grade. 6. 15% of total grade: your portfolio (see number 9 above). TOTAL: 100% Note: each instructor will be responsible for providing a rubric or formula for grade justification. In addition, each instructor will responsible for providing students with handouts on writing instruction, prompts, and so forth.

Attendance, Academic dishonesty Policies: Seminars such as this are joint enterprises and it is crucial that we come to speak, to listen, and to contribute. Students who learn the most do so, among other reasons, because they participate and involve themselves consistently and earnestly in class discussions with their instructor and with other students. Therefore, attendance is extremely important, and students who miss class will be penalized as follows: If a student has 4 absences, his or her participation grade will be lowered; if a student has more than 4 absences, his or her final grade will be lowered according to the requirements specified by individual instructors. Academic dishonesty in all forms violates the basic principles of integrity and thus impedes learning. More specifically, academic dishonesty is a form of misconduct that is subject to disciplinary action under the Student Code of Conduct and includes the following: cheating, fabrication, fraud, facilitating academic dishonesty, and plagiarism. Academic dishonesty, as defined in the Student Handbook, will not be tolerated in this class, and will be handled in the manner prescribed by this handbook.

Texts and Readings: All students will purchase the books required for their specific section of HON 1--. They will also purchase a writing manual as specified by their instructors. Please note that instructors may also provide you with additional photocopied materials, materials available on [Course Management System], and materials obtained on-line. Finally, all students will purchase the [University] Summer Reading Program text, A Long Way Gone, if they haven’t already received a copy through Summer Orientation.

Course Schedule: Week Reading Assignments Writing Assignments Week 1: Summer Informal Writing #1 Reading Text; Selection of Education Readings

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Week 2: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #2 Week 3: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #3; Rough Draft of Formal Paper #1; Peer Review Week 4: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #4; Final Draft of Formal Paper #1 Week 5: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #5 Week 6: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #6 Week 7: (instructor choice)informal Writing #7 Week 8: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #8; Rough Draft of Formal Paper #2; Peer Review Week 9: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #9; Final Draft of Formal Paper #2 Week 10: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #10 Week 11: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #11 Week 12: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #12; Bibliography Due. Week 13: (instructor choice) Informal Writing #13; Rough Draft of Formal Paper #3; Peer Review Week 14: (instructor choice) (instructor choice for informal writing); Final Draft of Formal Paper #3 Due Week 15: (instructor choice) (instructor choice for informal writing) Guidelines for choosing readings for your individual HON 1-- sections and for creating your syllabi: 1.

2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

Instructors should choose readings (and films, if desired) that cover a broad chronological range. In other words, instructors should not create syllabi that look solely at contemporary literature or events. This broad chronological range is intended to give students a historical context of the reading materials, to make connections between past and present, and to understand the thematic, conceptual, literary, historical, cultural, and philosophical roots of their reading materials. Instructors should include a paragraph after the boiler-plate HON 1-- information about the content of their specific sections of HON 1--. The paragraph should address what kinds of readings will be assigned, why these readings have been assigned, how they relate to one another, and the themes, issues, and (historical, literary, cultural, and philosophical) concerns that these readings might well address. Students can and should be expected to read 30-60 pages per class period of assigned materials. The assigned readings should touch upon several themes related to the Human Condition, such as Education, Politics, Gender, Community, Class, Ecology, and the Environment, Science, Psychology, Ethics and Morals, Philosophy, Post-Colonial Thought, Ethnicity, Gender, among others. Ideally, these themes will connect with one another in some meaningful way. Choose readings that you know will stimulate good discussion and that will lead to interesting prompts, paper assignments, and out-of-class conversations. Reading materials can be, but need not be, typical “English Department” fare, i.e., novels, short stories, poems, plays, and the like. Reading materials can include collections of essays on a certain topic, materials from journals, newspapers, and magazines, and readings specific to certain

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7. 8.

departmental interests (history, sociology, psychology, ethnic studies, etc.) In other words, syllabi can reflect an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition, syllabi can reflect content that is cross-cultural. Finally, all faculty agree to assign and teach reading materials on Education and to teach the Summer Reading text at the beginning of the semester. (For new instructors: please ask the director for a list of education readings often used by HON 1-- instructors.)

APPendIx B name That movie Adapted from Conrad, R-M and Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (p. 53). By the end of Wednesday, August 26th: 1.

Post a 2-3 sentence discussion response to the following: If you were to write the score to the movie of your life, which two songs would you pick and why? Please pick one song that represents your life as a whole and another that gives a more recent picture. 2. By the end of Sunday, September 1st: Based on the answers to 1, above, suggest a movie title for each person, followed by a one sentence explanation of why you chose that title. Do this by responding to their initial posts. 3. By the beginning of class, Tuesday, September 2nd: Consider all the suggested titles for your movie (by reading all of your responses). Select the one title that would best fit your movie and note it in your discussion thread, followed by a 1-2 sentence explanation of why you chose it. Also, bring this response to class.

APPendIx C-1 Journal Assignment [Section redacted] Participation Journal: (Worth 170 points) Participation Journal 1 up to 10/12/2007: 85 points, incl. Informal Writing 5 Participation Journal 2 from 10/15/2007: 85 points, incl. Informal Writing 13 Note: The Participation Journals are available in the Vista Discussions section. Here you will weekly post your discussion questions and engage in a 1-to-1 dialogue with me. No one else has access to this Journal. At Mid-Term and Finals week I will review the Journals and the Summative Journal essays (i.e. informal writing assignments 5 and 13) and assign the 85 points accordingly.

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In Class Participation: I will frequently ask you to present your views on different subjects during class discussions. You will be expected to come to class ready to fully participate. Failure to do this will result in the lowering of the participation component of your grade. To assist you in coming to prepared to class, for each class period please bring one question that you could use to begin or continue a discussion in class. Use your Vista Participation Journal to also post this question for credit. You should use the Journal to reflect on the class discussion and/or continue it with me directly. You may base your question on any of the readings assigned up until the relevant class period, with the caveat that any question that references a previous work must also reference the current text. If necessary, I will randomly select students and ask them to begin or continue the class discussion based on the questions they have prepared. From time to time, you may work in small groups in the classroom to prepare a line of questions.

APPendIx C-2 Summative Journal Assignment Summative Journal entry II: Semester long: For this paper we would like you to re-read your Journal entries for the entire class. Also, refer to the syllabus, under the heading In Class Participation ([see Appendix C-1) above]). Note the following from the syllabus: Use your Vista Participation Journal to also post this question for credit. You should use the Journal to reflect on the class discussion and/or continue it with me directly. You may base your question on any of the readings assigned up until the relevant class period, with the caveat that any question that references a previous work must also reference the current text. In this Informal you will refer to this statement and grade your Journal appropriately. This Informal and the combined weight of your Journal entries to this point is worth 75 points. Therefore, you will justify your grade with qualitative and quantitative examples from your Journal. Your Journals should be evidence of your development and learning in the class to date. So, look at what you are saying about your activities. Rate your experiences, and your progression. NOTE: I will take your grade into account when I am giving you a grade for this activity. However, I reserve the right to grade you up or down based on my assessment of your Journal and this paper.

APPendIx d Spring 2008 Survey Response Question: How often do you access Vista, this course, and your Participation Journal? For each, select from: Daily, 1-2 a week, Weekly or Never (See Figure 1)

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Figure 1.

APPendIx e Sample Question and Answer with Feedback Sample Question (See Figure 2) Answer with Feedback (See Figure 3)

Figure 2.

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Figure 3.

This work was previously published in Cases on Online and Blended Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices, edited by Y. Inoue, pp. 208-226, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.3

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning: The Good, the Bad, and the Awkward Donna Ashcraft Clarion University of Pennsylvania, USA Thomas Treadwell West Chester University, USA

ABSTRACT Many social psychological phenomena that are found in face-to-face group work are also found in online group work (i.e., collaborative learning). In this chapter, we describe some of these more common phenomena, including social loafing, social categorization, and a variety of cognitive distortions. We also describe the stages that groups go through in order to become fully functioning teams. Because some of these experiences are unpleasant for both the instructor and the student, both faculty and students sometimes resist the use of collaborative learning. Furthermore, because of the anonymous nature of online group work, these negative experiences can be magnified. We therefore make recommendations on how best to respond to and resolve them. We specifically draw on our experiences with Collaborative Online Research and Learning (CORAL) in order to demonstrate these phenomena and recommendations. CORAL is a teaching/learning method that integrates two course topics through assignments. Teams of students at DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-753-9.ch007

two universities must complete together by utilizing video conferencing and other online tools.

InTRoduCTIon In this chapter, we examine problems instructors and students experience in collaborative learning by drawing on social psychological literature and our own experiences in implementing online collaborative learning. In particular, we draw on our experiences of teaching Collaborative Online Research and Learning (CORAL) (Treadwell & Ashcraft, 2005; Chamberlin, 2000) classes for more than seven years. CORAL is a constructivist pedagogy that allows students to form learning communities across sites. In CORAL, students at distant sites utilize a variety of electronic technology in order to jointly complete assignments of mutual interest. More specifically, students from two different universities, enrolled in two different courses, collaborate on semester-long projects designed to integrate course topics (e.g., developing research proposals related to both course topics). Students utilize video conferencing, discussion boards, file

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

managers, online calendars, and chat rooms to communicate across, and within, sites to complete assignments. While completing their semester-long projects, students observe their own group’s behaviors through a number of collaborative analyses, and are encouraged to modify any behaviors that are not collaborative. The collaborative analyses consist of a series of readings and exercises students complete and use to understand course material related to their own group’s processes (for a more detailed description of the CORAL model, see Treadwell & Ashcraft, 2005). We also make recommendations on how to minimize problems encountered during the life of collaborative teams. The majority of these recommendations are based on research findings in the social psychological literature demonstrating their success in other settings. Others are based on their anecdotal success in our CORAL course. Throughout the chapter, we use examples from CORAL to demonstrate how we apply these recommendations. In essence, we focus on the process that instructors need to utilize to ensure successful online collaboration among students. As Lee (2004) notes, there is little information that provides these types of practical guidelines for less-experienced, Web-based, instructional designers, although there is quite a bit of literature on assessing whether Web-based courses have been successful. We therefore take a process view of online collaboration, rather than a product view (Lee, 2004).

CollABoRATIve And CooPeRATIve leARnIng In collaborative learning, students work together to achieve a shared learning goal (i.e., they form learning communities, reassuring the formation of collaborative ideas within a mutually-supportive environment encouraging scholarship). Although the terms collaborative and cooperative are used interchangeably within the literature, they should

not be confused. In cooperative learning, students also work together to complete projects, but do so by dividing up the work among team members. In collaborative learning, students work on each aspect of a project by contributing and building on each other’s ideas, along with sharing the workload. Thus, although cooperative learning (i.e., distributing work among team members) is part of collaborative learning, it is not the essential characteristic. Instead, the key characteristic of collaborative learning is the development of ideas through interactions with others. A benefit of collaborative learning over cooperative learning, among others, is students learning all the subject matter assimilated into a large project, rather than just the portion required by cooperative education. Beyond this, however, collaborative learning is more flexible and student-oriented. Cooperative learning is more directive, task-oriented, and teacher-oriented (Panitz, 1996). While both types of learning are typically designed for—and usually take place in—the classroom, collaborative learning is especially conducive for online learning communities. Indeed, Furr, McFerrin, and Fuller (2004) state that “Distance education is collaborative education” (p. 211). By this, the authors imply that a clear advantage distributed collaborative learning has over face-to-face collaboration is the electronic technology. The technology creates a disorienting dilemma, allowing for an examination of—and subsequent change in—student work habits and attitudes, and thinking clarification (Palloff & Pratt, 1999). A disorienting dilemma is something that catches students’ attention, a surprise that they further examine and reflect upon, thereby creating cognitive changes. In other words, students in collaborative online learning communities realize that the old work habits they are accustomed to in traditional face-to-face classes do not work well in a mutual learning environment. Students learn to modify their behaviors to be successful in their new learning environment, and these modifications create increases and improvements in learning.

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The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

Despite the fact that collaborative teaching methods have been found to be preferable to individualistic teaching methods (e.g., Johnson, Johnson, & Stanne, 2000), and despite the fact that collaborative learning contributes to social and cognitive development, many students and faculty demonstrate reluctance for collaborative and cooperative learning experiences, such as group work (e.g., National Institute for Science Education, [NISE] 1997; Rozaitis, 2005). Two key problems associated with group work include inequitable workloads, and disagreements among group members. This is true regardless of whether the group work is face-to-face or whether it is online and distance-based. In fact, many of the issues found in face-to-face group work are also found in online learning communities, but magnified because of the nature of the communication process in online work. Furthermore, students in distributed learning environments generally face additional challenges because of adjustments to the new learning environment (Kitsantas & Dabbagh, 2004). These issues, however, can be understood and minimized through employing the following social psychological principles.

SoCIAl loAFIng As mentioned, one of the more common complaints students have about collaborative work is the inequitable workload among team members (e.g., Felder & Brent, 1994; NISE, 1997; Rozaitis, 2005). Uneven distribution of workload is found in many settings. For example, “slacking” on the part of group members can be found even in such minimal effort tasks as clapping in a lab setting (Latane’, Williams, & Harkins, 1979), and is commonly referred to as social loafing. Social loafing is a matter of expending less energy on a task than if one were working alone on that same task (Latane’ et al., 1979). Thus, for example, students completing a paper in a group might

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expend less effort on its completion than if they were completing the assignment alone. One of the primary explanations of this phenomenon is diffusion of responsibility (e.g., Harkins & Szymanski, 1989; Latane’, 1981). Group members believe that someone else from the group or team will exert more energy, or do more work, and make up for their lack of effort. This is one reason that group work (collaborative learning) can be unsuccessful. Not only does the social loafer not learn the material because they are uninvolved in the pro-ject, but they force team members to redistribute assignment tasks, as well as handle the frustration involved with the inequity of this experience. Another explanation includes the possibility that students are unsure of what to do when working with others, and believe that other team members are more informed about what behaviors are appropriate or required. They therefore relegate responsibility to those others who are viewed as better equipped to complete assignments. In any case, online learning communities have an additional challenge: community members are not always physically present to encourage lagging team members to contribute, and, as Furr et al. (2004) note, in distributed courses, students may remain uninvolved and disengaged from team work, unless a strong effort is made to involve them. Fortunately, there are tactics that can be employed in order to reduce this problem for both face-to-face group work and multiple-site online learning communities.

Recommendations Make individual team member contributions identifiable. One documented tactic involves organizing the efforts of each team member, such that the contribution of each one is obvious and identifiable (e.g., Williams, Harkins, & Latane’, 1981). While making contributions identifiable might initially seem as though we are advocating

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

cooperative—rather than collaborative—learning, it does not necessarily have to be cooperative. That is, it might seem as though we are suggesting that teams divide up tasks and then combine the products, rather than collaborate together on the entire project, but such an approach is not what we are proposing. Collaborative contributions can also be unique: For example, individual team members can edit their entire team paper using different colored fonts for each person. This “colored editing” approach allows all team members to check over the final product. Minimize group size. Another consideration in minimizing social loafing is group size. In larger groups, individuals become anonymous, and so do their contributions, especially when those contributions are accomplished in the already anonymous realm of cyberspace. We therefore recommend minimizing group size for online communities, and find that groups of about six work best. In fact, NISE (1997) notes that students prefer teams of four to seven students in which to work. In CORAL, we integrate courses from two geographical locations, separating us physically by hundreds of miles. As a result, we refer to our teams as “online teams,” with each team consisting of three team members from one site, and three team members from a second site. This number allows for adequate team interaction, ensuring that team members get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, enabling stronger communication among team members in completing collaborative coursework assignments. In addition, with increased communication, team members learn to be aware of the various tasks other team members are performing, with the intention of decreasing confusion and increasing team productivity. While not all online teams consist of members from only two sites, minimizing group size is still recommended. Encourage collaborative—rather than cooperative—work. A third consideration involves how the online teams divide up the various jobs necessary to complete the entire assignment. We

find that teams often try to employ a cooperative— instead of collaborative—approach to complete assignments (i.e., students give each team member a different part of the assignment to complete, and then the team cuts and pastes the various parts of the assignment together). This is particularly true during the initial stages of team development (usually the first six weeks). While this does reduce some social loafing, due to the fact that team members’ contributions are identifiable, there are problems with this approach. As noted earlier, one problem is that each student only learns his/her part of the assignment, and does not learn other necessary aspects of the material. We also find, however, that this cooperative approach results in poorly-written papers, because the teams often do not take time to integrate the various sections written by different team members. As NISE (1997) also notes, it is vital then, that teams be corrected when utilizing this approach, and encouraged to be more collaborative. To do this, we distinguish between cooperation and collaboration. Indeed, the first collaborative assignment CORAL students complete, in teams, is the writing of a short paper that describes, and compares, collaborative and cooperative learning. For each assignment, we encourage each team member to contribute to each section of each assignment. Thus, one student in an online learning community might be responsible for beginning her/his part of the assignment, but all other team members must read and comment on that section as well as other sections completed by individual team members. To illustrate, CORAL team members complete a collaborative task by utilizing a number of online technology tools: File managers are used to upload and download successive versions of papers, as well as various other team assignments. Chat rooms are utilized for team members to discuss individual reactions to assignment drafts, hash out differences of opinion, and clarify conflict. Web-based discussion boards are helpful for day-to-day interaction regarding the status of a team member’s task, as well as keeping a daily communication log for the team

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as a whole. We also find that video conferencing is an especially valuable tool for encouraging cross-site collaboration. In fact, the teams who are most collaborative (and most functional) are those who discuss the various parts of the assignment before doing any writing (Treadwell & Ashcraft, 2005). This is time-efficient and collaborative, because the entire team agrees on what should be written, for example, to complete each section of a paper; the only thing left for team members to complete individually is the initial write-up. All the team members in their videoconference discussion have already completed the thinking and understanding portion of the assignment. The initial write-up is then followed by the entire team editing the paper, utilizing the color editing approach mentioned earlier. It should also be noted, however, that the utilization of technological tools to complete cross-site collaborative work requires time management and organizational skills. In fact, Kitsantas and Dabbagh (2004) note that there is an even greater need for students in Web-assisted courses to engage in time management because of the challenge of adjusting to the use of the technology in the course. Increase students’ commitment. Another effective tactic shown to reduce social loafing in online learning communities is to increase team members’ commitment to the successful completion of the assignment (e.g., Brickner, Harkins, & Ostrom, 1986). We rely on the teams themselves to utilize this tactic. Often, students want their instructors to fix problems they encounter working as a team. For example, students often approach their professors, complaining that a team member is not contributing enough. However, in order for teams to progress and become cohesive and functional, team members must solve their own problems. Therefore, if a team member is thought to be social loafing, the other team members must address this issue with that student, and professors must let teams know that this is their responsibility. This is never a pleasant task, but it is necessary,

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for if the team does not address their interpersonal problem, it will continue throughout the semester, fester, and lead to even greater dissatisfaction and hostility. In fact, Scheer, Terry, Dolittle, and Hicks (2004) note 15 principles for supporting effective distance education, one of which is cultivating students’ academic independence. It should be noted that interpersonal conflict is a natural part of an online collaborative course, as is learning how to cultivate social skills and reduce team conflict by implementing conflict negotiation. Encourage extensive communication. In CORAL, because our teams consist of multiple students at two sites, we often find that team members from one site sees team members from the distant site as social loafers. Thus, team members across sites must communicate in great detail to each other, clarifying what aspect of the project they are working on. This can be done by posting messages on the teams’ Web-based discussion boards, mentioning it during chat room conferences, or during video conference discussions. Often, students assume that everyone on the team knows what they are working on, because they have been discussing it at their own site, and make faulty assumptions, thinking all team members know what each person is completing. They assume that the other site also knows what they are doing, but because the distant site does not see them working, the distant site develops a simple cognitive distortion, assuming the worst (i.e., that their distant-site teammates are not contributing to the completion of the assignment). Everything considered, the more communication team members have with one another, the less likely they will experience confusion as to who is carrying out what task. Increase team cohesion. An additional proven tactic to reduce social loafing is to strengthen group cohesiveness (Forsyth, 2006; Treadwell, Kumar, & Lavertue, 2001). A cohesive team cares about their team members and the successful completion of their tasks. In order to promote cohesiveness at the beginning of the semester, we encourage

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

teams to determine a team identity, consisting of a team name, logo, and motto. Sherif (1958) similarly required his groups of boys to develop team names and flags in his classic study on intergroup conflict. While this may have a minimal effect on team cohesiveness, this task does serve an additional purpose: to get team members from distant sites to begin talking to each other. Additionally, we introduce superordinate goals in order to develop team cohesiveness across sites during the later part of the storming stage, or approximately the eighth week. Introduce superordinate goals. Superordinate goals are goals that can only be achieved if all distant sites (i.e., the entire team) work together. Therefore, the potential for social loafing is reduced. Working toward a mutual goal also reduces animosity and social categorization, thereby helping students to overcome the usversus-them bias (e.g., assuming that the distant site is composed of social loafers) that can develop in group work (Sherif, 1958). In Sherif’s classic study, two groups of boys attended summer camp and were unknown to each other. In the first stage of the study, the boys formed group identities to represent their camp by choosing names and designing flags. They engaged in traditional summer camp activities, such as swimming, hiking, and canoeing. In the second stage of the study, the two groups became aware of each other when they were told that they would be engaging in competitions with the other camp. Prizes would be awarded to winners. This competition escalated to hostility between the two groups to such an extent that cabins were ransacked and flags were burned. In the third phase of the study, Sherif reduced the intergroup hostility by introducing a series of superordinate goals. Sherif defined superordinate goals as “goals that are compelling and highly appealing to members of two or more groups in conflict but which cannot be attained by the resources and energies of the groups separately…they are goals attained only when groups pull together” (pp. 349-350). The boys from both

camps had to work together in order to fix their “broken” water supply, and to haul a truck up a hill. The introduction of the superordinate goals worked—hostilities dissipated. Because an “us versus them” bias can develop so readily in multiple-site learning communities, it is critical then, that multiple-site teams be given superordinate goals. In CORAL, students are given the goal of collaborating on two major papers required for each team as their superordinate goal. It is collaboration that is the superordinate goal, not the completion of the papers. It is a goal that no one—and no one site—can achieve individually. Only by working together can the entire team achieve it. The assignments they are given are the means to achieve collaborative interaction among team members. Thus, in CORAL, students must learn to collaborate in order to earn good grades. If collaboration does not emerge, students’ grades are significantly affected. Others also note the importance of this type of motivating factor (e.g., Felder & Brent, 1994). Students will only learn to collaborate if they are given incentives, but we have found that when students collaborate, all the other learning and completion of assignments fall into place. While this emphasis on collaboration as a superordinate goal may be appropriate for some course topics, it may not be as appropriate for other course topics. However, it is possible for instructors to design other superordinate goals. In any case, if all team members are required to work together, social loafing cannot exist. The key to determining whether a goal is superordinate or not is in the answering of the question, “Can this goal be achieved only by the whole team?” If the answer is “no,” then it is not a superordinate goal. For example, many of our CORAL students think that completing a paper together is a superordinate goal, but it is not. Theoretically, one student could complete the paper and put all team members’ names on it. Therefore, it cannot be a superordinate goal. One way that we encourage collaborative interaction among cross-site team members is by

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requiring students to complete different exercises at each site to understand their group processes. A whole picture of the team’s processes is only gained by understanding the assignments of both sites. These exercises are combined (and related to each other) for the collaborative analyses to be completed and handed in. One site for example, examines team communication patterns; the other site examines bias and cognitive distortions. The topics are related, because communication patterns will be influenced by bias against certain team members, especially those at one site. Collaboration is necessary for the product to be successfully completed. If students use a cooperative approach, it is evident in a poorly-written, choppy paper, one that does not demonstrate the connection between site topics. Students are encouraged to be collaborative (i.e., the superordinate goal) because they want their papers to be evaluated positively. Other disciplines could use this approach as when, say, a physics class pairs collaboratively with a mathematics class. Math students could work with physics students to complete calculus-based physics problems. Encourage distributed leadership. Often, online teams believe that they must designate one person as a leader, and this can become a coveted role, because it is perceived in a positive light. Initially, team members think that they have to have one person lead, and do not realize that all team members have to take on leadership responsibility. However, distributive leadership is preferential in online collaborative settings. In distributed leadership (Bennett, Wise, Woods, & Harvey, 2003), all team members share the leadership role, thereby reducing social loafing. Any team member can take it upon him/herself to take action that will help complete tasks successfully and help the team’s development. Distributed leadership suggests that many more people are involved in the leadership activity than might traditionally be assumed. Thus, team leadership contributions that emerge should not be limited to a small number of people with formal senior

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roles. Distributed leadership, then, focuses on team achievement, rather than individual achievements. Student teams must be encouraged to adopt this collaborative leadership style, for it reduces tendencies toward social loafing.

SoCIAl CATegoRIzATIon: In-gRouPS And ouT-gRouPS As noted, team members in computer-supported collaborative learning environments have a tendency to automatically assume that distant-site team members are social loafers. They can also make many other unpleasant assumptions about their distant-site team members. Online collaborative teams seem to automatically divide themselves into “us versus them” (e.g., Harasty, 1997; Stephan, 1985) resulting in stereotyping and potential bias. Sometimes the “us versus them” bias involves one site pitted against another. In other cases, some team members bond, while others do not, and those that bond become the “us,” whereas those who do not become the “them.” This tendency is explained in social psychological terms through the use of in-groups and outgroups. An in-group is a group to whom you, as a person, belong, and anyone else who is perceived as belonging to that group. In-group members have positive views of each other, and give each member preferential treatment. An out-group consists of anyone who does not belong to your group. Out-groups are viewed more negatively, and receive inferior treatment in comparison to that of in-group members. In-group members are perceived as being heterogeneous, and as having positive qualities, referred to as in-group differentiation (e.g., Lambert, 1995; Linville & Fischer, 1993). Out-group members are perceived as being “all the same,” homogeneous, and as having more negative qualities. This is referred to as the homogeneity bias (e.g., Linville, Fischer, & Salovey, 1989). These concepts are used to explain hostility between social groups (e.g., Republicans versus

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

Democrats, gays versus straights, whites versus blacks). Relatedly, this bias creates problems with teams becoming cohesive across distant sites, as a result of team members perceiving students from their site (or those they bonded with) as ”our team,” and automatically seeing students from the distant site (or those they have not bonded with) as not part of “our team.” In CORAL, for example, one site is located in a rural area, and the other is located in a suburban east coast area. We often find that students from the rural area view the students at the east coast area as rude and pushy, whereas the east coast students view the rural area students as slackers because they are slower-moving. Again, however, there are methods to reduce this social categorization and associated hostilities (e.g., Gaertner, Mann, Murrell, & Dovidio, 1989).

Recommendations Increase intergroup contact. One proven method for reducing social categorization is to increase intergroup contact, referred to as the contact hypothesis (e.g., Pettigrew, 1997). It is vital that all team members communicate extensively, in order to reduce cross-site conflict and stereotyping. Perkins and Giordano (2004), as well as many others (e.g., Birenbaum, 2004; Scheer et al., 2004), also note the importance of encouraging communication, especially in distance learning. Extensive communication permits team members to see similarities with others, fostering both synchronous and asynchronous communication with cross-site team members, hence reducing homogeneity bias. In CORAL, for example, we encourage teams to meet in chat rooms once or twice a week, in addition to meeting via video conference during class time, and utilizing discussion boards for asynchronous communication. It should be noted, however, that in order for increased intergroup contact to have the desired effect, the overall interactions must be neutral to positive. If the majority of cross-site interactions

are unpleasant and negative, the hostility between groups will remain or increase. Introduce superordinate goals. A second method for reducing social categorization is the introduction of superordinate goals (Sherif, 1958). As mentioned in the previous sections, the introduction of a task that can only be met through the efforts of all team members can significantly reduce the hostility between in-groups and outgroups, and increase team cohesion. By working together, team members begin to know each other as unique individuals, thereby eliminating some of the bias and hostility that is often found in multiple-site learning communities. Recategorization. Another consideration for cross-site in-groups and out-groups is recategorization (e.g., Gaertner et al., 1989). Recategorization involves changing the boundaries of the in-group and out-group. While some teams cannot overcome the initial cross-site “us versus them” division, most teams can. But, when teams are able to overcome initial social categorization, other types of in-groups and out-groups can emerge. For example, at the beginning of the semester, we find cross-site social categorization to be very common, but as the semester progresses, team members are able to make connections with crosssite team members, who then become part of the in-group. Occasionally, the entire team becomes one in-group, a very favorable occurrence for collaborative learning. But, when only some team members bond across sites, the complexion of the team takes on a different look. In-groups emerge and consist of both same-site and cross-site team members, and the same for out-groups. We find that students who remain in the out-group tend to have work habits that are not conducive to team efforts and do not feel favorable to working as a team member. They are resistant to team work and try to give the impression that they are members of the team, but it is only an attempt to please authority figures (e.g., professors). They tend to be social loafers, or communicate less with the team, or are unpleasant to work with, regardless

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of which site they are located. Although teams can continue to work somewhat effectively with minimal contribution from these out-group members, it is obviously to the teams’ benefit to be inclusive. Thus, we encourage groups of students to form whole teams that consist of all team members, but if they cannot—say, for personality conflict reasons—we instruct teams to continue to give those out-group members opportunities to work and become part of the in-group. However, teams are also coached to have a back-up plan if the work of the out-group member is not up to par with other team members, or not completed at all. If recategorization does not occur naturally within the cross-site team, then we encourage it by asking students to work in pairs across two sites on individual sections of assignments. This allows cross-site team members to get to know each other as individuals, note their strengths, and see them complete work and convey this information to other team members at their site. In other cases where collaborative classes are purely Web-based and students bond over technologyassisted communication, asking in-group students to pair with out-group students should also have the desired effect.

CognITIve dISToRTIonS We’ve mentioned that students often dislike group work because the learner had earlier negative group experiences where they felt responsible for completing all—or most—of the assignment adequately, and without the aid of group members. In some cases, team members believe that others will complete the assignment, and as a result, students fail to contribute. Therefore, other team members have to assume responsibility, and do complete the assignment alone. In other cases, students behave this way due to a lack of confidence in fellow classmates’ ability to complete assignments to their standards. They believe that their academic skills are superior to those of their

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teammates, and that their teammates’ quality of work will negatively affect their grade (e.g., Felder & Brent, 1994; NISE, 1997). In this case, other team members are willing to contribute to the completion of the assignment, but are not allowed to do so. This is an example of a cognitive distortion called the self-serving bias, in other words, the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to internal causes, and negative outcomes to external causes (e.g., Brown & Rogers, 1991; Miller & Ross, 1975). Relatedly, the ultimate attribution error is a tendency to make more flattering attributions about members of one’s own group than about members of another group (Hewstone, Bond, & Wan, 1983). These attributions are detrimental to the formation of a collaborative learning community, and reflective of in-group/out-group biases. As a result, these types of individuals often think the team succeeded only because of their efforts, or their in-group’s efforts, in completing a task. These individuals often attribute negative outcomes to out-group members. This perception, while occasionally true, is more often a cognitive distortion, an illusion manifested by these individuals, and calling attention to this concept may reduce some of the ill will that can develop in early stages of collaborative learning. Relatedly, this type of cognitive distortion is especially common in certain high-achieving students. While some excellent students are quite adept at online collaboration, others are painfully unprepared for the experience. They often feel as though they are the only team members capable of completing adequate work, and are often dissatisfied with the work others produce. They therefore complete whole assignments alone, but then complain that they have completed all the work, and that no other team members are working. Other team members, in turn, can feel insulted by this lack of trust in their abilities, along with being referred to as social loafers by individuals who consider themselves better-quality students. In reality, this is not effective learning behavior

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

for the individual, nor for their team. While this sense of responsibility and independence has been rewarded in other educational settings, it is contradictory to the purpose of online learning communities, and generally to collaborative learning.

Recommendations Teach trust and mentoring. Because the reward structure in computer-supported collaborative learning environments is so different than that in traditional learning settings, these high-achieving students can feel frustrated and betrayed. What they are lacking is a sense of trust in working with others. Thus, taking time to help them trust their teammates is usually productive. For example, in CORAL, we often ask these types of students to take a chance, reduce their workload, and give other team members an opportunity to contribute. If they can force themselves to back off, they are often pleasantly surprised by the amount—and quality—of work their teammates can contribute. In addition, they need to be shown that it is their responsibility to help their teammates learn course material. Students such as these must be taught to be less independent and more concerned about the well-being of their team members instead of their own individual sense of well-being. Furthermore, they need to realize how their behavior is actually hindering team development and the learning of other team members. Intellectualize. It is helpful, with this type of student, to intellectualize these experiences by labeling them as the self-serving bias or the ultimate attribution error, as a strategy to reduce feelings of discomfort that can be associated when challenging the appropriateness of their behavior. In effect, it is suggested that teams engage in metacognition (i.e., observe their own behaviors, apply labels to those behaviors, and determine whether they are appropriate for team development). If the behaviors are not helpful to team development, then their task is to develop solutions for those

inappropriate behaviors. Not only do these metacognitive exercises help students to intellectualize and understand unpleasant online experiences, but they also contribute to developing a life-long learning process (Birenbaum, 2004; Kitsantas & Dabbagh, 2004).

STAgeS oF gRouP develoPmenT Students (and faculty) are sometimes reluctant to utilize collaborative learning, because they are uncomfortable with, and unprepared for, team conflict and conflict resolution (e.g., Felder & Brent, 1994). However, it is also useful to understand that long-term groups tend to pass through a number of stages, one of which is characterized by disagreement, ranging from mild to more extensive. Tuckman and Jensen (1977) suggested that groups go through five stages of development, from their inception through their adjournment: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Each has unique characteristics and implications for learning communities, but the characteristics of each stage are not set in stone, and it is sometimes difficult to determine when a team has moved from one stage to another. Occasionally, teams have characteristics from more than one stage. Thus, the stages are not as linear as Tuckman (1965) initially suggested. Forming is the initial stage of group development. At this time, team members meet each other, and there is little interaction; the interaction that does occur is somewhat strained and superficial because, team members do not yet know each other. There is a lack of organization and confusion of team objectives. At this point, the team is just starting to forge an identity. The second stage is storming, and can be stressful for team members, in that disagreements can occur. In storming, team members are often competitive over leadership positions, and there is disagreement about what team goals should be

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and how tasks should be accomplished. Sometimes these disagreements are mild and readily resolved. In other cases, the disagreements are much more major, resulting in repetitive—and sometimes inappropriately-handled—arguments. Many students are unprepared for dealing with conflict, and see this stage as something to be avoided. However, disagreements and arguments, while unpleasant, are a normal part of teamwork, and are necessary for the growth of the team. It can be contentious, unpleasant, and even distasteful to members of the team who are averse to conflict. In fact, disagreements can occur more frequently in online groups as a result of the lack of non-verbal cues when communicating with tools such as chat rooms and Web-based discussion boards. Video conferencing does allow for face-to-face contact, but students, during the initial stages of computersupported collaborative learning communities, are fearful of bringing attention to problems they see regarding other team members during this type of interaction. They are often concerned about hurting another team member’s feelings, or negatively affecting team development and cohesiveness, but their reluctance to address problems early often fosters team conflict later. The storming stage is when students start complaining about other team members (e.g., they are slacking, they are pushy) or that other team members do not listen to their ideas. The storming stage is one of the primary reasons students (and instructors) avoid collaborative learning. The third stage of Tuckman’s model is norming. In norming, teammates have accepted their differences, and are beginning to find ways of coping with those differences. Team members often work through this stage by agreeing on rules, values, professional behavior, shared methods, working tools, and even taboos. During this phase, team members begin to trust each other. Motivation increases as the team gets more acquainted with team assignments. They capitalize on each other’s strengths, and find ways to compensate for each other’s weaknesses. For example, the team may

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accept one teammate as being disorganized, and ask that teammate to complete particular tasks they are good at by giving them specific instructions and deadlines. As another example, team members may accept one teammate as overly talkative during videoconference exchanges, thereby dominating the conversation. The dominating team member may be allowed to express their opinions, yet other team members may insist on moving forward, covering other important agenda items. Acceptance of individual differences and respect for each other are key characteristics of this stage. In the performing stage, learning communities are fully functioning. They understand the tasks they need to complete, and how to complete them collaboratively. They also have rules in place for managing conflict and disagreements adequately and appropriately. At this point, the learning community is relatively self-sufficient, and the teams engage in their own self-assessment. The instructor has very little need to intervene. Finally, the adjournment stage is entered, and the learning community disbands.

Recommendations Start with simple collaborative tasks. To help teams move from the forming to storming stage, it is useful for instructors to assign uncomplicated collaborative tasks at the inception of the online learning community. These can be designed to help students form a group identity, get to know each other on a more personal level, and learn how to use the technological tools. Perkins and Giordano (2004) also note the importance of an ice-breaker at the beginning of a Web-based course. The initial collaborative assignment demonstrates the difficulty students can expect working as a team. It serves as an example of the types of problems students may run into during the semester, and gives instructors the chance to show teams how to identify the problems they might encounter, and methods they can use to correct them.

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

Encourage constructive discussion of team concerns. If students avoid conflict, issues never get resolved, similar problems surface over and over again, and the team does not progress in development. Instead, they remain at the uncomfortable storming stage. Thus, instructors facilitating online learning communities must be prepared for this stage, and help students deal with it appropriately. In order to progress through storming and move on to norming, students must be encouraged to diplomatically address and resolve concerns about their team or individual teammates, and an atmosphere of acceptance of differing opinions must be nurtured. Sometimes disagreements develop into verbally-violent and personal exchanges as a result of individual differences regarding ideas about how to deal with conflict, or because concerns not discussed earlier in team development begin to fester. This is an obvious sign that conflict is getting out of control. When—or if—this happens, it is useful to encourage students to focus on team goals rather than personality conflicts, along with keeping team members centered on completing assignments. For example, if teams are avoiding confrontation in CORAL courses, the professors ask them to diplomatically address their concerns over video conference. Video conferencing is better than chat rooms or discussion boards for this type of confrontation, because both verbal and nonverbal cues are used, and there is less likelihood of misunderstandings. Tone of voice (which is not available in chats or discussion boards) can be instrumental in reducing the possibility of conflict escalating. Intellectualize. We also find it useful to help students intellectualize the situation, using it as a learning experience, thereby reducing some of the emotional component of the disagreement. For example, depending on the circumstance, it might be useful to draw attention to possible ingroup and out-group biases that contributed to the conflict during the storming stage of development. These concepts are intertwined with the content

of the CORAL courses we teach, and might be useful in other courses as well. Encourage understanding of team norms. Norms form throughout the various stages of group development. Norms, unspoken rules for behavior, can be both positive and negative. For example, as noted earlier, sometimes learning communities form a negative norm that does not allow disagreement to occur or to be addressed. Students agree with each other for the sake of preserving the peace. In other cases, norms of social loafing, or not working hard enough, develop. In still other cases, teams motivate each other to develop positive norms, such as checking Web-based discussion boards daily, completing assignments before deadlines, and developing agendas for video conferences and online chat sessions. Understanding team norms is critical for teams to examine their own growth. Group development emerges in stages, and team members have to understand what stage of growth they are in, in order to better address stage-determined issues and move on. Recognizing and identifying positive and negative norms are useful, so those that are not conducive to team development can be addressed and changed. Becoming aware of team norms and understanding them is foremost for students, and facilitates completing collaborative assignments designed to learn course material. In some cases, students object to this internal team examination because, for some disciplines, it is not related to course topic. However, this belief that courses or disciplines are unrelated is an illusion, and students need to understand that their major courses do not operate in a vacuum. Indeed, Johnson, Johnson, and Smith (1991) maintain that regular self-assessment of team processes is a vital feature of successful collaborative learning experiences. Accept fluctuation between the storming and norming stages. In the norming stage, we also sometimes find that teams become complacent with their success in overcoming the problems of the storming stage. They feel that, because

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they no longer argue, that they have reached the pinnacle of team performance. In actuality, this is not true, and teams can still fine-tune their collaborative efforts. It should also be noted that teams sometimes fluctuate between the storming and norming stages. It is therefore not uncommon for teams to regress to storming and even the forming stage. Perhaps this is most confusing to team members–understanding regression. Students’ interpretation of this is normally negative, yet it simply indicates that there are internal team processes that need further examination. With this as one explanation for regression, students begin to reframe their experience into a more positive structure, and at times, it is necessary for instructors to point out this explanation. It must be kept in mind that students are usually not aware of stage regression and fluctuation, and it is essential that professors emphasize the normalcy of stage and team vacillation. Encourage teams to develop rules. To help teams move from initial forming and storming stages to more comfortable and collaborative norming and performing stages, it is helpful to encourage teams to develop positive rules of team behavior. This could include rules about how frequently team members talk on discussion boards or chat rooms, as well as rules about how to deal with disagreement and conflict. It could also include rules about how the team completes assignments. All of these issues are not firm in the forming and storming stages, and need to be discussed in order for the team to function.

teams as a result of the less-personal electronic communication technology that does not always allow for non-verbal communication cues. We have made a variety of recommendations on how best to cope with these side effects of group work, and these suggestions are consistent with Johnson et al.’s (1991) criteria for successful collaborative learning, which includes positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, appropriate use of interpersonal skills, and regular self-assessment of group functioning. However, because online (as opposed to face-to-face) team problems can be exaggerated, additional requirements are necessary for successful computersupported collaborative learning. Thus, we see five recommendations as especially important:

SummARy

3.

In summary, students and faculty, in both face-toface and distant-site classes, often resist the use of collaborative learning because of common, troublesome, behavioral events. These include unequal distribution of work among team members and friction among team members. Problems such as these can be magnified with online collaborative

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1.

2.

The introduction of superordinate goals is beneficial in fostering distributed team cohesion and commitment, and reducing cross-site hostilities. Superordinate goals encourage students to collaborate and reduce social loafing, since students learn that they can only succeed if the whole team succeeds and works together. The intellectualization of unpleasant team processes is helpful in reducing emotionally aversive group experiences, and learning from them. Labeling unpleasant, yet common, events with technical terms removes some of the emotional distress associated with group or individual conflict, and discussing methods for resolving these issues generally is practical, and less threatening, than personalizing them. Distributed leadership encourages collaboration (rather than cooperation), and reduces social loafing. Many students have a preconceived idea that there can be only one leader in a team. Changing this assumption, and encouraging distributed leadership whereby all team members take on leadership roles as necessary, encourages all team members to contribute significantly

The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning

4.

5.

to completing assignments, and increases team commitment and cohesion. Distinguishing collaborative versus cooperative approaches to completing group work for students is helpful in aligning student and instructor expectations, especially considering that students enrolled in Web-based, or Web-assisted, courses are unsure as to what work habits will best contribute to success in a collaborative learning environment. Teaching trust and mentoring assists independent students in their struggle to share workload with their teammates. Considering that Web-based courses can create an atmosphere of anonymity (and independence), taking time to instruct students on how to connect, and relate, with other students online is useful in creating a sense of community and teamwork.

Because there are a variety of online learning communities, there will be a variety of team experiences. Some online teams might experience all the phenomena noted here; others might only experience a few. Nevertheless, awareness of these issues, and methods useful in minimizing them, assist both faculty and students in reducing unpleasant behavioral events that result in reluctance to utilize a collaborative learning pedagogy. The success of collaborative online courses depends on the appropriate use of pedagogy and related technologies, not just on the introduction of technologies themselves. For collaborative learning to be effective, professors must view teaching as a process of developing and enhancing students’ ability to learn. The collaborative educator’s role is not to transmit information, but to serve as a facilitator for learning. This involves creating and managing meaningful learning experiences, and stimulating students’ thinking through real world problems.

ReFeRenCeS Bennett, N., Wise, C., Woods, C., & Harvey, J. (2003). Distributed leadership. National College for School Leadership. Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www.ncsl.org.ui/literaturereviews Birenbaum, M. (2004). A hypermedia learning environment that supports knowledge construction and affords opportunities for self-regulated learning. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 15(1/2), 143–166. Brickner, M., Harkins, S., & Ostrom, T. (1986). Personal involvement: Thought provoking implications for social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 763–769. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.4.763 Brown, J. D., & Rogers, R. J. (1991). Self-serving attributions: The role of physiological arousal. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 501–506. doi:10.1177/0146167291175004 Chamberlin, J. (2000, April). One psychology project, three states. Monitor on Psychology, 58–59. Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (1994). Cooperative learning in technical courses: Procedures, pitfalls, and payoff (ERIC Document Reproduction Services NO. ED377038). Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ Papers/Coopreport.html Forsyth, D. R. (2006). Group dynamics (4th ed.). New York: Brooks/Cole. Furr, P., McFerrin, K., & Fuller, F. (2004). Constructive and disruptive ad hoc communities in higher distance education: An analysis of synchronous and asynchronous settings. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 15(1/2), 211–229.

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Gaertner, S. L., Mann, J., Murrell, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (1989). Reducing intergroup bias: The benefits of recategorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 239–249. doi:10.1037/00223514.57.2.239

Latane’, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 822–832. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822

Harasty, A. S. (1997). The interpersonal nature of social stereotypes: Differential discussion patterns of in-groups and out-groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 270–284. doi:10.1177/0146167297233006

Latane’, B. (1981). The psychology of social impacts. The American Psychologist, 36, 343–356. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.36.4.343

Harkins, S., & Szymanski, K. (1989). Social loafing and group evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 934–941. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.56.6.934 Hewstone, M., Bond, M. H., & Wan, K. C. (1983). Social factors and social attributions: The explanation of intergroup differences in Hong Kong. Social Cognition, 2, 142–157. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4). Washington, DC: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Stanne, M. B. (2000). Cooperative learning: A meta-analysis. Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www. co-operation.org/pages/cl-methods.html Kitsantas, A., & Dabbagh, N. (2004). Supporting self-regulation in distributed learning environments with Web-based pedagogical tools: An exploratory study. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 15(1/2), 119–142. Lambert, A. J. (1995). Stereotypes and social judgment: The consequences of group variability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 388–403. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.3.388

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Lee, J. Y. (2004). Guidelines for designing Webbased instruction in higher education. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 15(1/2), 31–58. Linville, P. W., & Fischer, G. W. (1993). Exemplar and abstraction models of perceived group variability and stereotypicality. Social Cognition, 11, 92–125. Linville, P. W., Fischer, G. W., & Salovey, P. (1989). Perceived distributions of the characteristics of in-group and out-group members: Empirical evidence and a computer simulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 165–188. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.57.2.165 Miller, D. T., & Ross, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82(2), 213–225. doi:10.1037/h0076486 National Institute for Science Education. (1997). Collaborative Learning: Small group learning page. Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http:// www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/CL/default.asp Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Panitz, T. (1996). A definition of collaborative versus cooperative learning. Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www.city.londonmet.ac.uk/ deliberations/collab.learning//panitz2.html

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Perkins, S. S., & Giordano, V. A. (2004). Distance learning interactions: Implications for design. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 15(1/2), 105–117.

Treadwell, T., & Ashcraft, D. (2005). A pedagogy for collaborative online research and learning: The CORAL model. National Society for Experiential Education Quarterly, 30(1), 10–17.

Pettigrew, T. F. (1997). Generalized intergroup contact effects on prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 173–185. doi:10.1177/0146167297232006

Treadwell, T., Kumar, V. K., & Lavertue, N. (2001). The group cohesion scale-revised: Reliability and validity. The International Journal of Action Methods, 54(1), 3–12.

Rozaitis, B. (2005). Scenes from a classroom: Making active learning work. Center for Teaching and Learning Services, University of Minnesota. Retrieved November 4, 2007, from http://www1. umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/workshops/activelearning/resistance.html

Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequences in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 6396, 384–399. doi:10.1037/h0022100

Scheer, S. B., Terry, K. P., Dolittle, P. E., & Hicks, D. (2004). Online pedagogy: Principles for supporting effective distance education. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 15(1/2), 7–30. Sherif, M. (1958). Superordinate goals in the reduction of intergroup conflict. American Journal of Sociology, 63, 249–356. doi:10.1086/222258

Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of small-group development revisited. Group and Organizational Studies, 2, 419–427. doi:10.1177/105960117700200404 Williams, K. D., & Harkins, S., & Latane’, B. (1981). Identifiability as a deterrent to social loafing: Two cheering experiments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 303–311. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.40.2.303

Stephan, W. G. (1985). Intergroup relations. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 599-658). New York: Addison-Wesley.

This work was previously published in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Best Practices and Principles for Instructors, edited by K. Orvis and A. Lassiter, pp. 140-163, copyright 2008 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.4

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education Haya Ajjan University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA Richard Hartshorne University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA Richard E. Ferdig Kent State University, USA

ABSTRACT In this chapter, the authors provide evidence for the potential of Web 2.0 applications in higher education through a review of relevant literature on educational technology and social networking. Additionally, the authors report the results and implications of a study exploring student and faculty awareness of the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to support and supplement classroom instruction in higher education. Also, using the decomposed theory of planned behavior as the theoretical foundation, the authors discuss factors that influence student and faculty decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies. The chapter concludes with a list of recommendaDOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-384-5.ch033

tions for classroom use of Web 2.0 applications, as well as implications for policy changes and future research.

InTRoduCTIon The use of Internet technologies such as websites, newsgroups, and e-mail have had a significant impact on the way courses are delivered and designed in higher education (Barnett, Keating, Harwook, & Saam, 2004). Recently a new wave of Internet technologies, named Web 2.0 technologies (O’Reilly, 2005; Murugesan, 2007), has emerged with the potential to further enhance teaching and learning in many colleges and universities. With the use of Web 2.0 technologies, students are able

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

to access the web for more than just static course information; they are now able to access and create collective knowledge though social interactions with their peers and faculty (Maloney, 2007). Web 2.0 technologies also enable students to connect multiple pieces of information and in doing so create new information that is shared with others (Maloney, 2007). Web 2.0 technologies have many theoretical affordances to improve teaching and learning (Ferdig, 2007). These affordances include the ability to support scaffolding and active learner participation, provide opportunities for student publication, feedback, and reflection, and the potential for development of a community of learners (Ferdig, 2007). Additionally, while students today are embracing emerging technologies such as cell phones, text messaging, YouTube, wikis, social networks, and other Web 2.0 applications, we also know that many faculty still have not made the switch to these emerging technologies; they prefer course websites and e-mail as their predominant means of connecting with their students (Ajjan & Hartshorne, 2008). In this chapter, the results and implications of a study exploring student and faculty awareness of the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to supplement classroom learning are discussed. Also, using the decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) as the theoretical foundation (Taylor & Todd, 1995), factors that influence student and faculty decisions to adopt such technologies are examined. This chapter extends the existing literature by providing new insights on factors that influence student and faculty adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. Understanding these factors will be useful in formulating effective strategies and recommendations to increase the likelihood of adoption and effective use of Web 2.0 technologies.

BACkgRound why use web 2.0 in higher education? Web 2.0 provides online users with interactive services and control over their own data and information (Madden & Fox, 2006; Maloney, 2007). Examples of Web 2.0 technologies include wikis, blogs, instant messaging, internet telephony, social bookmarking, and social networking sites. These new technologies change the way documents are created, used, shared, and distributed and make sharing content among participants much easier than in the past (Dearstyne, 2007). In the study addressed in this chapter, there was a focus on the following four types of Web 2.0 collaboration tools: wikis, blogs, social bookmarks, and social networking. Although many Web 2.0 applications are not designed specifically for educational purposes, Web 2.0 tools have a number of affordances that make them useful in teaching and learning environments and are rooted in strong pedagogical underpinnings of constructivism (Ferdig, 2007). There are at least four important theoretical considerations that indicate social software will be useful tools for teaching and learning. First, social networking tools provide opportunities to scaffold student learning in the student’s Zone of Proximal Development (Brown & Ferrara, 1985; Vygotsky, 1978). The Zone of Proximal Development is the distance between what a student could learn on their own and what they could learn with the assistance of a more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978). Web 2.0 technologies not only allow more direct interaction between teacher, student, and content, but it also opens up the role of more knowledgeable other to other students, parents, and even the computer (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991). A second theoretical consideration for the use of Web 2.0 technologies comes from the notion of learning as active participation in a shared

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

endeavor with others (Rogoff, 1994; Linn, 1991). Collaboration and cooperative learning can be supported with technology in meaningful ways (Denning & Smith, 1997). These technologies allow users to manage and organize their input in a effective way and thus support constructive learning (Jonassen et al, 1999). Examples of Web 2.0 technologies that promote such collaboration include wikis and collaborative writing spaces (e.g. Google Documents). A third important reason for higher education to consider the use of Web 2.0 technologies is that feedback is critical to learning. As students publish artifacts, teachers “can infer the process by which students transform meanings and strategies appropriated within the social domain” (Gavelek & Raphael, 1996, p. 188). Teachers do not need Web 2.0 technologies to give feedback to their students. However, Web 2.0 technologies provide an authentic environment for students to receive feedback from their teachers and from outside sources. Student blogs are excellent examples of opportunities for students to publish authentic material that receives internal and external feedback (teacher and outsiders). A fourth (but by no means final) theoretical consideration of the use of social software is that “learning occurs through centripetal participation in the learning curriculum of the ambient community” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 100). Social software like Facebook and Myspace provide opportunities for students to create and try out ideas within communities of practice. They are able to explore their identity within society. Although there is relatively little empirical work, these theoretical considerations suggest Web 2.0 tools can and should be explored by educators.

Theoretical Framework In this study, the decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) was used to examine student and faculty intentions to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. The DTPB (Figure 1) originated from

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the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and, in the past, has been applied to understand the adoption behavior of information technology tools (Taylor & Todd, 1995; Thompson, Compeau, & Higgins, 2006). DTPB suggests that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control will influence a user’s behavioral intention, which will in turn influence an individual’s actual behavior (Ajzen, 1991). The theory further decomposes the constructs of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral controls into lower level belief constructs, allowing us to better understand and examine factors that impact the use of new technologies (Taylor & Todd, 1995). This decomposition can generate administrative information about specific factors that influence adoption intention. Therefore, this theoretical framework was selected to explain the adoption intention and use of Web 2.0 technologies to supplement in-class teaching and learning by faculty and students.

Attitude Attitude is the degree to which an individual favors the behavior of interest (Ajzen, 1991). In this chapter, three low-level belief constructs related to attitudinal components are considered: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and compatibility. Perceived usefulness can be defined as the extent to which users believe that the adopted technology will improve his/ her job performance (Davis, 1989). The greater the perceived usefulness, the more likely it is for the user to adopt the new technological application (Rogers, 2003). Ease of use represents the degree to which the technology is easy to use and understand (Rogers, 2003). Technologies that are perceived to be easy to use have a higher possibility of adoption by potential users. Compatibility is the extent to which technology fits with the potential users’ existing values and practices (Rogers, 2003). Tornatzky and Klein (1982) found that an innovation is more likely to be adopted

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Figure 1. The decomposed theory of planned behavior (**student (or subordinate) influence is only considered in the faculty model)

if it is perceived to be compatible with the value system and work practices of an individual. As ease of use, usefulness, and compatibility increase, the attitude toward using the technology is also likely to become more positive.

Subjective Norms Subjective norms examine the perceived expectations from others that influence a user to perform a particular behavior (Ajzen, 1991). When it comes to adopting a new technology, different social groups might have different opinions regarding the adoption of a particular technology (Taylor & Todd, 1995). In the faculty research model, pressures from three groups--superiors, peers (other faculty), and students--were considered. While superiors might feel that adopting Web 2.0 technology may improve student’s learning or satisfaction with a course, other faculty might

feel that it requires an undesired change in the current process. Students, on the other hand, might be more supportive since their level of comfort with Web 2.0 technologies tends to be higher than that of most faculty (Prensky, 2001). In the student research model, pressures from two groups--faculty and peers (other students)--were considered. While faculty might feel that the new technology introduces changes to the current teaching process, peers might be supportive of the use of Web 2.0, given that they are typically more comfortable than faculty in using Web 2.0 technologies (Prensky, 2001). One reason for the difference in use could be the age difference between students and faculty. Several studies have shown that younger participants are more likely to use Web 2.0 technologies than older participants such as wikis and social networking (Lenhart & Madden, 2007; Madden & Fox, 2006).

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Perceived Behavioral Control Perceived behavioral control captures the user’s perceptions of the availability of required resources and opportunities to perform the behavior of interest and is made of three components (Ajzen, 1991). Facilitating conditions make up the first two components and reflect the availability of resources and tools needed to use the technology (Triandis, 1979). Two types of facilitating conditions were considered in this study: the availability of resources (i.e. time and money) and the availability of compatible hardware and software tools. According to Taylor and Todd (1995), the absence of facilitating conditions can negatively impact the intention and usage of technology. The final component is self efficacy, or a reflection of one’s personal comfort when using technology (Bandura, 1982). Greater self efficacy to use technological applications is positively related to behavioral intentions and actual usage (Compeau & Higgins, 1995; Taylor & Todd, 1995).

meThodS In order to determine the awareness of students and faculty members of Web 2.0 technologies and their intention to adopt Web 2.0 technologies as tools to supplement in class learning, two surveys were conducted during the fall semester of 2007. The first survey was intended for faculty at a large university in the southeastern United States. The second survey was intended for graduate and undergraduate students at the same large southeastern university. Two email invitations were sent, one to students and one to faculty members at the university inviting them to participate in the survey. Participation in both surveys was completely voluntary. In sum, 136 faculty members participated in the study (Table 1) and 429 students participated in the study (Table 2).

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Table 1. Profile of faculty respondents Variable

Value

Frequency

Percentage

Gender

Male

61

43

Female

81

57

Age

Under 30

3

2

30-39

46

34

Role at university

40-49

32

23

Over 50

58

41

Lecturer

28

20

Assistant Professor

53

37

Associate Professor

35

25

Professor

16

11

Other

11

7

Table 2. Profile of student respondents Variable

Value

Frequency

Percentage

Gender

Male

166

43

Female

257

57

Age

Year at University

16-21

168

39

22-27

129

30

28-33

46

11

34-40

32

7

Over 40

51

12

Freshman

61

14

Sophomore

49

12

Junior

69

16

Senior

108

25

Graduate

126

30

Other

11

3

Instruments Both survey instruments for faculty and students were designed using the DTPB as a guiding framework (Taylor & Todd, 1995). The survey instruments were then pilot tested by small sub-

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

sections of the intended samples (faculty and students). The instruments were updated based on their feedback in order to establish its face and content validity (Nunnally, 1978). The two surveys focused on items exploring comfort level with Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, and social networking, social bookmarking), actual usage of specific Web 2.0 technologies to supplement inclass learning, and attitudes toward specific Web 2.0 technologies. Additionally, the instruments consisted of a series of items using a five point Likert-scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree) to examine factors that influence participant’s intentions to utilize Web 2.0 technologies in an educational setting. Items focused on areas of actual usage, behavioral intention, attitude, ease of use, perceived usefulness, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, peer influence, superior influence, compatibility, facilitating conditions (technology and resources), and self efficacy. The internal reliability of all measures for both surveys was tested using Cronbach’s alpha and found satisfactory ranges from 0.67 to 0.98 (Nunnaly, 1978).

Statistical Procedure for Analysis Descriptive statistics measures were used to understand frequency patterns related to the comfort level, actual usage, and expected benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies. The other focus of this chapter is to understand factors that influence students and faculty behavioral intentions to use Web 2.0 technologies using the DTPB. Thus, and given the multivariate nature of the variables, path analysis models were used to test the relationships proposed by the DTPB (Wright, 1921). Path analysis was used to estimate the magnitude of the linkage between variables and to provide information regarding underling causal processes. The findings of descriptive analysis for faculty and students, as well as path analysis results for both faculty and students, are presented in the next section of this chapter.

FIndIngS Faculty descriptive Statistics Some faculty respondents acknowledged that the use of Web 2.0 applications to supplement in-class learning could provide several benefits (Table 3, Figure 2). About 46% felt that the use of blogs would increase the interaction between faculty and students, while 23% felt that the same benefits would be attained from using social networks. A much smaller percentage of faculty respondents (16% and 7%, respectively) felt that wikis or social bookmarks would increase student-faculty interaction. 39% of faculty respondents felt that blogs had the potential to improve student satisfaction with a course. Similarly, 32% felt that the use of blogs would increase student satisfaction with a course, while only 22% felt the use of wikis could positively influence student course satisfaction, and only 7% felt the use of social bookmarks would increase student satisfaction with a course. About 41% of the respondents felt that the use of blogs would improve students writing, while 29% felt the same way about wikis, and only 8% held the same opinion about social networking applications, while 4% felt this way about social bookmarks. In terms of integrating specific Web 2.0 technologies with course content, 46% felt that the use of blogs could be easily integrated, while 38% felt that wikis could be easily integrated, 23% felt that social networking tools could be easily integrated, and 12% felt that social bookmarks would be easy to integrate into an existing course structure. The data indicated that while some faculty participants felt that the use of Web 2.0 applications could provide benefits (Table 4, Figure 3), only a small percentage chose to use them to supplement their in-class instruction. In fact, 55% of the faculty did not use wikis and did not plan to use them in the near future to supplement in-class learning, compared with 20% that either currently use, or plan to use, wikis in the near

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Table 3. Faculty perceptions of the pedagogical benefits of Web 2.0 applications Improve student learning

Increase student-faculty interaction

Increase student-student interaction

Improve student satisfaction with course

Improve student writing

Easy to integrate

Blogs

47%

46%

52%

39%

41%

46%

Wikis

42%

23%

20%

22%

29%

38%

Social Networks

16%

16%

56%

32%

8%

23%

Social Bookmarks

9%

7%

26%

13%

1%

12%

Figure 2. Faculty perceptions of the pedagogical benefits of Web 2.0 applications

future. Also, 62% of faculty respondents did not use blogs and do not plan to use them in the near future, compared with only 16% that currently use them, or plan to use them, in the near future. Similarly, 74% of faculty respondents did not use social networks and did not plan to use them in the near future, compared with 9% that either currently use, or plan to use, social networks in the classroom in the near future. Finally, 80% of faculty respondents did not use social bookmarking applications and do not plan to use them in the future, compared with 15% that indicated some use of social bookmarks. The low usage of some Web 2.0 technologies (i.e. blogs, social networks, and social bookmarks) among faculty members might be partially explained by their level of comfort with such tech-

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nologies (Table 5, Figure 4). Most respondents had never used many of these Web 2.0 technologies. In fact, 81% had never used social bookmarks, 56% had never used blogs, and 59% had never used social networks. On the other hand, many faculty members felt more comfortable using wikis, with approximately 72% reporting to have had some experience with these tools.

Student descriptive Statistics As with faculty, some student participants felt that the use of various Web 2.0 applications held a number of pedagogical benefits and would be useful in supplementing their in-class learning experience (Table 6, Figure 5). For example, 69%, 27%, 21%, and 12% felt that blogs, wikis, social

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Table 4. Faculty use of Web 2.0 applications Don’t use and don’t plan to use

Use occasionally

Frequently use

Always use

Blogs

62%

9%

5%

2%

Wikis

55%

20%

4%

6%

Social Networking

74%

6%

1%

2%

Social Bookmarks

80%

13%

1%

1%

Figure 3. Faculty use of Web 2.0 applications

Table 5. Faculty comfort level in using Web 2.0 applications Never Use

Novice

Competent

Proficient

Blogs

56%

20%

13%

10%

Wikis

28%

26%

27%

18%

Social Networking

59%

17%

13%

11%

Social Bookmarks

81%

6%

6%

6%

Figure 4. Faculty comfort level in using Web 2.0 applications

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Table 6. Student perceptions of the pedagogical benefits of Web 2.0 applications Improve student learning

Increase student-faculty interaction

Increase student-student interaction

Improve student satisfaction with course

Improve student writing

Easy to integrate

Blogs

27%

27%

27%

23%

34%

38%

Wikis

69%

14%

28%

28%

29%

45%

Social Networks

21%

24%

62%

18%

15%

23%

Social Bookmarks

12%

7%

13%

8%

4%

12%

Figure 5. Student perceptions of the pedagogical benefits of Web 2.0 applications

networks, and social bookmarks respectively, held potential to improve their learning in a course. Also, approximately 27% felt that the use of blogs would increase the interaction between them and faculty. Likewise, 14% felt that the same benefits would be attained from using social networks, and 24% felt that the use of wikis could improve these interactions. However, only 14% percent felt the use of social bookmarks would increase studentfaculty interaction. 23% of student respondents felt that blogs had the potential to improve student satisfaction with a course. Similarly, 28% felt that the use of blogs would increase student satisfaction with a course, while only 18% felt the use of wikis could positively influence student course satisfaction. Only 8% of student participants felt social bookmarks could increase course satisfaction. About 34% of student respondents felt that

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the use of blogs would improve students writing, while 29% felt the same way about wikis, and only 15% and 4% held the same opinion about social networking and social bookmarking applications, respectively. In terms of integrating the specific Web 2.0 technologies with the course content, 38% felt that the use of blogs could be easily integrated, 45% felt that wikis could be easily integrated, 23% felt that social networking tools could be easily integrated, and 12% felt that social bookmarks would be easy to integrate into an existing course structure. Web 2.0 use data from the student survey indicated slightly more use, or planned future use, than indicated in the results of the faculty respondents. Wikis were the most frequently used Web 2.0 applications with student results indicating that most students, approximately 73%, reported

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Table 7. Student use of Web 2.0 applications Don’t use and don’t plan to use

Use occasionally

Frequently use

Always use

Blogs

56%

17%

7%

2%

Wikis

20%

38%

20%

15%

Social Networking

46%

13%

10%

20%

Social Bookmarks

71%

20%

1%

3%

Figure 6. Student use of Web 2.0 applications

using wikis to supplement their in-class learning (Table 7, Figure 6). On the other hand, and more in line with faculty responses, 71% did not use social bookmarks and do not plan to use them in the future, 56% did not use blogs and do not plan not to use them in the near future, and 46% did not use social networking and do not plan to use social networks for instructional purposes in the near future. Unlike the faculty respondents, there was a seemingly high comfort level of students in the use of the Web 2.0 technologies (Table 8, Figure 7). In fact, 54% reported to have some experience using blogs, 87% have used wikis, and 78% claimed to be comfortable using a social network. However, only 29% of student respondents reported any experience with social bookmarks.

Path Analysis Findings The findings of the path analysis indicated that the DTPB was useful for explaining much of the variance in the use of Web 2.0 technologies by faculty and students. Additionally, most paths in both models were statistically significant. In this section, the influence of each factor on actual behavior for both student and faculty respondents, as illustrated by path analysis, is discussed (Figure 8 and Figure 9).

Behavioral Intention For faculty participants, regression results confirmed each of the three factors--attitude, behavioral intention, and subjective norm--explained a significant variance (75.4%) in behavioral intention (adjusted R2). Path analysis confirmed

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Table 8. Student comfort level in using Web 2.0 applications Never Use

Novice

Competent

Proficient

Blogs

45%

20%

22%

12%

Wikis

13%

24%

35%

28%

Social Networking

21%

8%

19%

51%

Social Bookmarks

72%

12%

10%

7%

Figure 7. Student comfort level in using Web 2.0 applications

that attitude (β=0.830, t=12.334, P<0.001) had a very significant effect on behavioral intention. However, the subjective norm (β=-0.060, t=-.0952, P>0.05) had no significant effect on the behavioral intention. Finally, path analysis results indicated the perceived behavioral control (β=0.128, t=2.218, P <0.05) had a small significant effect on the behavioral intention. The results suggest that faculty’s attitude and perceived behavioral control are both strongly associated with behavioral intention. The weakest association is observed for subjective norm. Regression results for student participants confirmed each of the three factors--attitude, behavioral intention, and subjective norm--explained a significant variance (63%) in behavioral intention (adjusted R2). Path analysis confirmed that attitude of student respondents (β=0.614, t=15.614, P <0.01) had a very significant effect on behavioral

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intention. Unlike faculty respondents, the subjective norm (β=0.22, t=5.899, P <0.01) had significant effect on the behavioral intention of student respondents. As with faculty respondents, path analysis results indicate the perceived behavioral control (β=0.080, t=2.025, P <0.05) had only a small significant effect on the behavioral intention of student respondents. The results suggest that students’ attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are strongly associated with behavioral intention.

Behavior Regression results indicated that behavioral intent (β=0.666, t=9.991, P<0.001) for faculty has a strong significant effect on actual behavior and that relationship addresses 43.7% of the variance (adjusted R2). Additionally, the regression results

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Figure 8. Path analysis of factors that influence faculty adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom

for student respondents indicates that behavioral intent (β=0.520, t=12.144, P<0.01) has a similarly strong significant effect on actual behavior, and that relationship addresses 26.9% of the variance (adjusted R2). The results suggest that for both students and faculty the behavioral intention is strongly associated with behavior.

Attitude Regression results for faculty respondents confirmed that each of the three factors--perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived compatibility--explain a significant variance (80.1%) in attitude (adjusted R2). Further examining the faculty path analysis results, perceived usefulness (β=0.615, t=7.604, P<0.001) of Web 2.0 technologies had a very significant effect on attitudes toward Web 2.0 technologies. Path analy-

sis results of faculty respondents also indicated that the two determinants of attitudes--perceived ease of use (β=0.144, t=2.125, P<0.05) and compatibility (β=0.190, t=2.546, P<0.05) of Web 2.0 technologies with existing technologies--both had significant effects on attitudes. The results suggest that usefulness, ease of use, and compatibility of web 2.0 technologies are all strong determinant of positive faculty’s attitude to use Web 2.0 technologies. Regression results for student participants were similar to those of faculty respondents and confirmed each of the three factors--perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived compatibility--explained a significant variance (74.6%) in attitude (adjusted R2). Examining the path analysis results further, perceived usefulness (β=0.472, t=10.463, P<0.01) of Web 2.0 technologies had a very significant effect on

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Figure 9. Path analysis of factors that influence student adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom

attitudes toward Web 2.0 technologies. Also, the other two determinants of attitudes, perceived ease of use (β=0.287, t=6.758, P<0.01) and compatibility (β=0.200, t=5.863, P<0.01) of Web 2.0 technologies with existing technologies both had significant, although smaller, effects on the attitudes of student respondents. The results suggest that higher levels of usefulness, ease of use, and compatibility of Web 2.0 technologies are associated with higher level of students’ attitude to use Web 2.0 technologies.

Subjective Norm Regression results for faculty respondents confirmed each of the three factors--superior influence, student influence, and peer influence--explain a significant variance (63.2%) in the subjective norm (adjusted R2). Examining the path analysis results for each of the determinants, superior in-

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fluence (β=0.396, t=5.114, P <0.001) and student influence (β=0.356, t=5.235, P <0.001) both had very significant effects on subjective norm. Path analysis results for the third individual determinant, peer influence (β=0.205, t=2.334, P <0.01), indicate that it had a significant, although smaller, effect on subjective norm. The results suggest that faculty participants are highly influenced by three referent groups: superior, student, and peer when it comes to using Web 2.0 applications. Regression results for student respondents confirmed each of the two factors--superior influence and peer influence--explained a significant variance (71.4%) in the subjective norm (adjusted R2). Examining the path analysis results for each of the determinants, superior influence (β=0.719, t=22.36, P <0.01) had a very significant effect on the subjective norm and peer influence (β=0.205, t=6.378, P <0.01) had significant, although smaller, effects on subjective norm. The results suggest

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

that students are highly influenced by two referent groups: peer (other student) and superior (faculty) when it comes to using Web 2.0 applications.

Perceived Behavioral Control Regression results for faculty participants confirmed each of the three factors--facilitating conditions: resources, facilitating conditions: technology, and self efficacy--explained a significant variance (52.2%) in perceived behavioral control (adjusted R2). Examining the path analysis results, two of the three individual determinants-facilitating conditions: resources (β=0.184, t=1.321, P >0.05) and facilitating conditions: technology (β=0.098, t=0.706, P >0.05) had no significant effects on the perceived behavioral control. However, the third determinant, self efficacy (β=0.517, t=6.125, P <0.001), did have a significant effect on perceived behavioral control. The results suggest that only self efficacy of faculty is significantly associated with perceived behavioral control, while resources and technology availability are not significant. Regression results for student respondents confirmed each of the three factors--facilitating conditions: resources, facilitating conditions: technology, and self efficacy--explained a significant variance (64.6%) in perceived behavioral control (adjusted R2). Examining the path analysis results, two of the three individual determinants-facilitating conditions: resources (β=0.204, t=4.019, P <0.01) and self efficacy (β=0.576, t=11.419, P <0.01) had significant effects on the perceived behavioral control. However, the third determinant, facilitating conditions: technology (β=0.081, t=1.551, P >0.05), did not have a significant effect on perceived behavioral control. The results suggest that for students higher self efficacy and resource availability are associated with higher perceived behavioral control. However, no significant link was found between technology availability and perceived behavioral control.

dISCuSSIon And lImITATIonS The functionality of Web 2.0 technologies has vast potential to change the higher education landscape and improve teaching and learning. Thus, it is critical to understand factors leading to Web 2.0 adoption decisions by faculty and students as well as congruencies and disconnects between the two. Effective adoption of these technologies will help create learning environments that foster collaboration among students and faculty and promote the active creation and sharing of knowledge. The findings presented in this chapter indicate that both students and faculty expect that selected Web 2.0 technologies could provide several pedagogical benefits such as improved student learning and writing abilities, improved student satisfaction with courses, and improved interactions among students and their peers and with faculty members. Students, for example, reported frequent use of wikis to supplement their in-class learning, while only limited faculty reported using wikis to supplement their in-class instruction. On the other hand, the majority of both faculty and students do not use blogs, social networks, or social bookmarks for learning or teaching. Additionally, while almost half of the student respondents do not use social networks for instructional purposes, faculty use of social networks is significantly less. It was also clear that students were significantly more comfortable than faculty in using all Web 2.0 applications. For example, 60% of faculty members have never used social networking tools, while 72% of student respondents reported some experience using social networks. These results indicated that while there are some similarities between student and faculty use of certain Web 2.0 applications, there are numerous gaps in the use and comfort level with many Web 2.0 technologies, such as social networks. While the usage of many Web 2.0 tools was similar for both student and faculty respondents, students consistently reported a higher comfort-level with all tools addressed, particularly social networks.

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Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

To better understand factors leading to Web 2.0 technologies adoption and use of students and faculty, we used the DTPB as the theoretical framework. This allowed us to understand and identify factors important to predicting the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by both faculty and students for instructional purposes. The results from the path analysis indicated that behavioral intention for both students and faculty is a strong determinant of actual use of Web 2.0. Also, attitudes and perceived behavioral controls are both strong determinants of behavioral intentions to use Web 2.0 of both students and faculty. These findings confirm much of what exists in the current research base. For example, Tan and Teo (2000) found that the intention to adopt on-line banking services can be predicted by attitude and perceived behavioral control. Similarly, Venkatesh and Brown (2001) found that attitude and perceived behavioral control are both important factors to understand personal computer adoption by households in the United States. Therefore, the focus of administrators interested in increasing the use of Web 2.0 in the classroom might be on improving faculty attitudes toward emerging technologies as well as enhancing their perceived behavioral control of Web 2.0 use by providing appropriate training and support for each of these tools. Subjective norms, on the other hand, did not have a significant influence on the behavioral intention for faculty, but was a strong determinant for students. One way to explain the lack of influence of subjective norms on behavioral intention of faculty could be the high degree of autonomy faculty has when developing their classroom environment (Barnett, Keating, Harwook, & Saam, 2004). On the other hand, students are typically influenced by their peers and faculty to decide on the tools they adopt to supplement their inclass learning. Additionally, the results indicate that ease of use, usefulness, and compatibility of Web 2.0 are key determinants of both student and faculty attitudes toward the use of Web 2.0 technology. The results also indicated that faculty

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subjective norms are greatly influenced by three referent groups--superiors, peers (other faculty), and students--while both peer and superiors have positive influences on student subjective norms. Perceived behavioral control for both students and faculty was found to be influenced by self efficacy. Facilitating conditions (resource and technologies) available for faculty did not have an influence on the perception of behavioral control toward the intention and usage of Web 2.0 technologies. On the other hand, facilitating technology conditions had a positive influence on students’ perceived behavioral control. These results indicate that training and appropriate mentoring experiences are important mechanisms in influencing Web 2.0 usage. There are a number of other potential implications for this study. First, the results of this study indicate that faculty and students both seem to understand the pedagogical potential of Web 2.0 applications, but do not necessarily want to use these tools to support teaching and learning. Thus, it is important to illustrate more exemplary practice. The results of this study can serve as a basis for the design and development of professional development opportunities and support services for both new and veteran faculty members at institutions of higher education. Additionally, these results can be useful in exploring innovative ways to model ‘best practices’ of the use of Web 2.0 tools in specific content areas in higher education, as well as provide a basis for beginning a dialogue between faculty and instructional support programs.

FuTuRe ReSeARCh dIReCTIonS One limitation of this study is that actual methods of use and implementation of Web 2.0 tools were not explored. Thus, more research that explores actual instructional usage of Web 2.0 applications and exemplary practices utilizing these tools within specific content areas is needed. While there

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

are many affordances that provide pedagogical benefits, more research is necessary to explore uses and benefits of specific Web 2.0 tools (wikis, blogs, social bookmarks, and social bookmarks) in specific content areas, as well as specific learning environments (online, face-to-face, blended). While these issues are beyond the scope of this study, this chapter can serve as a foundation for the development of future program policies and procedures. For example, while this study did not focus on teacher education, the results can serve as a basis for the development of future teacher technology standards and requisite skills, as well as the preparation of preservice teachers. With a renewed focus on the development of 21st century skills at the K-12 level, it is critical that future teachers can effectively integrate emerging technologies into their classrooms. By highlighting the use of Web 2.0 tools in higher education, as well as factors that influence student and faculty use, the results of this study can influence policy and legislation related to the use of Web 2.0 applications in preservice teacher programs to support the use of Web 2.0 applications by future teachers in the K-12 environment in developing 21st century skills. Second, examining the results of this study, it was evident that comfort level played a significant role in the non-use of Web 2.0 tools by faculty. However, with students, the comfort level was significantly higher than that of faculty, but use to support their learning was not. So, while the results related to comfort level directly influence the faculty use of Web 2.0 tools, this was not the case for students. Thus, we need to know more in this area. Future research needs to explore reasons for student non-use of Web 2.0 tools to support their learning.

ConCluSIon In this chapter we have explored student and faculty perceptions and use of several Web 2.0 technologies and factors predicting Web 2.0 use. The results indicated that both students and faculty are aware of the benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies to support and supplement instruction in higher education. In addition, we have identified using DTPB factors that could influence student and faculty decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies. As Web 2.0 tools become increasingly ubiquitous, this study presents a first step in understanding factors leading to faculty and student Web 2.0 adoption, as well as methods of fostering support for faculty and student use of Web 2.0 applications.

ReFeRenCeS Ajjan, H., & Hartshorne, R. (2008). Investigating faculty decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies: Theory and empirical tests. The Internet and Higher Education, 11, 71–80. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2008.05.002 Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211. doi:10.1016/07495978(91)90020-T Alexander, B. (2006). A new way of innovation for teaching and learning. EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 32–44. Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. The American Psychologist, 37(2), 122–147. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.37.2.122 Barnett, M., Keating, T., Harwook, W., & Saam, J. (2004). Using emerging technologies to help bridge the gap between university theory and classroom practice: Challenges and successes. School Science and Mathematics, 102(6), 299–314.

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Baylor, A., & Ritchie, D. (2002). What factors facilitate teacher skill, teacher morale, and perceived student learning in technology-using classroom? Computers & Education, 39(1), 395–414. doi:10.1016/S0360-1315(02)00075-1 Brown, A. L., & Ferrara, R. A. (1985). Diagnosing zones of proximal development. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), Culture communication, and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 273-305). New York: Cambridge University Press. Compeau, D. R., & Higgins, C. A. (1995). Computer self-efficacy: Development of a measure and initial test. MIS Quarterly, 19(2), 189–211. doi:10.2307/249688 Davis, F. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13, 319–339. doi:10.2307/249008 Dearstyne, B. (2007). Blogs, mashups, and wikis: Oh my! Information Management Journal, 41(4), 24–33. Denning, R., & Smith, P. (1997). Cooperative learning and technology. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 16(2), 177–200. Ferdig, R. (2007). Examining social software in teacher education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 15(1), 5–10. Gavelek, J. R., & Raphael, T. (1996). Changing talk about text: New roles for teachers and students. Language Arts, 73, 182–192. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Linn, M. C. (1991). The computer as learning partner: Can computer tools teach science? In K. Sheingold, L. G. Roberts & S. M. Malcom (Eds.), Technology for teaching and learning. Washington D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science. 1178

Madden, M., & Fox, S. (2006). Riding the waves of Web 2.0: More than a buzzword, but still not easily defined. Pew Internet Project (pp. 1-6). (Unpublished). Maloney, E. (2007). What Web 2.0 can teach us about learning. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 25(18), B26. Murugesan, S. (2007). Understanding Web 2.0. IT Professional, 9(4), 34–41. doi:10.1109/ MITP.2007.78 Nunnaly, J. (1978). Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill. O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved on August 24, 2008, from: http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. doi:10.1108/10748120110424816 Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press. Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1(4), 209–229. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1991). Higher levels of agency for children in knowledge building: A challenge for the design of new knowledge media. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1(1), 37–68. doi:10.1207/s15327809jls0101_3 Tan, M., & Teo, T. (2000). Factors influencing the adoption of Internet banking. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 1(5), 1–42. Taylor, S., & Todd, P. A. (1995). Understanding information technology usage: A test of competing models. Information Systems Research, 6(2), 144–176. doi:10.1287/isre.6.2.144

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Thompson, R., Compeau, D., & Higgins, C. (2006). Intentions to use information technologies: An integrative model. Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, 18(3), 25–46. Tornatzky, L. G., & Klein, K. J. (1982). Innovation characteristics and innovation adoptionimplementation: A meta-analysis of findings. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 29(1), 28–45.

Barnett, M., Keating, T., Harwook, W., & Saam, J. (2004). Using emerging technologies to help bridge the gap between university theory and classroom practice: Challenges and successes. School Science and Mathematics, 102(6), 299–314. Berg, J., Berquam, L., & Christoph, K. (2007). Social networking technologies: A “poke” for campus services. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(2), 32–44.

Triandis, H. C. (1979). Values, attitudes, and interpersonal behavior. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Carr, N. (2008). The big switch: Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google. New York: W.W. Norton.

Venkatesh, V., & Brown, S. (2001). A longitudinal investigation of personal computers in homes: Adoption determinants and emerging challenges. MIS Quarterly, 25(1), 71–102. doi:10.2307/3250959

Christensen, C., Johnson, C., & Horn, M. (2008). Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw Hill.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2008). Web 2.0 tools and processes in higher education: Quality perspectives. Educational Media International, 45(2), 93–106. doi:10.1080/09523980802107179

Wright, S. (1921). Correlation and causation. Journal of Agricultural Research, 20, 557–585.

Davis, F. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13, 319–339. doi:10.2307/249008

AddITIonAl ReAdIng

Ferdig, R. (2007). Examining social software in teacher education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 15(1), 5–10.

Ajjan, H., & Hartshorne, R. (2008). Investigating faculty decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies: Theory and empirical Tests. The Internet and Higher Education, 11, 71–80. doi:10.1016/j. iheduc.2008.05.002 Alexander, B. (2006). A new way of innovation for teaching and learning. EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 32–44. Alexander, B. (2008). Web 2.0 and emergent multiliteracies. Theory into Practice, 47(2), 150–160. doi:10.1080/00405840801992371

Friedman, A., & Heafner, T. (2007). You think for me, so I don’t have to. [Online serial]. Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education, 7(3). Available http://www.citejournal.org/vol7/ iss3/socialstudies/article1.cfm. Friedman, T. L. (2005). The world is flat. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Jonassen, D. H. (2000). Computers as mindtools for schools: Engaging critical thinking. Columbus, OH: Prentice-Hall.

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Klamma, R., Chatti, M. A., Duval, E., Hummel, H., Hvannberg, E. H., & Kravcik, M. (2007). Social software for lifelong learning. Educational Technology & Society, 10(3), 72–83. Linn, M. C. (1991). The computer as learning partner: Can computer tools teach science? In K. Sheingold, L.G, Roberts, & S.M. Malcom (Eds.), Technology for teaching and learning. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Maloney, E. (2007). What Web 2.0 can teach us about learning. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 25(18), B26. Murugesan, S. (2007). Understanding Web 2.0. IT Professional, 9(4), 34–41. doi:10.1109/ MITP.2007.78 O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Available: http://www.oreillynet.com/ lpt/a/6228 Pence, H. E. (2007). Preparing for the real web generation. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 35(3), 347–356. doi:10.2190/7116G776-7P42-V110 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. doi:10.1108/10748120110424816 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants, part 2: Do they really think differently? Horizon, 9(6), 1–6. doi:10.1108/10748120110424843 Prensky, M. (2008). Backup Education? Too many teachers see education as preparing kids for the past, not the future. Educational Technology, 48(1), 1–3. Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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Shiue, Y. S. (2007). Investigating the sources of teachers’ instructional technology use through the decomposed theory of planned behavior. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 36(4), 425–453. doi:10.2190/A407-22RR-50X6-2830 Taylor, S., & Todd, P. A. (1995). Understanding information technology usage: A test of competing models. Information Systems Research, 6(2), 144–176. doi:10.1287/isre.6.2.144

key TeRmS And deFInITIonS Attitude: The degree to which an individual favors a particular behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Behavioral Intention: A user’s readiness to carry out a particular behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Blog: A contraction of the term “web log” a blog is a website maintained by an individual and may include regular posts: picture and other media, RSS feeds, and commentary from guests or visitors to the blog. Popular blogging tools include WordPress, Blogger, and LiveJournal Instant Messaging: A web-enabled text-based form of synchronous communication between two or more people. Popular Instant Messaging applications include Windows Live Messenger, Tencent QQ, Jabber, and AOL Instant Messenger Internet Telephony: Also known as voiceover IP (VOIP), Internet telephony allows for synchronous audio or video communications between two or more people utilizing the Internet. Popular VOIP applications include Skype, NetMeeting, and CoolTalk Perceived Behavioral Control: A user’s perceptions of the availability of required resources and opportunities to perform a particular behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Social Bookmarks: A web-based application which allows users to search, store, rate, manage, and share websites and website collections.

Student and Faculty Use and Perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education

Popular social bookmarking applications include Delicious, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon Social Networks: A web-based application that focuses on creating communities of individuals with shared interests, providing numerous methods of interaction between network participants. Popular social networks include Facebook, Friendster, Orkut, and MySpace

Subjective Norm: The perceived expectations from others that influence a user to perform a particular behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Wiki: A web-based application that allows multiple users to create and edit content, which can include text, hypertext, audio, video, and more. Popular wiki tools and applications include SeedWiki, Wikipedia, and WetPaint

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Web 2.0, 3.0, and X.0: Technologies, Business, and Social Applications, edited by Murugesan, S., pp. 593-612, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.5

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning in a Web-Based Course? Xinchun Wang California State University, USA

ABSTRACT Although the pedagogical advantages of online interactive learning are well known, much needs to be done in instructional design of applicable collaborative learning tasks that motivate sustained student participation and interaction. This study investigates the factors that encourage student interaction and collaboration in both process and product oriented computer mediated communication (CMC) tasks in a Web-based course that adopts interactive learning tasks as its core learning activities. The analysis of a post course survey questionnaire collected from three online classes suggest that among others, the structure of the online discussion, group size and group cohesion, strictly enforced deadlines, direct link of interactive learning activities to the assessment, and the differences in process and product driven interactive learning tasks are some of the

important factors that influence participation and contribute to sustained online interaction and collaboration.

InTRoduCTIon Theoretical Framework The pedagogical advantages of student interaction in collaborative construction of knowledge are grounded in the social constructivist perspective of learning. From the social constructivist perspective, all learning is inherently social in nature. Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development posits that learners benefit most from social interactions concerning tasks they cannot do alone but can do in collaboration with more knowledgeable or more experienced peers (Kern, 1995). Knowledge is discovered and con-

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

structed through negotiation, or collective sense making. Pedagogically sound tasks in an online learning environment should, therefore, reflect social learning and collaborative construction of knowledge. In designing and implementing online collaborative learning tasks, educators also draw heavily from Bakhtin’s social theories to support their models of social interaction in collaborative construction of meaning in an online learning environment (Duin & Hansen, 1994; Wang & Teles, 1998; Wu, 2003). A speaker gives voice to a thought, an utterance, this utterance, though representing the ideas of an individual, reflects a social environment that is shared. The listener interprets the utterances in a purposeful, conscious act, in terms of his or her own concept of the social context, in terms of what the words mean to him or her individually. Therefore, speech and writing are dialogical in that the meaning of an utterance is created by both the speaker/writer and listener/ reader through social interaction (Duin & Hansen, 1994). Pedagogically sound online learning tasks should therefore facilitate such online interactive learning for knowledge construction.

Interactive learning and online Collaboration From a student’s perspective, online interaction in learning takes place at two different levels: interaction with content and interaction with instructors and between peers (Gao & Lehman, 2003). There is evidence that pedagogically well-designed interactive learning tasks actually increase rather than decrease student access to instructors; increase interactions between instructors and among students; and increase students involvement of course content as well (Lavooy & Newlin, 2003; Mouza, Kaplan, & Espinet; 2000; Wu, 2003). Interactive learning tasks also promote greater equality of participation (Mouza, Kaplan & Espinet, 2000), more extensive opinion giving and exchanges (Summer & Hostetler,

2002), empower shy students to participate, and promote more student-centered learning (Kern, 1995; Wang & Teles, 1998) At the level of interaction with content, students benefit more from producing explanations than receiving explanations. Such proactive learning engages students in a higher level of thinking than the reactive type of learning (Gao & Lehman, 2003; Wu, 2003). To promote such proactive learning, online course instructors need to integrate more active learning tasks that require more production than reception of explanations. Therefore, tasks that require written explanations should be considered over multiple choice type of reading comprehension in interpreting learning materials. Computer Meditated Communication in both synchronous and asynchronous discussion forums is inherently supportive of tasks for exchange of such written explanations. Furthermore, the systems can also archive written explanations posted in online forums and can be easily accessed and retrieved for references. Although CMC supports interaction and collaborative learning, it also has inherent shortcomings. Disadvantages include the time it takes to exchange messages and the increased difficulties in expressing ideas clearly in a context reduced learning environment and the difficulty in coordinating and clarifying ideas (Sumner & Hostetler, 2002). The increased time it takes to reach consensus and decisions (Kuhl, 2002; Sumner & Hostetler, 2002) and to produce a final product (Macdonald, 2003). Given all these difficulties students need to overcome in order to collaborate effectively in interactive learning environment, online instructors need to address these obstacles with careful instructional design and provide support for collaborative learning with appropriate interactive learning tasks.

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Factors That Influence Student online Interaction and Collaboration Research has also shown that computer mediated communicative tasks require more active role of students than traditional instruction in the faceto-face environment does (Wang & Teles, 1998). Students need to be willing to send a formal written question rather than have a casual conversation with peers or with the instructor in order to have their questions answered (Kuhl, 2002). To communicate effectively with peers and the instructor, students need to create the context through written messages, which requires the writing skills to identify their problems and express them precisely in order to have the questions answered. Team work and negotiation for meaning are necessary skills in CMC that cannot be assumed. Students need to learn to be familiar with the discourse of the discipline and academic genre for an online synchronous and asynchronous forum (Kuhl, 2002; Macdonald, 2003). In addition to negotiation skills online, previous research has identified a number of other factors that influence student participation and interaction in a Web-based learning environment. Among others, the assessment of collaborative learning tasks plays a crucial role in ensuring student participation (Kear, 2004; Kear & Heap, 1999; Macdonald, 2003). In general, assessed collaborative learning tasks attract student participation at the cost of unassessed tasks. Furthermore, grade for discussion was also positively related to students’ perceived learning (Jiang & Ting, 2000). The structure of discussion in CMC is found to be another important factor in ensuring the amount of participation and level of interaction and collaboration among the peers. Such structure includes the size of the discussion groups, the nature and types of discussion topics (Williams & Pury, 2002), and whether the collaboration emphasizes the process of learning or the end product of such collaboration, or both (Kear, 2004; Kear & Heap,

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1999; Macdonald, 2003). Online collaboration can be either process or product oriented. Forum discussions regarding course contents or related issues are commonly process oriented as the sharing of ideas help learners understand the issues without necessarily leading to a final product. Students are assessed individually based on their participation and quality of their contributions. Alternatively, online interaction and collaboration may lead to a final product such as an essay, a project, or a Web page, and so forth. There can be two assessment elements to such tasks, a common grade for the group for the overall quality of the collaborative product and individual grades for the contribution of each individual to the collaborative endeavor (Kear, 2004; Kear & Heap, 1999; Macdonald, 2003). Finally, like any other form of learning, learning collaboratively in an online course is also characterized by individual differences. Collaboration as a process of participating to the knowledge communities is not an equal process to all the members of the community (Leinonen, Järvelä & Lipponen, 2003). To summarize, online negotiation skills, the direct link between collaborative tasks and assessment, the structure of online discussions such as the nature and types of discussion topics, the size of the group, and the differences between process and product oriented collaborative tasks are some of the factors that influence student participation, interaction, and collaboration. It is important to note that some of the above findings are based on experiments that are not a part of an online course (Gao & Lehman, 2003). Others have based their studies on courses that integrate some collaborative tasks in mainly student-instructor/tutor interaction type courses (Kear, 2004; Kear & Heap, 1999; Leinonen, Järvelä, & Lipponen, 2003; Macdonald, 2003; Williams & Pury, 2002). Web-based courses that employ collaborative learning tasks that form the essential course syllabus are less studied. While the advantages of student interaction and

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

collaborative learning in Web-based learning environment has long been recognized, what remains to be identified are what instructional design of course tasks and activities that promote sustained and consistent student interaction and collaboration for knowledge construction. Moreover, there is also evidence that online interactive learning and collaboration are not always sustainable and students’ participation in CMC collaborative tasks may wane after the assessed tasks that require the postings are completed (Macdonald, 2003). In a recent survey on college student’s attitudes toward participation in electronic discussions, Williams and Pury (2002, p. 1) found that “contrary to much literature on electronic collaboration suggesting students enjoy online collaboration, our students did not enjoy online discussion regardless of whether the discussion was optional or mandatory.” Much needs to be done to explore factors that promote sustained student interest in online interactive learning and collaboration.

The Study Through a post course survey, this study investigates the factors that promote sustained student participation in computer-mediated discussions as the core interactive learning tasks in a small group setting in an upper division undergraduate course that was offered entirely online. It also examines students’ attitudes toward process and product oriented interactive and collaborative learning. The research questions are: 1.

2. 3.

What factors encourage sustained participation, interaction, and collaboration in asynchronous discussion forums in a Web-based course? What interactive learning tasks are sustainable and what are not? Are there any differences in student attitudes toward process and product oriented online collaborative learning tasks? If so, what are

the factors that influence students’ different perspectives toward such tasks? 4. What pedagogical implications do the findings have?

CouRSe InFoRmATIon And dATA ColleCTIon Course Information The course under study was an upper division general education course in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education delivered entirely on Blackboard in Spring and Fall 2004 at a state university in California. A total of 60 students, 22 in the Spring semester class, and 20 and 18 students in the two Fall semester classes completed the course. All were local students who took the course online because the same course offered face to face conflicted with their schedules. Some students lived over an hour of driving distance from campus (not uncommon in Central California) and chose to take the online course to avoid commute. According to student self-report, all had taken at least one Web-enhanced course and were familiar with the Blackboard interface, although most of these courses used Blackboard for downloading course materials and lecture notes rather than integrating interactive learning activities. About 20% of the students reported they had taken at least one Web-based course. It was not clear how many of them experienced interactive learning online.

Collaborative Tasks and Their Assessment Forum discussions on course readings and related issues formed the core interactive learning activities that were 45% of the course grade. These were process oriented interactive learning tasks for which individual grades were assigned for each student based on their quantity and the

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What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

quality of postings in the forums. Small groups of 4-6 people were formed at the beginning of the semester for the weekly asynchronous group forums. During the 16 week semester, a total of 18 discussion forums were completed in each online group. For each forum, the instructor assigned a reading chapter along with comprehension questions and discussion topics to help the students to grasp the contents. Students divided the reading questions among themselves in their groups and posted the answers to each question for the first round of postings. They were also required to make comments on at least one peer’s answers in the second round of postings to carry on the discussions. To ensure participation, strict deadlines for each round of postings were enforced and each student’s answers to the questions and comment messages were assessed by the instructor who assigned up to 3% of the course grade for participation of each discussion forum. After each forum was completed, the moderator of each group (in each group, students rotated as moderators) was required to summarize the discussions and post the summary messages in a class forum that was accessible to all groups. These general class forums were intended to provide the students an opportunity to learn what was going on in other group forums that they did not have access to. This way, they did not need to read the numerous messages of 3-4 other groups but could still learn the gist of other group discussions. Although the summary messages were required, they were not graded. However, the summary of group discussions in a whole class discussion forum was eliminated in the Fall semester classes because it was not popular based on the input from the Spring semester class post course survey. For the entire semester, the mean postings of each student in group forums ranged from 62-77 messages. On average, each student posted 3.54.3 in each of the 18 discussion forums. Although there was some variation in number of messages posted across groups and classes, most students

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did more than the minimum requirement of posting two rounds of messages in each discussion forum. Messages posted in the course related forums outside the group discussion forums were not included in the calculation because they were either inquiries or socialization in nature. Moderators’ postings of summary messages in the class discussions forum were not included either because these postings were not enforced in the two Fall classes. The other major collaborative task was a product oriented group project that constituted 12% of the course grade for which all the students in the same group received a common grade based on the level of collaboration and the quality of the final written report. There was no individual assessment component for the group project. The interdependent grading (a common grade for all members of a group only) was aimed at promoting more collaboration among the peers to produce a true collaborative product with individual contributions. The group project was closely related to one of the course themes on types of bilingual education programs. Each student was required to visit a local school to interview a bilingual teacher to gain firsthand information about bilingual education programs implemented in Central California. Students then shared and synthesized the interview data to produce a group report. They were not required to meet face-to-face for the group project but exchanged information in an online forum that was mostly procedural to plan, negotiate, to reach agreement and to produce the final product. The process of planning and producing the project required negotiation, cooperation, and collaboration among peers to actually arrive at consensus to produce a report. Though not graded, the progress of each group in the online forums was closely monitored by the instructor. The deadline for submitting the group project was strictly imposed to ensure the completion of the work. Other course activities included two individual written assignments (8%) and three online exams

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

Table 1. Course activities and grading Activities

Grading

Description

Weekly group forums

45%

Structured discussions on course readings

Weekly class forums

0%

Required postings of moderator’s summaries from each weekly group forum (Spring Semester class only)

Group project

12%

Final product graded interdependently (same grade for each member of the group)

Individual assignments

8%

No interaction among students required

Three exams

35%

Online exams on course contents to assess outcome of learning

(35%) that assessed the learning outcomes of the course readings and group discussions. Table 1 summarizes the course activities and grading.

data Collection: Post Course Survey data At the end of the semester, an online survey was administered in each class to collect information about students’ learning experience and their attitudes toward the course, in particular, their experience with online collaboration in both the weekly conference discussions and the group project. The survey questionnaire, which consisted of 17 multiple choice questions and 4 open-ended questions (see Appendix) was uploaded to the survey area of the course on Blackboard. Students were able to access and complete the survey questionnaire anonymously during the week

after the final exam. Blackboard automatically calculated the results of the multiple choice questions in percentage. The transcripts of the survey responses for all three classes were printed out for analysis. 16 of the 22 Spring semester students and 37 of the 38 Fall semester students completed the survey questionnaire. Therefore, the analysis of the survey data was based on the 53 completed questionnaires.

ReSulTS Students’ Attitudes Towards online discussions and Collaborative learning Table 2 presents student responses to the question “what are your thoughts about the structure

Table 2. Students’ responses to “what are your thoughts about the structure of the course?” (N = 53) Choices

% Reponses

I like the way the course is structured in terms of forum discussions because we learn from each other.

92.5%

I prefer weekly quizzes based on the readings rather than answering questions and joining the group discussions.

7.5%

Chi²

41.679*

*Unless otherwise specified, the P values of the Chi² is <0.0001 in this study.

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Table 3. Students’ views about group discussions (N = 53) Survey Questions

% Responses Strongly agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly disagree

Chi²

My answers to the questions and comments on peers’ messages help me to understand the readings better.

30%

62%

8%

0%

49.717

My peers’ answers/comments helped me understand the readings better.

32%

57%

11%

0%

39.453

I learned more from online discussions than I would have learned from lectures.

25%

47%

25%

2%

21.792

The online discussion is helpful because we collaborate more and learn from each other more.

38%

55%

6%

2%

41.415

The group cohesion and mutual trust is an important factor in our group.

53%

36%

11%

0%

36.132

of the course?” Overall, 92.5 % of the students preferred the collaborative learning in the form of small group discussions to the weekly online quizzes (7.5%) if given the choices. Additionally, the first open-ended question asked the students to describe their experience with the forum discussions. Among the 47 students who answered this question, only 1 student expressed negative experience with the discussion forums. Three students commented that their experience was mixed. The majority, 43 students (91.5 %), expressed their experience with this form of learning ranged from positive to extremely positive. What factors encouraged students to participate in this form of active and interactive learning throughout the semester? Did the students really think they learned from building on each other’s insights? What were the effects of such learning as reflected by students’ responses in the survey data? The survey questionnaire addressed these issues in a number of questions. Table 3 summarizes students’ responses to the effectiveness of group discussions. Chi Square analyses of students’ responses to the questions in Table 3 along the scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree were all significant

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beyond 0.0001 level. (Unless otherwise stated, Chi Square analyses reported in this study were significant beyond the level of 0.0001.) About 90% of the students agreed or strongly agreed that answering questions and participating in discussions helped them understand the readings better and that online discussion was helpful because they collaborated more and learned more from each other. Additionally, 72% of the students responded that they learned more from online discussions than they would have learned from the lectures. Furthermore, 89% of the students responded, saying group cohesion and mutual trust was an important factor in their group.

Factors That Affect level of Participation and Sustained Interaction Assessment Table 4 summarizes students’ responses to the level of participation in their group discussions if the postings were not required and graded. Overall, 51% of the students responded they would post some but not as many messages, 21% said they

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

Table 4. Students’ responses to “would you post the same number of messages as you actually did over the semester if these postings were optional, not required or graded?” Choices

% Responses

Yes, I will post the same number of messages

21%

I will post some messages but not as many

51%

I will post very few messages

21%

I will not post any messages

8%

Chi² 21.491

Table 5. Spring semester students’ responses to the tasks of “group summaries in the main message board” (N = 16) Choices

% Responses

Is relevant and is an important way to learn the ideas of other groups

38%

I seldom read these summaries

44%

Can be eliminated because I have never read the group summaries

19%

Chi² 10.12*

* p < 0.0063

would post very few, and 8% responded they would not post any messages at all! Only 21% responded they would post the same number of messages. One might argue that the survey data may not reflect the real level of participation in discussions if the postings were not required or assessed because all the postings in this course were actually required and assessed. Therefore, a firm claim of the effect of assessment on forum contributions must be tested with a treatment group whose postings in forums were assessed and compared with a control group whose postings in forums were optional and unassessed. Nevertheless, students’ responses to this survey question still reflect the “if not” situation because they had just completed the weekly postings for the entire semester and such learning experience would certainly affect their responses. Therefore, the “if not assessed” situation was contrasted against the real situation of “assessed” postings. There was further evidence that tasks that were not directly linked to assessment did not attract as

much attention and were difficult to sustain. For example, in the first offering of the course in the Spring semester, the moderators posted summary messages of each weekly group forum in a class forum by the deadline as required. However, these messages seldom attracted voluntary comments. Table 5 summarizes the Spring semester students’ responses to a survey question on the whole class forums. The results showed that while 38% of the students acknowledged that it was an important way to learn the ideas of the other groups, which may indicate these students had read summary messages from other groups, 44% of the students reported they seldom read these messages. 19% of the students responded that the class forum should be eliminated. As the whole class forum was not popular with the majority of the students in the first offering of the course, this task was eliminated in the Fall semester classes. To investigate whether students missed the level of input from other groups, the post course survey asked Fall semester students

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What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

Table 6. Fall semester students’ attitudes toward other group discussions (N = 37) Choices

% Responses

I wanted other group members to read our group discussions and I also missed the discussions in other groups.

8%

Every group should have summarized their forum discussions each week and post it to a general forum so that interested students could comment on the discussions in other groups.

14%

Participating my own group discussion is sufficient for me to understand the course contents. It would take too much time to read and respond to summary messages from other groups.

78%

Chi² 90.392

Table 7. Students’ attitudes toward deadlines in group discussions (N = 53) Statement

The deadlines for the readings and postings in each forum are very important because they help to complete the readings and the course

% Responses Strongly agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly disagree

Chi²

51%

42%

7%

0%

39.755

questions about their thoughts on the input from other groups. Table 6 summarizes the responses from the two Fall semester classes. Seventy-eight percent of the students felt that participating in their own group discussion was sufficient to learn the course contents and it would have taken too much time to read and respond to the summary messages from other groups. 14% responded that every group should have summarized their forum discussions each week and posted it to a general forum so that interested students could comment on the discussions in other groups. Very few students, 8% in all, wanted other group members to read their postings or missed the discussions in other groups. Therefore, with or without the summary postings in the whole class forums, the survey data suggest that the majority of students showed the same lack of interest in participating whole class discussions that were not graded.

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Deadlines Table 7 presents students’ responses to the importance of deadlines in the weekly postings of group forums. Overall, 93% of the students agreed or strongly agreed that the imposed deadlines for postings had an important impact on their participation in collaborative learning and in getting the tasks done in a timely fashion.

Group Formation Table 8 summarizes students’ responses to the question on group formation. 62% of the students responded that they preferred to work with the same people for their group discussions and 30% expressed that they did not have any preferences. Only 8% responded that they wanted to work with different people because

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

Table 8. Fall Semester students’ responses to “what is your view about group formation?” (N = 37) Choices

% Responses

I want to work with the same group members the way it is now because we know each other better.

62%

I want to work with different people in a group every few weeks because we will learn from other students we never meet.

8%

It will not make a difference to me working with the same people or different people in a group.

30%

they felt that they would also learn from other students they never interacted with in this course. Chi Square analysis yielded highly significant differences between the responses. It appears that the group as a community for online learning established deep roots in this course. Recall that the class level discussion forums in the form of summaries from each group forum was eliminated. Except for some course related general forums in which questions regarding course activities were exchanged, students generally did not have access to the majority of the fellow students in their class. It would not have been surprising if students had expressed their desires to learn the discussions in other groups through some form of exchanges on a class level, or, through reshuffling groups. Yet, the survey responses suggest that at least two thirds of the students did not express the need to work outside their fixed groups. It is important to note that the survey data reflected the student views towards their working groups that were fixed for the entire semester. If they actually had the chance to work in different groups in this online course, they might have different views. To explore the advantages and disadvantages of fixed or dynamic small groups in a Web-based course that uses weekly forum discussions, both group types need to be included in the data in future studies.

Chi² 44.244

Process vs. Product oriented Collaboration Table 9 presents students’ responses to a question that allowed for multiple choices about the group project. Two of the choices provided in the answers were aimed at assessing whether the assignment itself was important for the course in the students’ eyes because the importance of the group project may affect their overall performance. As seen in Table 9, 70% of the students from all three classes responded positively about the importance of this group project and agreed they learned a lot through doing it. However, 30% of the students felt that it could be an individual project focusing on one school rather than a group project that involved more collaboration. The Fall semester postcourse survey asked an additional question about the group project and the responses are summarized in Table 10. While 24% of the students preferred to work with peers because they had no problems to collaborate, exactly another 24% of them did not like to depend on other peoples’ schedules because some just did not get the work done on time. Similarly, although 22% of the students felt it worthwhile to collaborate for the group project despite the fact that it was difficult, 32% preferred individual work leading to a project of their own

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Table 9. The group project about bilingual programs in our local schools (N = 53) Multiple choices (choose all that apply)

% Responses

Is a good assignment and I learned a lot through doing the project.

70%

Makes the course readings more meaningful and more relevant to me.

68%

Is a good assignment but takes too much time to complete.

17%

Could be an individual assignment focusing on one school rather than a group project that involves more collaboration.

30%

Is not very important for this course.

4%

Table 10. Fall semester students’ response to the group project (N = 37) Choices

% Responses

I prefer individual work leading to a project of my own even though I only have information about one school.

32%

I prefer to collaborate with peers the way it is now because it is not a problem with me to collaborate.

24%

I prefer to collaborate with others for a group projected but I do not like to depend on other people’s schedule because some just do not get their work done on time.

24%

Even though it is hard to collaborative for the group project, it is still worth doing it because we learn more about our bilingual programs in different schools through doing it together.

22%

Chi² 1.162*

*P = 0.072

even though they would not accomplish as much. Chi Square analysis failed to yield significant differences between student responses to this question. Compared to 92.5% positive responses toward collaboration in forum discussions, students’ attitudes toward online collaboration in producing the group project were mixed. Such differences were also reflected in some student comments on the group project in the open-end questions. As the open-ended questions did not address the group project directly, only 11 students expressed their views about the group project in their responses to the question about their likes and dislikes about the course (Questions 18b), and the question about any changes they wanted to recommend to improve the course

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(question 18d). Of these 11 students, one commented that she liked the group project the most about this course. However, 10 expressed their dislikes or frustrations about the group project. One student wrote “I think it’s too inconvenient to try and get a group project together online. I also don’t like having someone’s performance affect my grade. I would rather do the project on my own.” It appears that the end product type of collaborative tasks demands more consensusbuilding collaboration. When students were timed for such intensive interaction and collaboration, they became less enthusiastic about it.

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

dISCuSSIon A number of issues can be identified in answering the four research questions raised earlier. The following two sections discuss these questions along with the research findings.

FactorsThat Promote Sustained online Small group discussions Survey data suggest that a number of factors contributed to the sustained small group discussions in this course. Among others, the structure of discussions with carefully prepared discussion questions, small groups with fixed group members for interactive learning activities, the direct link between participation and assessment, and the strictly imposed deadlines for each forum were the main factors that contributed to the sustained the interactive learning in this Web course. Previous studies suggest that topics that are not relevant to the course contents or not related to students’ life experience do not attract participation and are not sustainable in online discussions (Williams & Pury, 2002). One of the factors that might have contributed to the sustained online small group discussions in this study was that students not only always had “something to say” in each forum but knew exactly what specific questions they were expected to answer in advance. These written exercises required in the first round of postings kept each individual student accountable for knowing the contents through reading. Therefore, students’ interaction with the course readings, the first level of interaction with the material, was enhanced by producing written answers to be commented by peers in the group forums. Predetermined specific comprehension questions and thought provoking topic questions for each reading assignment helped students to focus on the learning contents and provided continuous discussion topics for the weekly group forums. Such proactive learning not only engaged students in a higher level of thinking (Gao &

Lehman, 2003; Wu, 2004) than the reactive type of learning but also kept the students accountable for participating in the weekly forums. The enthusiasm in group discussions never waned forum after forum because each forum focused on a new reading chapter. Furthermore, the comment messages required students to exchange information by building on each other’s ideas to negotiate for meaning and to collaboratively construction knowledge. Such interaction between peers and between students and instructors provided another level of interaction for learning. Students’ positive experience with the semester long forum discussions was related to the benefits of proactive learning and learning from each other for knowledge construction. While the advantages of online interactive learning have long been proved in previous studies (Kern, 1995; Lavooy & Newlin, 2003; Mouza, Kaplan & Espinet; 2000; Summer & Hostetler, 2002; Wang & Teles, 1998; Wu, 2003), this study provided new data for the use of small group discussion as the core interactive learning tasks through the application of carefully prepared discussion questions that elicits proactive learning and through peer interaction and collaboration. When online collaborative learning tasks become main course pedagogy, such interactive learning is likely to be more sustainable and effective. Previous studies have also indicated that collaboration as a process of participating to the knowledge communities is not an equal process to all the members of the community (Leinonen, Järvelä & Lipponen, 2003) and the size of online learning community affects the level of comforts which influences the level of participation (Williams & Pury, 2002). The current finings suggest that a group of 4-6 members can be an efficient and active learning community in which the members tend to generate sufficient responses from each other. On the other hand, the number of messages produced by each member was manageable and easy to keep track of. However, caution must be taken on this finding as the current study did not

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experience with other group sizes. Future studies need to test different group sizes with different learning tasks. The survey data also indicated that students believed that group cohesion and mutual trust was the main factor of their groups. Furthermore, the majority of students said they preferred working with the same members of the group for the entire semester rather than rotating the peers. Obviously, it takes time to establish such mutual trust, even in a small group of 4-6 members. Therefore, it is very likely that the group cohesion and mutual trust comes from the semester long interaction, cooperation, and collaboration online. A small number of students expressed the desire to work with different peers and some did not show preference in working with the same peers or not. Future studies need to investigate the benefits and disadvantages of dynamic group formations in which students are given the chance to work with different online peers during the semester. Survey data also indicated that assessment played a crucial role in motivating the students to participate in the semester-long group discussions week after week. Although over 90% of the students claimed that they learned more from reading and commenting on peers’ messages, many admitted they would not have posted as many messages if the postings had not been required and assessed. The data support the previous research findings that the assessment of collaborative learning tasks plays a crucial role in ensuring student participation. Macdonald (2003) reported that students actively contributed to the discussions when the tasks were assessed but participation of discussions waned when the postings became optional. Grade for discussion was also positively related to students’ perceived learning (Jiang & Ting 2000). Apparently, any optional interactive learning tasks would not have sustained for the entire semester. Current data also suggest that required postings that were not directly linked to assessment did not attract equal amount of attention as the

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graded postings. This was clearly demonstrated in the lack of interest in participating the forum discussions at the whole class level in the Spring class. Williams and Pury (2002, p. 1) reported that “contrary to much literature on electronic collaboration suggesting students enjoy online collaboration, our students did not enjoy online discussion regardless of whether the discussion was optional or mandatory.” It was not clear whether their “mandatory” participation of discussions was enforced by direct assessment of the actual postings in the forum discussions. This study provided further evidence that direct assessment of student interactive learning in CMC promotes sustained participation and interaction and also affects the level of participation and interaction. Another important factor that appeared to have contributed to the completion of each discussion forum on time for the entire semester was the strictly imposed deadlines for each round of posting in each discussion forum. Student responses to survey questions suggest that required postings alone were not sufficient for guaranteed participation and interaction within a time frame. Strict deadlines seemed to be the best solution to complete the weekly forums on schedule. Therefore, the importance of imposing deadlines cannot be overemphasized for even directly assessed interactive learning activities.

Process and Product oriented Interactive learning Very few studies have dealt with the differences between process and product oriented interactive learning tasks and how these differences influence peer interaction and collaboration (Kear, 2004; Kear & Heap, 1999; Macdonald, 2003). This Web-based course applied both process and product orientated interactive learning tasks that required different types and levels of interaction and collaboration. As discussed earlier, in the weekly group forums, the debate and exchange of ideas focused on the process of learning that did

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

not lead to a final product. In contrast, the group project was a product driven collaborative task in that the interaction and collaboration among the peers through sharing and exchange of ideas and negotiation must help to reach certain consensus to produce a group report. Survey data suggest that students were more enthusiastic about process oriented group discussions than the group project even though 70% of the students agreed that the group project was a good assignment and they learned a lot through doing it. Among others, the main reasons for students’ frustration about the group project were the difficulties in reaching agreement according to a time frame, especially in the online environment. The differences in working pace and conflicts of schedules, and, perhaps more importantly, differences in level of devotion to the collaborative task in online environment made it more difficult for the peers to reach consensus in the process of doing the group project. The early birds who preferred to start and complete their parts of the work in a timely fashion conflicted with those who procrastinated in getting the work done. As peers in the same group would receive a common grade only for their project, there was pressure for them to compromise to reach agreements in completing the project. Although the common grade can be used as a useful instructional strategy to implement end product driven collaborative tasks to encourage collaboration, the frustration and stress caused by the schedule conflicts and different levels of devotion toward such collaboration calls for more careful instructional design of such tasks. Perhaps some form of individual grading in addition to the interdependent grading are necessary to measure each individual student’s efforts and contribution. In fact, Kear and Heap (1999) reported that students expressed a preference for a higher individual grade component when both common and individual grades were assigned for their group project. It is important to balance the level of collaboration among the students

and the individual flexibility of online learning. Future studies need to address the pedagogical design of end product driven collaborative tasks in Web-based courses.

ConCluSIon And ReCommendATIonS This study identified some important factors that promote sustained online small group discussions as main interactive learning tasks in a Web-based course. Among other things, the structure of the online discussion, group size and group cohesion, strictly enforced deadlines, direct link of the interactive learning tasks to the assessment, and strictly imposed deadlines are some of the important factors that influence participation and motivate sustained online interaction and collaboration. The differences in process and product driven interactive learning tasks also have a different impact on student online collaboration. In general, students were more enthusiastic about process oriented than product driven collaborative tasks. Finally, as the current data are based on one Web-based course that was mainly a reading course, the findings may not be generalized into a broad scope. Because of this limitation, the current findings may not be directly applicable to other courses that have a different online pedagogical approach. Yet, a few recommendations may be made for designing and implementing similar interactive learning activities to promote sustained and effective online collaboration. •

Although a very good tool for promoting interactive learning and collaboration, online discussion is not always sustainable if not well planned and structured. It is recommended that instructors carefully design each forum discussion with direct involvement of course contents with predetermined specific questions to engage students in a

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•

• •

•

•

high level of thinking through providing written answers to the topics for which peer critiques are required. To continue to motivate the students, link the assessment with all interactive learning tasks utilizing specific grading scales. Impose strict deadlines for each round of postings in each discussion forum. Form small groups of 4-6 as learning communities for discussions so the peers will have sufficient input from each other yet still find it easy to keep track of all the postings in each new thread. Use process oriented interactive learning tasks to facilitate continuous online interaction and collaboration and yet still give each student sufficient amount of freedom in completing the assessed learning tasks. When design product oriented interactive learning tasks, much care needs to be taken in order to prepare the students to reach consensus. Give sufficient time for completing such learning assignment. Incorporate both common and individual grades in grading a group project.

ACknowledgmenT The author thanks Sarah Maddison, Terese Thonus, and Ondine Gage-Serio for their insightful comments on earlier versions of the paper. The author also appreciates many helpful comments from the Associate Editor. Thanks are also due to Dawn Truelsen for her assistance in online course design using Blackboard.

ReFeRenCeS Duin, H., & Hansen, C. (1994). Reading and writing on computer networks as social construction and social interaction. In C. Selfe & S. Hilligoss (Eds.), Literacy and computers: The complications of teaching and learning with technology (pp. 89-112). New York: The Modern Language Association. Gao, T., & Lehman, J. D. (2003). The effects of different levels of interaction on the achievement and motivational perceptions of college students in a Web-based learning environment. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(4), 367-387. Jiang, M., & Ting, E. (2000) A study of factors influencing students’ perceived learning in a Web-based course environment. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 6(4), 317-338. Kear, K. (2004). Peer learning using asynchronous discussion systems in distance education. Open Learning, 19(2), 151-164. Kear, K., & Heap, N. (1999). Technology-supported group work in distance learning. Active Learning, 10, 21-26. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79, 457- 476. Kuhl, D. (2002). Investigating online learning communities. U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). Lavooy, M. J., & Newlin, M. H. (2003). Computer mediated communication: Online instruction and interactivity. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(2), 157-165.

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Leinonen, P., Järvelä, S., & Lipponen, L. (2003). Individual students’ interpretations of their contribution to the computer-mediated discussions. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(1), 99-122. Macdonald, J. (2003). Assessing online collaborative learning: Process and product. Computers and Education, 40, 377-391. Mouza, C., Kaplan, D., & Espinet, I. (2000). A Web-based model for online collaboration between distance learning and campus students (IR020521). Office of Educational Research and Improvement. U.S. Department of Education. Sumner, M., & Hostetler, D. (2002). A comparative study of computer conferencing and face-to-face communications in systems design. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 13(3), 277-291.

Wang, X., & Teles, L. (1998) Online collaboration and the role of the instructor in two university credit courses. In. T. W. Chan, A. Collins, & J. Lin (Eds.), Global Education on the Net, Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Computers in Education (Vol. 1, pp. 154-161). Beijing/Heidelberg: China High Education Press and Springer-Verlag. Williams, S., & Pury, C. (2002). Student attitudes toward participation in electronic discussions. International Journal of Educational Technology, 3(1), 1-15. Wu, A. (2003). Supporting electronic discourse: Principles of design from a social constructivist perspective. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(2), 167-184.

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APPendIx SuRvey QueSTIonnAIRe 1. Is this your first Web-based (entirely online) course? a. ___Yes. b. ___No, I already took one entirely online course before this one. c. ___No, I took two or more other entirely online courses before this one. d. ___I took one or more Web-enhanced course (partially online) before this Web-based (entirely online course). e. ___No, I have never taken any Web-based nor Web-enhanced course.

2. This reading course is structured on group discussions with individual and group assignments. What are your thoughts about the structure of the course? a. ___I like the way the course is structured in terms of forum discussions because we learn from each other. b. ___I prefer weekly quizzes based on the readings rather than answering questions and joining the group discussions.

3. Will you post the same number of messages as you actually did over the semester if these postings were optional, not required and graded? a. b. c. d.

___Yes, I will post the same number of messages. ___I will post some messages but not as many. ___I will post very few messages. ___I will not post any messages.

4. Please circle one answer for each of the following: a. In our group forums, my answers to the questions and comments on peers’ messages help me to understand the contents/readings of the course better. strongly agree b.

agree

disagree strongly disagree

I learned more through online discussions than I would have learned from the lectures.

strongly agree

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disagree strongly disagree

My peers’ answers/comments helped me to understand the readings better.

strongly agree c.

agree

agree

disagree strongly disagree

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

d. The online discussion is helpful because we collaborate more with each other and support each other. strongly agree e.

agree

disagree strongly disagree

The group cohesion and mutual trust is an important factor in our group forums.

strongly agree

agree

disagree strongly disagree

f. I prefer individual work to group work and would have done better if I did not have to collaborate with my peers in my group for discussions. strongly agree

agree

disagree strongly disagree.

g. I prefer individual work to group work and would have done better if I did not have to collaborate with my peers in the group for the final project. strongly agree

agree

disagree strongly disagree.

h. The deadlines for the readings and postings in each forum are very important because they help me to complete the readings and the course. strongly agree

agree

disagree strongly disagree

i.The overall course contents are interesting and I have learned a lot about bilingualism and bilingual education from taking this course. strongly agree

agree

disagree strongly disagree.

5. Choose one of the following:



a. ___ I wanted other group members to read our group discussions and I also missed the discussions in other groups. b. ___ Every group should have summarized their forum discussions each week and post it to a general forum so that interested students could comment on the discussions in other groups. c. ___ Reading and responding to peers’ messages in our own group discussions is sufficient for me to understand the course contents. It would take too much time to read and respond to summary messages from other groups.

6. What is your view about group formation? a. ___I want to work with the same group members the way it is now because we know each other better. b. ___I want to work with different people in a group every few weeks because we will learn from other students we never meet. c. ___It will not make a difference to me working with the same people or different people in a group. 1199

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

7. The pace of the course, including readings and postings a. ___Is neither too fast nor too slow for me. b. ___Is too fast for me because I always try to catch up with the readings. c. ___Is too slow for me and we could have read more chapters. d. ___Should be OK for a course like this but I found it too fast for me because I work many hours a week and have limited time for course work.

8. Course documents: a. ___I printed out all the lecture notes and review guides (or some of them) because they are helpful. b. ___I read the lecture notes and the review guides online but did not print them all. c. ___I never printed out nor read the lecture notes and the review guides because they are not essential for me.

9. The videos on reserve in the music library are used in all other face to face sessions of the same course. I found these videos a. ___worth seeing because they are informative and very relevant to the course content. b. ___relevant to the course content, but it is hard for me to make special trips to the university to watch them all. c. ___are not relevant to the course content and can be omitted.

10. You took all the three exams online in this semester. Do you think the online exam should be kept the way they are now, or do you prefer to take these exams in a classroom on a certain date? a. b. c.

___I prefer online exams the way they are now. ___I prefer to come to a classroom to write the exams. ___I have no preference.

11. Exam format: a. b. c.

___ I prefer multiple choice exams. ___ I prefer essay question type of exams. ___ It does not make a difference for me.

12. The group project about bilingual programs in our local schools (circle all the answers that apply to you) a. ___Is a good assignment and I learned a lot through doing the project. b. ___Makes the course readings more meaningful and more relevant to me. c. ___Is a good assignment but takes too much time to complete. d. ___Could be an individual assignment focusing on one school rather than a group project that involves more collaboration. e. ___Is not very important for this course. 1200

What Factors Promote Sustained Online Discussions and Collaborative Learning?

13. For the group project: a. ___I prefer individual work leading to a project of my own even though I only have information about one school. b. ___I prefer to collaborate with peers the way it is now because it is not a problem with me to collaborate. c. ___I prefer to collaborate with others for a group projected but I do not like to depend on other people’s schedule because some just do not get their work done on time. d. ___Even though it is hard to collaborative for the group project, it is still worth doing it because we learn more about our bilingual programs in different schools through doing it together.

14. Overall, my experience with this Web-based course a. b. c. d.

___Is very positive. ___Is positive. ___Is negative. ___Is very negative.

15. Experience with the Blackboard and the online forums: circle all apply to you. a. ___I found it challenging at the beginning but quickly picked up and like it now. b. ___The interface is straightforward and easy to learn, although I was not very experienced with any online courses. c. ___It was never a problem for me because I am good at technology. d. ___It was a plus because I learned the technology as well as the course contents.

16. If I have the choice in future, a. b. c.

___I will take a similar Web-based course. ___I will not choose to take a similar Web-based course. ___It will not make a difference, Web-based or face-to-face version.

17. Would you recommend a friend to take this Web-based course? a. b. c.

___Yes ___No ___Not sure

18. Please take some time to answer the following questions: a. Please describe your experience with the forum discussion part of the course. (positive, negative, expectation, effect on learning, etc. anything you think is relevant)

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b. What do you like the most, or dislike the most about this course? c. In your opinion, what are the most important elements for a Web-based course like this to be successful? d. To improve the course for future students, what changes do you recommend?

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 2, Issue 1, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 17-38, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.6

Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students by Creating Brain Based Online Learning Environments Silvia L. Braidic California University of Pennsylvania, USA

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the reader on how to foster successful learning communities to meet the diverse needs of university students by creating a brain based online learning environment. Students come in all shapes and sizes. At the university level, students enrolled in online programs, have made a choice to do so. Today, online education is a unique and important venue for many students wishing to continue (or start) their education. It is part of a new culture with many distinct characteristics (Farrell, 2001). For instructors, online instruction creates its own set of challenges in terms of the

course design and implementation. The author hopes that developing an understanding of how to create a brain based online learning environment will inform the reader of ways to foster successful learning communities to most effectively meet the diverse needs of the students it serves.

InTRoduCTIon Students come in all shapes and sizes. At the university level, students enrolled in online programs, have made a choice to do so. Individuals of various ages enter our programs. These individuals learn

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Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students

differently, and because this is true, we must keep this in mind in creating a learning community at the university level that will meet the diverse needs of the online learner. Today, online education is a unique and important venue for many students wishing to continue (or start) their education. It is part of a new culture with many distinct characteristics (Farrell, 2001). For instructors, online instruction creates its own set of challenges in terms of the course design and implementation in order to most effectively meet the diverse needs of the students it serves. In order to most effectively foster a successful online learning community, it is important to consider what it means to meet the diverse needs of students.

BACkgRound Differentiation has come to mean “consistently using a variety of instructional approaches to modify content, process, and/or products in response to learning readiness, interest, and learning profile of academically diverse students” (Tomlinson, 1999). The standards tell us what our students need to know and be able to do in the K-12 setting. The same is true at the university level when preparing school principals. State and national standards guide our programs so that they address what future school leaders must know and be able to do. Although the goal is the same – to become school leaders – these students are still diverse in terms of readiness, interest and learning profile. Differentiated instruction helps to get students in achieving the end result, while at the same time teaching them how to learn in a meaningful way. The pedagogical theory that guides differentiation is constructivism; the belief that learning happens when the learner makes meaning out of information (Benjamin, 2005). Just as we have a variety of learners in the face-to-face setting, the same is true in an online environment. Online education must capitalize on student’s unique ap-

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proaches to learning, says Nishikant Sonwalkar (2003). In order to do so, we must design and implement programs of study and courses that differentiate to meet the needs of the students we serve. Tomlinson’s (1999) framework on differentiation of instruction indicates that it is “a teacher’s response to learner’s needs guided by general principles of differentiation, such as respectful tasks, flexible grouping, and ongoing assessment and adjustment.” At the university level, students enroll in programs because of their need or their desire to study in a particular field. With this in mind, we as instructors need to create the conditions for someone to become interested in learning. The research (Tomlinson, 1999) indicates that individuals learn in accordance with their readiness to do so. Jensen (2000) indicates that moderate challenge is critical. When a task is not challenging enough, students become bored. Yet, if a task is too challenging, students become anxious. Also when interest is tapped, learning is more likely to be rewarding, and students becomes more autonomous learners. When designing a learning environment, helping students to discover and pursue their passions can maximize their engagement with learning, their productivity, and their individual talents. Finally, individuals vary in preference for conditions of learning and that consideration of the multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1991) is also important.

BRAIn BASed leARnIng envIRonmenTS Clearly the most important role of the online instructor is to model effective teaching and accept “the responsibility of keeping discussions tracked, contributing special knowledge and insights, weaving together various discussion threads and course components, and maintaining group harmony” (Rohfeld & Hiemstra, 1995, p. 91). Differentiating instruction is good teaching

Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students

and it is here to stay. Therefore, it is important to first understand what differentiated instruction is in order to design courses that will meet the diverse needs of the students it serves. In addition to designing courses to take into account knowledge, skills and dispositions as it relates to their academic focus, you must ensure that your students will access this information in ways best suited to them. Generally, adult learning occurs when the learner is actively engaged in the learning process. As an instructor, it is essential to create an interesting and engaging online environment that can help settle and focus the learner just as you would want to do in a face-to-face class setting. In order to do so, let us consider creating a brain based classroom that supports differentiated instruction. Gregory and Chapman (2002) suggest that the following factors are necessary in a brain based classroom. Brain organization and Building safe environments Recognizing and honoring diversity Assessment Instructional strategies New models/Numerous curriculum approaches Let’s take a moment to consider these for the online environment.

BRAIn oRgAnIzATIon And BuIldIng SAFe envIRonmenTS In order for student learning to occur, students need to feel safe to take risks and experiment with ideas. They need to feel included in the class and supported by others. In an online environment, it is important to take time to create a course that is learner friendly. Adults have a disposition toward learning. Students involved in a principal’s program of study are there for a reason. One thing is certain, students must be motivated to learn

and feel safe for effective learning to take place. Online, take time to consider how responsibility, flexibility, feedback, individual and group work can play a role with respect to emotional factors. Creating an environment in which students feel comfortable with the instructor and other students, as well as with various instructional approaches will help to establish an engaging class setting. A few practical strategies related to Brain Organization and Building Safe Environments are:

Course Office Just as in the traditional sense, an instructor can create an online office. There, students may post questions as it relates to the course content. Instructors can also set scheduled office hours in which students are assured that the instructor would be available for consultation during that particular time.

Course lounge The course lounge provides students with an opportunity to introduce and acquaint themselves with one another. The course lounge is an excellent way to begin the semester. There students can share information about themselves and it serves as a place to casually meet and talk as a class throughout the semester.

Cohort model A cohort model provides students with an opportunity to begin and work through an entire program of study with the same group of students. This provides students with an opportunity to develop relationships that may begin in the program of study, but will hopefully continue into their professional roles upon graduating. The cohort model offers a support system in which the same group of students is assigned to the same faculty advisor.

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Advisement Each student in the program of study is assigned a faculty advisor from the onset of the program. The advisor serves as a support and mentor to the students. Each advisor has established an online advisement environment that strives to not only provide information, but also continued support.

ReCognIzIng And honoRIng dIveRSITy In a brain based classroom, recognizing and honoring diversity plays an important role. By differentiating instruction to appeal to the learners’ varied learning styles, interests, and readiness, the instructor is creating a learner friendly environment. In the online class, providing opportunities for students to “show what they know” in a variety of ways allows us to work to meet the needs of the diverse population we serve. When differentiating instruction, three questions that an instructor must ask himself/herself are: 1. 2. 3.

What do I want my students to know, understand and be able to do? (content) What will I do instructionally to get my students to learn this? (process) How will my students show what they learned? (product)

Content is what students are to learn. The standards set the context for the content that students will learn in terms of what they should know and be able to do. In an online environment, content is differentiated when you pre-assess students’ knowledge and skills, then match the learners with appropriate learning activities according to their readiness. Content is also differentiated when you give students choices about topics to explore in greater depth. Finally, content can be differentiated when you provide students with

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basic and advanced resources that match their current levels of understanding. Process is the “how” of teaching. Process refers to the activities that you design to help students think about and make sense of the key principles and information of the content they are learning. In an online environment, process plays a critical role in differentiating to meet the needs of the students. Products are the way or the vehicle through which students demonstrate what he or she has learned. A good product causes students to rethink what they have learned, apply what they can do, extend their understanding and skill, and become involved in both critical and creative thought.

ASSeSSmenT In creating a brain based classroom, instructors must ask themselves if students have the opportunity for ongoing feedback, if they have time to revisit ideas and concepts to connect or extend them, and if students have time to reflect and set goals. In an online environment ongoing assessment plays a crucial role. Some practical ready to use ideas related to assessment include:

Anchor Papers/models The use of anchors or model papers/projects provides students with an opportunity to understand the course requirements by reviewing various levels of student work. This provides students with information that will help them to feel safe to experiment and take risks, but understand the criteria as it relates to meeting course objectives. It helps them to understand the assessment process and expectations.

Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students

Audio, Text, or video Feedback

online Journal

Just as we take time to provide feedback in a faceto-face classroom; it is essential to do so as well in the online course. Feedback provides students with information as it relates to a particular assignment, discussion, or project. Feedback can take on various forms. Providing feedback in a variety of ways continues to meet the needs of diverse students. Although feedback in text form via an email or posted on a discussion board is quite effective, at times the reaction and tone of one’s voice can convey a message in a more powerful way. Video feedback to an overall class is yet another way to provide students with a clear message and allows them to also see and hear your concerns.

Online journals provide students with the opportunity to reflect and set goals as it relates to the course content and real experiences. Journals can take on various formats in terms of what questions students must respond to. Often, instructors may ask students to consider a K-W-L format. In this way, students can take a moment to reflect upon what they already KNOW as it relates to course content, what they WANT to know, and then take time to revisit and share what they have LEARNED. A natural progression to this, especially at the end of a semester, is to take time to set goals for future work as it relates to ongoing learning in these areas.

Field Projects

InSTRuCTIonAl STRATegIeS And new modelS/numeRouS CuRRICulum APPRoACheS

In the principal’s program, taking time to create projects that engage students throughout the course of the semester provides them with time to explore, understand, and also transfer their learning to long term memory. Field projects provide an excellent way to help students blend theory with practice. It also provides an opportunity for some student choice in making meaning of the course content.

Questioning Questioning provides an opportunity to engage in ongoing assessment throughout the semester. Questioning allows an instructor to ask a variety in terms of complexity so that one can address the diverse needs in the class and meet students where they are. Questioning can occur in threaded discussions, via emails (text and voice), assignments, projects, and real world problem based scenarios. Also, providing students with an opportunity to not only answer questions, but to ask them as well, helps to make them self reflective and set goals.

An essential component in any classroom, whether face-to-face or online is whether expectations are clearly stated and understood by the learners. The standards address the content, skills and dispositions as it relates to the program, but as an instructor, taking time to create a course that engages students in a variety of ways to learn will be important in creating a brain friendly and differentiated classroom online. Intellectually, adults learn by reading, listening, watching and the like, but they will learn best if they are actively involved in the process. Just as in a face-to-face classroom, you have students with a preferred method of learning, the same will hold true in an online course. Therefore, it is essential to present new material through a variety of instructional strategies, appealing to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities. Of what we learn, we retain 5-10% of what we read 10% of what we hear

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30% of what we see 50% of what we see and hear 70% of what we seek, hear, and do 90% of what we see, hear, vocalize while doing. (author unknown) In an online environment, this may happen in one or more of the following ways:

Presentation This approach has been utilized in traditional and in the online classroom. In an online class, taking time to create a narrated PowerPoint provides students with a visual and auditory presentation. It gives the instructor an opportunity to highlight main ideas and stress important points.

Threaded discussions The Discussion Board is a communication medium for posting and responding to messages. Conversations are grouped as threads that contain a main posting and all related replies (Blackboard Inc., 2005). In a threaded discussion users have the option of responding to one another directly. Although there may be a general topic, subtopics emerge as students respond to specific postings.

Chats Online conversations take place in real time in chat rooms. The Chat allows the users to interact with each other via a text-based chat (Blackboard Inc., 2005). When a user posts a message to a chat room, every other user who is viewing the chat room sees the message and can respond immediately. Participating in a chat room is like participating in a face-to-face group discussion.

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live Classroom Users can ask questions, draw on the whiteboard, and participate in breakout sessions from the Virtual Classroom. (Blackboard Inc., 2005). In the live or virtual classroom, instructors can allow students to raise their hand to ask questions, poll, share PowerPoint presentations, or even engage students to take the lead in a breakout session. Text and audio are an integral part of the live classroom.

Text/Audio/video The use of audio, video, and text formats in a class will help to meet the diverse needs of the students. By structuring your course to include a blend of print based, audio, and video formats, you will be addressing the various modalities of the students. This should be modeled by the instructor and encouraged to be used by the students throughout the course of the class. This may happen through voicemail, voice boards, discussion threads, submission of videos, and the like.

Field work Field work is an essential component of each course in the principal program of study. Field work provides students with an opportunity to integrate theory with practice in a meaningful way. It also provides students with an opportunity to engage in diverse field settings and work on assignments that offer some student choice.

Real life Situations/Simulations Real life situations in the course of a principal’s program are an essential learning tool. Throughout the course of study, students engage in various real life situations/simulations that allow them to blend theory with practice and also bring their personal experiences into play.

Fostering Successful Learning Communities to Meet the Diverse Needs of University Students

Cooperative learning: Jigsaw One example of a cooperative learning approach utilized in a face-to-face setting that can also be quite effective in an online class is the Jigsaw method. In the jigsaw approach, instructors create learning groups known as “home teams.” Each individual on the team is assigned a particular focus in terms of research or portion of an assignment. These individuals become experts in their particular area. Each home team will have experts in the corresponding area. The experts from each of the teams will meet. This will provide them with an opportunity to engage in research, discussion, and also work to synthesize material so that they can come back and share this with their “home team.” Online, the use of chat rooms or live breakout sessions is an excellent way to accomplish this. In addition, as the instructor, you can assign particular roles to most effectively meet the needs of the students in your class. This is a wonderful opportunity to build upon student strengths and areas of interest.

Future Trends As universities move toward serving students in an online setting, it is important to assist instructors in fostering successful online learning communities that will address these needs. Understanding what can facilitate a brain based learning community in an online setting is essential. Taking the brain into consideration as we create and teach in an online setting is a good idea, but other factors should also be considered. Questions for future research may include: 1. 2.

3.

What are the successful characteristics of the online university instructor? If you are an instructor teaching in a faceto-face setting, how can instruction translate to an online venue? What training or professional development is available to instructors who teach online

4.

so that quality instruction is not lost, but instead strengthened? Research (Jensen, 2005) on brain maturation indicates that the commonly mandated policy of “everybody on the same page on the same day” makes little sense? How does this impact online learning?

ConCluSIon Fostering successful online learning communities to meet the diverse needs of university students are a challenging task. Since the one size fits all approach is not realistic in a face-to-face or online setting, it is essential as an instructor to take time to understand differentiation and work to create an interesting and engaging online learning environment. The simplest, most effective way to improve student achievement is to improve teacher effectiveness (Sanders, Wright, & Horn, 1997).

ReFeRenCeS Armstrong, T. (2000). Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Barclay, K. (2001). Active Adult Learning. Retrieved May 25, 2008 from http://www.stratvisions.com. Benjamin, A. (2005). Differentiated Instruction Using Technology, Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education. Blackboard Inc. (2005). Blackboard Academic Suite: Instructor Manual Farrell, B. (2001). Developing a Successful Online Class: What Works to Keep Students Motivated and Interested. Education at a Distance Journal, 5(15). Gardner, H. (1991). The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach. NY: Basic Books.

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Gregory, G., & Chapman, C. (2002). Differentiated Instructional Strategies –One Size Doesn’t Fit All. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Heacox, D. (2001). Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing. Jensen, E. (2000). Different Brains, Different Learners. San Diego: The Brain Store, www. thebrainstore.com. Jensen, E. (2005). Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Levine, M. (1992). All Kinds of Minds. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Source. Rohfeld, R. W., & Hiemstra, R. (1995). Moderating discussions in the electronic classroom. In Z. Berge & M. Collins (Eds.), Computer Mediated Communication and the Online Classroom Volume 3: Distance Learning (pp. 91-104). Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press.

Sanders, W., Wright, S., & Horn, S. (1997). Teacher and classroom context effects on student achievement: Implications for teacher evaluation. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 11(1), 57–67. doi:10.1023/A:1007999204543 Sonwalkar, N. (2003). Logging in with Nishikant Sonwalkar – Online Education Must Capitalize on Students’ Unique Approaches to Learning. Chronicle of Higher Education – Distance Education. Tomlinson, C. A. (1995). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms. ASCD. Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. ASCD. Wolfe, P. (2001). Brain Matters: Translating Research Into Practice. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Wormelli, R. (2006). Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom. Stenhouse Publishers.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 4, edited by L. A. Tomei, pp. 18-25, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.7

Framing Pedagogy, Diminishing Technology: Teachers Experience of Online Learning Software Julia Thornton RMIT University, Australia

ABSTRACT This chapter explores frames and sensemaking as a means of understanding the experiences of teachers in higher education who are slow adopters of technology in settings where technology is also inflexible. Literature on teaching online emphasises the differences between online and face-to-face teaching over the similarities between them, and conceptualises this as a discrepancy in expectation between face-to-face and online teaching that requires teachers to remodel their approach to overcome it. Problems of low uptake of courseware systems by teachers are commonly identified as either problems of teachers’ insufficient technical knowledge, or as problems of the nature of technology, however it is more useful to understand them as sensemaking problems where teachers deal with DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch016

new technology using old frameworks. Two cases are explored in depth showing that some frames require less effort to produce good teaching. The paper suggests that teachers with inflexible frames must break them to adapt to online environments. However, a pre-existing pedagogically oriented frame already primed to seek out new settings for learning forms a minimally sufficient frame for sensemaking within an online setting even in the absence of strong technological skills

InTRoduCTIon It does not take a great deal of contact with those using technology in teaching and learning within higher education to realise that while some are hugely engaged by the possibilities opened up by new media, a great number of teachers either do not engage or engage in a very limited way with new media and online learning.

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Framing Pedagogy, Diminishing Technology

The literature however tends to be written by and for early adopters. A large proportion of the writing on teaching with online technology is devoted to exploring, in both technology and in teaching practices, the further reaches of educative creativity made possible by the racing technologies of a networked world. Such enthusiasm suggests we are all cutting edge, and the curiosity for researchers lies in the manner of innovation. This I think is far from the truth. Most of us working in the field are stuck with technology which is aging, recalcitrant and ill-suited to adaptation, and many teachers are characterised by both technologists and educators associated with online learning, as well as by University policy makers as conservative, ‘resistant’ or unwilling to engage in the brave new world of online teaching. Further, not only are some teaching staff constrained in their use of technology, in many cases the technology itself is also constraining, such as the environment offered by Learning Management Systems (LMS’s) like Blackboard. It is this rather unfashionable bunch of slow adopters grappling with ‘low’ technologies that constitute my interest. Is it possible that despite these barriers some teachers nevertheless teach well online? If so, why are they able to do so? Whilst much has been done to analyse the comprehension and use of technology by online learners, less recognition is given to teachers’ experience of using technology to produce that learning. The literature that predominates is literature that by and large presents a normative account of teaching online – it instructs in new ways of using technology or proffers sets of criteria that should be met in the production of learning online. Little research has been undertaken to identify subjective experience particularly in the case of online teaching technological “laggards”. There are exceptions in discussions of technology use outside of higher education teaching such as Klein (2005) who usefully divides characterisations of non-adopters of Digital TV into “refuseniks’ and “victims”, a distinction which appears

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to carry over to academia where policy makers infer an assumed split between academics who do not adopt because they are apparently “resistant” and students who do not adopt because they are “a group at risk of digital exclusion” (p 1). There is also a large multidisciplinary literature on “Technological Adoption Models” (TAM) (Davis’s seminal article (Davis, 1989) is cited 4417 times by other authors according to Google Scholar). This literature concentrates on users, usefulness, ease of use and readiness (on the latter, see for instance Lin, Shih, & Sher (2007)). But use does not address the cognitive conditions brought by teachers to the transition from facility with one form of teaching to facility with another, especially when faced with an inflexible and limiting LMS. The online environment created by Blackboard is also seen as passé by researchers keen on the possibilities opened up by mobile technologies, Second Life and Web 2.0. Explaining differences in how teachers respond to the limitations and opportunities presented by older style course management systems is to take the path less trodden, but it is also to address the concerns of a large group if not a majority of teachers. Shih, Feng, & Tsai’s (2008) content analysis of studies of course management systems found a very low number of articles addressing teacher’s cognition as they navigate the unfamiliar landscapes of online teaching. In a contribution to redressing this, I want to focus on that aspect of cognition - sensemaking (Karl E Weick, 1995) which posits frames and framing as an essential aspect of sensemaking cognition, to draw out the kind of thinking on which teachers base their approach to online teaching. This study is part of a larger study that uses the lens of the sensemaking research of Karl Weick to understand how teachers in higher education generally make sense of online teaching environments. Here I address sub questions of the study, ‘What makes some teachers more receptive to

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and better at online teaching than others? What sort of sensemaking is going on here?’ My research suggests that there are at least four very different more or less prototypical ways of thinking about and using online courseware, and that one in particular may offer a way forward to more accurate depiction of the conditions of uptake. It may help to isolate factors that influence instructors’ adoption and use of Internet-based course management systems in ways that produce better quality teaching. I begin by showing that problems of low uptake and command of courseware systems by teachers in higher education are commonly identified as either problems of insufficient technical knowledge, or as problems of the nature of the technology. I go on to consider an alternative understanding of the relationship between teaching and technology by describing and analysing four characteristic styles of teaching shown by my investigation. I provide two case studies of uncommonly understood but to my mind, archetypal approaches to teaching with technology as an illustration of the argument that effective online teaching owes more to the extent to which a strong and deeply understood personal approach to pedagogy and principles of teaching has been developed beforehand than it does to an innovative and technologically masterful grasp of the software. Finally I consider the role of cognitive frames as an illumination of what might be occurring in the case of teachers who take this approach.

lITeRATuRe on TeAChIng And leARnIng: dIFFeRenCe, ChAnge And TRAnSITIon Literature on teaching online tends to emphasise the differences between teaching online and teaching face to face over the similarities between them. This idea of differences is conceptualised as a gap

or discrepancy in expectation between teaching face to face and teaching online that requires a remodelling of approach to overcome it. Hannon (2008) encapsulates this as, ” …the connecting theme of innovation in higher education contexts seems to be significant change, and its potential to transform practice. As an example, the appropriation by learners of social software technologies of interaction and collaboration is identified as a “disruptive” type of innovation…” (p 389) Hannon here exemplifies the themes of change and disruption deemed to be characteristic of teaching in online environments. The idea of the breakdown of conscious and unconscious anticipations and assumptions that allow mental activity to naturally flow when a subject is confronted with disruption or new or unpredictable events and circumstances, is central to Karl Weick’s reading of “sensemaking”, (1995, pp. 4 -6) . Under conditions of confrontation with a conceptual gap, or life ‘not as we know it’, sensemaking may collapse, as Weick illustrates with his story of “fire jumpers” (1993). Alternatively, central assumptions may be radically remodelled but only at the cost of conscious effort, as he illustrates in his story of the emergence of “battered child syndrome” or child abuse as a workable category of event (Weick 1995 p 1-3). The theme in the online instructional design literature of disruption of thought caused by a perceived disjunction between the two forms of teaching is then overlayed with notions of progress; the idea that it is in fact desirable to change towards greater use of online modes for variously cited reasons (such as institutional economy, industry requirements, or pedagogical desirability) and the idea that this is a forward movement or natural direction of travel. The result is a construction of the relationship between face-to-face teaching and

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online teaching as a transition across a gap on several dimensions. An incomplete but indicative list includes: •

Changes to technological skill

Essentially this is the change from mastering the ‘low’ technology of the classroom to mastering the ‘high’ technology of online environments. Such skill acquisition is often discussed as a division between “early adopters” and “laggards”, echoing the influential ideas of Everett M Rogers, (2003) whose book is now in its fifth edition since 1962 and who then in 1962, divided technology adopters into five groups: ‘innovators’, ‘early adopters’, ‘early majority’, ‘late majority’, and ‘laggards’. Other writers who exemplify a similar orientation, placing technological mastery at the centre and whose work is infused with Roger’ s ideas include for instance Wilson and Stacey (2004), Klein (2005), and Kelly (2007). •

Changes to teaching ‘competencies’

This is a requirement for a change in practice and thinking by individual teachers oriented towards special models and new forms of instructional design to accommodate the inherent difference in an online environment. The subject of extensive research, this literature examines the gaps in understanding and barriers to participation by teachers, and is concerned with adding the frameworks, criteria and standards for good teaching online, eg Anderson (2008) who suggests “….the pervasive effect of the online medium creates a unique environment for teaching and learning…” (p 344 my emphasis); and Sieber (2005) who argues “….neophyte online course developers typically have major misconceptions about the pedagogy that produces effective online learning” (p 329 my emphasis). Competency based approaches to bridging a gap in staff development for online delivery are suggested by, for example, Goodyear, Salmon,

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Spector, Steeples & Tickner (2001) and are also reproduced in university policy documents, eg, RMIT University DLS Professional Development (2002) and the University of South Australia’s “Preparing a course for online delivery” (2008). Bates, (2007) effectively sums up the central idea of an online environment as categorically different from a face-to-face environment for instructional design purposes. However, for flexible learning, designs for teaching are required which are entirely different from the classroom model. E-Learning not only requires decisions about the place and time of delivery of programs but also the type of teaching and learning that should be adopted. Instructors above all need to understand fully the different options available to them and to keep abreast of the changing needs of employers. Thus e-learning requires a rethinking of the curriculum and how best it can be taught. (p 55)

•

Changes to techniques of professional development and scholarship of teaching and learning

Some writers feel that professional development itself should be changed to a technological mode of delivery, including methods of sharing instructional design. For instance Laurellard (2008) advocates “the use of an online learning activity management system as a way of capturing and sharing the pedagogic forms teachers design” (p139) to assist teachers in developing and disseminating their own teaching knowledge. The ‘Peer Review of Online Teaching and Learning Project’ (Wood, 2008), is also currently implementing online professional development, self described as “…a comprehensive, integrated Web-enabled peer review system that guides academic staff in the development or redevelopment of their own courses through reflective processes,

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and uses these same criteria to have their work evaluated” (para 2). The final category in this list of change, although not exhaustive of the literature, is that of •

Changes in organisational focus

Here the emphasis is on the change from organisational professional development practices that concentrate on the individual teacher to professional development that reflects the wider organisational approach to ICT in teaching and learning. Examples include Kirkwood and Price (2006) who argue that for a comprehensive cultural change to take place, all members of the organisation who play a part in the delivery of online solutions, not just teaching staff, must be involved in professional development activities relating to teaching and learning with ICT in order that they understand the implications of their policies and practices. In other words, the change needs to be organisation-wide. Conole (2007) also argues for a comprehensive organisational understanding of a complex range of inter-connected pedagogical, technical and organisational factors which elearning interventions bring into any setting. She suggests that failure to comprehend the extent and complexity of change required by the introduction of online learning may result in spectacular collapses such as that of UK eUniversity. All these examples illustrate the idea that the numerous differences between the two forms are the paramount obstacle to successful adoption that then requires an effortful transition from one state to another What they have in common is a representation of a gap of the kind as described by Weick, Sutcliffe and Obstfeld when they say, Explicit efforts at sensemaking tend to occur when the current state of the world is perceived to be different from the expected state of the world, or when there is no obvious way to engage the world. In such circumstances there is a shift from

the experience of immersion in projects to a sense that the flow of action has become unintelligible in some way. (2005) What the examples also have in common is a sense of foreboding that if something is not done some sort of collapse or serious deficit will result from that gap and that therefore various kinds of active and effortful sensemaking must be mobilised in an attempt to bridge it.

TRAnSITIon To whAT? PRoBlemS wITh CuRRenT exPlAnATIonS When it comes to understanding ‘slow adopters’ grappling with ‘low’ technologies in considering how individual teachers make sense of differences between technological and non-technological environments, the transition theories of most interest are those that either attend to the adopters or to the technology. Sometimes the issue is identified as a problem of the technology itself embedding the ‘wrong’ pedagogy. Sometimes it is identified as a problem of insufficient attention to developing a web based or online pedagogy. In oversimplifying causal terms these could be understood as two opposing syllogisms – ‘If technology is low level in its ‘affordances’, then adopting will not be optimised’, or ‘If adopters are slow at developing a suitable pedagogy then technology will not be optimised’. An analysis of Postle and Sturman (2003) illustrates the problems inherent in the view that technology embeds the ‘wrong’ pedagogy. In their survey of the “major issues and dilemmas of online teaching”, they note the “tendency for some to allow the technology (in this case the software) to direct the nature of teaching and learning” (p 21). They quote Skilbeck to show how the way knowledge is imagined in the design of the courseware influences the user’s picture of teaching,

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Knowledge is being broken down constantly into manageable, assimilable groups of elements, which are being joined with other elements in creating whole new forms, bodies, structures of knowledge. This is not a philosophical or theoretical movement; it is a result of course design strategies and procedures and the resources of technology. I doubt whether sufficient attention is being given to systematic, coherent curriculum designs grounded in clear views about the contribution of university study to either general education or lifelong learning. (Skilbeck (2001), p. 61 in Postle & Sturman p 19) Skilbeck with Postle & Sturman interpret such courseware design constraints as having an overwhelming influence on use. In other words they make the problem of using online methods a technology design problem. Adams and Morgan (2007) provide another illustration of technological structuration. They divide online learning technologies into “first’ and “second” generation on the basis of encoded practices they see in the software itself. “First generation” software they claim is teacher centred and fosters “compliant, rule-based learning” whereas second generation software is designed to “(a) put learners in control of their learning and allow them to (b) create self-organizing learning paths…” (p 161). They say ….the driving force behind the use of “first generation” e-leaming for soft-skills development has been the use of web technology to deliver existing content in new ways and/or to replicate traditional classroom experiences online (e.g., e-readings, e-articles, e-books, webzines, e-classrooms). The focus has been predominantly on the “e” for electronic (e.g., infrastructure, hardware, software, e-products, etc.), not the “1” for learning. Limited attention has been given to the challenge of reinventing learning content or pedagogy to tap into the inherent self-organizing capacities

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of the Web, hence, to actually improve the quality of learning and its direct application (e.g., to job-based performance improvement). From an early stage, the soft-skills online industry appears to have locked itself into a technology mindset that is now driving e-learning development and the market as a whole. (p 167 – 168) To take this view is to agree with the proposition that the technology itself reflects the understanding of pedagogy of the designers – a not unreasonable proposition. It does however turn over the responsibility for “learner centred teaching” (or, for that matter, any other pedagogical principle, by extension) to the capacities built into the software. As well it suggests that the Web itself is innately possessed of a more flexible pedagogy than that of proprietary software, a kind of invisible hand of self organisation that extends to enhancing the self organisational capacities of the students using it, and that this is preferable to deliberative instructional design and pedagogical principles. Ask and Haugen (2008) are an instance of the second proposition, that of insufficient attention by teachers to developing a web based or online pedagogy. They quote Kirkwood & Price (2006) “…the use of (Information and Communication Technologies) necessitates more than simply replicating or supplementing existing teaching practices: everything governing these practices must be reconsidered and reflected upon” (p 1-2). In this respect they are at one with the other authors noted above who emphasise the change needed in individual teacher’s pedagogical orientation to accommodate online delivery. The argument implies that the framing of teaching practice prior to moving to an online teaching environment is an impediment to developing effective online teaching methods. Ask and Haugen do not say why they think this. One possibility is that they attribute almost insurmountable novelty to an online teaching environment that is so unlike face-to-face teaching or which offers so

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many unfamiliar opportunities for delivery that the old pedagogical certainties no longer hold. They comment, To avoid just replicating and supplementing existing teaching practices, staff and administration need to adjust their visions and methods to include the new options. This may however be like shooting at a moving target, since the technology and its applications are changing rapidly. (p 1-2) They suggest that the major problem in delivering online learning is the problem of developing a technology specific pedagogy. The “technology specific pedagogy” that they go on to discuss however, appears to consist of applying general pedagogy – largely constructivist - to online settings. This begs the question of whether academic teachers in Ask and Haugen’s study were especially improving their online pedagogy or instead learning more about generally effective pedagogical technique which they could then adapt to an online delivery mode. Comments made by participants hint at the latter. One participant seemed to find constructivism as a whole, a revelation. “I augmented my usual “instructivist” lectures with “constructivist” homework for the first time” (p 6). A second participant, having learned instructional design specifically for use with courseware commented that “Academically, I can self-direct, plan, set personal learning goals and actively engage in group activities” (p 6). Both constructivism and self direction are teaching techniques which are helpful just as much in face-to-face teaching as they are online, suggesting that while the technological skill of the teachers may well have advanced, along with pedagogical technique, the result could not necessarily be called a “technology specific pedagogy”, but rather a generally improved understanding of pedagogy applicable to a number of teaching modes.

Both arguments outlined above position the pedagogy of technology either as something specific to be separately learned or as something embedded in the software. Both thus credit the technology itself with a degree of agency inasmuch as in both cases technology creates ‘the problem’ that must be surmounted. This view of technology, as a ‘force’ or as deterministic in some respect or other, has a continuing history in technology studies as a source of debate - the ‘technology wars’. Beginning with Pinch and Bijker’s (1984) call for a constructivist approach to technology studies discussion took off in earnest with the debate between Woolgar and Pinch over ‘relativist constructivism’ (Pinch, 1993; Woolgar, 1991, 1993) and was perpetuated by later similar divides, as exemplified by a debate between Winner and Woolgar over the political consequences (and by implication the technological determinism) of building a bridge that purportedly excluded buses. (Winner, 1999; Woolgar & Cooper, 1999). It re-emerged more recently with new arguments for forms of determinism (in the guise of the persistence of Moore’s law) (Ceruzzi, 2005) and defences of SST (Social Shaping of Technology) such as that by Clausen and Yoshinaka (2004) who suggest that the conditions of actor engagement are shaped by how problems are defined and resolved and this shapes how technology is then analysed and treated. Recently this debate has come to be recognised in discussion of teaching with online courseware (Park, Lee, & Cheong, 2007). However, under some conditions the particular epistemic beliefs of teachers and the pedagogical principles these beliefs generate, have the capacity to leapfrog any tendency to treat technology as determinist. Neither does useful and creative teaching online necessarily depend on a root and branch remaking of teachers pedagogical beliefs and practices as implied by the “gap” construction of the relationship between online and face to face environments.

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FRAmeS AS An exPlAnATIon A possible explanation of differing success in teaching online may lie in the observation that people use old practices to deal with new situations. Kuhn (1970); Goffman (1974); Imershein (1977); Lakoff (1987); Schon & Rein (1994); Orlikowski & Gash (1994); Weick (1995, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006) and Davidson & Pai (2004) have all argued that change of any sort often begins with the mapping of old habits onto new circumstances. This can be captured in the concept of ‘framing’; the “reasons that will enable (people) to resume the interrupted activity and stay in action” (Weick Sutcliffe and Obstfeld, 2005, p. 107). The idea of framing conceptualises people’s approach to novel tasks as bringing with it, assumptions derived from past beliefs and experience and expectations about future behaviour and events crafted by these assumptions. Frames are derivatives of ‘old habits’. According to Weick, a frame is a kind of roughly internally coherent but abbreviated operating model for action, constructed from past experience as well as from beliefs and values, which not only allows inferences to be drawn about what might occur but which also allows for the filling in of missing information by the same inferences of coherence. Weick calls it an “internally consistent set of simplifying heuristics” (1995 p 118 quoting Martin and Meyerson, 1988 p 93). They allow people to locate, perceive, identify and label occurrences in their lives and world (Weick 1995). Frames are also inherently social in construction although individually meaningful. Weick understands the normal flow of mental processing of events and conditions around us as putting cues into pre-existing frames. He explains the process of meaningfully connecting conceptual social categories in the form of frames with events thus:

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Frames tend to be past moments of socialisation and cues tend to be present moments of experience. If a person can construct a relation between these two moments, meaning is created. This means that the content of sensemaking can be found in the frames and categories that summarise past experience, in the cues and labels that snare specifics of present experience and in the ways these two settings of experience are connected. (1995, p. 111) It is only when this process breaks down through too much novelty in one’s circumstances or too little pre-existing explanatory capacity in one’s current frames, that the effort of conscious reconstruction or sensemaking must take place. Orlikowski and Gash who are informed by Weick’s theorising about sensemaking, provide a similar explanation of past cognition influencing present perception about technology. To interact with technology, people have to make sense of it; and in this sense-making process, they develop particular assumptions, expectations, and knowledge of the technology, which then serve to shape subsequent actions toward it. While these interpretations become taken-for-granted and are rarely brought to the surface and reflected on, they nevertheless remain significant in influencing how actors in organizations think about and act toward technology. (1994, p. 175) However there is little empirical research that shows how teachers understand and experience the process of offering courses online or which seeks to understand the cognitive models teachers’ hold of online teaching. Very spare results were revealed by a search confined to literature produced on higher education teachers’ cognitive experience of online teaching that makes use of framing as an analytic tool. Widening the search for literature to extend to use of Technological Frames of Reference (TFR) in Information Science generally, was also not pro-

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ductive. Davidson and Pai in their search for such literature note “we were surprised to find relatively few published reports of research that actually conducted a TFR analysis or further developed the theoretical framework” (2004, p. 474). A ‘crossover’ article which uses both description of teachers experiences and normative approaches recommending strategies is the study by De Laat, Lally, Lipponen & Simons (2007) of two teachers with differing online teaching styles which also reviews five different authors’ views of online teacher’s appropriate roles and competencies. In a content analysis of journal articles from five educational journals published between 2001 and 2005, Shih, Feng & Tsai found that only 444 of 1027 articles were related to the field of cognition in e-learning (2008, p. 958). This demonstrates the relatively low overall number of articles that empirically study varieties of understanding of course management systems. The categories of literature in which they found the fewest articles are of particular interest as these are the closest to the subject of this paper. They identified that topics to do with how people frame issues of e-learning; “…‘‘information processing-decision making’’ (4 articles), ‘‘cognitive psychology characteristics-mental model’’ (7 articles), and ‘‘cognitive psychology characteristics schemata’’ (10 articles) were the least published research topics...” (p 960). Because they address ‘cognition in e-learning’ generally, it is not clear from their paper whether these articles addressed students e-learning rather than teachers e-learning, but if confined to students e-learning, this makes research on teachers understanding even rarer.

SeTTIng, meThodology And meThod Drawing on work in progress within a larger project which takes as its subject, elucidating the

general sensemaking processes of teachers using ‘Blackboard’ course management system, this study focuses on how a group of teachers frame their online teaching. These particular teachers use Blackboard as an element in mixed medium delivery of courses which are primarily given in face-to-face mode but which include an online element as mandated by university administration. The requirement introduced 18 months prior to the study, to use online methods is known as ‘MOP’ or ‘Minimum Online Presence’ and has been taken up mostly as its name suggests – by putting the minimum of course documents online. MOP is interpreted by teachers as meaning they must use Blackboard, although some other tools are also available within the Distributed Learning System (or DLS) Within any Blackboard course ‘shell’, class sizes were of 20 to 600 students. Courses were delivered face to face and online by the course coordinator. Classes above around 30 participants were shared with face to face tutors who themselves made negligible online contributions to the courses in this study. A dedicated Blackboard ‘shell’ was used to deliver to every student in a course. I have found no instance of anyone who has used the capability of Blackboard to create individual online classes. The courses were social science courses across a number of disciplines, (social policy, legal and justice studies, youth work and social work) which used a discursive mode of assessment (discussion, essays, presentations and similar) but only a few of which used online participation, collaboration or discussion as part of their practice. Coordinators’ use of online and electronic media was in no case highly sophisticated, but there was sufficient variation and mastery to class some staff as proficient. There is reason I think to distinguish between “mixed method” delivery implying side by side modes of delivery with little sense of integration of face to face teaching with the capabilities and ‘affordances’ of the online environment, and ‘blended method’ with its connotation of a peda-

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gogical overview and coherence of planning across the two mediums. In most cases the delivery by staff in this study was ‘mixed’. The two delivery media were held conceptually apart, and Blackboard was seen as moderately convenient for the display of materials generated with face-to-face teaching in mind. The research question for the greater study was to discover and discuss the sensemaking processes used by teachers using the ‘Blackboard’ course management system, but a key aspect was to identify and explore some of the cognitive frames brought to online teaching as a contribution to understanding sensemaking. This study was ethnographic in keeping with the social constructivist methodology behind Weickian sensemaking that informs the larger study, that is, “…sensemaking most clearly becomes a process that creates objects for sensing or the structures of structuration” (Weick 1995 p 36). The inbuilt epistemology of a theory like sensemaking entails that one’s own sensemaking is also part of the process of understanding others. This is not to lapse into a welter of introspection and render all things relative, but to take a position that the subjective experience of those studied cannot be entered into purely as a spectator. The study involved 15 teachers within an academic school of social and environmental science of about 50 teaching staff. This number allows an exploration of the extent to which any of these cases are what Bent Flyvbjerg (2004) calls “paradigmatic cases”. Paradigmatic cases are ‘types’ or exemplars that highlight a wider social condition. In a reflexive explanation of paradigmatic cases, Flyvbjerg completes the circle of his argument by using as an exemplar, Kuhn’s paradigms. Kuhn has shown that scientific paradigms cannot be expressed as rules or theories. There exists no predictive theory for how predictive theory comes about. A scientific activity is acknowledged or rejected as good science by how close it is to one or more exemplars, that is, practical prototypes of

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good scientific work. A paradigmatic case of how scientists do science is precisely such a prototype. It operates as a reference point and may function as a focus for the founding of schools of thought. (2004, p. 427) Data collection was broadly participant observation in keeping with an ethnographic approach and included interviews, collection of relevant documentation, participation in meetings about online delivery and making use of any arising opportunity to further understand its operation in this setting. The interview technique itself was to sit with teachers in front of their computers and talk to them for between one and two hours about what they did while they showed me around their online Blackboard courses. I asked them to choose a course that was significant to them, one they were currently using or one that included something novel, as this not only meant they were less threatened about any perceived inadequacies in online skills, but it also meant I could see how confident and adept they were in logging on and moving around their sites. Some stuck with one course site and some showed me a number. While they were showing me around and actively entering information they were also answering progressively more general questions moving from specific use of sections of Blackboard in front of us, to broad considerations of teaching and technology including their own general teaching goals and philosophy of online and face to face teaching. Towards the end of the interview I would try to probe the extent to which informants understood their online activities as teaching, or brought a philosophy of teaching to them. While for some this produced a ready answer consistent with their earlier discussion, for others this was impossible, as it clearly included the assumption that they had one. It was possible at times to watch a dawning comprehension during the interview of the possibilities opened up by this idea. This was only one of a number of questions directed at elucidating frames and their particularity.

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With regard to the analytic method itself, Cornelissen, Oswick, Thoger & Phillips (2008) have divided the use of metaphors in organisational literature, analogous to frames as explanatory devices, into two kinds predominant in different organisational literatures. The first they call ‘projection’ which is based on researchers deducing second order constructs to explain and elucidate behaviour about organisation. The second they call ‘elicitation’, which they describe as more inductive. The latter depends on researchers to “identify the symbolic and interpretive uses of metaphors in people’s sensemaking and communication with one another” (Cornelissen et al., 2008, p. 10). The question they raise is to what extent are the frames and metaphors that are located by research the product of the researched and to what extent are they an analytical artefact of the researcher? Both are valid, since empirical research entails picking up something from the researched as accurately as possible but no act of research remains itself unframed by acts of analysis or by prior assumptions, (what Holton (1973) calls ‘themata’). Analytical acts of research such as picking out underlying assumptions or regularities in respondents’ information are both inevitable and desirable. Flyvbjerg also sees no way to externally validate a choice of paradigmatic case, but for him, this does not constitute a great problem. Ethnomethodological studies of scientific practice have demonstrated that all variety of such practice relies on taken for- granted procedures that feel largely intuitive. However, those intuitive decisions are accountable, in the sense of being sensible to other practitioners or often explicable if not immediately sensible. That would frequently seem to be the case with the selection of paradigmatic cases. (p 428) For this particular analysis my method was to pick up clues and cues from interviewees as to their framing and to elaborate them into a simple

typology – a combination of the two approaches suggested by Cornelissen, but one which begins with the respondents. It was this process of division into a simple matrix consisting of an axis for technological skill which ran from disinterest to ‘mastery’ (defined in terms relative to the rest of the group, not to any wider standard) and an axis of ‘pedagogical frames’ from ‘information transfer’ to ‘education’ that revealed two teachers in particular whose counterintuitive approach seemed to require explanation. Cases occupying Quadrants 2 and 3 are unexpected in that it is easy to assume that as people get better with online technology they will find it easier and more interesting to experiment with it and to transfer learning to online environments. Conversely, someone who uses an online environment well could be expected to be technologically conversant. The Quadrant 2 teacher, (T7Q2) who was most archetypal was regarded by students and other staff as a competent, experienced and interesting teacher. She was technologically competent with Blackboard, but frustrated by its shortcomings and lack of flexibility. T7Q2: “Oh I don’t use a lot of it. All I use is for documents and sometimes for links and you’ll see I’ve got quite a few. I do need to download some stuff...” T7Q2: “My usual problem though is often I’m doing this sort of stuff at home and remote access is really slow so its shithouse. There is a real disincentive. But as an online course guide system I reckon it’s really basic.” She was interested in experimenting with other software that would work around some of the problems she found with Blackboard even though they were not part of the organisationally sanctioned Standard Operating Environment (SOE). She was keen to demonstrate some of the more

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Table 1. Technological mastery level and pedagogical frame

Information transfer. (top down) Administrative and compliance tool Education. Collaborative learning and teaching tool.

Frame.

Reactive / Proactive dimension Technological disinterest

Technological mastery

Quadrant 1. Technologically, staff accept the order and design of the instructional software as a template To structure online offerings staff use external organisational orders. (eg, Week of semester, administrative need to produce certain documents such as course guides for student distribution etc), and decide what items to add by reference to current administrative and ‘housekeeping’ informational needs (organisational and student). Technology is not necessary and not important

Quadrant 2. Technologically staff are skilled enough to reorder default software framework and “customize” it. Information may be given in a greater number of electronic modes, but replicates face to face understanding. Eg, audio lectures. To structure, staff accept some form of external administrative order as per Quadrant 1 Technology is not necessary but important

Quadrant 3. Technologically staff make minimal changes to software default layout and design, but utilise the various strengths of the software for teaching so that it complements face to face mode. Face to face mode is also adjusted to incorporate the now necessary online component. Structurally, external administrative and technological order of all sorts is ignored in favour of structuring around pedagogical organisation. (eg, “topics” not “weeks”) Technology is necessary but not important

Quadrant 4. Staff maximise both teaching possibilities and technological possibilities. Technology is necessary and important

sophisticated alternatives she had discovered, and later emailed me a link to a beta version of a web based course materials builder (Utilium, http://utilium.com). She had a sense of the demand from students for materials online and the demand created by the size of lectures, “so you can’t just run things off for students, because the scale now is too big so you actually need this”. Thus although she saw the technology of Blackboard itself as problematic, her attitude to technology itself was positive, both with regard to the need for it and what she felt capable of doing with it herself. Her focus tended to be very much on the classroom and lecture experience regardless of the fact that she had the skills to create and manage a reasonably technologically advanced learning environment. 1222

JT “What about things like using the E-reserve, and things like that?” (University Library E reserve which enables photocopies of restricted copyright books and other materials to be accessible for the DLS and Blackboard.) T7Q2: “No, No don’t use them at all. Don’t know about them, don’t use them.” JT: “Ok, so do you have any full text documents other than your own in Blackboard?” T7Q2: “No.”

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JT: “Right, ok. And I’m just thinking, do you use any other kind of supplementary lecture support stuff like images or anything like that. Do you put the images up?” (Meaning on to Blackboard) T7Q2: “Yep, yep what goes up is the entire PowerPoint presentation. The lectures are in power point, so the whole lot go up.” These comments strongly suggest that she saw the lecture in PowerPoint format as her central teaching medium, and that the DLS was an ancillary way of distributing it. This impression is confirmed by her own designation of Blackboard as supplementary. T7Q2: “But could it survive without the DLS? Absolutely. You know if a student does not use the DLS they don’t miss anything, because they may well have noted the reference and often the internet enables people to find things so if I mention a particular writer, a particular government department, an aspect of their work, generally a student can find that and if they couldn’t find it they could certainly come back to me and ask for it so the DLS in and of itself is an independent technology.” JT: “Did you deliberately structure it that way? Did you have in mind that some students might not have internet access or something like that? So that you make the non technological parts of the teaching self supporting? Do you actually have that as an issue?” T7Q2: “No no. For me this is not a chicken and egg, for me the DLS is very secondary to the teaching process, all the DLS is, is a means of making the material available much more widely and as I said in previous times I would have printed notes. So summarised the lecture material, printed notes

and distributed those at the lecture. But they would be available for students who could get them via email, or in even earlier times students could get those notes from my office.” Generally, she framed online methods almost totally in terms of analogy to face to face teaching JT: “Yes, well I guess that sort of leads into how do you see this DLS presentation as teaching?” T7Q2: “Oh right. Is it teaching? Yeah, I guess it is teaching, what I’ve done is I have given them a...and this very process of preparation focuses my attention to direct them to particular points in the subject that I am dealing with. So this enables both me and them to concentrate the mind on ok, these are the ....and usually what I do with my work is I will have a concept that we are dealing with so this particular lecture that we are looking at, the concept is discursive practices, how do they fit in policy making, how can I substantiate the claim that discursive practices and discourse are policy making?” JT: “Mmm mmm.” T7Q2: “...So in order to do that I’ve got to provide a number of policy making examples and evidence of that claim so that I need to provide links to text material I need to provide links to policy statements and where relevant, images.” Although this teacher enjoys experimenting with other online tools for providing students with information, it is the line “Oh right. Is it teaching? Yeah, I guess it is teaching..” that so clearly shows she does not consider the educational capabilities of the medium.

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The teacher who paradigmatically represents Quadrant 3 however approached online teaching quite differently. She has in the past worked hard on teaching and teaching method generally, developing expertise in several different forms. She has spent a good deal of time building up her knowledge and practice of Problem Based Learning,. As a result of this she had experimented with a number of non-standard forms of face to face delivery, and was at ease with standing back and allowing students creative freedom and independence within designated boundaries. She had also spent some time designing training for short courses on mediation, blending online and face to face delivery, so had online experience albeit at a low technological level. In addition, through her Masters thesis, which was on problem based learning and mediation, she had an opportunity to carefully think through her own pedagogical approach. JT: “Just looking at that, you haven’t changed any of the artwork or buttons or banners or anything like that? You are just using it as is.” T10Q3: “I’m very much ‘as is’. ‘Cos I’m not that great at computers. Even though I have used them for many years in terms of online learning, I really got into it because I was focussed on my main area of research being mediation. And I was really focussed on how could the mediation industry learn more about theory. And we tend in that industry to train through short course training, so that’s three to five days, and basically I thought through my Master’s thesis that if we wanted to learn more about theory, mediators would need to do it online. Because they tend to do mediation training as a post degree (course), so they have done a degree and then they do short course training on top. So they are already social workers or lawyers or sometimes psychologists.”

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JT: “… so it seems to me you are coming at it from the perspective of thinking what you can do with it socially rather than technically?” T10Q3: “Yes, that would be true actually.” Technologically she was no more experienced than T7Q2, and arguably less, since she had little interest in technology beyond that which she had to use. Unlike T7Q2, she was not an early adopter or a seeker of new technological solutions. In fact what was remarkable about the interview was that for almost two hours, she talked about her teaching in relation to the technology, but virtually did not mention the technology as an entity separate from teaching at all. Unlike any other interviewee to date, she did not mention any limitations of Blackboard. Her approach was not that she found technology that would do what she wanted, as T7Q2 did, but that she adapted that technology she had to hand to produce the teaching outcome she wanted. JT: (referring to her “online fishbowl” role play exercises.) “So this is through the discussion forum?” T10Q3: “Yes, you can do these through the discussion forum. Threads can create....and you can also do it through email.” Movement between media (email and discussion forums) that would produce the effect she wanted with least consciousness of the technology on the part of either the teacher or the students was the source of a good deal of her flexibility to rework things she did not like about earlier iterations of the course. Her approach to course design within Blackboard shows the same pragmatism about technology and commitment to good pedagogy.

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T10Q3: “This (Family Law course online) is very basic stuff. I think that’s really interesting. With the requirement to put things up online I probably put that “Family Law” up because of that, rather than any pedagogical reason. This one however, I put up as a real pedagogy. That’s “Understanding Conflict and Mediation”, which is a third year core course for Legal and Dispute Studies. And it tends to be about 30 in the class. And one of the things is that it’s very much about blended learning, so we learn about mediation at an advanced level, in class, theory as well as practice, role plays are constant, and then we have online learning as well, and the two work together. So the idea is that you blend face-to-face and online. And I have been working on online mediation role-plays for many years and I have written about it. And the aim is that instead of just having a face-to-face role-play, which is really valuable, and we still do, I want to emphasise that. We still have those skill developments in class. What the idea was that when you have a face-to-face role-play, you can’t really access the literature, you can’t stop and read, not for any length of time at least, and therefore you don’t necessarily - your interventions your choices in mediation role play are not necessarily as informed by theory as you would like. So you can get them to do pre-reading, but often when they have a thought - ‘should I do this or should I do that’, they don’t have the opportunity in the face to face role play to consult the literature at any length, so the idea is that in tandem with your face to face work, there is also - further in the course a bit - an online role play, and at that time you (i.e. students) can make a choice about interventions but they can be informed by theory because the pace is self paced, and you are able to consult the literature and then make a choice.” This teacher did not understand online teaching as taking place within a technology so much as taking place within an environment. Her understanding of teaching appeared to be that any environment provided opportunities and affor-

dances for teaching. In this case what was useful to her was the capacity of Blackboard to slow down students’ interactions sufficiently that they had time to consider, read up and reflect before they committed to a course of action. This was simply not possible in face-to-face settings. In addition, the option for interaction was always open online in a way that a classroom is not, thus students could come to a decision at a time that suited them. However it was not because it was an online environment that she used it, it was because it enabled her to fulfil her teaching need. Her strongly pedagogical approach also showed up in her choice of categories for organising information within Blackboard. She did not organise by electronic genre – for instance ‘links’ which is a form suggested by some content areas of Blackboard; neither did she organise by teaching ‘weeks’ an essentially bureaucratic form of organisation. Instead she organised information by ‘themes’ that pertained to the content taught. Such thematic organisation fits the pedagogical end.

ImPlICATIonS In both of these cases we see a strong tendency to ‘frame’ the problem of teaching by drawing on prior understanding. For the quadrant 2 teacher (T7Q2), the prior frame was face-to-face teaching and the lecture in particular, although she avowed she preferred workshop style teaching face to face. Nevertheless the ‘lecture’ frame was sufficiently embedded to create a strong unconscious ‘episteme’. She understood knowledge and knowledge transfer as primarily a problem of having access to content; mostly content provided by the lecture supplemented with some other materials. The concept of courseware or online media as an instructional form was outside the frame sufficiently for her to have not considered it as ‘teaching”. For the Quadrant 3 teacher on the other hand, the experience of spending several years both

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developing and experimenting with new styles of face to face teaching and then examining this through her research had produced a strongly generalist pedagogical frame that was her first point of reference for solving new ‘media’ problems. They were not new media problems at all for her, they were pedagogical problems. In both cases the teachers were mapping old habits onto new circumstance. They were framing the problem of teaching online in terms of their uppermost concerns, derived from their beliefs and commitments to particular types of teaching. The difference between the two seems to be that the framing the quadrant 2 teacher used produced a large gap between understanding how to teach in the classroom and understanding what might go on online, whereas the quadrant 3 teacher found little difficulty in using the online environment to best advantage. For the quadrant 2 teacher, teaching online could really only be imagined as an extension of face-to-face teaching. Any attempt to pull the solutions of that frame into the new environment produced fairly weak results. Indeed one interpretation of her search for more amenable software may have been that she was looking for the tools to support her existing frame. To surmount this gap would require extensive effort on the part of the teacher, because it means breaking and remaking a frame. It requires precisely the conscious commitment to explicit sensemaking that the literature on professional development envisages for better online teaching. This idea of frame maintenance over different teaching settings, and the cognitive cost of breaking unworkable frames has great explanatory power to make sense of teachers’ ‘resistance’; the unwillingness to take on what was seen as extra work, by most of the teachers I spoke to. It is indeed extra work in learning and cognition, because it entails not just understanding the technical possibilities but also reworking ideas that have not only been satisfactory for years, but which also produce coherence in teaching style given the

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holistic inferential coherence of the parts that make up any given frame. The framing the Quadrant 3 teacher used was wider than the mode of production for any given teaching occasion. It was both flexible and able to be carried into a new situation intact. She did not need to cross a gap because very little gap existed, in that for her, a great variety of environments were sites that might be useful for teaching. She did however bring to teaching a degree of curiosity and an exploratory attitude, so that she was able to determine what capabilities online tools allowed. A frame such as this is more borderless than that above. It is also more internally self referential rather than dependent on its form of production as is evidenced by her comment about not being very good with computers and her easy switching between discussion groups and email for the same purposes. There are several conclusions that can be drawn from these cases. Firstly and most obviously, it may not be necessary to be technologically skilled or even very interested in technology to produce good online teaching. What is necessary is strong commitment to good pedagogical practice and a clear idea of teaching strategy combined with a sense that many settings can be adapted as sites of learning. When universities contain many teachers who are slow adopters grappling with ‘low’ technologies, it is useful to know the minimally sufficient conditions which allow for good teaching online. In this sense this study also represents what Flyvbjerg (2004) terms a “maximum variation case” (p 426) or a “least likely case” (p 427), meaning that if successful online teaching can stand up under these conditions it can stand up anywhere. Secondly, also necessary is a willingness by teachers to explore the capacities and ‘affordances’ of many tools and situations for their learning potential with a clear idea in mind of what it is to be used for. Without this exploratory attitude and clarity of pedagogical intention, it is easy to be subverted by ‘structures’; the intentions of the

Framing Pedagogy, Diminishing Technology

software designers, directionality built into the software, or if the teaching setting is not software, the conventional behaviour required in a particular physical setting. Relinquishing agency to technological design is a vestige of the ‘determinism wars’ and makes it easy to understand how some teachers feel directed by the software. Fostering the capacity to explore an LMS for its specific solutions to one’s teaching problems or fostering the ability to make unexpected use of a feature designed for something else is a difficult art for professional educators and software designers but one which would produce much more creative use of online education applications. Thirdly a useful approach may be for teachers and professional development managers to explore explicitly what frames people bring to their use of online education tools. Frames that must be broken in order to adapt to a new environment are hard work for their owners both to maintain in the face of mounting evidence that they don’t work and to remake once they have collapsed. Work is still necessary to further understand the conditions of online teaching under which existing frames break and sensemaking must occur. Lastly, all this suggests that incremental change is easier for teachers to bear than sudden mandated use of online educational tools. Since sensemaking is social and frames are built up through interpersonal and organisational meanings as well as through personal understanding, experiences of how others achieve successful approaches through engaging with communities of practice and one to one sharing of ideas may be as useful or more useful than formal professional development sessions for the rebuilding of collapsed sensemaking that has failed to negotiate the frame gap between face to face and online teaching.

ConCluSIon The focus of this chapter has been the exploration of frames and sensemaking as a means of

understanding the experiences of teachers who are slow adopters of technology in situations where the technology itself is not cutting edge. The literature treats the relationship between face-to-face teaching and online education as a gap which if left unattended will have serious negative consequences and therefore advocates that teachers should achieve a transition between them. There are two common approaches to the problem of creating “systematic, coherent curriculum designs grounded in clear views about the contribution of university study to either general education or lifelong learning” in an online setting (Skilbeck 2001 in Postle & Sturman p 19). Sometimes this is identified as a problem of insufficient attention to developing a web based or online pedagogy. eg, Ask and Haugen (2008). Sometimes this is identified as a problem of the technology itself embedding the ‘wrong’ pedagogy eg, Adams and Morgan (2007). Both arguments position Learning Management System technology as something to be surmounted by adding something not already there, either by better pedagogy designed for online teaching or by better technology However sensemaking theory is also about the management of cognitive gaps. Under conditions of confrontation with a conceptual gap, sensemaking may collapse. This occurs when pre-existing frames are used to make sense of new situations and prove to be unable to accommodate the stretch. The case of two teachers who use opposite frames and levels of technological mastery is used to show that there are a set of minimal conditions under which sense can be maintained and still produce excellent online teaching even in people not very technologically skilled or interested by using thinking patterns that are already there. This is the prior acquisition of a pedagogically oriented frame that is already flexible and adaptable enough to accommodate and indeed seek out specifically useful conditions of new settings for learning. Where an existing frame can be successfully employed in a new setting there is

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little experience of a gap in understanding or of the conscious effort of reframing. This may be useful for professional development specialists in that it suggests that a concentration on identifying and developing this form of frame will prevent the cognitive load for teachers arising from breaking and rebuilding new frames in order to deal with online settings. It also suggests that incremental change is likely to be most successful in supporting frame maintenance and adaptation.

ReFeRenCeS Adams, J., & Morgan, G. (2007). Second Generation” E-Learning: Characteristics and Design Principles for Supporting Management Soft Skills Development. International Journal on E-Learning, 6(2), 157–185. Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2nd ed., pp. 343 - 365). Athabasca: Athabasca University. Retrieved January 27, 2009, from http://www. aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008_Anderson-DeliveryQualitySupport. pdf. Ask, B., & Haugen, H. (2008). Approaches to Net Based Learning, Experiences with Social Constructivist Pedagogy in a Global Setting. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Networked Learning. Networked Learning Conference. Retrieved June 22, 2008, from http:// www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/PDFs/Ask_1-8.pdf. Bates, T. (2007). Strategic Planning for E-Learning in a Polytechnic. In M. Bullen & D. P. Janes (Eds.), Making the Transition to E-learning (pp. 47 - 65). Hershey PA: Information Science Publishing (Idea Group Inc.).

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Ceruzzi, P. E. (2005). Moore’s Law and Technological Determinism: Reflections on the History of Technology. Technology and Culture, 46(3). Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ technology_and_culture/v046/46.3ceruzzi.pdf. Clausen, C., & Yoshinaka, Y. (2004). Social shaping of technology in TA and HTA. Poiesis & Praxis: International Journal of Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment., 2, 221–246. doi:. doi:10.1007/s10202-003-0046-1 Conole, G. (2007). Distilling lessons from across different types of elearning interventions. In Proceedings of the workshop on WWWrong: What Went Wrong? What Went Right? Exchanging Experiences in Technology Enhanced Learning. Crete Greece: CEUR. Cornelissen, J. P., Oswick, C., Thoger Christensen, L., & Phillips, N. (2008). Metaphor in Organizational Research: Context, Modalities and Implications for Research Introduction. Organization Studies, 29(1), 7–22. doi:. doi:10.1177/0170840607086634 Davidson, E., & Pai, D. (2004). Making Sense of Technological Frames: Promise, Progress, and Potential. In B. Kaplan, D. Truex, T. Wastell, T. Wood - Harpe, & J. DeGross (Eds.), Relevant theory and informed practice: Looking forward from a 20 year perspective on Information Systems research (pp. 473 - 491). Boston: Kluwer. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http://dx.doi. org/10.1007/1-4020-8095-6_26. Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 318 (23). De Laat, M., Lally, V., Lipponen, L., & Simons, R. (2007). Online teaching in networked learning communities: A multi-method approach to studying the role of the teacher. Instructional Science, 35(3), 257–286. doi:. doi:10.1007/s11251-0069007-0

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Flyvbjerg, B. (2004). Five misunderstandings about case-study research. In C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium, & D. Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative Research Practice (pp. 420 - 434). London; Thousand Oaks: Sage. Retrieved from http://flyvbjerg. plan.aau.dk/MSFiveMis9.0SageASPUBL.pdf. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper and Row. Goodyear, P., Salmon, G., Spector, J., Steeples, C., & Tickner, S. (2001). Competences for online teaching: A special report. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(1), 65–72. doi:. doi:10.1007/BF02504508 Hannon, J. (2008). Breaking down online teaching: Innovation and resistance. In Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Proceedings ascilite 2008. Melbourne, Victoria: www.ascilite.org.au. Retrieved from http://www. ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/ hannon.pdf. Holton, G. J. (1973). Thematic origins of scientific thought. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Imershein, A. W. (1977). The Epistemological Bases of Social Order: Toward Ethnoparadigm Analysis. Sociological Methodology, 8, 1–51. doi:10.2307/270752 Kelly, O. (2007). Moving to Blended Delivery in a Polytechnic: Shifting the Mindset of Faculty and Institutions. In M. Bullen & D. P. Janes (Eds.), Making the Transition to E-learning (pp. 33 - 46). Hershey PA: Information Science Publishing (Idea Group Inc.). Kirkwood, A., & Price, L. (2006). Adaptation for a Changing Environment: Developing learning and teaching with information and communication technologies. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(2). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/ irrodl/article/viewArticle/294/624.

Klein, J. (2005). Technology Laggards: Deviants Or Victims? In 4th International Critical Management Studies Conference: Technology and Power stream (Stream 27). Cambridge University: Electronic Journal of Radical Organisation Theory (EJROT). Retrieved from http://www. mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/cmsconference/2005/ proceedings/technology/Klein.pdf. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (p. 210). University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Laurillard, D. (2008). The teacher as action researcher: using technology to capture pedagogic form. Studies in Higher Education, 33(2), 139–154. doi:10.1080/03075070801915908 Lin, C., Shih, H., & Sher, P. J. (2007). Integrating technology readiness into technology acceptance: The TRAM model. Psychology and Marketing, 24(7), 641–657. doi:10.1002/mar.20177 Orlikowski, W. J., & Gash, D. C. (1994). Technological frames: making sense of information technology in organizations. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 12(2), 174–207. doi:. doi:10.1145/196734.196745 Park, N., Lee, K. M., & Cheong, P. H. (2007). University Instructors’ Acceptance of Electronic Courseware: an Application of the Technology Acceptance Model. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 163–186. doi:. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00391.x Pinch, T. (1993). Turn, Turn and turn again: the Woolgar formula. Science, Technology & Human Values, 18(4), 511–522. doi:10.1177/016224399301800407

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Pinch, T. J., & Bijker, W. E. (1984). The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. Social Studies of Science, 14(3), 399–441. doi:10.1177/030631284014003004 Postle, G., & Sturman, A. (2003). Major Issues and Dilemmas in Online Education. In Evaluations and Investigations Programme Research, Analysis and Evaluation Group (Ed.), Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: A Case Study. Canberra: Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Commonwealth of Australia.

University of South Australia. (2008, April 27). Preparing a course for online delivery. Learning Connection. Retrieved July 30, 2008, from http:// www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/learningconnection/ staff/practice/online-prepare.asp. Weick, K. (1993). The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organisations: The Mann Gulch Disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628–652. doi:10.2307/2393339 Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Weick, K. E. (2001). Making Sense of the Organization. Malden MA: Blackwell.

RMIT University DLS Professional Development. (2002). A Model Course Structure for Blackboard. RMIT University Melbourne. Retrieved July 30, 2008, from http://mams.rmit.edu.au/ xzzlicvh85dz.pdf.

Weick, K. E. (2003). Enacting an Environment: The Infrastructure of Organizing. In R. Westwood & S. Clegg (Eds.), Debating Organization: PointCounterpoint in Organization Studies (p. 424). Blackwell Publishing.

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free press.

Weick, K. E. (2005). Managing the Unexpected: Complexity as Distributed Sensemaking. In R. R. McDaniel & D. J. Driebe (Eds.), Uncertainty and Surprise in Complex Systems: Questions on Working with the Unexpected (p. 200). Springer.

Schon, D. A., & Rein, M. (1994). Frame Reflection: Towards the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies. New York: Basic Books. Shih, M., Feng, J., & Tsai, C. (2008). Research and trends in the field of e-learning from 2001 to 2005: A content analysis of cognitive studies in selected journals. Computers & Education, 51(2), 955–967. doi:. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2007.10.004 Sieber, J. (2005). Misconceptions and realities about teaching online. Science and Engineering Ethics, 11(3), 329–340. doi:. doi:10.1007/s11948005-0002-7 Skillbeck, M. (2001). Panel discussion: The elearning revolution—implications for academic work and university culture, in online learning in a borderless market. In Proceedings of Evaluations and Investigations Programme. Canberra: DETYA.

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Weick, K. E. (2006). Faith, Evidence, and Action: Better Guesses in an Unknowable World. Organization Studies, 27(11), 1723–1736. doi:. doi:10.1177/0170840606068351 Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421. doi:10.1287/orsc.1050.0133 Wilson, G., & Stacey, E. (2004). Online Interaction Impacts on Learning: Teaching the Teachers to Teach Online. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20(1), 33–48. Winner, L. (1999). Do Artefacts Have Politics? In D. MacKenzie & J. Wajcman (Eds.), The Social Shaping of Technology. 2nd Ed. Buckingham: Open University Press.

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Wood, D. (2008). Peer Review of Online Teaching and Learning. Australian Learning and Teaching Council. Retrieved from http://www.unisanet. unisa.edu.au/peerreview/default.asp. Woolgar, S. (1991). The Turn to Technology in Social Studies of Science. Science, Technology & Human Values, 16(1), 20–50. doi:10.1177/016224399101600102 Woolgar, S. (1993). What’s at Stake in the Sociology of Technology? A reply to Pinch and to Winner. Science, Technology & Human Values, 18(4), 523–529. doi:10.1177/016224399301800408 Woolgar, S., & Cooper, G. (1999). Do Artefacts Have Ambivalence? Moses’ Bridges, Winner’s Bridges and Other Urban Legends in S&TS. Social Studies of Science, 29(3), 433–449. doi:10.1177/030631299029003005

key TeRmS And deFInITIonS Sensemaking: A term reinvented by Karl Weick a social psychologist whose interest is in organisations and risk. Sensemaking refers to the refashioning of meaning that occurs when a particular understanding of the world fails to account for new events or experiences. Frames / Framing: A sociological and social psychological concept that suggests that people rely on previous interpretations of events patterned into schema or stereotypes to organise information or events.

Pedagogy: The science of teaching – literally teaching young children but used by association for all investigation of teaching knowledge. (Andragogy is probably the more correct term for the science of tertiary teaching.) Technological Determinism: The idea that technology is a social structure or force, the effects of which cannot be avoided or mitigated. Most arguments about this have been about the nature and degree of social influence over, or social construction of technology. Courseware: Software programs used to deliver structured online courses at tertiary level. Examples include Blackboard, Web CT, Moodle. Computer Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW): The study of collaborative activities and co-ordination of tasks and interactions which are mediated by computer support. Usually but not exclusively occurring amongst people who are connected by membership of an organisation. Learning Management System (LMS): Organisationally based usually proprietary software often connected to the web (ie as well as an intranet) and designed to manage and distribute courses. Social Construction of Technology (SCOT): An explanation for the success or failure of technologies in terms of the social context that gives rise to and shapes them. An antidote to technological determinism, but one among a number of theoretical approaches that addresses this.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by H. Song; T. Kidd, pp. 263-283, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.8

Humanizing Learning-at-Distance: Best Practice Guidelines for Synchronous Instructors Kathleen Barclay University of Phoenix School of Advanced Studies, USA

InTRoduCTIon Online learning is taking part in one of the greatest instructional transformations since mass public education was introduced in America in the 1880s. Traditional classroom settings now contend with the implementation of asynchronous (online, selfdirected) and, even more recently, synchronous (online, real-time) environments. These uses of technology challenge our historical instructional models, raising many questions about how to appropriately integrate such processes into business and educational instruction. Distance education research has generally focused on the technological aspects of instruction— does a specific medium help or hinder learning? However, recent research indicates that quality of learning depends upon the design of instruction rather than on delivery media, and that information transfer and retention is most strongly impacted

by the frequency and quality of learner-centered practice activities (Clarke, 1994; Jones, Valdez, Nowakowski, & Rasmussen, 1994). Researchers strongly agree on the importance of engaged, collaborative learning in schools and business classroom settings. How instructional content is prepared to support engagement, how personto-person interactions are arranged, and how the complete learning environment matches learner needs are now considered key issues in the creation of successful online instructional design. Instructor interest in interactivity and engagement as practiced in the live online setting is rapidly increasing as more and more organizations consider this medium for education and communication. Real-time, instructor-led e-learning design and delivery leverages the Internet to improve training efficiency and effectiveness, combining the best of in-person interaction with the dynamics of the Web. Instructors actively

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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request information and techniques to help them adapt to this new live online environment. Comfortable with face-to-face techniques, they now want to facilitate shared engagement between the student and technology, the student and instructor, and the student with other students. Based on interviews conducted with an international set of experienced synchronous (online, live) instructors, eight best-practice guidelines— considered essential for fostering successful live e-learning instruction—were identified (Barclay, 2001). Assembled from summaries of knowledge, skills, attitudinal aspects, and practices, the following guidelines provide motivated trainers with a theoretical foundation and yet practical set of techniques to support collaborative synchronous e-learning instruction.

mASTeR The TeChnology Technology issues are a primary barrier to the implementation of a successful live e-learning environment. The challenges of teaching have always included understanding instructional processes and specific content, but now an instructor must concurrently understand and operate a technologically complex online software application. To become a successful synchronous instructor, technology should be positively and energetically embraced. This translates into mastering the hardware and software use through extensive practice. The goal of the instructor is to move participants in a synchronous session past being fascinated by the technology and tools toward attentive participation in the learning experience. Techniques instructors may use to overcome the technology barrier include: •

Knowing the features and functions of different tools, and how to use them appropriately

•

•

•

• •

• •

Selecting only a few of the application’s tools to start with and then adding in others as experience with that interface grows Accessing instructor and student coaching or training options to learn how to effectively design for and instruct in the media Accessing technical support before, during, and after a session to ensure a positive rather than negative online experience for all Holding a short test session to help the learner overcome possible technophobia Paying attention to technology factors, such as having fast keyboarding skills or a feel for bandwidth speed, that help provide a comfortable environment for the learner Knowing how to overcome any technical problems that arise Knowing when and how to blend online training with face-to-face and self-directed study to provide an optimum learning experience

Acquiring a base foundation in understanding the technology and extensively practicing with technological components will yield higher levels of trainer comfort and confidence when instructing in the synchronous environment. The key message is to become as familiar with hardware and software tools as when operating a slide or overhead projector. Moving past the technology to develop the human connection is paramount for learning success.

exPeRIenCe The onlIne envIRonmenT Closely associated with mastering the technology is the provision that a successful instructor must have personal experience with the online environment. Instructors realize they are no longer physically standing in front of a class full of people with whom they have eye contact and can read body language. Software tools should

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be seen from the student perspective and with an awareness of the student experience. Critical success factors include the instructor: •

• •

• • • •

Being a student in one or more synchronous sessions prior to beginning online instruction Recognizing effective interactive processes Being able to easily enable and disable application tools to provide a smooth flow to a session Learning to convey content in acceptable chunks for the online attention span Managing questions and answers that are submitted through the various tools Staying on time to meet synchronous class time boundaries Managing the overall flow of the session to provide a successful learning experience

Synchronous instructors need to develop an outstanding awareness of this innovative model that learners, and trainers, are now facing. An instructor who has experienced the online live environment is in a much better position to effectively train with understanding and thoughtfulness.

PRACTICe AdulT leARnIng TheoRy And APPlICATIon A fundamental responsibility of the facilitator is to create an experience that causes or enables someone else to learn. A primary factor needed for instructors to thrive in successful synchronous training environments includes the mindset of valuing learning and truly putting adult learning principles into practice. When migrating from the traditional classroom into an online experience, trainers can benefit from practically applying adult learning theory to foster social interaction in a potentially lonely at-distance environment. The successful synchronous instructor: • • •

• • •

Applies adult learning theory, with a strong learner-centered focus Has subject matter knowledge credibility for the appropriate level of instruction Practices constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978), a model that assumes students construct their own meaning and the trainer’s job is to help facilitate that process Integrates stories to make content real Sets goals and performance objectives from both trainer and learner points-of-view Varies the instructional strategies to meet learner needs

Figure 1.

Adult Learning Principles by Malcolm Knowles (1989) As a person matures, the self-concept moves from dependency toward self-direction. Adults have accumulated life experiences that become rich resources for learning. Readiness of an adult to learn is oriented toward social roles. Adults are more problem-centered than subject-centered in learning. Adults are motivated to learn more by internal factors than external ones.

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•

Develops a sense of everyone being part of a group (community), rather than just following the model of presenting information as the expert lecturer

An e-learning instructor should principally consider the student’s perception of what am I getting out of this experience. Separation of trainer and learner by time and distance in the online environment can significantly alter the roles of trainer-as-expert and student-as-passive-attendee to become roles that foster learning together, a serious challenge and yet great opportunity to provide more effective learning for all.

deSIgn APPRoPRIATely FoR SynChRonouS onlIne leARnIng Online design surfaces as a major focus of instructor attention for the synchronous environment. Instructional design and engagement techniques specific to the e-learning environment are key. Instructors usually find that designing training for an online course is more complex and requires more up front attention and preparation than design intended for the traditional classroom. Trainers designing for synchronous classes: • • •

Use mini lectures Use alternatives to the lecture method to creatively facilitate interaction Present online content simply and clearly in easy-to-read formats and fonts, graphi-

•

• • •

• • • •

• •

cally interesting yet fast-to-load across the Internet Modularize content into bites of material that, with instructor facilitation, challenges thinking and enables learners to actively participate Present guidelines up front to set learner expectations Offer personal acknowledgements throughout a session Adapt Accelerated Learning and Active Learning techniques to create innovative class environments Provide a learner option to opt out or skip ahead as needed Post before and after session materials; Value and promote the shared learning of materials Give significant attention to pre-, during, and post-session design for interaction rather than emphasizing content development Script the class plan into 3-8 minute modules (see Figure 2) Practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more to refine the design and delivery

Innovation, combined with well-grounded design, keeps everyone in the class interactive and interested. Instructors who emphasize the authentic design and application of learner-centered instructional processes will provide successful online learning experiences.

Figure 2. Time 8:05-8:08am 3 min

Slide/Content/Materials #4 “INTERACTIVE TOOL BAR”

Instructor Explain toolbar

Script: We’re using XYZ 4.0 today to help demonstrate how live online training works…

Attendees Watch the demo Practice tools

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engAge All PARTICIPAnTS FReQuenTly

To keep learners interested and engaged, the synchronous instructor:

Engagement or interaction of learners with each other and with the instructor is considered a primary aspect for success. This key factor is supported by the findings of the study titled “Quality On the Line” by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (2000). Key success factors for interaction include:

•

• •

•

• • • • •

Adjusting for the lack of visual cues Knowing about and implementing group processes Implementing exceptional listening, questioning, and facilitation skills Emphasizing group or cooperative efforts among instructors and learners Integrating content with questions with live demonstration Using application tools in a variety of ways to foster attention and participation Being able to work with a co-presenter or assistant facilitator to better manage multiple requests

The importance of paying attention to the human aspects of instructor and learner interaction in an online environment is critical. This includes having access to professional development for help with how to best utilize interactive exercises. Engagement is integral to helping learners go beyond what they, and the instructor, already know.

PlACe ConSIdeRABle ATTenTIon on delIveRy SkIllS Instructor delivery skills are significant to producing live e-learning course instruction. The e-learning instructor does not have physical cues such as hand gestures or facial expressions to guide the learning experience and must be very aware of the nature of vocal presentation.

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• • •

• •

Takes cues from broadcast radio skills to develop voice and personality that project comfortably to the students Has clear diction and knows how to use a pause appropriately Modulates voice tone and pitch Is verbally engaging, energetic, and enthusiastic Works together with another instructor when possible, introducing a change of voices into the session to help maintain interest (Barclay, Gordon, Hollahan, & Lai, 2003) Uses appropriate humor to establish rapport Practices, practices, practices

For synchronous instruction, sound becomes the primary way to help make personal connections. Although the visual aspect is accommodated by presenting content slides or other materials on computer monitors, the voice becomes the primary method to foster human relationships and interaction.

Be FlexIBle And AdAPTIve The need to be flexible and adaptable when teaching synchronously cannot be overemphasized. Problems with technology always seem to be present. Visual instructional control normally established in a classroom situation is not present in the online environment. The successful trainer learns not to emphasize a problem, but to just deal with it efficiently and effectively—and have technical support available behind the scenes. The successful instructor needs to: • •

Demonstrate quick and flexible thinking Be able to keep track of and balance many tasks at once

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•

• •

Tightly prepare for a session so that when technical or attendee issues arise, the situation can be handled without losing facilitator control Be willing to take risks and try new techniques Be open to new ideas and take advantage of them during a session

The ability to creatively think on your feet is an important skill to develop for effective synchronous training. This can be perceived as an easy task to accomplish, but it is not. Successful online live instructors must manage the learning environment, the content, and the technology, all at the same time.

FoSTeR A Fun And exCITIng leARnIng envIRonmenT Instructional attention to developing engaging, fun, and comfortable live e-learning is considered essential to providing an effective learning experience. An instructional goal should be to generate excitement in students to continue with this form of learning, to sense the aha. Instructors must expand their skills in design and delivery to produce a fun and rewarding experience for all involved. A fun and exciting learning environment includes: • • • •

•

Using various interactive activities Teaching to attendee learning styles Using real-world outcome models as best practices Facilitating probing questions and no-holdsbarred discussions to generate deeper critical thinking Creating a safe space to reflect on values, challenge ideas, and take risks with behaviors

• • •

• • • • • • • •

Using music and audio files interspersed during a session Using interesting and animated graphic presentation practices Managing the whole-body environment with exercises like asking participants to stand up to stretch at a midpoint Considering the technology as just another tool in the instructional basket Using faces, pictures, or video to make the encounter more human Embedding relevant puzzles, quizzes, or games Showing learners how to use emoticons to show expression ;-) during chat projects Giving a lot of feedback with positive comments Having a goal and purpose for interaction Finding out what is important to the student, not just what is important for the content Most importantly, integrating real-world application

The final goals are in the real world, not in the virtual world. When in the distance education arena, synchronous training helps connect content to each individual participant’s reason to learn. The synchronous instructor has a wealth of knowledge, skills, viewpoints, and techniques to choose from to create effective—and fun— e-learning sessions to foster the connection of content to learning.

ConCluSIon This set of eight guidelines raises awareness of best-practices that novice and seasoned synchronous instructors may use to foster successful live online learning environments. These major themes should encourage those moving into the field of synchronous instruction to carefully attend to the human and social aspects of e-learning. Successful learning experiences are dependent upon instruc-

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tors receiving appropriate training and continued assistance as they begin to work online, upon the appropriate use and implementation of technology that leads to authentic learning, and upon an application of content and process design that emphasizes interaction and engagement. These critical success factors help support instructors in the search and practice of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and techniques that help foster successful e-learning experiences for all.

ReFeRenCeS Barclay, K. (2001). Humanizing learning-at-distance. Doctoral dissertation, Saybrook Graduate School, USA.

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research & Development, 42(2), 21-29. Jones, B., Valdez, G., Nowakowski, J., & Rasmussen, C. (1994). Designing learning and technology for educational reform. Oak Book, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Knowles, M. (1989). Making of an adult educator. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Institute for Higher Education Policy. (2000). Quality on the line. Retrieved from http://www. ihep.com/Pubs/PDF/Quality.pdf Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Barclay, K., Gordon, A., Hollahan, J., & Lai, Y. (2003). The live e-learning cookbook: Recipes for success. New York: iUniverse.

This work was previously published in Flexible Learning in an Information Society, edited by B. Khan, pp. 77-85, copyright 2007 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.9

Herding Cats:

Striking a Balance Between Autonomy and Control in Online Classes Donald N. Philip University of Toronto, Canada

exeCuTIve SummARy Teachers using online learning environments have found that traditional classroom control techniques do not work when applied online. Instead, other approaches need to be used. This chapter introduces the concept of knowledge-building as an approach that is effective in online learning, and the concept of protocological control as a means of controlling the communications networks that evolve during the learning process. Data from a study involving students in a gr. 5/6 hybrid (online and face-to-face) class are used to illustrate how the teacher controls the learning process when the students all work independently of each other. The use of social network analysis as a tool for visualizing the communications networks that form is demonstrated.

InTRoduCTIon Online learning is growing by leaps and bounds throughout North America. Christensen, Horn, and Johnson note that student enrolment in online classes has risen from forty-five thousand in 2000 to about one million by 2008 (2008, p. 98). Further, their extrapolations indicate that by 2019, fully fifty percent of U.S. secondary school classes will be online. Even if these predictions fall short, online education is positioning itself to be a potent factor in North American education. One of the more popular and successful ways to conduct online learning is via the blended or hybrid class model (Palloff & Pratt, 2001). Such classes feature both live-class interactions in a traditional classroom, and online interactions through some form of online learning environment. However

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-878-9.ch018

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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appearances are deceiving: such classes cannot be run in the manner of a traditional class, even though they may take place, at least partially, in a traditional classroom setting. Due to the asynchronous nature of online learning environments, traditional means of control of the learning process quickly reveal themselves as unworkable, and the teacher has to adjust to news ways of working. As Palloff and Pratt note, “Teaching in the cyberspace classroom requires that we move beyond traditional models of pedagogy into new practices that are more facilitative.” (2001, p. 20) This chapter explores how one teacher in a Gr. 5/6 hybrid class manages the learning process in a through a combination of knowledge-building pedagogy (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003b) and protocological control, a way of controlling networks (Galloway & Thacker, 2007).

nASA’s Problem Space exploration in general, and Mars exploration in particular provide good examples of challenging control problems. Some years ago, when NASA was designing the now-famous Mars Rovers, it was presented with such a problem: Mars is a long way from Earth, and to communicate with the rovers, scientists needed to use radio. Radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum (like light), and suffer from the same limitations– radio waves travel at a finite speed. Mars is so distant that there is a ten minute lag between the time a signal is sent from the Earth to when it is received on Mars; twenty minutes for the round trip (Intelligent Systems Division, 2008). Now imagine the problem: the rover is on Mars and a landslide starts downhill toward it. If traditional hierarchical control is applied, then the rover’s video signals would have to be monitored twentyfour hours each day, seven days a week, looking for problems. When the video of the landslide is transmitted, it would take ten minutes to reach the control technician. Assuming the technician is alert, and not on a break, the message telling

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Figure 1. A Mars rover (NASA, 2008)

the rover to move out of the way would arrive at Mars ten minutes later, completing the twenty minute round trip. Landslides move more quickly than that, even in low gravity. The rover would be destroyed. Traditional control won’t work, and another solution had to be found. The solution was to not control the rovers directly. Instead, the rovers were built with buglevel intelligence. Insects routinely engage in goal-seeking behaviors (as when bees forage for flowers), avoid dangers, and so forth. Giving the rovers artificial intelligence of this level gave them sufficient autonomy to control themselves. NASA could specify the goal: move to a rock or other Martian feature, but the rovers decided for themselves how to move to that goal. The overarching goal was specified, but the specific path to that goal was not. Most robots in current use (such as the military’s mine clearing robots) are sort of like puppets. An operator directly controls every movement. This is called short-leash control (Stanovich, 2004). There is no intelligence in the machine, only in the operator. The rovers operate by what is called longleash control (Stanovich, 2004). They make some autonomous decisions, but scientists provide the overall direction. Named Spirit and Opportunity, they are among the most successful and famous of NASA’s current missions, and are, to a degree, autonomous machines. At the time of writing,

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they have been operating about five years, and are still functional. A teacher in an online class is a little like the scientists at NASA. They are in the position of having to create a learning community among the students, but at the same time, allow the students to pursue their own ideas–a clash between autonomy and control. While traditional classes operate in a hierarchical control mode, with little or no autonomy on the part of the students, online classes need to allow the students considerable autonomy and yet the teacher still needs to maintain some form of control over the learning process. This is the subject of this chapter: how to control the learning process, while still providing the necessary autonomy.

BACkgRound The School and Study group ICS is a private school in the inner city area of a large city in Canada. It has a highly multi-ethnic, multi-cultural co-educational population. The students are not specially chosen in any way, and are accepted on the basis of their ability to pay. Established in 1925, the school currently works actively with various educational research projects. A current focus of a number of teachers at the school is knowledge-building pedagogy in an effort partnering with the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT; www.ikit.org), part of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto). The particular study group for this case was a Gr. 5/6 class who at the time were working on a unit on Ancient Civilizations. The class was chosen because both the teacher and students were experienced with knowledge-building, and with the Knowledge Forum™ knowledge-building software system created by IKIT (see below). The physical classroom was in an older part of the building, and consisted of two rooms connected

by a workspace. Importantly, the class had a set of laptop computers, and was comfortable with their use, as was the teacher. Twenty of the twentytwo students (ten boys; ten girls) and the teacher agreed to participate in the study. Observations took place over a two-month period, and included observations of students working with computers, without computers and in full-class discussions.

knowledge-Building Knowledge-building is a process by which a community engaged in the solution of a common problem creates new knowledge and new understandings of knowledge (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003b). There are a number of points of interest in that simple statement. The first is the notion of community in the solving of problems, something closely related to the concept of community of practice. Lave and Wenger describe a community of practice thus (1999, p. 98): A community of practice is a set of relations among persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice. A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge, not least because it provides the interpretive support necessary for making sense of its heritage. Thus, participation in the cultural practice in which any knowledge exists is an epistemological principle of learning. The social structure of this practice, its power relations, and its conditions for legitimacy define possibilities for learning ... A community of practice contains within it the cultural practices necessary for the support and use of the specialized knowledge of the community. This is an important concept, as in the context of a school, it embeds the students in a community–a network–of other individuals, and

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the artifacts and practices necessary for the work of the community. However, not all communities of practice are knowledge-building communities (Hewitt, 1996). Knowledge-building communities are something that have been quite rare in the world’s societies until recently (Bereiter, 2002). For example, Lewis, speaking principally of the Ottoman Empire and their view of knowledge noted, “Knowledge was something to be acquired, stored, if necessary bought, rather than grown or developed” (2002, p. 39). A similar statement could be made for almost every past civilization. The deliberate creation of new knowledge is quite recent. How then do knowledge-building communities differ from communities of practice? Arguably the best explanation of this can be found in the work on how the current model of science developed and how scientific revolutions occur. Schaffer (in an interview with Cayley, 2008), discusses the importance of a community in the establishment of scientific truth. He notes one of the big advances chemist Robert Boyle made was to create a community of observers who watched as an experiment was performed and later attested to the results. Boyle also encouraged the publication of detailed descriptions of the experiment and details of how any apparatus used could be built, allowing others interested in the work to perform the experiment and verify it themselves. This was the nascent stirring of research communities that explored ideas, created and validated new knowledge, and shared the results among the community. A key idea here was that the community was developed not for the purpose of continuing previous practices, but of creating new knowledge and new practices–very different from a traditional community of practice. How do such communities work? Kuhn, in his exploration of how scientific revolutions occur, gives a very clear picture of this. He introduces the concept of normal science, which, “… does not aim at [paradigm shifting] novelties of fact or theory …” (Kuhn, 1996, p. 52). Most research communities of any type

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typically engage normal science-type work; work that attempts to extend, clarify, and elaborate the current best paradigm. This is original work, and produces new insights and new knowledge, but about an already existing paradigm. However, over time, problems with the paradigm begin to crop up, and in solving these, new knowledge is created that results in the famous paradigm shift in which a new model becomes the focus of the activity of the community. Kuhn examined paradigm shifts that were World changing, but paradigm shifts can occur at any scale from very small to very large.

knowledge Forum Knowledge Forum™ has been created to facilitate the knowledge-building process by providing an online networked environment containing supports for the knowledge-building process. Ideas about the problem under study are contributed in the form of notes posted to a communal database. Knowledge Forum™ has a suite of tools that allow students to revise their notes, critique the notes of others by responding to them (building-on), referencing others, organizing the notes into conceptual groupings, and synthesizing knowledge. Within a note itself, there are tools to metacognitively scaffold ideas, to identify the problem under study, to create searchable keywords, and to allow multiple authorship. Through these tools, the focus of the class shifts from individual knowledge to group knowledge. As well, an evolving suite of analytic tools allows teachers and students to more closely examine facets of the knowledgebuilding process. An introductory tour of Knowledge Forum™can be found at: http://www.knowledgeforum.com/ Kforum/Products/Intro/audioon/tour1.html, and contains images and more detail.

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working in a knowledgeBuilding Class In a knowledge-building class, the focus is on student ideas, students’naïve paradigms (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003a) or mental models (Vosniadou, 2002). The teacher presents a problem of real substance that provides the long-leash, overarching goal for the class. Students advance their ideas about the problem in public (usually in an online discourse space), and read about other students’ ideas. In so doing, problems with the ideas are noticed, and the students begin to research in the manner of normal science to support their ideas, extend them, and apply them to the problem under study. As this process continues, however, gradually the students’ original ideas begin to change until there are paradigm shifts (writ small) within the class. This work to continually improve and extend ideas becomes a continuous flow of inquiry. The knowledge produced is often new only to their community (Bereiter, 2002), but that is often true for other research communities. The teacher’s problem is this: What controls the class when each student’s ideas are different, when each student, like the Mars rovers, has to find their own path and do different research to improve their ideas? In a traditional class, the teacher controls the learning process by having everyone do the same activities at the same time, but that isn’t possible in a knowledge-building class. In common parlance, the teacher has to ‘herd cats’. To better understand this, we need next to turn our attention to the nature of networks.

neTwoRkS And The ConTRol oF neTwoRkS In recent years, stories about networks (especially in the popular press) have reached a crescendo that is hard to ignore. Much of the discussion has revolved around social networking sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com), MySpace

(www.myspace.com), Twitter (http://twitter.com), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), and so forth. There are two reasons for this: (1) the power of social networks has become evident, and economically and socially important; and (2) we now have the tools available to analyze these networks, helping us to understand them better. For these reasons, the study of networks has become critical. The first thing to be aware of in studying networks is that there are ubiquitous properties of networks that appear in very diverse networks: physical, chemical, biological, ecological, and communications as well as social (Ball, 2004; Barabási, 2002; Buchanan, 2002). Briefly put, there are certain patterns which tend to form in networks, and these show up over and over again in different types of networks. Further, networks are built on other networks, so networks interact and affect each other. As stated by the Committee for Network Science for Future Army Applications (2005, p. vii), “Networks interact with each other and are recursive. Social networks are built upon information networks which are built upon communications networks which in turn are built on physical networks.” Therefore, a disruption in the physical network affects the social network. This is not limited to computer-based communication, but again can be much more widely applied. Traffic patterns (a social interaction) are networks of interactions among drivers of cars, but these interactions can be severely altered by disruptions in the physical networks of streets and highways over which the traffic travels (see Surowiecki, 2005, for a good discussion of this). We literally live immersed in a sea of networked interactions of which we have largely been unaware because of the practical difficulties of gathering data and the computational difficulties of the analysis. With automated data collection and new analytic tools, the networked underpinnings of our civilization are gradually being made explicit. A network can be described as a set of actors or nodes and the relations among them (Krebs, 2007). In social networks, the nodes are people,

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Figure 2. Sociogram of the response network in a knowledge-building class

and the relations (connections) among them are communications or social interactions of some kind. In order to study social networks, various statistical measures are used, but the most intuitive tool is the creation of a sociogram, sometimes called a network map, that visualizes the nodes as dots or squares and the relations among them as lines called arcs or edges. Figure 2 shows a sociogram. Network science is a rapidly growing field at this time, and there are many ways in which a sociogram can be presented. In Figure 2, square nodes represent boys; round nodes, girls. The size of a node indicates the frequency with which people have responded to that individual. Darker lines indicate reciprocal interactions; lighter lines,

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one-way interactions. A node with no connections (as in the upper left) indicates a non-participant in responding. As can be seen, a lot of information can be packed into a sociogram. Sociograms allow what is essentially an invisible network of interactions to be made visible and susceptible to analysis (Cross, Borgatti, & Parker, 2003). Very well, we can analyze social networks, and they tell us something about human interaction patterns, but as noted by Galloway and Thacker (in one of the first serious works on this), we don’t understand networks very well at all–we have no real theory of networks (2007). (Our current theories are largely about how to analyze networks, which is quite a different thing). As Galloway and Thacker state, networks make us

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uncomfortable because of their nonhuman nature (2007, p. 5): The nonhuman quality of networks is precisely what makes them so difficult to grasp. They are, we suggest, a medium of contemporary power, and yet no single subject or group absolutely controls a network. Human subjects constitute and construct networks, but always in a highly distributed and unequal fashion. Human subjects thrive on network interactions (kin groups, clans, the social), yet the moments when the network logic takes over–in the mob or the swarm, in contagion or infection–are the moments that are the most disorienting, the most threatening to the integrity of the human ego. Hence a contradiction: the self-regulating and self-organizing qualities of emergent networked phenomena appear to engender and supplement the very thing that makes us human, yet one’s ability to superimpose top-down control on that emergent structure evaporates in the blossoming of the network form, itself bent on eradicating the importance of the distinct or isolated node. (Emphasis added)

How Does this Affect a Knowledge-Building Class? As noted above, in knowledge-building classes, each student creates their own path to knowledge under the overall guidance of a research question. The teacher facilitates this, but does not directly control the students’ paths; in fact, cannot, because of the asynchronous nature of the online environment. In the course of their research, the students interact, either in the live class setting, or online. In so doing, they create communication networks that are emergent in the sense of complexity theory: interactions that self-organize into stable networks. There has been much recent work on the nature of the innovation process, and one thing that is very clear is that innovation happens among individuals embedded in a supportive social

network (Berkun, 2007; Gloor, 2006; Johansson, 2006; Ogle, 2007; Rogers, 1995; Sawyer, 2007). Thus, the creation of a networked community is essential to the knowledge-building process, but control of that network cannot, because of the nature of networks, happen through traditional hierarchical means.

Protocological Control Galloway and Thacker: “The quandary is this: no one controls networks, but networks are controlled” (2007, p. 39, original emphasis). So what do we really know about controlling networks? Galloway and Thacker respond with the term protocological control. They borrow the term protocol not from diplomacy, but from the life sciences and computer science. For them, protocol, “…refers to all the technoscientific rules and standards that govern relationships within networks. Protocols abound in technoculture. They are rooted in the laws of nature, yet they sculpt the spheres of the social and the cultural. They are principles of networked interrelationality ...” (2007, p. 28, original emphasis). They are the constraints on the system, physical, social, technological, and other. These place limits on the outer boundaries of the activity, but allow for considerable freedom of action within those boundaries. They give the characteristics of protocols (2007, pp. 29-30): •

•

•

Protocols emerge through the complex relationships between autonomous, interconnected agents. To function smoothly, protocological networks must be robust and flexible; they must accommodate a high degree of contingency ... Protocological networks are inclusive rather than exclusive; discrimination, regulation, and segregation of agents happen on the inside of protocological systems (not by the selective extension or rejection of

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• •

network membership to those agents). Protocols are universal and total ... Protocol is the emergent property of organization and control in networks that are radically horizontal and distributed.

Let’s Unpack This and see What it Means The first point is that protocological networks are emergent phenomena of complex systems, and in knowledge-building classes, students function as autonomous, interconnected agents. Emergence is a term taken from complexity theory (Holland, 1998; Waldrop, 1992), and refers to behaviors of interest that arise spontaneously through selforganization. Typically, emergence occurs when independent (autonomous) agents interact in a system with a considerable degree of horizontal interaction: hierarchical interaction tends to inhibit emergence, and in fact, is intended to do so. In a knowledge-building class, it is important then to create the conditions in which emergence can take place. Johnson (2001) notes the importance of random interactions among group members (p. 79), and notes why there is a sudden interest in non-hierarchical forms of organization among businesses (p. 223): [E]mergent systems can be brilliant innovators, and they tend to be more adaptable to sudden change than more rigid hierarchical models. Those qualities make the principles of bottomup intelligence tantalizing ones for businesses struggling to keep up with the twenty-first century rate of change. A number of companies, concentrated mostly in the high-tech industry, have experimented with neural-net-like organizational structures, breaking up the traditional system of insular and hierarchical departments … Units can assemble into larger clusters if they need to, and those clusters have the power to set their own objectives. The role of traditional senior management grows less important in these models–less

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concerned with establishing a direction for the company, and more involved with encouraging the clusters that generate the best ideas. If we take that statement and replace ‘departments’, ‘companies’, managers’, and ‘management’ with ‘classes’, ‘schools’, ‘teachers’ and ‘administrators’, then we have a pretty good description of what a knowledge-building class is trying to do. Living as we do in a period of rapid and accelerating change, the adaptability of such systems is a very attractive way to manage education. The second point is that protocological networks need to be robust and flexible, and in particular accommodate a high degree of contingency. This is one of the really critical points: contingency. Since a teacher in a knowledgebuilding class never knows exactly which ideas the students will pursue and how enthusiastically, they have to make all of their plans contingent on the actions of the students, and these cannot be predicted in advance. An understanding of the contingent nature of control in knowledgebuilding classes is critical, and the process can be somewhat nerve-wracking, especially to teachers new to the process. The third point, that protocological networks are inclusive, is simply consistent with good teaching practice. A network that excludes parts of the class isn’t functioning properly, knowledgebuilding class or not. The fourth point regards the universality of protocols. In terms of a knowledge-building class, they apply universally to all members–including the teacher. The teacher cannot expect to proceed hierarchically, and then expect that the students will be able to function as an effective knowledgebuilding community. Finally, the fifth point is something already discussed: the protocols are emergent, and occur among non-hierarchical groups of people. Knowledge-building teachers have to resist the impulse to impose top-down organization on the

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class, and have to monitor their behavior to see if they are doing it. The concept of protocological control is difficult to grasp at first, and is counter-intuitive to those of us who have been educated in traditional hierarchical classes. The remainder of this paper will use a case study to illustrate how one teacher managed it.

CASe STudy meThodology As noted above, this was a case study of a Gr. 5/6 class in an urban setting in Canada in which ten boys, ten girls and their teacher participated. There were two kinds of data collected: qualitative data, including ethnographic observations, video and audio interviews, surveys, and questionnaires; and quantitative data from the server log files from the Knowledge Forum™ online environment. Of particular note here are the ethnographic observations, as these provided the details of what the teacher did in the traditional setting to facilitate the work in the online environment. Special attention was paid to the typical student behaviors, how the teacher used technology, and what forms of control were applied to the class. Social network analysis using data obtained from the online environment was used to examine some of the communication networks that formed. Analysis was done using the Ucinet social network analysis program (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002).

Results We will first look at a typical knowledge-building session, then focus on how the teacher used the various technologies in the class, and how the teacher applied protocological control to the class.

Typical Knowledge-Building Sessions The teacher used the time at the very beginning of these sessions to deal with administrative concerns, and to remind students of relevant class policies. For example, on one occasion, the teacher reminded the students that problems with individual computers should not be addressed during ‘whole class’ time, but instead should be brought to the teacher privately. The teacher began the knowledge-building part of the session by reminding the students of what topics they were studying and why. The teacher, as noted above, did not assign topics–these were self-assigned by the students. But the teacher did remind the students of what they were working on. In some cases, this was actually a set of multiple reminders to multiple groups of students, who were all working on different things. In reminding the students of what they were working on, the teacher often tried to phrase the reminder in the form of a question or problem. For example, when reminding the students that some were working on whether or not certain societies had a written language, he said, “What if you’re interested in how language affects a civilization?” He then suggested that students might start on this by searching the KF database for any notes relating to the keyword ‘language’, and that they might create a rise-above note to contain any notes they found. However, this was phrased as a suggestion, and essentially reinforced the normal classroom practice. In some sessions, the teacher would review the use of functions like responding or note collections called rise-aboves; in others he dealt with other concerns. In the aforementioned case, the teacher reviewed the creation and use of rise-above notes in case any students decided to use them. \When the teacher had dealt with the preliminaries, he instructed the students to start their work. For most, this involved getting their computers, a procedure that would differ in other locations, depending on the computer set-up of the class.

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In this class, laptop computers were located on a cart, and the students had to move to the cart and get their own computer, one per child. Usually there were a few students who did not get their computers, but instead got books or other materials from the classroom supply. The laptop arrangement provided considerable flexibility for the students. They could move their computers from desk to desk, depending on with whom they were working. As the class progressed, the teacher moved constantly about the class, answering student questions, clarifying concepts, solving technological problems, etc. Since the classroom was composed of two rooms joined together, the teacher moved between the spaces frequently. Children are children, and one of the teacher’s jobs was to keep the students focused on task. The girls, for example, had a tendency to start rhythmic clapping, as this excerpt from the field notes demonstrates: Table 4 discusses ancient Japan (and one student does a little dancing). Table 1 calls [a student] over (for the 2nd time). Rhythmic clapping erupts at table 4 (two girls). The clapping is complex rhythmically, and involves hand waving as well. It is obviously rehearsed. There is a general huddle at table 1 as the students from tables 1 and 4 try to solve a technological problem. More clapping. [Teacher] negotiates a cessation.

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Now table 1 starts clapping the identical complex pattern as the table 4 group. … The boys tended to engage in horseplay, such as playing with some of the classroom props (plastic swords) provided for a discussion of the Roman army. In each case, the teacher would move quickly to bring the students back on task, but these events were infrequent and for the most part, the students kept themselves on task. The knowledge-building sessions occurred three times per week for about ninety minutes at a time. This is about four and a half hours, or about 18% of school time each week. The time Google (www./google.com) allots for knowledge-building-type activities (new learning and working on employee’s own ideas) is about 30% of an employee’s time (Ignatius, 2006), so the time allotted for knowledge-building was not excessive–indeed, one could argue that it was insufficient compared to knowledge age businesses. About 70% of classroom time was spent in more traditional pursuits. Because of the extended inquiry time, it was possible to observe the students frequently forming groups to work on problems, and having solved these (and usually placing a note about it in Knowledge Forum), move on to something else, often forming new groups in the process. This was very fluid and flexible. Another aspect of the class was communal note reading. In this excerpt, the students at various tables read notes aloud to others, or suggested notes for others to read: At table 3, the students negotiate some note reading. One student tells another to read her “Norse” note. The other students says, “OK, you read ‘Inca’ [referring to her note].” At table 1, a student reads a “Weapons” note aloud to the group.

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Table 3 also has some reading aloud. At table 2: “Listen to what Charlotte [her note] says.” The note is then read aloud and causes some merriment. The teacher asks them to focus on knowledge-building. A student shows a note to another student [on the computer screen.] A further aspect of the knowledge-building sessions was knowledge-building talk sessions. In these, the teacher had the students rearrange the room so that chairs could be placed in a circle. The teacher himself sat in one of these chairs in a non-hierarchical position. He then invited the students to begin discussion their ideas. Usually the discussion was quite free-ranging, and the student who last spoke generally decided who would speak next. However, if something came up that engendered a lot of interest, the teacher changed the procedure and went around the circle to give everyone a chance to speak. Knowledge-building talks were not held on a regular basis, but were frequent enough to be a typical class activity.

Teachers’ Comments Earlier, it was noted that the process of releasing hierarchical control and moving to protocological control is disconcerting to teachers. Here’s what the teacher had to say about it. (These comments were an e-mail communication regarding an interview): Well, I have to say it’s challenging for many reasons. You need to be comfortable with the fact that many different inquiries are occurring simultaneously by the students, inspired by their research interest in the chosen topic, making it impossible to teach in a tradition way in which you control all the information students are accessing

in a uniform way. We were trained as teachers to plan and deliver lessons for the whole class, kidding ourselves into believing that this uniformity ensured equality of learning opportunity for each student. Then we would design assessments that complemented what we taught – grading our teaching more than the students’ learning. All this gave us a sense of security, albeit a false one. Yet, in a knowledge-building classroom, you are never completely certain where the inquiry will lead, how deep the study will go. You must trust the students. I grappled for years with how much agency and responsibility of the design of the inquiry to hand over to them. There were moments where I, early on in my experiences, doubted the ability of the students to be self-directed, questioning if any learning would actually take place, underestimating their abilities. For example when you have students designing their own experiments to test their theories, that takes time. Enough time to make you worry if this is working or worth it. Or when you have a group of students laughing as they watch a video of a probe on Mars they found on the web, you wonder if time is being used productively. And then they surprise you, with a knowledge advance, new knowledge learned in a meaningful way because they were able to direct it, to connect it to their own questions and share it with the community to construct a deeper collective understanding. I struggled with misconceptions that were unchallenged. Although I knew that simply correcting these misconceptions would not be ultimately beneficial and that instead creating a situation where the students themselves were able to identify them would be best, this was definitely the most painful part of my teaching. It is so easy to correct a mistake and feel we have eliminated it forever…

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…you also are forced to admit that your own understanding of the material will be challenged as you realize you cannot and should not limit the inquiry based on your own comfort or understanding of the material. As the students refine their theories through research and experimentation, they develop new problems of understanding that delve deeply [into a topic], questions that you may not be able to answer. Your role changes from that of “information provider” to “co-learner” in the community as you acknowledge the limits of your understanding. Your own misconceptions will be revealed and this is definitely disconcerting as we were trained as teachers to be “curriculum experts”, as if knowledge were a finite thing and the curriculum expectations are the sum total of all that is needed to be learned. The role of teacher in a KB classroom is that of a facilitator, assisting students in identifying their questions, stating their initial theories, testing and researching them and sharing their “new information” with the community for others to build upon to improve their theories. Even experienced teachers find it difficult to let go of hierarchical control, to trust their students. It’s scary and difficult, especially when a teacher has to start clean with a class of inexperienced knowledge builders who themselves are accustomed to hierarchical control. Zhang, Scardamalia and Reeve (2006), in a three-year longitudinal study of a knowledgebuilding class, found that the release of control was not immediate. Instead, the teacher began with a specialized-group model in the first year, moved to an interacting-group model in the second year, and in the third year, moved to an opportunistic-collaboration model as in the study class. This progression demonstrates that release of control can be a gradual process as the teacher becomes accustomed to and experienced with the knowledge-building process. Simply put, greater degrees of freedom can be allowed the students as the teacher’s understanding of the process grows.

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Another comment of note has to do with making class plans contingent on student ideas. In this excerpt, a pre-service teacher talks about this in relation to some questions they planned to pose the students: [W]e didn’t create those questions as links to other [workspaces], which was my initial [idea] …and it was suggested not to do that … because we don’t know what’s going to explode, what’s going to be the key area of interest … So I guess … we have an idea of what we’d like the Big Ideas to be, but even we’re not sure what the Big Ideas will necessarily be. The implication of this comment is that not knowing which Big Idea will motivate the students to do more research forces the teacher to not direct the process, but be ready to exploit the Big Idea when it arrives. This exploitation sometimes forces the teacher to become a co-learner in the class, because the students can easily get into an area the teacher does not understand and has to research. This is what is meant by contingent control: being ready to exploit the Big Idea when it arrives, and teacher preparation is often playing catch-up to the students, a kind of just-in-time lesson planning.

what the Teacher did This is a delicate section to write because it lists what techniques this particular teacher in this class did to control the knowledge-building network. It is delicate because there is a danger that it could be read proscriptively: Do this and no other, in this order, and a knowledge-building community will result. Unlikely. It is best, then, to keep in mind that this is protocological control contingent on student ideas. Any of these techniques could be used, or none. Entirely new techniques could emerge on the part of the teacher in response to student behaviors. That having been said, here are the techniques used by this teacher during the observation period:

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•

Monitoring: The teacher constantly monitors student activities, not just to keep them on track, but to better understand what they are working on and what materials and resources they might need next. In wholly online classes, this would involve reading postings, etc., and using any available analytic tools provided (see below). Modeling: The teacher frequently demonstrated the features and functions of Knowledge Forum, especially when they were relevant to something the students were working on. Even though the students were experienced, they sometimes needed a nudge to make effective use of the online environment. Reading Aloud of Student Notes: If the teacher found a note he thought particularly good, relevant, or interesting, he would get the student author to read it aloud to the others. This is a subtle technique. Using it, the teacher, without entering notes into the database or injecting his own ideas into the class, directed students to points he considered important. Technology Choices: All of the students had access to laptop computers, and Knowledge Forum. However, the teacher was careful to model effective use of technology, not just technology for its own sake. In one instance, the teacher asked the students to write information on flip charts; on another, they wrote on a white board. Both were persistent and visible to all students. So while Knowledge Forum was available, it wasn’t just used because it was there–it was used when it was the most effective tool. However, sometimes, the most effective tool is something oldfashioned (and this is often cheaper). This is in line with the recent UNESCO report on ICT competency standards for teachers. They suggest that teachers need to know when and how to use technologies,

•

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which must be appropriate to the pedagogy (UNESCO, 2008). Organization of Knowledge-building Talk Sessions: Discussed above, these were organized to emphasize the non-hierarchical nature of the discourse, and to allow all students to participate. Discourse focused on student ideas and the teacher functioned as a moderator, not a director of the discussion. Ensuring equal participation has a side effect: the students have to listen because they know they will be asked to speak. This increases engagement with the material. Knowledge-building Terminology: The teacher encouraged the use of knowledgebuilding terminology to constantly reinforce that this was a knowledge-building class. This included using and encouraging students to use terms like ‘build-on’, riseabove’, ‘theory’, and ‘idea’ frequently.

These were the observed techniques, and there are most probably others that were not observed. Other researchers have noted different techniques being used (Bielaczyc, 2007; Bielaczyc & Collins, 2005). Binding commonalities are the focus on the improvement of student ideas and the absence of hierarchical control of the knowledge process.

The emergence of Stable networks Using social network analysis, it is possible to examine the emergence of stable networks among the students. One facet of the current study was an examination of the build-on (response) network that formed over the course of the class. Figure 3 shows this network as it develops. 3a shows the network after the first week, and subsequent sociograms show the network at the end of each month of the extended inquiry. The sociograms in Figure 3 show the growth of the building-on network from rather sparse beginnings to a more complex and inclusive network

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Figure 3. The growth of the network of build-ons over the inquiry period

later on. Of particular note is that by the time of Figure 3c, the network had achieved a configuration that didn’t change much in the next month, as evidenced by Figure 3d–it achieved a dynamic, but stable configuration. With the exception of one student (special needs), the entire class was involved in the build-on network. It should be noted that while social network analysis and sociograms can tell us what communication patterns formed, it cannot tell us anything about the content of the communications. Thus we can say that the pathways that would allow knowledge-building to occur are present, but cannot say definitively that knowledge-building did occur. For that we would need multiple forms of analysis.

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Knowledge Forum currently has a social network analysis tool built in, and it allows the teacher to quickly and easily perform such analyses. One value of this tool is to provide the teacher and students with feedback as to how the network is developing. It can show if the network is inclusive, and if the students are freely interchanging ideas without clumping into non-communicating groups. This can help to reinforce the protocological control of the network. By making the invisible networks visible (Cross, et al., 2003), they become objects for reflection and guidance for teachers and students.

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Current Challenges ICS has the ongoing problem that is plaguing most schools that use technology heavily: where to get the money to replace aging equipment when it has reached the limits of its lifespan. The laptop computers that were used in this case study came from a grant, but that has now run out and new computers are needed for the class. At the time or writing, it is unclear how this challenge is being met. Another challenge is to inculcate new teachers into the knowledge-building culture of the school. Partly handled through the interview process by which new staff are hired, the main process is through a carefully maintained culture of supportive collaboration among the teachers. It’s not just the students who proceed in a knowledgebuilding manner; the staff also brings it into every aspect of their teaching. Thus, a teacher at a staff meeting will raise an issue that is troubling them, and the whole staff will work on how to proceed in a knowledge-building manner. The culture of knowledge-building is pervasive in the school at all levels.

ConCluSIonS This chapter has dealt with the concept of protocological control, a quite new concept about how networks are controlled. Protocological control replaces hierarchical control when we deal with the emergent networks that form when classes move online and form knowledge-building communities. Protocological control is a difficult concept to grasp because it is very different from the experience of most teachers and, and because it is contingent–something that most teachers find quite nerve-wracking at first. Protocological control is contingent: it depends on feedback loops. For that reason, many of the teacher’s activities in a knowledge-building class involve making sure they have adequate feedback

to ensure that the knowledge-building community forms properly and keeps its focus. This involves monitoring students’ progress and providing appropriate materials in a just-in-time fashion, and monitoring the progress of the community. New tools such as the social network analysis tool are being developed to aid in that process. It also, in the teacher’s words, involves having trust in the students. Part of the reason that protocological control is nerve-wracking is that until recently there hasn’t even been a word to describe the process. It has been the purpose of this chapter to give the process a name and to describe how it works in practice. Persons new to knowledge-building will hopefully find this useful as they begin their journey. This work has been supported in part by a generous grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

ReFeRenCeS Ball, P. (2004). Critical mass. How one thing leads to another. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Barabási, A.-L. (2002). Linked. The new science of networks. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing. Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and mind in the knowledge age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Berkun, S. (2007). The myths of innovation (1st ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly. Bielaczyc, K. (2007). Informing design research: Examining the ways that teachers design social infrastructure. Paper presented at the Building Knowledge Institute, Toronto, Canada.

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Bielaczyc, K., & Collins, A. (2005). Fostering knowledge-creating communities. In C. E. HmeloSilver, A. M. O’Donnell, & G. Erkens (Eds.), Collaborative learning, reasoning, and technology. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates. Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Freeman, L. C. (2002). Ucinet for Windows: Software for social network analysis. Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies.

Hewitt, J. (1996). Progress toward a knowledgebuilding community. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Toronto. Holland, J. H. (1998). Emergence: From chaos to order. Reading, MA: Helix Books. Ignatius, A. (2006, Feb. 20). In search of the real Google. Time (Canadian ed.), 20-32.

Buchanan, M. (2002). Nexus. Small worlds and the groundbreaking science of networks. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.

Intelligent Systems Division. (2008). The mission. Destination: Mars. Retrieved May 13, 2008, from http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/destination/mars/our_part. php

Cayley, D. (Producer). (2008, April 30). Simon Schaffer [Episode 1]. How to think about science. Podcast retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/ features/science/index.html

Johansson, F. (2006). The Medici effect. What elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Christensen, C., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting class. How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw Hill.

Johnson, S. (2001). Emergence. The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. Toronto, Canada: Scribner.

Committee for Network Science for Future Army Applications. (2005). Network science. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Cross, R., Borgatti, S. P., & Parker, A. (2003). Making invisible work visible. In R. L. Cross, A. Parker, & L. Sasson (Eds.), Networks in the knowledge economy (pp. 261-282). New York: Oxford University Press. Galloway, A. R., & Thacker, E. (2007). The exploit: a theory of networks. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Gloor, P. A. (2006). Swarm creativity. Competitive advantage through collaborative innovation networks. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Krebs, V. (2007). Social network analysis, a brief introduction. Retrieved August 16, 2007, from http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html Kuhn, T. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1999). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, B. (2002). What went wrong?: Western impact and Middle Eastern response. New York: Oxford University Press. NASA. (2008, Aprril 23). Spirit and Opportunity. Mars exploration rovers. Retrieved May 1, 2008 from http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/ index.html Ogle, R. (2007). Smart world: Breakthrough creativity and the new science of ideas. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

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Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom. The realities of online teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. New York: The Free Press. Sawyer, K. (2007). Group genius: The creative power of collaboration. New York: Basic Books. Scardamalia, C., & Bereiter, M. (2003a). Beyond brainstorming: Sustained Creative work with ideas. Education, 43, 4–44. Scardamalia, C., & Bereiter, M. (2003b). Knowledge building. In J. W. Guthrie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of education, second edition (pp. 1370-1373). New York: Macmillan Reference, USA. Stanovich, K. E. (2004). The robot’s rebellion. Finding meaning in the age of Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Surowiecki, J. (2005). The wisdom of crowds (1st Anchor books ed.). New York: Anchor Books. UNESCO. (2008). Policy framework. ICT competency standards for teachers. New York: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Vosniadou, S. (2002). Mental models in conceptual development [Electronic edition]. In L. Magnani & N. Nersessian (Eds.), Model-based reasoning: Science, technology, values (Vol. 2005). New York: Kluwer Academic Press. Waldrop, M. M. (1992). Complexity. The emerging science at the edge of chaos and order. New York: Touchstone. Zhang, J., Scardamalia, M., & Reeve, R. (2006, April 8). Designs for collective cognitive responsibility in knowledge building communities. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

This work was previously published in Cases on Collaboration in Virtual Learning Environments: Processes and Interactions, edited by D. Russell, pp. 284-300, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment Hamid Nemati University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA Marcia Thompson University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA

ABSTRACT The growing use of a web-based environment for college education is gradually replacing some aspects of the classroom in a University setting, and it is shifting the long accepted paradigm of understanding how students learn and introduces the question of what influences a student’s decision to learn in an online environment. In a web-based course, students gain a level of interaction with the material not possible in the classroom, yet lose other components that are only available in a physical environment. Educators struggle to determine what influences a student to take webbased college courses, and how they best learn in that environment. This study proposes that the student’s learning style, their self-efficacy and self-regulation when it comes to learning, and their expectations regarding online classes, are

all factors in their choice to take web-based college courses. To validate this, students currently taking college level courses were surveyed and their responses analyzed.

INTRODUCTION Instructors that have honed their teaching skills in the classroom quickly learn that their timetested methods do not necessarily translate into an online environment. They discover that students enrolled in their web-based classes are often in college for different reasons than those students in the classroom. An instructor may understand that students learn in a variety of ways, but likely did not explore the impact it had in the classroom. The online environment provides new and exciting ways to meet the needs of students, and it ensures that an online course can meet a student’s

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Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

individual style of learning in ways not possible in the classroom.

LITERATURE REVIEW There is a great deal of literature available that compares the effectiveness of online instruction versus instruction in a classroom. However, the demands placed on colleges by students interested in web-based classes has transcended the need to compare the two since the students themselves are likely not choosing between the two. The distinction between distance and classroom learning has nearly vanished (Dunn, 2000), and the concept of ‘distance’ has gone, too, since physical distance is often not the main reasons students take online classes. Most students do not consider online classes a replacement for the classroom (Cooper, 2001) Today’s students are impacted by factors such as convenience of college classes and perceived ease of use of those classes (Grandon, et al, 2005). Students are looking for higher education that meets their schedules and circumstances, such as full-time jobs and family (PSU, 1998). A profile of online students has suggested they are generally older, and have more life and academic experiences than their traditional classroom counterparts. These are attributes that make a student well suited to the self-directed and independent study associated with online learning (Diaz, 2002). The sheer pervasiveness of the Internet for most adults has created a dramatic demand for online learning opportunities. A 2002 study by the Alsanian Group, a non-profit consulting company that serves colleges and universities, found that 80 percent of adults preferred a traditional classroom for learning. Five years later, a follow up study revealed that the percentage had dropped to 40%, with 30% of adults preferring an exclusive online learning experience, a dramatic shift in only five years (Forsythe, 2007). A study from the U.S. Department of Labor predicted that by early 2008, one in ten postsecondary students

will likely be learning in an online environment (USDOL, 2007). Learning is a very complex process, and individuals learn in a variety of ways. Numerous models for determining an individual’s learning style have been developed, with each focusing on different dimensions of the learner. However, it is generally agreed that each student learns differently, and that they will be more satisfied and have a higher level of learning outcomes when there is a fit between how a course is taught and how the student learns (Eom, et al, 2006) In their research, Diaz and Cartnal found that students in an online environment likely have different styles of learning than their equivalent students in the classroom (Diaz & Cartnal, 1999) They concluded that online students were more independent, and appeared to be driven by intrinsic motives and not by the reward structure of the class. The VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic) typology focuses on the psychological aspects of learning. It is easy to derive the clear differences between the traditional classroom and a web-based class when using this technique. Online environments may not have aural components of the physical classroom, and the Aural learner may not be as effective in an online class, yet Visual and Read/Write learners may fair better in an online class as those classes tend to have a higher level of reading and writing components. The influence of the intrinsic motivation of students on their learning has also been studied, and has shown that there is a link between selfefficacy and the cognitive engagement of the student. Students finding their school work interesting and important also led to them to be cognitively engaged with it. While the self-regulation of a student may not lead to higher grades, is may lead to greater engagement in the class (Pintrick & De Groot, 1990). The Motivational and SelfRegulated Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) introduced by Paul Pintrick and Elizabeth De Groot was originally used to evaluate the motivational beliefs and self-regulated learning strategies of junior

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high school students. They found self-efficacy to be positively related to student performance in a class, and that self-regulation was a strong predictor of academic performance (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990) Unlike taking a course in a classroom, taking an online course demands the use of a computer which ties the two inextricably together. Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) identified ease of use and usefulness as general determinants of user acceptance of a new technology (Davis, 1986). It has been determined that perceived usefulness is a major determinant of a persons intention to use a computer (Davis, et al, 1989), thus is can be extrapolated that the perceived usefulness of an online class is a major determinant to use a computer as well. Davis, et al, also found that perceived ease of use is a secondary determinant of an individual’s intention to use a computer. Applying these findings to taking an online course using a computer implies that even a course considered not easy to use could still be considered useful to the student.

cluded convenience for the student, the flexibility possible due to the nature of an online class, and the lack of a commute to campus. Based on the items survey, the following is proposed: Proposition 1: Convenience will have a positive influence on student’s intention to take online classes.

Learning Style There are numerous instruments available to determine the learning style of a student. This study chose the VARK method to determine the visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic preferences of the students. A brief description of each style follows: •

RESEARCH MODEL Based on previous literature research, this study attempts to relate a number of previous theories to develop a more complex analysis of students taking online classes. Constructs were adapted from several previous models to investigate the relationship between the factors that influenced a student taking an online class, and their ultimate satisfaction with learning in an online environment. The current model is a conceptual model presented here that will need to be empirically tested further.

Personal Influences This study sought to identify what personal factors most influenced a student’s choice of taking an online class. Factors presented, among others, in-

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Visual: Visual learners want the whole picture and are probably holistic rather than reductionist in their approach to the class. They are often swayed by the look of an object, and are interested in color, layout and design. They will likely draw a picture when they need to demonstrate something. Visual learners like lecturers who use picturesque language. They like diagrams, videos, and flowcharts. Aural: Aural learners prefer to listen and have topics explained to them. They like to discuss topics with others and explain their ideas to them. They remember interesting jokes, stories, and examples. Read/Write: These learners prefer written words. They like reading books and handouts, and prefer lecturers who use words well and have a great deal of information in sentences and notes. Kinesthetic: Kinesthetic learners learn by doing. They use all of their senses–sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Clearly, all senses will not translate into an online environment, but sight and hearing certainly can. They like lecturers who give real-life

Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

•

examples. To them, the ideas presented are only valuable if they sound practical, real, and relevant. Multimodal: these learners often have more than one dominant style of learning. Learners who are truly balanced in their styles can adapt to the mode of instruction being used. (Fleming, 2007)

Based on this information, the following hypotheses are proposed: Proposition 1: Learning styles will positively influence the perceived ease of use of online classes. Proposition 2: Learning styles will positively influence perceived usefulness of online classes.

Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation Learning in an online environment can be a very isolating experience for a student. They do not have the physical interaction and support of their classmates and instructor. Instead, they rely in large part on their confidence in their abilities and their regulation of their activities. A component of Pintrich and De Groot’s Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990) was used in this study to determine the impact of self-efficacy and self-regulation on current online students. Based on this research, the following propositions are presented: Proposition 3: Self-efficacy will be positively related to perceived ease of use of online classes. Proposition 4: Self-efficacy will be positively related to perceived usefulness of online classes. Proposition 5: Self-regulation will be positively related to perceived ease of use of online classes.

Proposition 6: Self-regulation will be positively related to perceived usefulness of online classes.

Perceived Usefulness and Ease of Use Since online classes demand the use of a computer and other technology, a students’ comfort level with these components it critical to their success. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) is a well-established model to study the adoption and use of technology. In it, Davis measures how useful a respondent feels the technology will be to them, and how easy it is to use. Based on this research, the following hypotheses are proposed: Proposition 7: Perceived ease of use will be positively related to the intention to take online classes Proposition 8: Perceived usefulness will be positively related to the intention to take online classes Proposition 9: Usefulness will be more influential than ease of use in driving intention to take online classes

Expectations Identifying the expectations of an online student can provide the instructor and university with valuable feedback on how to present the material. Based on a model for measuring student perceptions in web-based courses (Jurczyk, et al, 2004), the following proposition is proposed: Proposition 10: Expectations of online classes will influence the intention to take online classes.

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Satisfaction A student’s attitude toward an experience has been found to be a highly accurate predictor of their intention to submit to that experience again (Ajzen & Fishbein,1980). In the case of online classes, students who are satisfied with learning in an online environment are likely to take another online class in the future. In response, the following hypothesis is proposed: Proposition 11: Satisfaction will be positively related to intention to take an online class.

PROPOSED RESEARCH MODEL Figure 1 is a proposed research model that will be tested during this study.

METHODOLOGY Students responded voluntarily to a self-report web-based survey that included 53 questions. For demographics, possible answers were given in single and multiple-answer formats. For example, a student could only select from a list when asked

for their Degree Program, yet could have multiple answers when asked “Why did you choose to take an online class?” Questions regarding learning style could also have multiple answers, but questions regarding their agreement or disagreement with statements such as their feelings about ease of use of online classes, or their own study habits, were ranked on a one (1) to five (5) scale.

Survey Instrument A list of questions based on the model was derived from a variety of literature. Initial questions regarded basic demographic information such as age range, gender, degree program, and number of online courses the student had participated in. The 16 questions regarding learning style from VARK was duplicated in its entirety with permission from the author. The remaining 30 questions related to self-efficacy, self-regulation, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, expectations, and satisfaction of the student with online classes. These questions were presented with a scale ranging from Strongly Agree (1) to Strongly Disagree (5). The anonymous web-based survey was presented to 13 online courses at a southeastern university with a total of 490 students enrolled in

Figure 1. Proposed research model

Learning Style (LS)

Perceived Ease of Use (EU)

H1

H7

H5 H2

Self-Regulation (SR)

Behavioral Intention to Use (SAT)

H9 H3 H8

H6

Self-Efficacy (SE)

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Perceived Usefulness (PU)

H11

Satisfaction (SAT)

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the classes and 121 students responding. Students were given approximately 14 days to complete the survey. All questions required a response.

RESULTS Demographics The vast majority, 82%, of those surveyed indicated they were female, with 18% being male. This could be explained by the dominance of women in the courses surveyed, or possibly a preference of women to participate in online surveys. Over half, 56.2%, were “over 30” years old. Of those surveyed, 61.2% were seeking an undergraduate degree, and 38% were pursuing a graduate level degree. Only one respondent indicate they were not pursuing a degree. Students were asked “Why did you choose to take an online class?” and convenience was the top response, cited by over 80% of the respondents. A close second was flexibility as indicated by 77% of those responding. Since just over 11% indicated they were taking an online class because that was the only platform on which it was offered implies that the remainder of the students chose the course because it was available online, not because they were forced to take it in that environment. All students indicated that they used the Internet for tasks other than taking a course online. Checking email, doing research, shopping, and getting news topped the reasons for using the Internet. For all questions, see Appendix A.

Learning Style The VARK survey consisted of 16 questions, and a student could mark more that one answer for a question. Of those surveyed, nearly 54% indicated they had a read/write preference for learning. This represented all, or part, of their individual style of learning using the VARK questionnaire. Following are the percentages of learning styles

based on the results of the survey related to the VARK styles. Since a respondent could have multiple styles of learning for a single question, these answers will be skewed toward the Read/Write style such that a respondent had that style plus zero to three more styles. Since these percentages include multi-modal learners, they do not reflect an overall learning style of those surveyed, but they do reveal that Read/Write is a preferred style, of those surveyed, by a very large margin. For all questions, see Appendix B. Learning Style

Surveyed

Visual

15%

Aural

17%

Read/Write

54%

Kinesthetic

15%

Behaviors and Expectations Students in an online environment do not have the same level of interaction with their classmates and instructor as they do in a physical classroom. Instead, they rely on other personal characteristics. When asked about their behavior characteristics and expectations of online classes on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “Strongly Agree”, students reported with an overall ranking of 1.96 to the questions about self-efficacy, and 2.73 in the category of self-regulation. This generally indicated that their confidence in their ability to be successful in an online class was quite strong, but their regulation of their study habits was not quite as strong. Their expectations regarding the responsiveness of instructors, the organization of online classes, and the resolution of technical problems was very high at 1.69. This nearly equaled their overall satisfaction with learning in an online environment and intention to take more online classes in the future which was ranked at 1.70. Over 80% of respondents indicated they expected future online instructors to be responsive

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and the course to be organized and structured. The same level of expectation was given for technical problems experienced by student to be resolved. Of those surveyed, 83% gave the statement “I intend to take more online courses in the future.” a ranking of 1 or 2. 78% also ranked the statement “Overall, I am satisfied with my learning experience via an online platform.” with a 1 or 2. Thus, it can be inferred that these students are very satisfied with online learning and plan to take more online classes in the future. For all questions, see Appendix C. In this third section, the overall reliability of all the items using Cronbach’s alpha (α) was .91. Construct

Reliability

EU (4 items)

0.70

PU (4 items)

0.67

SE (9 items)

0.83

SR (8 items)

0.28

SAT (2 items)

0.44

EX (3 items)

0.58

CONCLUSION Based on the analysis of the data thus far, a solid profile has been made regarding current online students at this university. They are predominantly female and over 30 years old. While some have a multi-modal learning style, the population surveyed predominantly included a read/write learning style. Convenience was the top reason for choosing online classes. Overall, the students surveyed were very satisfied with their learning experience and intend to take more courses online in the future. The information gathered can provide insight for faculty and administrators for developing online courses to meet the needs and learning styles of online students. This survey has developed a foundation instrument that could be considered a pilot for expanding the survey to a larger body of online students.

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REFERENCES Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Predicting and Understanding Consumer Behavior. In Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior. Prentice-Hall. Cooper, L. W. (2001, March). A comparison of online and traditional computer applications classes. T.H.E. Journal, 28(8), 52-55. Davis, F. D. (1989, September). Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology. MIS Quarterly, 319340. Davis, F. D. (1986). A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems: Theory and Results. Doctoral dissertation, Sloal School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. David, F. D., Bagozzi, R. P., & Warshaw, P. R. (August, 1989) User acceptance of computer technology: A comparison of two theoretical models. Management Science, 35(4), 982-1003. Diaz, D. P. (2002, May/June). Online Drop Rates Revisited. The Technology Source. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from http://technologysource. org/article/online_drop_rates_revisited/ Diaz, D. P., & Cartnal, R. B. (1999). Students’ learning styles in two classes: Online distance learning and equivalent on-campus. College Teaching, 47(4), 130-135 Dunn, S. (2000, March/April). The virtualizing of education. The Futurist, 34(2), 34-38. Eom, S. B., Wen, J., & Ashill, N. (2006, July). The Determinants of Students’ Perceived Learning Outcomes and Satisfaction in University Online Education: An Empirical Investigation. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 4(2), 215-235.

Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

Fleming, N. (2007). The VARK Helpsheets. Retrieved November 18, 2007 from http://www. vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=helpsheets Forsythe, J. (2007, March 20). Lifelong learning: North America. International Herald Tribune. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from http://www. aslaniangroup.com/resources/InterHerTribune03_20_07.pdf Grandon, E. E., Alshare, K., & Kwun, O. (2005, April). Factors Influencing Student Intention to Adopt Online Classes: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 20(4). 46-56 Jurczyk, J., Benson, S., Savery, J. (2004, Winter). Measuring Student Perceptions in Web-Based Courses: A Standards-Based Approach. Online Journal of Distance Education Administration. Volume VIII, Number IV.

Penn State University (PSU). An Emerging Set of Guiding Principles and Practices for the Design and Development of Distance Education. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from http://www. worldcampus.psu.edu/ide/docs/guiding_principles.pdf Pintrich, P. R., & De Groot, E. V. (1990). Motivational and Self-Regulated Learning Components of Classroom Academic Performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(1), 33-40. U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) (2007, March). Adult Learners in Higher Education. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from http://wdr.doleta. gov/research/FullText_Documents/Adult%20 Learners%20in%20Higher%20Education1.pdf

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Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

APPENDIX A Demographics Question

Possible Answers

Number of Online Classes I have participated in:

1,2,3,4,5,6…18,19,20, More than 20

Age Range

under 18, 18 - 21, 22 - 30, over 30

Gender

Male, Female

Degree Program

Undergraduate, Graduate, Doctorate, No degree sought

Course prefix (of this course)

ACC, ATY, BLS, BUS, CNR, CSD, DCE, ECO, FIN, GEO, HDF, HEA, LIS, MGT, MLS, SES, SOC, THR

Why did you choose to take an online class? (check all that apply)

Availability, Convenience of schedule, Flexibility, Fits my style of learning, Only offered online, No commute to campus, Work at own pace, Accessibility

In addition to taking online classes, why else do you use the Internet? (check all that apply)

Check email, Get news, Make travel plans, Research, Shop, Play games, Download music, Make phone calls, None of the above

APPENDIX B VARK Questionnaire – used with permission. Multiple answers are possible. Question

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a.

b.

c.

d.

You are helping someone who wants to go to your airport, town centre or railway station. You would:

go with her.

tell her the directions.

write down the directions (without a map).

draw, or give her a map

You are not sure whether a word should be spelled `dependent’ or `dependant’. You would:

see the words in your mind and choose by the way they look.

think about how each word sounds and choose one.

find it in a dictionary.

write both words on paper and choose one.

Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

APPENDIX B CONTINUED You are planning a holiday for a group. You want some feedback from them about the plan. You would:

describe some of the highlights.

use a map or website to show them the places.

give them a copy of the printed itinerary.

phone, text or email them.

You are going to cook something as a special treat for your family. You would:

cook something you know without the need for instructions.

ask friends for suggestions.

look through the cookbook for ideas from the pictures.

use a cookbook where you know there is a good recipe.

A group of tourists want to learn about the parks or wildlife reserves in your area. You would:

talk about, or arrange a talk for them about parks or wildlife reserves.

show them internet pictures, photographs or picture books.

take them to a park or wildlife reserve and walk with them.

give them a book or pamphlets about the parks or wildlife reserves.

You are about to purchase a digital camera or mobile phone. Other than price, what would most influence your decision?

Trying or testing it

Reading the details about its features.

It is a modern design and looks good.

The salesperson telling me about its features.

Remember a time when you learned how to do something new. Try to avoid choosing a physical skill, eg. riding a bike. You learned best by:

watching a demonstration.

listening to somebody explaining it and asking questions.

diagrams and charts - visual clues.

written instructions – e.g. a manual or textbook.

You have a problem with your knee. You would prefer that the doctor:

gave you a web address or something to read about it.

used a plastic model of a knee to show what was wrong.

described what was wrong.

showed you a diagram of what was wrong.

You want to learn a new program, skill or game on a computer. You would:

read the written instructions that came with the program.

talk with people who know about the program.

use the controls or keyboard.

follow the diagrams in the book that came with it.

I like websites that have:

things I can click on, shift or try.

interesting written descriptions, lists and explanations.

interesting design and visual features.

audio channels where I can hear music, radio programs or interviews.

Other than price, what would most influence your decision to buy a new nonfiction book?

The way it looks is appealing.

Quickly reading parts of it.

A friend talks about it and recommends it.

It has real-life stories, experiences and examples.

You are using a book, CD or website to learn how to take photos with your new digital camera. You would like to have:

a chance to ask questions and talk about the camera and its features.

clear written instructions with lists and bullet points about what to do.

diagrams showing the camera and what each part does.

many examples of good and poor photos and how to improve them.

continued on following page

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Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

APPENDIX B CONTINUED Do you prefer a teacher or a presenter who uses:

demonstrations, models or practical sessions.

question and answer, talk, group discussion, or guest speakers.

handouts, books, or readings.

diagrams, charts or graphs.

You have finished a competition or test and would like some feedback. You would like to have feedback:

using examples from what you have done.

using a written description of your results.

from somebody who talks it through with you.

using graphs showing what you had achieved.

You are going to choose food at a restaurant or cafe. You would:

choose from the descriptions in the menu.

listen to the waiter or ask friends to recommend choices.

choose something that you have had there before.

look at what others are eating or look at pictures of each dish.

You have to make an important speech at a conference or special occasion. You would:

make diagrams or get graphs to help explain things.

write a few key words and practice saying your speech over and over.

write out your speech and learn from reading it over several times.

gather many examples and stories to make the talk real and practical.

APPENDIX C Ranked on a scale - 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree) Construct

Perceived Ease of Use

Expectations

Perceived Usefulness

Satisfaction

Item

Description

EU1

It is easy for me to become skillful at learning online.

EU2

Learning online is easy for me.

EU3

I find it easy to learn online.

EU4

I find learning online easy.

EX1

I expect future online instructors to be responsive to students.

EX2

I expect future online courses to be organized and structured.

EX3

I expect technical problems experienced by online students to be resolved.

PU1

Taking online classes improves my performance in college.

PU2

I find online classes useful in college.

PU3

Enrolling in an online class increases my productivity in college.

PU4

Learning online improves my time management skills.

SAT1

Overall, I am satisfied with my learning experience via an online platform.

SAT2

I intend to take more online courses in the future.

continued on following page

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Factors Influencing Students Intention to Take Web-Based Courses in a College Environment

APPENDIX C CONTINUED

Self-Efficacy

Self-Regulation

*

SE1

Compared with other students in this online class, I expect to do well.

SE2

I’m certain I can understand the ideas taught in this course.

SE3

I expect to do very well in this class.

SE4

Compared with others in this class, I think I’m a good student.

SE5

I am sure I can do an excellent job on the problems and tasks assigned for this class.

SE6

I think I will receive a good grade in this online class.

SE7

My study skills are excellent compared with others in this online class.

SE8

Compared with other students in this class, I think I know a great deal about the subject.

SE9

I know that I will be able to learn the material for this online class.

SR1

I ask myself questions to make sure I know the material I have been studying.

SR2

When work is hard, I either give up or study only the easy parts.

SR3

I work on practice exercises and/or answer end of chapter questions even when I don’t have to.

SR4

Even when study materials are dull and uninteresting, I keep working until I finish.

SR5

Before I begin studying, I think about the things I will need to do to learn.

SR6

I often find that I have been reading for class, but don’t know what it is all about.

SR7

I find that when I’m viewing a lecture, reading the text, or listening to a presentation, I think of other things and don’t really pay attention to the material

SR8

When I’m reading, I stop once in a while and go over what I have read. *

SR9

I work hard to get a good grade even when I don’t like a class.

this question was dropped from analysis when the final results were analyzed.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 3, edited by L. A. Tomei, pp. 83-93, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.11

Classroom Preferences:

What Factors can Affect Students’ Attitudes on Different Classroom Settings? Chuleeporn Changchit Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA Tim Klaus Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Advances in technology have enabled instructors to design online courses that better meet the needs of students. Online courses generally are adaptations of traditional courses; some courses are more suitable for such online instruction. As the trend of online course offerings continues, universities must understand factors that lead to students’ preferences since online courses can be costly to develop and implement and inappropriate online courses can lead to lower student retention rates. This study focuses on students’ perceptions of online courses. The results identify issues that affect students’ perceptions and this study concludes by suggesting ways for universities to design online programs that better suit the desires of students.

A significant interdisciplinary body of literature exists describing the field of online learning. Distance learning can be traced to the origin of postal service and correspondence courses, but online classes provide many new features unavailable in traditional distance learning. A student enrolled in an online course may live thousands of miles away from the university offering the class, or he or she may live in the same city. Instead of waiting for days or even weeks while correspondence travels through the postal system, some of the common tools available for today’s online learners include e-mail, chat in real-time, online discussion boards, videos, whiteboards, and postings of files. In spite of the increased publicity regarding online education,

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Classroom Preferences

one may still wonder what exactly comprises an online classroom. Advances in communication technologies, such as the widespread use of the Internet, have opened new avenues for continuing higher education. These advances have allowed educators to provide individuals with the ability to satisfy varying learning requirements. With regard to higher education, colleges and universities around the world are now able to address students with varying needs to meet their education goals, such as resolving issues with commuting to and from campus and with communicating with others. Because of the advantages to both students and the university, enrollment in online courses grew from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million in 2004 (Allen & Seaman, 2005). In recent years, higher education institutions have faced changes in their student demographics as more and more students no longer fit into the traditional young, full-time, in-residence profile. As the demographics change, so do the education needs. There is a higher demand for more flexible and convenient methods in obtaining a higher education. Also, there is the need to teach students to incorporate technological proficiency into their everyday education to meet the demands of many jobs today which require a more technologically savvy workforce. Educational institutions are looking into incorporating online capabilities into their courses. Yet questions remain regarding the ability of institutions to afford the cost of successfully implementing and coordinating online courses and the appropriateness of online learning in meeting the institutional goals. Furthermore, benefits that online courses provide may be dependent on the individual, beneficial to one student while being a hindrance to another. For example, some students may not find online courses beneficial to their education needs and prefer the person-to-person interaction of a traditional course as an influential factor. Others may find the convenience of online courses as an important factor in their course

format decisions. These and other factors can be highly influential to decisions. Since students have perceptions about online courses that influence their subsequent decisions whether or not to take online courses, it is important to understand the factors that surround perceptions of benefit towards an online course setting. Designers for higher education courses can better create course options and curricula for their students so that higher education needs can be addressed. The purpose of this article is to understand the factors that affect a student’s perception of online courses as well as the factors that are important for online courses. In pursuit of this objective, this article first discusses prior studies that address issues related to online courses and students’ perceptions. This is followed by the study’s methodology. Next, an analysis of the factors that were found to be significantly different between subjects who prefer online and those who prefer traditional class settings are discussed. In conclusion, the usefulness of the significant factors which can be utilized by those in higher education is discussed as well as future research development in this area.

LITERATURE REVIEW Online Courses Online courses have been seen as a way to individualize the education process by creating more self-reliant students and graduates when they successfully complete an online course. Students that take more control of their learning end up increasing their level of learning. One of the important concerns of higher learning institutions is to ensure that they offer sound online courses so that students and faculty are best able to participate and gain an appropriate learning experience (Lam, 2005). Online courses are growing in number, both in the number offered in universities and the number

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Classroom Preferences

of students participating (Lee, Tan, & Goh, 2004). These courses can be tailored in several ways, with varying degrees of video, Web-material, and participation of faculty members that best suits the student population, the course, and the time frame. No one format for a course is best for everyone or for every course. Some case studies have shown how effective incorporation and reliance on technology are to facilitate classroom instruction (Tennent, Windeknecht, & Kehoe, 2004; Hong, 2002; Lee, Tan, & Goh, 2004). As most organizations have been demanding technological familiarity, it is important for universities to assess what parts/types of technology best suit their courses. Not all options, such as teleconferencing via telephone and video, are necessary for classes to be effective (Hazari, 2004). It is important that institutions assess what is effective for their students and types of courses before structuring the online aspects. The type of course that best suits a student should not be determined solely by the administration, but through soliciting student input, as classes that follow a more traditional classroom setting may not be appropriate in some cases while in others they are. Typically, students who better handle online course formats have been shown to be those who are more independent, self-motivated, and with clear career goals. Lower retention rates for online courses have been attributed to reasons such as lack of personal interaction, inexperienced faculty, students unaware of the expectations, and students with multiple obligations. Students’ willingness and ability to adapt to the environment and work within the online environment are usually found to be the major determinants of satisfaction with the learning experience (Stokes, 2001). Therefore, it is especially important that institutions take these characteristics into consideration when tailoring their courses with online formats. Understanding the characteristics of students who are attracted to online courses can help determine the format and options inputted in course design so that they

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can learn with as much efficiency and effectiveness as possible. Even if financial data may support the use of online courses in terms of saving money, it would not be beneficial to implement the online courses if there was resistance by students (Wang, 2004). There is still a need for traditional, face-to-face course design, in addition to online environments. Designing and implementing online courses may actually add the costs of online infrastructure and course maintenance rather than reducing overall costs (Banas & Emory, 1998). It is important that institutions conduct a prior assessment of students’ attitudes toward online courses in order to make an optimum course for the institution as well as its participants. This study looks at student attitudes towards online courses overall rather than examining the content of a specific class, examining the characteristics of students in their preferences toward online courses. The following section describes the factors that may affect students’ preference towards online courses.

Proposed Factors Affecting Online Course Preferences Based on the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), the technology acceptance model (TAM) was developed (Davis, 1989; Mathieson, 1991; Taylor & Todd, 1995). There have been many studies which have examined TAM with results consistently showing a significant relationship between the two independent variables: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and the dependent variable, attitude towards use. These two relationships, which are part of TAM, are applicable to the examination of online courses. In regard to online courses, students must interact with a Web-based technology in order to complete the course. Thus, based on TAM, the following two variables will be examined: 1) Perceived usefulness of online course technology; 2) Perceived ease of use of online course technology. Following are the first two hypotheses:

Classroom Preferences

H1: Perceived usefulness affects a student’s preference towards online courses. H2: Perceived difficulty of an online course affects a student’s preference towards online courses. Besides students’ perceptions, certain characteristics of students might affect their preferences in classroom settings. Older, already experienced students with family and work commitments are joining the student population. This group has been found to be the most prolific in utilizing online or Web-based courses (Arbaugh, Marks, Sibley, & Arbaugh, 2005). Furthermore, age has been found to significantly distinguish between successful and unsuccessful completion of online courses (Muse, 2003). Two variables will be examined based on this student population: 1) Age; 2) Employment Status. H3: Age affects a student’s preference towards online courses. H4: Employment status affects a student’s preference towards online courses. In addition, online learning expands the pool of students available for university or college level courses. It is not just the typical, traditional college students who participate and use such classes. Other demographics, such as gifted students in rural areas, make use of the opportunity to expand their learning environment and take college classes. This may be due to issues of commuting and the difficulty of attending classes for some students, such as those who live far from the university. Online courses provide them with an opportunity to advance their education in a non-traditional setting (Parmar, 2005). Thus, the fifth variable that will be examined is distance from home. H5: The distance a university is from a student’s home affects a student’s preference towards online courses.

Computer self-efficacy has been studied in various publications and has been defined as “an individual’s judgment of efficacy across multiple computer application domains” (Marakas, Yi, & Johnson, 1998, p. 129). Furthermore, Marakas, et al. (1998) point out that there is a difference between task-specific and general computer selfefficacy. Even for users with general computer self-efficacy, there may be a lack of task-specific computer self-efficacy. One study that examined computer self-efficacy found that it affects the perceived ease of use towards new systems (Agarwal, Sambamurthy, & Stair, 2000). In some cases, computer self-efficacy can be improved by either training or by providing user support mechanisms (Bendoly, 2000). It is understandable in human nature that people will not desire a technology for which they feel unskilled or for which they lack abilities. Familiarity with the technology is important and thus the following two variables will be examined: 1) Took an online course before; 2) currently taking an online course. H6: Students who have taken an online course will prefer online courses. H7: Students who currently are taking an online course will prefer online courses. Another area that affects perceptions of online courses is convenience, which may be an important reason for taking Online Courses (Medlin, et al., 2004). Perceived Ease of Access has been found to contribute to student satisfaction (Dreenan & Kennedy, 2005). Convenience was operationalized in this article through two variables: 1) Own a computer; 2) Internet access at home. H8: Students who own a computer will prefer online courses. H9: Students who have Internet access at home will prefer online courses.

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Classroom Preferences

Figure 1. Research model Perceived Usefulness of Online Courses (H1)

Have Taken an Online Course (H6)

Perceived Difficulties of Online Courses (H2) Age (H3)

Course Preference: Online vs. Traditional

Employment Status (H4)

Gender (H10) Response Variable

One other independent variable that will be examined is Gender. Previous studies have had mixed results in regards to significant differences regarding gender in learning environments. For example, Shea, et al. (2006) did not find any significant difference by gender in learning environments while Williams and Subich (2006) found that men and women differed in their preference for learning experiences. In regards to online versus traditional learning situations, gender may impact the preference. Thus, the final hypothesis proposes that gender will impact course preference. H10: Gender is significantly related to online course preference. Research Model and Variables. Based on the hypotheses described in the previous section, the model used to guide this research is illustrated in Figure 1; ten measurement variables and one response variable were measured.

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Computer Owned (H8) Internet Access at Home (H9)

Distance from Home (H5) Measurement Variables

Currently Taking an Online Course (H7)

Measurement Variables

METHODOLOGY A direct survey was used to collect the data for this study (see Appendix A). The survey questions were compiled from previous study questions pertaining to online courses as well as suggestions from researchers. These questions were designed to gather data on students’ perceptions of online courses, as well as their demographics. To validate the clarity of these questions, three professors and three students read through the survey questions. Revisions to the survey were made based on the feedback received. A total of 44 items were used in the survey. Ten questions measured students’ perceptions on a specific course taken, 19 questions measured students’ general perceptions of online courses, and 14 questions collected demographic data. Survey item 44 measured students’ preference for either online or traditional course design. Surveys were distributed to 225 students enrolled in a mid-sized, four-year university. The participants were given the survey and allowed class time to complete the survey. All participants

Classroom Preferences

Table 1. Demographic characteristics Age (in years) Under 18

18-29

30-41

42-49

Over 49

No Answer

0(0.00%)

89(83.2%)

11(10.3%)

3(2.80%)

3(2.80%)

1(0.90%)

Gender Male

Female

50(46.7%)

57(53.3%)

Own a Computer Desktop

Laptop

Both

Neither

40(37.4%)

31(29.0%)

32(29.9%)

4(3.70%)

Internet Access at Home Dial-up

High speed (i.e., DSL,)

None

No Answer

14(13.1%)

86(80.4%)

6(5.61%)

1(0.89%)

Distance from Home <10 min.

10-30 min.

30-60 min.

1-2 hours

>2 hours

No Answer

33(30.8%)

48(44.9%)

16(15.0%)

8(7.48%)

1(0.92%)

1(0.9%)

Employment Status Full Time

Part Time

Unemployed

37(34.6%)

44(41.1%)

26(24.3%)

Have Taken an Online Course Before Yes

No

47(43.9%)

60(56.1%)

Currently Taking an Online Course Yes

No

24(22.4%)

83(77.6%)

were informed that participation in the study was voluntary and that individual responses would be kept anonymous. The students were asked to rate each survey item on a Likert scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 being “strongly agree.” Two hundred and eighteen (218) participants completed and returned the survey instruments. Approximately 21.1% of the respondents preferred traditional classes while 78.9% preferred online courses. Table 1 summarizes additional demographic characteristics of the respondents.

ANALYSIS Data Analysis The research data showed a reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.762, suggesting reliability of the data. Then, the factor analysis was used to verify the groupings (factors) of the items in the instrument against the two constructs initially presented in the research model: (1) perceived usefulness, and (2) perceived difficulty of use. The result from the factor analysis confirms the grouping of these two constructs. The factor matrix is presented in Table 2.

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Classroom Preferences

Table 2. Factor analysis Component Matrix(a) Component 1

2

Q16

0.290

0.610

0.064

-0.560

Q17

0.183

0.590

0.213

-0.576

Q18-3

0.211

0.153

0.663

-0.026

Q19-4

0.124

0.498

0.358

0.117

Q20

-0.114

0.617

0.156

0.515

Q21

-0.187

0.677

0.185

0.411

Q22

0.681

-0.349

0.262

-0.067

Q23

0.756

-0.277

0.362

0.060

Q24

0.796

-0.178

0.211

0.096

Q25-10

0.590

-0.197

0.517

0.196

Q26

0.670

0.259

-0.473

0.113

Q27

0.755

0.209

-0.429

0.122

Q28

0.699

0.237

-0.483

0.115

Q29-14

0.683

0.040

-0.200

-0.067

Factor loadings over 0.5 on one factor and less than 0.5 on all other factors produce a clean loading (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1995). As a result of the factor analysis, three survey items (Q3, Q4, and Q10) were discarded due to cross loadings between factors or no apparent loading. The remaining items loaded cleanly onto the two constructs.

3

•

•

Differences between Online Group and Traditional Group In order to test the hypotheses stated in the prior section, two groups were created (Online and Traditional), based on survey item Q28–“On the average, I prefer ____________classes”, in which subjects marked either “online” or “traditional.” T-tests were then conducted on the factors based on these two groups. The major findings in testing Hypotheses H1H10 are summarized in Table 3, which shows t-test results pertaining to the hypotheses as follows:

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•

4

Hypothesis H1: the t-test confirms that there is a significant difference in students’ perceptions on the usefulness of online courses. The result indicates that students in the Online Group perceive higher usefulness of online courses than those in the Traditional Group. Hypothesis H2: the t-test reveals a significant difference in students’ perceptions of the difficulty of online courses. It is evident that students in the Online Group perceive less difficulty of online courses than those in the Traditional Group. Hypothesis H3: the t-test shows that there is no significant difference in students’ ages between the online group and traditional group. However, this may be due to the fact that 83 percent of the students who responded to the questionnaire indicated that they were in the 18-29 age category, as shown in Table 1. Only a few respondents were in other age categories and thus, the small number

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Table 3. Group differences Hypotheses

p-value

H1: Perceived usefulness affects a student’s preference towards online courses.

0.017*

H2: Perceived difficulty of an online course affects a student’s preference towards online courses.

0.000**

H3: Age affects a student’s preference towards online courses.

NS

H4: Employment status affects a student’s preference towards online courses.

0.008**

H5: The distance a university is from a student’s home affects a student’s preference towards online courses.

0.023*

H6: Students who have taken an online course will prefer online courses.

0.000**

H7: Students who currently are taking an online course will prefer online courses.

0.024*

H8: Students who own a computer will prefer online courses.

NS

H9: Students who have Internet access at home will prefer online courses.

NS

H10: Gender is significantly related to online course preference

NS

Table 4. Students’ perceptions on issues important for online courses Questions: For an online course setting, it is important….

•

•

Mean

…. that students have computers at home.

4.5

…. to have Internet access at home.

4.4

…. to be computer literate.

4.4

…. that the instructor is available 24 hours/7 days.

3.3

may have affected the significance of the results. Hypothesis H4: the t-test reveals a significant difference in students’ employment status. The result indicates that a higher number of students in the Online Group is employed than those in the Traditional Group. It is apparent that students who are employed prefer online course formats as they perceive more flexibility in terms of accessing class materials and studying at their own pace. Hypothesis H5: the t-test confirms that there is a significant difference in the distance from students’ homes to their universities between students in the Online Group and the Traditional Group. The result reveals that students in the Online Group are living

•

•

•

farther away from their universities than those in the Traditional Group. Hypothesis H6: the t-test indicates a significant difference between experiences taking online classes. Students in the Online Group have more experience taking online courses than those in the Traditional Group. Hypothesis H7: the t-test shows that there is a significance difference between students in the Online Group and those in the Traditional Group on the issue of whether they are currently taking online courses. More students in the Online Group are currently taking online courses than those in the Traditional Group. Hypothesis H8-H10: the t-test reveals no significant differences between students in the Online Group and those in the Traditional

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Group on the following issues: (1) own a computer, (2) have Internet access at home, and (3) gender. In addition to the hypotheses, a post-hoc analysis was performed on one additional question that was added to the questionnaire to examine which issues are important to students when considering online courses. The respondents’ means were calculated for each of these issues without regard to their preference for online courses. As shown in Table 4 (below), four issues were examined. The results of this post-hoc analysis provides an empirical glimpse into the minds of students as to what they perceive as important in an online course setting. The findings reveal that students, both those who prefer and those who do not prefer online courses, place a very high level of importance on the following factors: (1) having computers at home, (2) having Internet access at home, and (3) being computer literate. It was not as important that the instructor is always available to the student.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In order to remain competitive and responsive to advances in technology, the number of universities offering online courses has increased rapidly over the past decade. However, this type of learning evolution creates a higher risk for students, faculty, and universities, as new online courses are untested in regards to their effectiveness. In order to smooth the transition, the factors critical to successful online courses have been identified and described. As shown in the results section, there are various significant factors that affect student preference. Based on these factors, there are several areas that a university can focus on. Since the first two factors, perceived usefulness and perceived difficulty, affect students’ preferences, course designers should focus on these two areas when

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designing a course, making the online course comparable to a traditional one. Second, a university should promote online courses in such a way that students understand that the online courses are useful and that online courses do not have a significantly different level of difficulty than traditional courses. The less difficulty students perceive with online courses, the more they tend to support the online option. The other four factors: (1) employment status; (2) distance from home; (3) have taken an online course previously; (4) currently take an online course, are important demographics for a university to consider. Since all of these factors can positively impact a student’s preference towards online courses, it is important to know to whom the courses should be promoted. For example, potential non-traditional students who work full-time can be contacted to increase enrollment through publicizing the flexibility available with online courses. Furthermore, current students could be contacted to let them know what other students who have taken online courses think about the courses. Through reducing uncertainty about expectations, it is likely that a higher number of students will enroll. These initial findings warrant further investigation. To achieve a better understanding of all of the critical factors in online courses, future research should gather more samples and may also include the perceptions of faculty, administrators, and staff as well as those of students. Furthermore, investigating the characteristics of courses that are better suited as online courses would benefit higher education institutions striving to meet the needs of students.

REFERENCES Allen, I. E., &Seaman, J. (2005). Growing by degrees: Online education in the United States. The Sloan Consortium, 1-30.

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Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall. Banas, E. J., & Emory, W. F. (1998). History and issues of distance learning. Public Bocchi, J., Eastman, J. K., & Swift, C. O. (2004). Retaining the online learner: Profile of students in an online MVA program and implications for teaching them. Journal of Education for Business, 79(4), 245-253. Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly 13(3), 319-340. Drennan, J., & Kennedy, J. (2005). Factors affecting student attitudes toward dlexible online learning in management education. The Journal of Educational Research, Jul/Aug. 98(6), 331-338. Drago, W., & Peltier, J. (2004). The effects of class size on effectiveness of online courses. Management Research News, 27(10), 27. Hazari, S. (2004). Strategy for assessment of online course discussion. Journal of Information Systems Education, 15(4), 349-355. Hong, K. (2002). Relationships between students’ and instructional variables with satisfaction learning from a Web-based course. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(3), 267-281. Lam, W. (2005). Teaching e-business online: The universitas 21 global approach. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, 3(3), 18-41. Lee, C. S., Tan, D. T. H. T., & Goh, W. S. (2004). The next generation of e-learning: strategies for media rich online teaching and engaged learning. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 2(4), 1-16. Marks, R. B., Sibley, S. D., & Arbaugh, J. B. (2005). A structural equation model of predictors for effective online learning. Journal of Management Education, 29(4), 531-563.

Mathieson, K. (1991). Predicting user intentions: Comparing the technology acceptance model with the theory of planned behavior. Information Systems Research 2(3), 173-191. Medlin, B.D., Vannoy, S.A., & Dave, D.S.(2004). An Internet-based approach to the teaching of information technology: A study of student attitudes in the United States. International Journal of Management, 21(4), 427-434. Muse, H. E. (2003). The Web-based community college student: An examination of factors that lead to success and risk. Internet and Higher Education, 6, 241-261. Parmar, N. (2005). Gifted students connect online with colleges. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), B1. Shea, P., Chun, S. L., & Pickett, A. (2006). A Study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and Webenhanced college courses. Internet and Higher Education, 9, 175-190. Stokes, S. P. (2001). Satisfaction of college students with the digital learning environment: Do learners’ temperaments make a difference? The Internet and Higher Education, 4(1), 31-44. Taylor, S., & Todd, P.A. (1995). Understanding information technology usage: A test of competing models. Information Systems Research 6, 144-176. Tennent, B., Windeknecht, K., & Kehoe, J. (2004). Teaching with technology: Value-added innovation or necessity? Campus-Wide Information Systems, 21(4), 144. Wang, W. (2004). How university students view online study: A PCP perspective. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 21(3), 108. Williams, C. M., & Subich, L.M. (2006). The gendered nature of career related learning experiences: A social cognitive career theory perspective. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69, 262-275. 1277

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APPENDIX A Please circle the answer that best represents your opinion. For an online class setting (compared to a traditional class setting) =Strongly Disagree

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=Disagree

=Uncertain

=Agree

=Strongly Agree

1

it is important that students have computers at home.

1 2 3 4 5

2

it is important that the instructor is available 24 hours/7 days.

1 2 3 4 5

3

it is important to have Internet access at home.

1 2 3 4 5

4

it is important to be computer literate.

1 2 3 4 5

5

an online class should be easier compared to a traditional class setting.

1 2 3 4 5

6-1

students should spend less time to study for an online class.

1 2 3 4 5

7-2

student should get a better grade in an online class.

1 2 3 4 5

8

there will be fewer group projects in an online class.

1 2 3 4 5

9

the tuition for an online class should be less expensive.

1 2 3 4 5

10

my study habits should be improved with an online class.

1 2 3 4 5

11

my time will be spent more efficiently with an online class.

1 2 3 4 5

12

it will be difficult to participate in the class.

1 2 3 4 5

13

it will be difficult to communicate with peers.

1 2 3 4 5

14

it will be difficult to communicate with the instructor.

1 2 3 4 5

15

it will be difficult to participate in a group project.

1 2 3 4 5

16

it will be difficult to turn in an assignment.

1 2 3 4 5

17

it will be difficult to access class materials.

1 2 3 4 5

18

it will be difficult to take examinations.

1 2 3 4 5

14

it will be difficult to learn the technologies required for the online class.

1 2 3 4 5

Classroom Preferences

Please circle your answer for the following questions:

15

I own:

1. Desktop computer 2. Laptop computer

16

My ethnicity: 1. African

17

My computer knowledge is:

18

My classification is: 1. Freshman 2. Sophomore 3. Junior 4. Senior 5. Graduate

19

My college is: 1. Arts/Humanities 2. Business Technology

20

My age: 1. Under 18 2. 18-21 9. 46-49 10. Over 49

2. Anglo

3. Asian

3. Both

4. Neither

4. Hispanic

5. Native American

(Very poor) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Excellent)

3. 22-25

3. Education 4. Nursing/Health Science 5. Science/ 4. 26-29

5. 30-33

6. 34-37

7. 38-41

8. 42-45

It takes me ………… to travel from the place I currently live to the University: 21

1. < 10 Minutes >2 Hours

2. 10 – 30 Minutes

3. >30 Minutes – 1 Hour

22

I commute to the University by:

23

What Internet access do you have from home? (i.e., DSL, Cable)

24

My gender:

25

Did you take a web-based course before?

26

Do you currently take a web-based course? 1. Yes

27

My current employment status is: 1. Full-time

28

On the average, I prefer ……….. classes.

1. Male

1. Car

2. Bus 1. None

4. >1 Hour – 2 Hours 5. 3. Walk 2. Dial-up 3. High-speed

2. Female 1. Yes

2. No 2. No 2. Part-time

3. Unemployed

1. Online 2. Traditional

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 4, Issue 1, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 33-43, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.12

Learning With Online Activities:

What Do Students Think About Their Experience? Salam Abdallah Abu Dhabi University, UAE

ABSTRACT Learning through social interactions and critical thinking is becoming a fundamental teaching approach, especially for adult students. This approach promotes holistic and deeper understanding for the subject being learned. Online technologies are offering us new opportunities to create communities of inquiry that allow for more active learning that enhances students’ critical thinking. This article introduces an exploratory case in a Middle Eastern context that uses multiple online activities to supplement and strengthen the students’ face-to-face learning environment. This interpretive case discusses the students’ perceptions of their experience when using online activities. The case indicates that students improved their learning, are very positive about their first interaction with online activities

and would like to see it as a standard practice to supplement their face-to-face learning.

INTRODUCTION Didactic or teacher-centered teaching is still seen as the dominate approach for teaching in the Arab Countries (UNDP, 2005). This approach fails to provide higher-order thinking. Higher order thinking is a term used as an umbrella to include skills that go beyond knowledge acquisition, like critical thinking and becoming self-directed. Critical thinking includes, cognitive activities such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation (self examination & correction) (Facione, 2007). Dewey (1982) defines critical thinking as “reflective thought”, i.e. to suspend judgment, to be both skeptical and

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Learning With Online Activities

open minded; and to achieve this requires both intellectual and emotional ability. Self-direction is also an essential skill to be instilled in our students, which is an important ingredient for effective learning (Garrison et al, 2003). We want learners to become responsible in controlling and managing their learning and to go beyond rote memorization. The recent World Bank Report (2008) states the Middle East is still in need of education reform and fails to meet the needs of the invading globalized economy despite the high investment in education. The report also emphasizes that education in the region focuses too much on rote memorization, neglecting higher-order skills and complex communications that are critical to further advancement. Benard (2006) has made a similar argument about the need for reform in education for it become a tool for change. Benard quotes Tibi (1981), in which he argues that the problem in education in the Arab world is due to the teaching approaches. Problem-oriented thinking cannot be learned through raw memorization. Traditional education, which expands its energies in no creative thinking but in memorization and reproduction, cannot produce a functioning intellectual group able to pose problems, define them, analyze them and finally solve them. The World Bank report (2008) also makes a recommendation for the need for teacher training in higher-order learning with emphasis on soft skills. The teacher-centered approach relies solely on pedagogies that emphasize rote memorization, and very little on higher order thinking. In this transmission paradigm, students are passive and may lack the motives to continue learning or retain knowledge (Felder et al. 1995). This style of teaching can be stressing, exhausting and not suitable for adult learners in particular, who have difficulties in memorizing facts. In-addition, it does not

enhance the student’s working skills that require engaging and communicative abilities or even train them for lifelong learning and for becoming self-directed. The teacher-centered approach can also make teachers bored due to their static and mechanistic role in teaching. This staleness can also be mirrored in the students (Fink, 2003). There is some evidence that the teacher-centered approach may be more effective with students with lower intellectual abilities (Saulnier et al., 2008; Talbert el al., 1993). However, the current literature on education theories are in favor of the student-centered approach, In a teacher-centered paradigm, lectures usually follow a linear fashion moving from one topic to the other, with several stops for memory testing. Deep understanding and building relationships between the various topics is uncommon. In this approach students learn in fragments and usually end with vague ideas of the overall course content and do not see knowledge relevancy. Students failing to see connected knowledge make it difficult to accumulate and apply knowledge in other subjects or in their working lives (Entwistle, 2003; Gow et al., 1993). To make learning more significant requires us to experiment with more active pedagogies to supplement the passive and disintegrated style of instruction. Active pedagogies are based on activities that encourage dialogue, critical thinking, and collaborating (Long et al., 2005). These activities may be exercised in face-to-face and or in online environments. Online technologies are offering us new opportunities to create communities of inquiry that allow for higher-order learning that enhances students’ critical thinking (Garrison et al., 2000; Imel, 2001; Bates, 1997; Duffy et al., 1996). This article examines a case study on the use of online environment as one way to improve students’ learning at one of the universities in Jordan. Jordan is one Middle Eastern countries where education is being put in the forefront as the means for social and economic development.

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Learning With Online Activities

The effective use of technologies is at the core of this initiative to improve teaching practices for active learning. The study discusses implementing opensource software learning management system to deliver online activities to supplement faceto-face teaching of information systems-related subjects at the postgraduate level. The online environment includes a combination of online activities that are grounded in social constructivism educational theory. The article provides an interpretation of the experience gained, which had a positive outcome on students’ learning. The results should encourage other faculties to seriously consider using online technologies to create an engaging learning environment that can promote a significant learning experience (Fink, 2003). This study adds to the emergent body of research on ways to integrate technology in the Middle Eastern educational context. In addition, the document states the motive of this research and discusses relevant learning theories. This will be followed by discussions on online learning and the use of open-source learning management systems as a cost-effective solution to integrating technology in learning. The article will then discuss the methodological approach used in this study and its findings, followed by a discussion of the findings highlighting the significance of this study.

Research Motive The motive behind this study was to overcome some of the challenges being faced by students in the Middle East. The author has identified these challenges through class discussions with students and personal observations of the students’ aptitude. The students had described their prior learning environment as being a) restrictive and b) burdensome: Restrictive because it is teachercentered. Students were not being put in an environment to exercise self expression, collaboration,

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communication and critical thinking. Students were also not given enough practical work using technologies. The environment was considered burdensome because students were overwhelmed and burdened with facts to remember. Consequently students’ eventual goal is not to learn but to pass exams. Students further faced difficulties in understanding the subject matter because the texts books were in the English language. These challenges were considered important in rethinking the instructor’s pedagogy. The challenges were addressed by developing face-to-face and online activities. The online activities are the focus of this study.

Learning Theories The teaching strategies used in this case relate to Knowles’ Andragogy Theory of Adult Education (Smith, 2002; Thompson, 2001; Conner, 1997) and Vygotsky’s Social Constructivism Theory (Thompson, 2001; Dabbagh, 2004). These two theories are interrelated and can provide better directions on how to design sound teaching pedagogies. Knowles (1970, 1984) argued that adults learn differently from children because the learning process of adults is different (Smith, 2002; Wurm, 2005). According to Knowles’s theory of andragogy, adult learners are more self-directed and autonomous. Adult learners are more responsible for their learning and in making decisions than children. Adults have accumulated experiences over the years and they become aware of what is relevant and useful to them. In this theory, teachers take on a facilitating role. According to the concept behind andragogy, adults need opportunities to construct relevant knowledge and to collaborate with others to simulate life experiences. To motivate adult learners, they need activities to make them think, reflect and express their experiences and views. Knowles theory enforces the idea that adult students need to experience learning in an experimental environment.

Learning With Online Activities

Andragogy is also in line with social constructivism theory. Social constructivism is about knowledge construction not independently constructed by individual learners but co-constructed through social interaction (Simpson, 2002; Brown, 2005). Social constructivism is driven by the value of knowledge that is built socially in a learning community. The basis of its philosophy is that students’ learning is strengthened by applying prior knowledge and principles to a new environment resulting in construction of new knowledge (Beaumie, 2001). It is also said that if students construct knowledge for others to read, it will result in a more effective way of learning and remembering knowledge. Students become learners and teachers at the same time. Brown (2005) argues that constructivism is best performed when it is: • •

•

Contextual: Taking into account the student’s understanding. Active: Engaging students in learning activities that use analysis, debate, and criticism (as opposed to simply memorization) to receive and test information. Social: Using discussions, direct interaction with experts and peers, and team-based projects.

Therefore, students need to connect with other students and become part of a community of learners. Through this community, students will be motivated to learn and collaborate on knowledge-building and exchanging experiences. To reiterate, adult learners need environments that nourish deep learning and active learning in a social setting to allow engagement through critical thinking and collaborating on content creation to form a more significant learning experience (Imel, 1990).

ONLINE COLLABORATIVE TOOLS The use of online technologies can be a facilitator to move away from a transmission paradigm to a constructivism paradigm. Online technologies provide a range of new Web tools that promote different ways to teach and learn in a social networking environment (Dede, 2005). These tools include asynchronous and synchronous types such as wikis, blogs, RSS, discussion boards, chatting tools, etc (Fichter, 2005; Wagner, 2004; GodwinJones, 2003). The combination of this type of tools has been recently referred to as Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005) and the application of these tools for online learning through communities has been called as e-learning 2.0 (Downes, n.d.). These tools create a medium for online communities to learn together and build knowledge repositories by interacting through published content either individually or collaboratively (Jennings, 2005). The use of asynchronous tools is effective for learning, since it allows for integration of reflection and collaboration. Online activities allow more time for the student to understand and reflect before collaborating with others (Harvard et al. 2005; Popolov et al. 2002). Garrison (2003) describes effective learning as way of engendering higher-order thinking through critical thinking and self-direction. Asynchronous online tools have the ability to create an environment for higher-order learning, which is in line with the modern pedagogy of constructivism. The use of learning management systems (LMSs) has also recently become popular because they encompass Web 2.0 tools in an enclosed learning environment to give teachers control in conducting online activities, grading and giving students privacy. LMSs can link face-to-face teaching and home education through computer technology in meaningful ways (Martin et al., 2005). Students can have access to online activities and resources on their own time and from anywhere (Bonk, 2004).

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Learning With Online Activities

LMSs deliver online learning based on a certain educational pedagogy. Coates et al. (2005) argue the causes for popularity of LMSs are because they increase teaching efficiency by delivering flexible courses and facilitating teacher-student, student-teacher and student-student dialogue. LMSs provide a creative environment for teachers in which to experiment with and design new activities through new ways of communication and assessment. Coats et al. (2005) adds that these activities enrich learning because they are based on sound educational theories such as constructivism theory. There are significant LMS implementations especially in North America, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, which are affecting core activities and transforming the culture of teaching and learning (Coates et al., 2005). Meanwhile the use of LMSs in the Middle East and in particular Jordan still has low visibility. The need to integrate technology into curriculum to affect students’ learning is at the heart of most Jordanian teaching philosophy statements. The intake of this integration is low, probably due to lack of awareness on its potential impact on the learning of students and also the lack of funding available for such projects.

Design and Procedure Moodle, as an open-source software, was selected as the learning management system for this study. The basis of the learning philosophy of Moodle is “social constructionist pedagogy,” which includes collaboration, sharing, and building community (Dougiamas et al., 2003). Courses in Moodle can contain activities such as discussion forums, journals, quizzes, surveys, assignments, chats, glossaries, workshops, internal e-mail, blogs, and wikis. Moodle integrates well with many information sources such as text, HTML, graphics, video, audio, PowerPoint, and flash applications.

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The use of online activities to supplement face-to-face learning was a new approach to the instructor and students. The instructor also had no prior knowledge on the willingness and the readiness of the students to change their accustomed learning style. From this premises, the study was positioned to answer the question “What do students think about their own learning when using online activities?” The most common research approach to understand the depth of learning that had occurred using online activities is to conduct content analysis on students’ posted text (Anderson et. al, 2001) or capture students’ perceptions through interviews and surveys. The study adopted the former approach due to the nature of the research question and since the participants are adult students who are sophisticated enough to communicate their experiences and thoughts through writing.

Method The research question mentioned earlier seeks a deeper understanding of students’ perception of using online activities. The aim is to gain insights rather than gather statistically significant evidence. The study may be considered explorative in nature and therefore requires a qualitative research approach (Yin, 1994). Qualitative research method refers to the strategy for data collection and analysis (Creswell, 1998). Theories developed using qualitative approaches are more representative of the real world because they generate ‘rich’ data collected from the words, actions, and symbols (explicit and tacit knowledge) of people. Rich or qualitative data are the results of meaning allocated by people to events and objects (Manen, 1990). In this paradigm, data analysis can be either based on a positivist or interpretivist approach (Yin, 1994). Burrell et al. (1979, p.253) argue that the interpretivist approach aims for understanding the “subjective experience of individuals”. This study has adopted an interpretivist approach.

Learning With Online Activities

Qualitative data are basically made up of text and meaning and the endeavor for the researcher is to reach an accurate understanding by interpretation of the collected data. Coffey et al. (1996, p.10) summarize the process of analysis as not “adhering to any one correct approach or set of right techniques; it is imaginative, artful, flexible, and reflexive. It should also be methodical, scholarly, and intellectually rigorous.” Interpretation of qualitative data remains subjective because researchers’ presuppositions or pre-understandings are usually embedded in interpretations to make it more comprehensible (Lopez et al., 2004). The richness of qualitative data allows certain dynamics to be continually projected based on the perspective held by the researcher, which makes analysis of qualitative data open to many interpretations, and their validation may be argued for or against. Research that seeks to understand qualitative knowledge is not subjected to the “rigors of a hypothesis test” but rather “rests on the strength of the analytical arguments used to defend the interpretation” (Lacity et al., 1994, p.146). The plausibility of the finding also relies on the logical analysis and the construction process. The findings of this research are a blend of the students’ perceptions and the researcher’s background that he brings with him to collect and interpret the data; therefore, the findings are the researcher’s interpretation of the students’ experiences (Lopez and Willis, 2004). Researchers tend to adapt methods of analysis according to their situation; there are no standardized processes (Patton, 1990). Data are transformed into meanings in the form of categories or patterns that inductively emerge from data. The interpretation of the data collected will be discussed by using a group of categories to provide the framework for analysis to interpret students’ perceptions of their first online learning interaction.

Research Context and Data Collection The study participants were enrolled in Master’s degree courses at one Jordanian universities. One hundred and forty adult students were attending either Management Information Systems or Electronic Commerce courses (50 female & 90 male). The students were mostly working adults and accustomed to teaching methods where the teacher is in the center and totally controls the learning environment. The participants were native speakers of Arabic. The instruction mode was in English, but students were allowed to express themselves in either Arabic or English language. All students for the first time were subjected to a blended learning environment (Vaughan, 2007). Students had to attend on a weekly basis three hours of traditional lecturing and interaction and to carry out online activities through a specifically designed website, which hosted the LMS application. The online activities were implemented outside the classroom at students’ own time and place. Approximately 300 qualitative statements were collected over a period of five semesters. The statements captured the students’ perceptions on what they think about using online activities. Multiple data collection method was used. The primary data was collected by asking online open-ended questions, which was posted online. Students were asked to provide their impression on using online activities (liked and disliked) and to describe their perceived experience in general. Students’ responses were also submitted online in MS Word format and later converted to MS Access for analysis. The author also noted and catalogued other comments, which was collected through periodical informal class discussions to get further understandings on the value of using online activities. These discussions were short and would normally last for 15 minutes. The teacher had

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Learning With Online Activities

also observed and noted the students’ behavior online, such as the extra time spent doing online activities and the continuing access to the Web site after the course completion. The source of this data was the date/time stamp on the online activities and from the detailed logs maintained by the LMS. These notes were mainly used to assist in the analysis and understanding of the primary data collected. To analyze the students’ statements, a framework of analysis was adopted to answer the previously stated research questions “What do students think about their own learning when using online activities?”

Online Constructivism Activities Online activities were designed by considering Knowles’ (1970) theory of andragogy. The activities gave students opportunities to be more selfdirected, autonomous and involved in constructing their own knowledge through the use of asynchronous tools such as discussion forums, blogs, wikis and building glossaries. Through these activities students were in engaged in discussing, abstracting, translating and collaborating. The four activities were also designed to enforce understanding and deep thinking on topics that were discussed in the face-to-face environment. These four activities are discussed below along with their values: •

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Critical thinking discussion forums (Discussing): This activity is based on using discussion forums. Krentler et al. (2005) found that online discussion forums clearly influenced students’ learning. This activity provided threaded discussion forums for asynchronous communication to discuss a certain issue in details and from multiple perspectives. Students can post questions and opinions and allow students to respond to them. Participation in forums can improve

•

students’ learning experience, by helping them to define, clarify and understand the content of the subject matter. In this study, the discussion forums were used by students on weekly basis to raise and answer critical thinking questions pertaining to topics discussed in the face-to-face lectures. In this activity students engage in a dialogue triggered by one student asking a critical thinking question and the other students respond with their own fact findings, opinions or seek further clarifications at their own time. This activity encouraged students to examine concepts from different perspectives and to allow students to go beyond the information given in the prescribed textbooks. This gave students opportunities to question concepts viability in a local context or to explore new ideas. This activity also allows students to encounter and handle arguments by engaging them in thinking critically, reflecting, and also to search for supporting material before posting their answers or questions (Gordon, 2006). Concept impact blog (Abstracting): This activity is based on using the blogging tool. The use of blogs on the Internet is growing at a high rate, in which every second a new blog goes online somewhere (Gordon, 2006). Individuals, research institutions and corporations use blogs. In education, students use blogs as on-line personal journals to write their reflections. Blogs provide an individual writing and reading environment and the ability for other students to comment on the content of the written text. No special skills are needed for creating the content; new pages are easily created and updated. Students were asked to select a concept/topic on weekly basis and to abstract the significance or the implications of the concept on individuals, or organizations or societies in a local or global context. This activity

Learning With Online Activities

•

•

supplements students’ understanding by reflecting on the importance and the implication of what is being studied in class. The blogging tool allows students to categorize (tag) their contributions and this facilitates concept relationship build up. By the end of the semester students can select a concept and examine it from different perspectives and see its relationship to other concepts. Arabic concepts glossary (Translating): This activity is based on using the glossary tool, which was used by students to collaboratively build glossary of the most important concepts or key terms. Students were asked on weekly basis to select one concept and define it in Arabic. This activity will benefit students by understanding concepts in their own language and build up their language (lingo) of the subject. This collaborative activity distributes the workload among students, giving them more time to read and learn from each other’s contributions. Group wiki project (Collaborating): This activity is based on using the wiki tool, which enables students to collaborate on a dynamic information publishing project that can be later used as a source of self-contained hyperlinked documents. In business, they have been used for knowledge management and intranet applications (Leuf et al. 2001; Wagner, 2004; Lamb 2004; Clyde, 2005). Groups of three to four students were asked to work on a certain project using the wiki as the development tool. This was an opportunity for students who rarely work in groups to collaborate online on a certain project, such as enriching concepts in Arabic, preparing electronic commerce business plan, and so on. The instructor also used the wiki as knowledge-base to host students’ class presentations, which made it accessible to everyone to learn from. Students engaging in

a wiki environment gain technical literacy, digital content creation, learn to deal with others, consensus building, communicate ideas, and learn from each other’s styles of writing and way of thinking. It was mentioned earlier that (Brown, 2005) argues that constructivism is based on three factors: contextual, active and social. Students were encouraged to use their existing understanding and experience to make their learning ‘contextual.’ They were asked to reflect on the concepts gained from Western textbooks and to examine their viability in their local or regional ‘context.’ The application of the blogs, wikis, discussion forums, and glossaries tools gave students opportunities to be ‘active;’ to critically observe the contribution of other students and to freely express their opinions in a supportive environment, and to gain deep understanding of concepts from different activities and from different perspectives. Students were being self-directed and in control of their learning; they were free to choose what and when to write. It is expected that the use of these four types of online tools encourage ‘social’ interaction, where meaningful understanding of concepts can only be achieved when all students contribute content and be supportive of each other. Most tasks were based on students working individually and collaboratively to exchange opinions, elaborate on concepts and produce resources. The instructor’s role in these activities was to give online feedback and pointing students to other students’ quality work. Feedback during lecture time was also given to student addressing quality criteria of input and resolving technological problems faced by them. The LMS was also used for posting lecture notes and to inform students about planned events and remind them of their weekly assignments. Students were required to submit all their assignments online, which allowed them to see and compare their work with others. A minimum

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Table 1. Sample analysis using the categories from dimensional analysis (Schatzman, 1991)

Students Statement

Conditions

Processes

Consequences

Critical thinking forum extends the boundary of thinking, by trying to predict the possible outcomes

Deliberation

or problems. The feeling that the student is attached to the subject throughout the week and not only during the lecture time that is fixed to a time and place. The most three things I liked about learning online was sharing knowledge gained from the class and discuss it on online using wikiblogs and weblogs and glossaries which made it easy for me to refer to any of them when studying.

Systems Quality

Attachment

(Accessibility) Systems Quality (Multiple activities) Activities Qual-

Learning From Others

Building Knowledge Repository

ity (Interactivity)

The critical question forum helped me to think

Activities Qual-

more deeply about things, expand my knowledge

ity

and somehow changed the way I think.

(Useful)

Knowledge Gaining Insights

Transformation (Open-Minded)

Activities Qualreading posts, you get to know the way that my

ity

Observing,

colleagues are thinking and their opinion, which

(Useful)

Learning From

can improve my thinking way It made me reflect and search different sources to enrich my contribution, which resulted in increasing my understanding of the topic.

number of contributions was required by each student and all activities were given marks. The timing of their contributions had to be flexible and was also negotiated with them, since most students were working adults.

DATA ANALYSIS To provide a thematic explanation to understand the students’ perceptions and the impact of online learning, a group of categories was used that were

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Others

Gaining sights

In-

Learning Strategies

Comprehension

inspired from the Dimensional Analysis framework (Schatzman, 1991). Dimensional analysis is a structured way of categorizing data used by researchers to analyze qualitative data. It was proposed in the late 1970s by Schatzman as an alternative approach to the ‘Grounded Theory’ method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The method relies on providing serial explanation of what is going on by inductively determining contexts, conditions, processes and consequences. The purpose of these four categories is to facilitate coding and to provide the researcher with a means

Learning With Online Activities

Figure 1. A model for understanding students online learning experience

PERSPECTIVE Learning experience of students engaged in online learning CONTEXT Critical thinking discussion forums (Discussing) Concept impact blog (Abstracting) Arabic concepts glossary (Translating) Group Wiki project (Collaborating) PROCESSES

CONSEQUENCES Knowledge

Retention

CONDITIONS Observing

System Quality

Comprehension

Experience Activity Q uality

Gaining Insights Learning Strategies

Teacher Quality

Learning F rom Others Transformation Deliberations Motivation

Attachment Knowledge Repository

to explain and tell a story about the phenomenon in terms of the relationship between actions and consequences under selected conditions in a specific context for a given perspective (Kools et al., 1996). To clarify further, quoting from Schatzman (1991, p.308):

two for whatever action or interaction is selected to the be central to the story, and point to, or imply, one or more consequences. To do all this, one needs at least one perspective to select items for the story, create their relative salience, and sequence them.

An explanation, after all, tells a story about the relations among things or people and events. To tell a complex story, one must designate objects and events, state or imply some of their dimensions and properties – that is, their attributes – provide some context for these, indicate a condition or

The outcome of the analysis is to portray to the reader a sense of authenticity and conviction for the overall findings in terms of its main constructs and properties. The analysis is derived by induction, taking into account a single statement at a time. The analysis of the statement was based

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on a certain perspective, which is the aim of this research; that is, to understand what happens when students engage in online learning and particularly in the context of carrying out the four online activities. After establishing the perspective and the context, each statement was taken separately and grouped according to the other three categories (conditions, processes and consequences). Students’ statements were sometimes refereeing to either a single or multiple categories. For example a typical statement shown below, relates to more than one category: …a very rich learning experience, the online activities gives a real depth for the theoretical information we gain at class, makes the learning process an interactive interesting process. The interpretation of the above statement relates to several conditions related to the environment, which resulted in a positive consequence. The statement illustrates that the student had gained in-depth understanding (consequence) because the activities were perceived interactive (condition), rich (condition) and interesting (condition). See Table 1 for more sample data and their interpretation. The analysis goes through an iterative and refinement process until all statements were resolved into categories and sub-categories. Eventually saturation is reached and a feeling that a consistent, plausible pattern or story was emerging. The labels for the categories and sub-categories were chosen by the researcher to best describe the meaning of the abstracted data. Three conditions were identified, four processes and nine consequences, see Figure 1. The figure can provide us with a model to describe and understand the learning experience of the described case, which are discussed in the next section.

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FINDINGS The categories and the most prevalent findings will now be discussed. The discussions do not highlight the merits of each activity or the use of specific online tools, but rather will examine the reaping value gained from the total environment and how it addresses the challenges mentioned earlier.

Conditions Students’ statements have highlighted many issues related to the quality characteristics of the learning environment. Many student where gratified with the learning environment. Comments such as unusual, interesting, memorable, rich, enjoyable, inventive, nice way of learning, etc., were frequent comments by the students. This indicates that the learning environment was implemented under certain conditions or quality characteristics that impelled student to give such remarks. These quality characteristics can be considered as conditions that were responsible for the attained consequences of the learning environment. Student comments were categorized under three qualities: a.

b.

Systems Quality: This is related to the basic characteristics of the learning management system. The students liked the idea of doing a variety of activities and having access to them from anywhere and at any time. Other characteristics that seemed to be essential for the success of the learning environment, such as ease of use, the ability to handle multiple languages (Arabic and English), and use of a database to store all students contributions, including the ability to submit assignments. Activities Quality: The nature and the design of the activities is a critical component in achieving positive learning outcomes.

Learning With Online Activities

Table 2. Cognitive processes

Fink’s Taxonomy Foundational Knowledge Application Integration

This study Knowledge, Retention, Comprehension Experience

Human Dimension

Transformation

Caring

Motivation, Attachment

Learning how to learn

Learning Strategies

Students had commented on the merits of the activities, which can also be considered as desired quality characteristics of the activities, and they include: Usefulness: Students have commented that the activities were interesting, innovative, influential, and complementary; add value to their learning needs and also build skills, experiences and can influence their knowledge. Students appreciate the idea of using only the issues seen as relevant to them in what is being developed and discussed online, and communicated in their own plain words (Arabic/English). The learning environment was enriched because of the diversity of the group, where each student brings in his/her experience and way of thinking. Flexibility: Flexibility is another characteristic that was valued by students. Flexibility is related to the time of submission of activities and having an environment that encourages students’ autonomy, such as the ability to express themselves freely, comfortably and make choices to intro-

duce any new relevant topics at the their convenience. Most of the students were working adults and had limited time to do their activities. Some students would be active for one week and passive in the following week. Visibility: The open learning environment enriches the students’ knowledge and creates competitiveness between them, because all students’ contributions and assignments are visible to each other. This gave students a sense of being under scrutiny from their peers. Interactivity: Students valued the interactivity of the learning environment and the dynamics of content build up from diversified group of students. Students also liked to enter into an open dialogue with each other to express themselves and to also collaborate on building artifacts, such as the wiki project or building glossaries. Therefore, the success of the learning environment relies on how large and diversified are the group of students, and the nature of tools that can encourage group interactivity or collaboration.

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c.

Teacher Quality: The instructor or the moderator plays a critical role to encourage and motivate students to participate on line. Students have commented on how they have perceived the instructors as being knowledgeable and working within a learning strategy. This perception was important for the students to trust him/her and consequently encouraged their participation. Students had also appreciated the flexibility of the instructor. The instructor needs to be flexible and structure the activities according to the students’ needs, abilities, work within their time constraints, and to encourage intellectual openness. The instructor’s ultimate aim was to empower students to encourage life long learning skills development and emphasize process rather than content.

Processes Examining the students’ comments in the context of the four activities, a pattern of different processes was manifested and categorized into four different cognitive processes that are related to critical thinking: a.

b.

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Observing: Students were extensively engaged in observation, due to searching for information or trying to understand or read students’ postings that reflect ways of thinking and opinions. This gave students the opportunity to progressively learn by observation. Gaining Insights: Gaining insights on issues is a higher level of thinking than a mere observation. In observation, students are engaged in noticing or becoming aware of information without gaining a deep, clear picture or gaining insights. Some of the students’ comments show that they were actively seeking deep perception, such as seeking elaboration or gaining clarification through reading and searching to get insights

c.

d.

on specific issue in order to understand and enrich their contributions. Learning from others: Learning from others is also a cognitive process that was frequently mentioned by students; learning from their peers can be an important learning process. Students who fail to learn from others may miss opportunities to learn from peers’ experiences (mistakes and successes). This process is different from the previous two processes. Here, students engage in active thinking in order to extract a lesson that can be acquired and utilized elsewhere or to avoid repeating a similar mistake, such as commended or disapproved thinking approaches as indicated by other students’ comments. Deliberations: This is probably the highest level of cognitive process used by students. The act of deliberation is different from gaining insights. The act of deliberation requires more analytical skills and students attempt to bring together fragments of knowledge together in order to develop a holistic understanding and try to understand the purpose or deep meaning of things. Students’ comments relate to processes such as thinking deeply, reflecting, analyzing, comparing, abstracting, constructing, organizing ideas and thinking, innovative thinking, predicting outcomes, solving problems, making choice, and taking group decisions. Also, because content is always accessible, students were prompted to reassess and edit or clarify their contributions. In addition, students were involved in applying certain knowledge to different contexts, including their own working lives.

CONSEqUENCES The consequences of the online learning environment had reshaped students’ learning in significant

Learning With Online Activities

ways. From the analysis, nine consequences were determined: a.

b.

c.

d.

Knowledge: Although students were attending face-to-face lectures and obtained fundamental knowledge, they also perceived that learning through the set of online activities had enforced and provided them with richer environment to gain further knowledge. The activities created a medium for knowledge accumulation. Students expressed themselves quite frequently that the environment provided them with new, broadened, and diversified knowledge, which also resulted in strengthening their subject and specific terminology. Knowledge acquisition was also facilitated because communication was carried out in their own plain language. Comprehension: The nature of engagement had positioned students to comprehend topics in greater depth and more accuracy because the topics were being elaborated from diversified students’ perspectives, which also gave a more holistic understanding of the various topics. Again, comprehension was easier for students because communication was elaborated in their own plain language (Arabic or English). Retention: All activities required student to actively engage in searching and writing intensively in their own language, which had assisted in retention. The term in “their own language” means that it is written in simple language away from the jargon of text books or written in their own Arabic language. The retention assisted students to recall information easily and weave it into their contributions. Some students needed less effort to prepare for exams because they were more confident of their retained and related knowledge. Experience: The students were engaged in a number of processes, which gave students

the opportunity to practice and gain experience in a number of skills. Communication skills: Students were compelled to practice writing in order to express their ideas and opinions clearly in order to encourage other students to respond to their contributions. Students were conscious of the fact that other students will be reading and responding to their writing, thus giving them a sense of authorship. The nature of activities encouraged students to exert more effort in reading and try to understand (listen to) what others are trying to communicate in order to respond with an intelligent response. Student had also mentioned that the process of translation benefited them; it improved their English language and gave them experience in Arabization. Engagement: A skill that was stressed in the students’ feedback. Student mentioned that the environment encouraged collaborative learning and working to build artifacts, which assisted them in gaining skills on how to engage with others remotely, how to weave ideas into discussions or how to exchange ideas and to reach consensus. Technology use: Students had commented that they gained experience in using technologies. Students were encouraged to use computers and to search the Internet more frequently than before in order to complete the activities online. Also, the use of the learning management systems gave students an opportunity to deal with a practical online application and to become familiar with its features, tools and functions. Autonomous: Being autonomous was a skill that was also frequently mentioned by students. Students, probably for the first time, had sensed that they were re-

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e.

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sponsible for their own learning. Students were given the opportunity to express themselves. They were expressing ideas, opinions, and knowledge in their own words freely and honestly without being threatened with ridicule from other students or the instructor. Knowledge Construction: Students were not only gaining new knowledge, they were also involved in constructing new knowledge either collaboratively or individually. Students were involved in building wiki projects, glossaries and summaries. Students gained experience on how to formulate good critical thinking questions in order to attract greater comments from other students, and also how to construct effective answers to convince others of their arguments. Knowledge Integration: One of the ultimate objectives of learning is to turn knowledge into action. Students had expressed in details how the environment had inspired them to integrate knowledge into other realms of knowledge to build a holistic understanding of a certain topic, or to apply knowledge gained into different situations, or to connect different ideas together. Others went as far as integrating knowledge into their working environment, such as building a web site for their organization or participating in a public electronic auction. Learning Strategies: Students had recognized the value of learning online and have expressed themselves on how the learning environment assisted them in developing strategies for learning, thinking and remembering. These strategies were developed because students were engaged in the processes mentioned earlier (observing, gain insights, learn from others, and deliberations). Some of the student had mentioned how they

f.

improved their ways of learning through interacting with others by exchanging ideas and opinions, which provided opportunities to learn from each other’s diversified experience and different ways of thinking. This also gave students the ability to compare their competencies with others. This type of interactivity was recognized by students as a new way of learning the subject without going back to the textbook. Some students had also recognized that learning is in the conversation and collaboration, which had changed their ways of studying. As mentioned earlier, students had commented that the nature of activities had made it easy to remember facts and information because of engagement in deep learning about relevant topics and in their own wordings. They had also commented that the online activities made them reflect on what is being learned and to think in more rational and scientific ways. Exposure to diversified opinions had also improved their ways of organizing their thinking and ways of analysis. Transformation: Good learning environment should have a long lasting change on the learner (Fink, 2003). The experience expressed by students may be described as being enlightening since the synchronicity of the environment gave student ample time to be reflective, predictive, analytical and rational. The environment was transformative for some students. It changed their way of thinking and expanding its boundary. Students’ comments indicate that they may have become conscious of certain feelings and thoughts about themselves or others, which may have a long-lasting effect on their lives. Emotion: Good feelings were sensed by students while doing online activities. This was exemplified by statements related of having good feelings for help-

Learning With Online Activities

g.

ing others students, nurturing a spirit of sharing, respecting each others’ opinion, a satisfied feeling when receiving a requested information or when adding value to knowledge, and also discovering how shy students in class think. Open-mindedness: The nature of the environment and activities gave students the opportunity to be open-minded and exercise making judgments. Students have admitted that they had changed their minds and opinions on certain issues, and consequently a change in the way of thinking and beliefs. Self-Knowledge: The environment had given some students a sense of growth. Students had commented that the nature of the activities have built their self-confidence and have become more self-dependent, which allowed them to freely express their thoughts and opinions. Students also had the opportunity to self-reflect and evaluate themselves in comparison to other students’ contributions and ways of thinking. Such skills allow students to interact more effectively with themselves and with others more confidently and purposefully. Motivation: The openness and the interactivity created by the environment had aspired students to exert more time and effort to complete activities. Exertion: Students have mentioned that they have spent much more time and effort than on any other subject that was being taught in a traditional method; the online interactivity gave them incentive to learn. Students were exerting more effort to read, search, write and use technologies. The openness and the high visibility of the environment made students write for each other and to be more conscious of the quality of their contributions. Students

h.

i.

have commented that they have put more effort and time to ensure that their answers or contributions are prepared with care and accuracy. Aspiration: Students were impelled to exert more effort in completing their activities not through coercion but rather out of aspiration. Students were aspired to think deeply, be more creative, and encouraged to engage with others. One student was aspired and purchased a laptop to be in continual contact with the course website. Students have commented that the nature of the activities made them discover and seek new knowledge. One student also mentioned that he would now consider taking a course completely online. Attachment: Over the course of the semester, students tend to become attached to the website. Students have mentioned that the course website had become part of their daily activity similar to checking their email. The website had a stickiness effect on students; they liked the idea of being in contact with course 24/7 and being accessible from anywhere. The course Web site tends to build stronger connection between students themselves and what they are learning. It has also been observed that students continued to visit the website weeks after the course’s completion, which signifies that doing online activities can create a strong bond between students, instructors and the course content. Building Knowledge Repository: The environment had encouraged students to write more over the whole semester, which resulted in an accumulation of shared repository of knowledge, discussions, opinions, experiences, ways of thinking, terminologies and related information -- all expressed in their own simplified Arabic and English language

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The students had valued the accumulated knowledge because it gave them in-depth understanding of various topics. The repository was also perceived as a memory aid and assisted them to prepare for exams without referring to the prescribed textbook. At the end of each course, the learning management systems (knowledge repository) would contain 250 to 400 defined concepts using the glossary tool; 200 to 300 concept impact using the blogging tool; 100 to 200 posts on the discussion forum; and 50 to 80 pages using the wiki tool, including students’ written assignments and presentations, which were also accessible for students to read.

Discussion The emerged set of categories illustrated in Figure 1 can provide perspective on answering the research question, “What do students think about their own learning when using online activities?” which helps to understand their experience. For some it was a positive experience as stated by this student’s statement “many years later I will remember all about this subject” – this sensation was partly driven by online collaboration. The online activities were the context for the analysis and were comprised of various tasks that engaged students in “discussing”, “abstracting”, “translating” and “collaborating” using various online tools (discussion forums, blogs, glossaries, and wikis). The resultant categories can inform us better about the intricacy of the online learning environment as experienced by those students. The inherent consequences of the environment on the students were evident in a range of desired educational goals (retainsion, comprehension, knowledge, experience, learning strategies, transformation, and attachment, motivation, and knowledge repository). These desirable outcomes were assumedly the byproduct of students engagement in higher-level cognitive

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processes (observing, gaining insights, learning from others and deliberations). Students were able to engage in this positive environment because of three quality conditions (system, activity, and teacher). In other words, students expressed their thinking about their own learning, in terms of the perceived conditions of their learning environment, their engagement in cognitive processes and the benefits they have attained or sensed.

Consequences Most of the literature discusses the merits of critical thinking when using online learning, specifically discussion boards, and focuses little on the byproducts of this conducive environment. There was clear evidence from the students’ statements that the learning environment was beneficial and nourishing due to their engagement in cognitive processes, as expressed by one student: “The online one provides me with real experience far away from the course text book and material”. The intensive engagement in online learning allowed students to gain a number of skills including autonomy, which enabled their confidence to engage with others in knowledge construction and integration. The emergent consequences are indicative of how intense the online critical thinking engagement was for students. If the environment did not engage students intellectually, it would be difficult for students to develop learning strategies, build useful knowledge repository, feel humanized about the whole learning experience and to become attached to the community. The following statements from students illustrate the perceived value of the online learning environment: Learning online, had increased my knowledge on how to use the internet and how to deal with other and exchange ideas…The critical question forum helped me to think more deeply about things, expand my knowledge and somehow changed the way I think.. …After this experience I was able to

Learning With Online Activities

conclude how to harness much of this information and concepts in a practical way, which encouraged me to shoulder the responsibility for designing and building a website for the company that I work for…encouraged me to discuss subjects that I feel is important, which encouraged to learn more about it and stored in my mind. Students made frequent verbal requests to continue to access the course’s online activity after completion of the course. Such a request can only be made when a sense of added-value and benefit is perceived by them. It is interesting to note that the consequences can be almost exactly mapped to Fink’s (2003) “Taxonomy of Significant Learning” (see Table 2). Fink’s taxonomy is based on 6 interactive desired learning outcomes, which are achievable depending on the course design. These elements are: Foundational Knowledge (understanding and remembering information & ideas), Application (skills, thinking, managing projects), Integration (connecting ideas/people/realms of life), Human dimension (learning about oneself and others), Caring (Developing new feelings, interests, value) and Learning How to learn (Becoming a better student, inquiring about a subject and self-directing learners). This may indicate that students in this study experienced significant learning (Fink, 2003). One consequence which does not map into Fink’s taxonomy is the students’ created artifact the “Knowledge repository”, which was captured through LMS’s database. This student highlighted the value of the repository: “We have ended up with large number of questions and answers which helps me to study and understand the subject” The value or usefulness of the repository could be an indication and a measure of the learning experience, whether it was surface or deep learning. This is an issue that can be examined in future studies.

Processes In the context of these four online activities, students were reading, thinking, and writing, which seemed to have a positive impact on their critical thinking, as indicated by one student: “discussions helped to enlighten my thinking in a more rational way”. The study by Quitadamo et al. (2007) demonstrates that writing positively influences critical thinking performance for general education. The term critical thinking is difficult to define and has many interpretations (Facione, 2007), but it is greed that it is a desired aim of higher education and usually involves various levels of cognitive processes and skills (Dewey, 1982). Dewy argued that critical thinking is a process of judgment that one makes while solving problems. Pascarella et al. (1991, p. 118) argue that critical thinking is “defined and measured in a number of ways but typically involves the individual ability to do some or all of the following: identify central issues and assumptions of arguments, recognize important relationships, make correct inferences from data, deduce conclusions from information or data provided, interpret whether conclusions are warranted on the basis of the data given, and evaluate evidence or authority.” The following students’ statements demonstrate that students were engaged in higher-level cognitive processes: It is very useful and effective for me, I have gained great benefits because it helps to analyze the topics in a different way and makes the student think in a different way and to imagine the subject in his/ her mind in order to create questions...It pushes me to think deeper, in a more scientific way in order to link between what I’m learning and our daily life details and practices to reach to some critical situations …gave me richness in ideas and sometimes it directed me to many thoughts I have ignored. Guiller et al. (2007) have argued that on-line discussions can increase the quality of critical

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thinking in comparison with face-to-face environment; however, the authors recommend using a combination of the two environments to provide more value for students. One of the student’s statements is in agreement about learning in a blended environment "I prefer both, because the first provide the direct communication, and the second give the chance to be in contact 24 hr 7 days a week." Sanders et al. (2002) examined student attitudes with regard to Web-enabled learning, the results show a positive effect on student learning, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking skills. Online learning is different from face-to-face learning in two ways: the nature of the interaction and independence. These two ways were powerful enough to trigger in this study several complementary levels of critical thinking processes (observing, gaining insights, learning from others, and deliberating. These critical thinking skills must not be viewed as separate levels; these processes may be utilized in concert as needed. Learning from others is probably seen as odd as a critical thinking process, but it was considered in this case as an important cognitive process, as illustrated by this student’s statement, “The exchange of questions and opinions helps a lot in understanding the subject, because knowing what others think helps to think about a specific topic from different perspectives which maybe they be all right… it gives us a chance to know different points of views.” Students were engaged in analyzing other students’ contributions to extract a learning lesson. There are numerous studies that have attempted to categorize critical thinking processes. Garrison et al. (2000) has proposed a four-stage cognitive processing model that has been widely used to evaluate critical thinking in online discussion forums. These categories are Triggering (recognizing the problem), Exploration (divergence, information exchange, brainstorming, leaps to conclusion), Integration (connecting ideas, syn-

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thesis, creating solutions), and Solution (testing and defending solutions). See Perkins et al. (2006) and Murphy (2004) have summarized a number of critical thinking models. Similarly, the emerged processes from this study may also be used to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on critical thinking processes when students engage in asynchronous online activities.

Conditions A critical success factor of the mentioned learning environment is fundamentally based on the characteristics of the online learning activities. Students do not only acquire knowledge, they also construct their own knowledge through interaction with other learners and other resources (Simpson, 2002; Brown, 2005). Therefore, online activities must be designed to encourage discussions or dialogues in order to challenge students’ intellectual traits and to further develop these abilities (Richard, 2005). Hudson (2002, p. 53) argues that “the very basis of thinking is rooted in dialogue, drawing on a socially constructed context to endow idea with meaning”. Online activities can be used to foster a student-centered approach to open grounds for students to engage in activities that resemble real-world tasks and to encourage a deeper approach to learning (Gow et al., 1993). A statement from one of the students illustrates the need for interaction and dialogue: “by learning from each other and exchanging information and ideas, this will produce new concepts.” The activities used in this case encouraged discussions and collaboration and were designed to supplement the class lectures. In online learning, the teachers’ role is redefined, since learning moves into a more constructivist model where learning can be more active and self directed (Anastasiades et al., 2001; Koohang et al. 2005, Kandies et al., 1999). The teacher acts as a channel to ensure activities are carried according to the general guidelines and

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to encourage the building of community among learners. The teacher quality element was emphasized in the community of inquiry theory by Garrison et al. (2000) and it is referred to as ‘teacher presence’. Anderson et. al (2001) stress that teacher and learner interaction is not enough on its own; “structure and leadership are crucial for online learners to take a deep and meaningful approach to learning.” The teacher’s role is akin to that of a facilitator who encourages and motivates students to participate online and to empower them to trust their ability to engage in purposive interaction. Perry et al. (2005) in their interpretive study have highlighted how teachers (facilitators) have exemplary roles in challenging the students’ abilities to go beyond their expectations, to be good affirmers, recognizing their potential, treating learners with respect and to help resolve problems. In this study the teacher was not only intervening and directing students online but also in class, which had a more positive impact on students’ participation. The teacher in this study commented that extra care and sensitivity is needed at the beginning of the online engagement as “we do not want to lose and discourage anyone.” How and when we direct students can be either an enabler or inhibitor for their online engagement, as indicted by this statement from one of the students: “the quick response from the site administrator (instructor) and his wide interest and respect to his student which encouraged everybody to speak and write without fear.” Another student commented on the environment: “I really like the comfort atmosphere that we live in learning on line, getting us away from the high tension we used to face in traditional methods of learning, specially at the exams time.” System quality also plays a central role in the success of the online learning environment. The adopted learning systems must be accessible to students outside the university campus to allow students to experience anywhere anytime learning, as stated by one student: “online learning very

beneficial because of the 24 hour connectivity, which gave me more time to read the question and reflect on it and answer it with care”. From the experience gained from this study, the choice of LMS depends on the tools and their features to allow for designing innovative activities. Features such as ease of use and the ability to allow students to create bilingual content is also important to allow students to express themselves in a language they are comfortable with.

Students Satisfaction Although students were attending face-to-face lectures and obtained fundamental knowledge, they perceived that the learning through the set of online activities reinforced and provided a richer environment to gain further knowledge and develop different skills (Kanuka et al., 2004). Because all activities were student-driven rather than teacher-driven, students experienced for the first time what it means to be an active learner or selfdirected, as illustrated by some of the students’ statements: “Stirring students up to continue learning all through their life, and helping others to do so… Taught me how to learn, and how can I effectively introduce a technology and MIS in my work to succeed and meet work environment challenges”. Student’s level of satisfaction and perceived success is enhanced as students move more towards self-directed learning (Garrison et al., 2004). The four mentioned online tools were asynchronous communication tools that can support knowledge construction, which is the foundation for social constructivism learning theory, or collaborative learning. According to this theory knowledge is constructed collaboratively from the previous knowledge of the participants. In general collaborative learning can provide many benefits such as building self-esteem in students, enhances student satisfaction with the learning experience, promotes a positive attitude toward the

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subject matter with deeper understanding. (Zaho et al., 2001, p. 2). Some of the students’ statements shown below illustrate why they may have been satisfied with the online learning: Increased the self dependency, and give the person a great feeling when he get the information he want and add values for his knowledge…It was a great unique experience that I wish if it was implemented in other courses... Online activities made it easy for us to understand the material easily without the need to memorize as in the traditional way… encourages students to read more and think deeply about the subject so the y can contribute. The model shown in Figure 1 represents conceptualization of student statements, which is suggestive of a successful learning model. Students who have been actively involved in the mentioned processes were generally satisfied about their experiences as indicated by their statements and were able to acquire useful and significant learning experience (Fink, 2003). Chao-Min et al. (2005) in their study show that the perceived quality of information, perceived value and usability have significant impact on user satisfaction and continued usage. Benke et al (2004) argue that student satisfaction is also related to access, quality of program, student’s support and opportunities for personal interaction. Teacher presence was also an important satisfaction factor, to orchestrate the learning environment (Carrision et al., 2004; Carswell et al. 2003; Abdul-Hamid et al., 2005). Probably the highest contributor to the students’ satisfaction in this study, is the cognitive process that was evoked by the asynchronous learning tool, which had challenged their intellectual traits leading them to better learning (Richard, 2005). The instructor observed that students were able to deal with the subject’s concepts and terminology much more easily and were able to retain much of the information because learning was relevant,

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cumulative and occurring from different activities and in collaboration, as explicated by this student’s statement: “I was not sure that studying the MIS course will be enjoyable because the subject is not flexibility and hard to study through this way, but the study in this way give the course the flexibility and easy way to remember the main concept of the MIS than read it directly from the book, the main concepts was repeated in the bogs, critical thinking question and the glossary.” The interactive environment made students conscious of their learning, which stimulated higher order thinking skills, and students learned to relate fragments of knowledge and apply their knowledge and skills to their working lives. Students perceived that online learning is useful because it gave an opportunity for collaborative learning, which is a necessary component to teaching and learning (Schellens, 2004). The social aspect of this environment was critical to facilitate dialogue for exchanging information, ideas and opinions (Vygotsky, 1978) and to create a medium for knowledge accumulation (de Laat, 2006; Koschmann, 1994).

Challenges and Recommendations Students perceived the use of online activities as a positive supplement to their learning but not as a substitute for the face-to-face environment. The experience of the students may have been different if learning was totally online. The students were attending face-to-face lectures, which gave them access to knowledge and a chance to get acquainted with the instructor and to each other, which may have encouraged the students to participate online in a relaxed environment as expressed by one of the students: …I really like the comfort atmosphere that we live in learning on line, getting us away from the high tension we used to face in traditional methods of learning.

Learning With Online Activities

However, use of online technology is not a panacea. Some students were active and some were not, and we should not assume that all students would like this approach. Some students were critical of the online learning, as expressed by one student who “…did not like to sit for a long time in front of the computer screen.” Some did not like online learning because they did not have necessary computer skills to carry out the activities and to recover from unforeseen technical problems as expressed by one student, who said: “....it needs computer skills, which is not available to all students”. Teachers need to explain the activities and the tools very clearly to avoid confusion and suggest ways to recover from technical glitches. Lack of skill has put some students under pressure as they found themselves spending much time to carry out a single activity. Another recurring issue is the Internet in terms of access, speed and cost. Some comments from students illustrate this challenge: ...because of the slow connection, we are spending long time to interact with the website… sometime you can’t find a PC to start learning or the internet is out of service…the net connection is slow, which gave me a hard time…it needs infrastructure in my home like ADSL and I don’t have it…It is more expensive to subscribe to the internet…need extra cost to be in touch with the site. Internet access would remain a limitation, unless the local government takes steps towards reducing the cost of connectivity to increase its accessibility. The internet was considered an additional cost to their education; this may be slightly offset by switching to accepting only online assignment submission. Use of online environment took much from the students’ time, Students can easily end up with a course and half with this approach as clearly expressed by one student: “I Think that our work

for this semester worth more than 50%”. Most of the students were working adults who seemed to have little time to carry out the activities online, some of the students’ comments were: One small comment, if you could reduce the quantity of the assignments… Sometimes, I don’t have time to connect and access the site especially when I have deadlines at work or exams at the university…shortage of time, as I am a worker, and some times we have a lot of assignments with a short dead line of sending it…Although the continuous follow-up is good where student stays updated with all activities, it’s also hard for some since they are working and not fully dedicated to the study only. The number of activities or contributions needs to be considered carefully in light of this limitation. However, most students were satisfied with this overload because a sense of learning was highly observed and achieved.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE Most research on using online activities has focused primarily on the use of one type of tool such as blogs or wikis. This research had used multiple tools that had a positive synergetic affect on the cognitive and emotional processes of students. Students were confident to enter the final exam with a thinking mind rather than memorycrammed mind and with little preparations as stated by this student: “When I write about this topic in my own words, I feel I don’t have to spend that time on that topic when I study for the exam, because I already had studied it in a different way”. The notion of the synergetic impact when using multiple activities requires further research to validate. The study has also illustrated that students were engaged in various levels of critical thinking.

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Critical thinking processes such as insights and deliberation have been discussed extensively in literature (Riddell, 2007; Facione,2007; Brabeck, 1983), but with little mention of the inclusion of learning from others as a critical thinking process, which was highly stressed in the students’ comments. The challenge here is how to design an effective learning environment that encourages students to learn from each other and extract valuable lessons from each other. Another interesting finding that was highlighted by the students’ comments is the build-up of a knowledge repository as the result of their cumulative contributions. The knowledge-base was a simplified reference composed of students’ understandings expressed in the Arabic and English languages. As mentioned earlier, the extent of use of the knowledge repository by students to prepare for exams may be utilized as a good indicator for validating the value and quality of the students’ online learning. From a researcher perspective, the use of Schatzman’s Dimensional Analysis has proved to be useful as a framework for understanding students’ online learning experiences. The framework allows the researcher to capture somewhat holistically the rich experiences of students by examining the conditions, processes and consequences. These three categories can provide researchers or academics with a practicing lens through which to research or design more effective pedagogies. The ultimate contribution of this study is the local context of this case and its results, which should encourage other universities in the Arab world to establish strategic and operational plans to support such initiatives. Plans must include policies on how to integrate online technologies with the face-to-face approach and to provide the necessary resources and support both for students and faculty. Blended learning does present certain challenges such as how to bring students, faculty, technologists and management to collaborate in

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such an initiative. Resistance to organizational change is also expected (Vaughan, 2007).

CONCLUSION The aim of the study was not to generalize the findings, but to share an authentic experience in a Middle Eastern context. Online activities can create a platform for establishing learning communities and a gateway for building lifelong learning skills. It was evident from this study that social constructivism educational theory supported by open-source learning management systems provided an adequate environment in which to encourage students’ deep learning and build a variety of skills and experiences and to learn from each other’s styles and ways of thinking. One can conclude that the discussed learning environment was considered by students less burdensome and restrictive. Students experienced for the first time what it means to be an active learner to improve their learning cognitively and emotionally. The study may also be viewed as an attempt to capture the determinants of a successful online environment. However, to successfully engage everyone in online activities, we need to be aware of the challenges related to technology, time, and effort. Finally, the use of Schatzman’s ‘Dimensional Analysis’ framework proved to be a useful tool to gain insight on what do students think about their own learning when using online activities.

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This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 2, edited by E. M. W. Ng; N. Karacapilidis; M. S. Raisinghani, pp. 1-25, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 5.13

A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses Terry T. Kidd University of Houston-Downtown, USA Holim Song Texas Southern University, USA

ABSTRACT This study assessed the perceptions of adult learners in online distance learning programs regarding the instructional quality of Web-based courses via WebCT. The results showed an overall positive perception regarding the instructional quality of online courses delivered via WebCT (M = 3.51, SD = 1.1362). The mean obtained for students’ perceptions regarding the instructional quality items ranged from 3.7 to 3.37. The visual appeal of Web site and appropriateness of the course materials received the highest rating (M = 3.625). Clarity and purpose in introduction to content components earned the lowest ratings (M = 3.37). These results were closely correlated to students’ responses regarding the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-319-7.ch013

important aspects of instructional quality of online courses. The most important aspect indicated by students was the idea of having online course content and materials relevant to the course. The results of the study also indicated other perceived aspects that affect students’ views of the instructional quality of an online course, including interaction, design, convenience, feedback, and usability.

INTRODUCTION The terms distance learning, distance education, online learning, and Web-based instruction (WBI) have become buzzwords or catch phrases for the new phenomenon of learning for the adult learning population as well as the nontraditional student. These terms used to describe an ever-changing

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

environment of learning represents approaches that focus on opening the access to education and training provision for adult learners, freeing the adult learners from the traditional constraints of time and place, and most of all this environment offers flexible learning opportunities to individuals and groups of nontraditional methods of learning. Distance education or distance learning is one of the most rapidly growing fields of education around the world, and its potential impact on all education delivery systems has been greatly emphasized through the development of WBI technologies, in particular, advancements in multimedia and communication technologies and more importantly in the World Wide Web (Web) through distance education and learning platforms such as WebCT, Blackboard, and Moodle. Online and Web-based (WB) courses within the distance education environment have become popular with both students and educational institutions as the new media to deliver educational programs. For universities and other educational programs, they are an excellent way to reach students in diverse and distant locations. Some may also be used to supplement school enrollments since students can conceivably be anywhere and take the courses. Given their popularity and increased use, it is imperative that administrators and professors monitor students’ perceptions of courses using these media for delivery. It is hoped that this type of feedback can help in modifying and improving the learning environment and education programs so that course can function as desired by all parties. With these concepts in mind, the purpose of this case study was to identify the factors that affected the adult learner or nontraditional student’s perception in regards to their ideas of the instructional quality of online and WB courses. This information presented in this chapter will lead to the development and implementation of innovative strategies to promote quality teaching and student learning online and with media. In order to effectively develop a conducive environment

for the adult learner in a WB course, instructional designers, educators, trainers, and facilitators must pay particular attention to the design of instruction, the mode of delivery, and the technologies employed to disseminate the information to the adult student; only then can we begin to harness the power of online and distance learning.

BACkGROUND Distance learning has the potential to generate new patterns of teaching and learning for the adult learning and nontraditional students. This idea is strongly linked with developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs); furthermore, it is close to the development of new learning needs and new patterns of information access and application and learning. There is evidence that distance education and advances in technology can lead to innovation in mainstream education, and may even have effects beyond the realm of education itself. Distance learning, therefore, may play a decisive role in the creation of the global knowledge-based society (Michael & Tait, 2002). In order to understand the environment online and distance education/learning and the factors that affect the adult learner or the nontraditional student and their perception of the instructional quality of the course, there must be an understanding of terms and concepts associated with these environments. A large component of this environment relates to the principles and theories of learning including the adult learning methodology, andragogy, active learning principles, and information processing theory that includes concepts on perception. Other words associated with distance and online learning environments include instructional design, distance education/learning, instructional quality, learning communities, learning management systems, and WBI. It is evident that open and distance learning will be an important element of future education

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

and training systems for adult learning in nontraditional environments. The emergence of new forms of distance learning based on new ICTs, in particular those supported by the Internet and using Web, have significant pedagogical, economic, and organizational implications, particularly for those in the nontraditional arena (Michael & Tait, 2002). Furthermore, there is a significant trend toward training, organization development, and community college programs where the adult learner is most prevalent. While major research has been conducted on distance learning environments, little research has been compiled on the adult learner or the nontraditional student in the context of distance learning and what factors affect their perception of the instructional quality presented from the course facilitator or instructor. A thorough analysis of major research related to the adult learner’s perception of online courses uncovered important factors that are involved in determining students’ satisfaction of online courses (e.g., Anderson & Joerg, 1996; Cedefop, 2002; Hara & Kling, 2000; Polloff & Pratt, 2001). In order to paint a clear picture of instructional quality, current literature indicates instructional quality as being defined through nine dimensions: (1) learning, (2) enthusiasm, (3) organization, (4) group interaction, (5) individual rapport, (6) breadth, (7) examinations, (8) assignments, and (9) workload/difficulty (Marsh, 1982, 1987, 1997; Marsh & Roche 1997). With this view of instructional quality, we can begin to see the dimensions of online courses in their full totality and areas in which perception can be affected. The literature indicates that students’ perceptions of online learning vary, but overall are positive (Daugherty & Funke, 1998; Morss, 1999; Polloff & Pratt, 2001). The top reasons for taking online courses were flexibility, convenience, and learning enhancement. Students could “attend” their online courses at any time and from anywhere. Convenient features of online courses include economy of travel, comfort, and family environment. Under learning enhancement, participants

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ranked technology factors and comprehension as the top reasons (Polloff & Pratt, 2001). The disadvantages of online courses were related to technology and isolation. Technology issues related to poor video quality and complaints about transmission delay over the Internet were included. As for isolation, students voiced they lacked opportunities for informal socialization with instructors and other students. With regard to the interaction, participants rated interpersonal contact and self-monitoring of individual progress as the most highly rated indicators, followed by the timely responses by instructors. Although indicators existed in each of the interaction areas, self-regulating learning and having timely feedback from the instructor were reported as most valued by participants. Polloff and Pratt (2001) found that students are most satisfied with courses in which the instructors facilitate frequent contact between themselves and students, use active learning techniques, convey high expectations, emphasize time spent on specific tasks, and provide prompt feedback. According to Anderson and Joerg (1996), students perceived online courses as a valuable delivery tool, and they reported that online courses changed the dynamics of access to class materials at any time from different locations. Students perceived online courses as a valuable educational improvement, according to one study (Anderson & Joerg, 1996). However, students hesitated to enroll in online courses due to problems associated with Internet access and ongoing questions related to the advantage of the technology. Students were also concerned about spending time on external Web sites. According to Cedefop (2002), online instructors tended to rely on external sources for materials or content that did not necessarily reflect the instructional standards of the course. Web design issues are of concern to students as Polloff and Pratt’s study (2001) indicated that students were moderately satisfied with the Web design of online courses. If students are not satisfied with the design of the course Web site,

A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

they may have negative perceptions of the effectiveness their online courses (Brush, 2001). As reviewed in the literature, Khan (1997) defined and explained WBI environments by providing two distinct classifications—namely, components and features. According to Khan (1997), components are integral parts of the Web, such as instructional design, multimedia, graphics, text, video, audio streaming, and asynchronous/synchronous communication modes. The findings indicated that these components of WBI contribute to the students’ perceptions for online courses. Multimedia elements, if designed properly, could have a positive impact on student achievement and the learning process (Ryan & Kasturi, 2002). Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) proposed several principles of good learning and practices for online courses. The first principle of good practice encourages interaction between students and faculty. The students perceived the interactive course environment and frequent discussion as conducive to learning in online courses (Jiang, 1998). In fact, students identified more opportunities to interact with their instructors and peers as one of the main benefits of the online courses (Holmes, 2000). However, if interaction was not available, students became frustrated and unsatisfied with the course. According to Hara and Kling (2000), students’ frustrations with online courses originated from two sources: technological problems and pedagogical issues. Technological problems included students’ difficulty in obtaining technical support. Access to technical support was crucial to students’ perceptions of their online course. The second principle of good practice encourages cooperation among students. Working together with other students increases involvement in learning and deepens understanding (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996). Schrum (1998) states that students find the notion of greater reflection required when typing than when speaking as a component of online communication and interactions. Asynchronous communication provides time for reflection and

composition. Reading e-mail or bulletin board postings encourages reflection. The utilization of these strategies is important for the varied instruction of the online course. Electronic communication appears to foster collaboration and group interactions (Schrum, 1998). Learning management systems such as WebCT and Blackboard support this form of instruction. Through scaffolding learning, the teacher can create the conditions for collaboration. Organization and implementation of collaborative activities is important to be initiated and sustained by the instructor (McIssac, Blosher, Mahes & Charalombos, 1999). A key element of student collaboration is the support and monitoring by the online teacher. With the majority of communication in text format, the online environment operates differently than the face-to-face environment. Any form of communication has deficiencies; however, understanding them and capitalizing on the potential strengths can shadow the weaknesses. Understanding communication in the medium of the virtual learning environment allows for a more natural development of collaboration. Critics of online courses emphasize the isolation of learners through the lack of communication. Communication is very important in the virtual learning community; it is the actual brick and mortar of the community (Schwier, 2001). The online instructor must be conscious of this reality and stay in communication with the learner. It is also important that various forms of communication are fostered between learners, not just between the instructor and the learners. Participation of the instructor in online discussions moderated by students provides more credibility to the discussion (McIssac et al., 1999). If the theoretical foundations of online learning are based on cognitive apprenticeship, it is important that the mentor be available to model proper discussion etiquette and to guide the discussion in a meaningful way. Involving participants from the periphery of the discussion can be achieved through public or private questioning by the in-

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

structor. Participants share tacit knowledge when they feel comfortable in the environment. The instructor moves towards the periphery of the discussion and monitors its progress with little input as the discussions quickly becomes student centered. Examination of the tacit knowledge when made explicit by the students helps the instructor evaluate what information and skills have been internalized. Since face-to-face meetings before meeting online cannot always be established, it is important for the promotion of interaction and social presence. Learners need to feel socially present interacting online (McIssac et al., 1999). As learners move from the periphery of a virtual learning community and engage the community, they can claim membership to the community and feel socially present when interacting. The literature in WB courses and course interaction and communication (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996; McIssac et al., 1999; Schrum, 1998; Schwier, 2001) indicates that communication and reflection is very important in retaining students. The initial meetings of the online course should include an activity for learning style assessment, an icebreaker, and open communication. Students need to recognize their personal learning styles. The instructor must also be aware of this latter information. Students and teachers need to compromise and accommodate each other in the teaching-learning process. When students understand how they learn, they can work on expanding ways of learning. The student who requires external motivation in an online course may look at ways of becoming internally motivated and learn independently. The teacher must be aware of this and help the student by being in constant contact with the learner as well as the teacher-supervisor. Frontloading engages the student immediately with the course. Allowing the student to talk about themselves is very important in the initial stages. Scaffolding the initial stages of the course brings the student into the learning environment, and makes the student feel a part of the group. Interaction throughout the course is important and

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usually results in engagement of ideas, people, and processes (Schwier, 2001). A third principle or good practice is prompt feedback. Although many aspects contribute to effective online instruction, prompt feedback consistently emerges as a powerful tool to promote student learning (Holmes, 2000; Polloff & Pratt, 2001). Although studies have investigated student’s perceptions of online courses, none have assessed the instructional quality of online courses specifically related to adult learning or the nontraditional student population. All online courses are not necessarily equal in terms of efficacy in delivery the course content. While most faculty assume that their online courses are good, this may not be the same assumption from the students’ view. Little research has identified the factors that students use to form quality perceptions. Yet this is important due to the fact that perception could have long term implications to school programs given that online and WB delivery programs will continue to grow in the future.

METHODOLOGY Data used to investigate the research questions in this mixed design exploratory case study came from a response to an online questionnaire that was designed to collect quantitative data on: •

•

• •

Student’s perception of online course instructional quality based on course content interactions, visual appeal, ease of use, and course materials Affects of Web design and visual aesthetics on students ability to interact with the course content Factors affecting course communication, feedback, and reflection Instructional design strategies for clear instruction

A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

A set of ten questions were developed to assess student’s perception of online and WB courses. Nine of the questions were closed-ended questions developed on a Likert scale model with the following choices: • • • • •

No Basis for Judgment/Not Applicable Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

The tenth question was an open-ended question that asked for the participants’ opinions on what they thought the most important aspects were to the instructional quality of an online/WB course. At the end of each course offered in the summer I and summer II semester, which lasted six weeks, the survey was given to the students to assess their perceptions towards this learning environment along with the factors that affect the instructional quality of the online courses. The courses selected for this study were online courses offered during the summer I and summer II academic semester and were from the following academic units: • • • • • •

College of Business College of Education Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics College of Technology

Of the 222 distance education courses offered during the summer I and summer II semesters, either through broadcast television, Web, or video, 169 of the courses were delivered online by a total of 32 faculty members. The participants of this study were adult learners in traditional university degree programs, taking part of the distance education online course offerings. An e-mail with a

link to the Web site where the survey instrument was located was sent to the 32 instructors of the courses to share with the students at the end of the semester. Students were encouraged to be truthful in completing the survey and were assured that their grades would not be affected based on their responses. Of the 169 courses, which had a total number of 2,500 for both summer I and summer II semesters, a total of 291 (11.64%) valid responses were obtained. Female participants accounted for 54% of the participants, while males accounted for 46% of the responses.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Student Perceptions of Online Learning Participants responded to nine questionnaire items to describe their perceptions regarding the instructional quality of online education using WebCT. Table 1 shows the descriptive summary.

Overall Perceptions The results from this study indicated an overall positive response regarding the instructional quality of online courses delivered via WebCT. The visual appeal of online courses and the appropriateness of course materials received the highest perception ratings of instructional quality, followed by the tasteful use of colors for online courses. The results indicated that students had high rankings of visual design of the Web site for the instructional quality of online courses, and perceived that the visual display of content was an important factor that affected their view of online courses. Visual appeal of online courses may not seem to be critical to students’ learning of the content of the course (Brush, 2001), but this study shows that this factor affects the students’ level of interest and desire to use the site to obtain information. For the important aspects of instruc-

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

Table 1. Factors that affect the instructional quality of online courses (N = 291) No Basis

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

The course materials presented in the online course were relevant to the class.

7

2

8

3

120

42

107

37

46

The colors used in the course design were well coordinated and of good taste.

9

3

8

3

138

47

66

23

The use of appropriate graphics, sounds, pic-tures, animations made the Web site material visually appealing.

26

8.8

27

9.2

99

34

51

The combined use of text, graphics and/or sound to represent the information in different ways enabled you to better understand the material.

23

8

31

11

102

35

The Web site flow was easy to read and understand.

10

3

20

7

134

For each new section online course, there was a clear connection to the course objectives.

14

5

23

8

The specific tasks for every assignment were specifically stated.

17

6

29

New course content and material were well organized on the online WB course.

14

5

The introduction to content segments were well-stated with clarity and purpose.

11

4

Factors

M

SD

Mean Rank

16

3.70

1.06

1

70

24

3.66

1.07

2

18

88

30

3.55

1.33

3

49

17

85

29

3.53

1.31

4

47

92

32

32

11

3.49

1.10

5

128

44

84

29

41

14

3.46

1.11

6

10

102

35

108

37

34

12

3.45

1.14

7

26

9

123

42

96

33

32

11

3.41

1.06

8

30

10

133

45

86

30

31

11

3.37

1.04

9

Agree

Strongly Agree

Note: 1= No Basis for Judgment; 2= Strongly Disagree; 3= Disagree; 4= Agree; 5= Strongly Agree

tional quality of online courses, several students identified the use of color in their online courses. They indicated: “the colors on the website were not chosen in a professional and easily readable manner.” Instructors are thus faced with the challenge of creating a functional and aesthetically pleasing Web site and they are responsible for the presentation of their online courses.

the Web design of most WB courses in general: 52% of the respondents said that they were satisfied with the Web design of online courses. However, nearly half of the respondents (46%) were not satisfied with the Web design of online courses in general. It is possible that instructors who use WebCT for their courses may not incorporate good design aspects for their online courses.

Perception of Web Design

Factors Related to Instructional Quality

Although respondents were satisfied with the Web design of this course, many were not satisfied with

Approximately 15% of the respondents indicated that good Web design of their online courses was

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

important. This was the third-highest ranking aspect of instructional quality. The results of this study confirmed that instructors need to take into consideration the architecture and user interface of an online site of the course (Brush, 2001). The site architecture determines the ease with which students can locate desired information. Brush (2001) emphasized that the site architecture establishes the sequence of the course, the organization of the information, the order of procedures that should be followed, and supplementary resources for students. From the study conducted by the research team, one student commented as follows: “The organization of materials is most important to me so that I can easily find what I need and see what is important.” Others said that the “layout and presentation of material” helped them “coordinate class material.” When a class Web site has poor site architecture, students become frustrated with their inability to locate the necessary information and navigate the site (Brush, 2001). Students who were confused and frustrated by their attempts to move from page to page would likely give up on the use of the Web site to locate desired information. This may lead to negative perceptions toward online courses. As reported by one of the respondents from one of the online courses indicated, “The organization of the class Web site is not streamlined, very busy and cluttered, this adds to the confusion and frustration of finding course materials and the appropriate content.” This study showed that the interface navigation scheme of the Web site should also be considered in online courses. Interface design influences students’ focus on learning and their ability to obtain the necessary course information. When students can utilize the interface to navigate from one section of the site to another without too many distractions, the user interface design is effective. Approximately 73% of the respondents listed easy site navigation as an important aspect of online courses; specifically, “Ease of navigation through the site is an important aspect of online courses,” and “It was easy to navigate through the site.”

Nearly half of the respondents (47%) reported that they understand course material better when their online courses use multimedia components to represent the information. Regarding the important aspects of online courses, a student from the study the research team conducted commented: “animation helped me a lot to understand the concepts of this course.” The idea is that if multimedia is not designed properly, it can have a negative impact. The results from the research study revealed that the time spent on downloading course materials and multimedia were factors that should be considered in the online course as well. This study found that the links to new sections of the course should be clearly related to course objectives. Basically, 51% of the respondents were not satisfied with clarity of objectives in new sections. Study findings indicated that many instructors were not considering certain factors such as the objectives of the course and the objectives of each individual lesson when designing online courses. Clearly stated objectives (or the lack of them) affect students’ perceptions regarding online courses, the results showed. The results were closely correlated with student responses regarding the important aspects of instructional quality of online courses, such as clear instruction, interaction, design, convenience, feedback, and usability. According to the survey conducted in this study, nearly 86% of the respondents indicated that the most important aspect of instructional quality of online course was the idea of having online course content and materials be relevant to the course.

Instructional Design Model The clarity and ordering of online documents in relation to course content, according to the instructional design model (IDM), increased the students’ sense of connection with the course (Dick, Carey & Carey, 2001). Dick et al. (2001) further identified a systematic process of designing instruction that ensures the quality of knowledge

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

transferred from an instructor to a learner in their model. The findings from this study provided empirical evidence for IDM. The results of this study indicated that instructors should incorporate an IDM in their online courses because the model enables learners to learn effectively and to engage in activities that promote communities of practice. In the study, 22% of the respondents perceived clear instruction as the most important aspect in their online learning experiences. The result indicated that clear instruction is an instructional design issue, as commented by one student who valued “clear, concise, and detailed directions.” Students called for “order and clarity of instructions,” and “letting students know the due dates, where to read, which chapter is on the exam.” If the instructions were not clear, students “didn’t know what each assignment was worth,” “didn’t know how the final grade was computed”or even “felt lost the entire semester.” Students’ responses in this study indicated that clear instruction directly affects their learning, their understanding of content materials, and their participation in online learning activities.

Principles of Good Learning and Practice The findings support Chickering and Ehrmann’s (1996) principles of good learning and practices for online courses. The first principle of good practice encourages interaction between students and faculty. Online communication components such as e-mail, discussion boards, chat, and whiteboards available within the course management system (CMS) provide more opportunities for students and faculty members to interact and communicate online compared to traditional face-to-face instruction in the classroom. Interaction was the second most important aspect of instructional quality of online courses in this study (21%). Student comments from this study include: “communication from the professor is key” and “the message board and e-mail on WebCT help students and professors

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to communicate with each other.” One respondent cited “frequent interaction with instructor” as a positive aspect. When students interacted with instructors frequently, they felt that “the online course was very successful,” “the instructor was helpful to all students,” and “[they] learned a lot from the teacher.” The second principle of good practice encourages cooperation among students. Another good practice is prompt feedback. Respondents (29%) in this survey stated that timely responses from peers and from their instructors were important factors in determining the instructional quality of online courses. The results support study that students have positive perceptions of online courses when the instructors facilitate frequent contact between themselves and students, use active learning techniques, convey high expectations, emphasize time on task, and provide prompt feedback.

Major Reasons for Taking Online Courses Previous research mentioned flexibility, convenience, and accessibility and learning enhancement were the top reasons for taking online courses. Results of this study indicated that 12% of the respondents perceived “convenience” as an important aspect, especially for “students who are very busy and may not have the time to get to campus to attend class.” Students felt that the convenience that online courses provide made them able to “access to material 24 hours a day,” view “their assignment outside the classroom,” and “attend class without leaving work or home,” as well as “visit their course more often than they are able to sit in a class.” The course offered “flexibility of work.” This study concluded that convenience is a vital aspect of the online course. In this study, 62% of the respondents said that ease of use of WebCT was an important aspect in their learning; and 6% of them reported that “the old version of WebCT is easy to use,” and “the older version of WebCT was clear and straightforward.” Students’

A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

negative perceptions of online courses were often based on computer access (McMahon, Gardner, Gray & Mulhern, 1999). Students who did not have computers at home were often vexed by the additional time required to visit a computer lab and by the lack of convenience. Though computer access was an important issue at that time, in this study, only 15% of the respondents reported accessibility to class material as an important aspect of instructional quality. Other aspects reported from the results included the availability of instructors, the quality of content, and the personality of the instructor.

FUTURE TRENDS The Internet and Web offers a worldwide forum in which to teach courses. One can assume, for example, that each student at any time has an excellent encyclopedia at his or her disposal. Course material can be dynamically updated and linked across several related sources. Course text, examples, and exercises can be interactive in the sense of immediately illustrating equations with graphs, changing parameters and seeing the results, and linking to other Web sites according to the interests of the student. The WB learning environment or model is essentially free from limitations of space and time, while reaching adult learners and nontraditional students around the world with great ease. In addition, the WB learning model offers students a wealth of information that was never possible in the classical model. The possibility of linking to information worldwide in a multitude of formats creates a remarkably rich medium for learning. WB courseware is not merely an electronic duplicate of the original course material. It represents a new type of educational material which takes full advantage of the emerging Web and multimedia technologies in order to achieve an effective yet enjoyable learning process (Michael & Tait, 2002). That is, complex concepts are introduced in innovative ways—ways that

involve the adult learner and integrate them into the learning process. Full linking to vast resources available worldwide introduces new levels of value to online courses in distance education. A WB course is envisioned as a dynamically evolving resource that will prove beneficial to both the adult learner and nontraditional students and instructors alike. In the light of this research, it is evident that the design of a WB course is a multifaceted process that resembles movie making in cinema productions. That is to say, a WB course is developed through the efforts of a team of professionals with a complementary range of skills, as opposed to classical course design that is typically developed by faculty alone. Designer and instructors alike will have to take heed to principles in design, usability, and interaction in order to make online distance learning courses the top quality product for the next generation. The richness of modern Web and multimedia technologies allow for unlimited creativity when it comes to electronic courseware development. Such richness offers educators new opportunities to develop very interesting course material while it also poses a substantial challenge in that it requires faculty to rethink their own course offerings in the light of the new technologies. In order to best serve the adult learner and nontraditional student population instructional designers, instructors, and course administration will have to take an active look at effective course design and communication strategies within online and WB courses. It is not enough for universities, colleges, and other educational institutions to just give financial resources, hardware, and software, but should fundamentally equip instructors to effectively teach, engage, extend, and enhance the adult learner’s or nontraditional student’s learning experience while in an online course offered via a distance. The future entails faculty training and development in designing effective and efficient online courses for the adult learning population and

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

nontraditional students. This trend can be seen at many major research institutions that offer online courses and e-learning training courses specifically for the adult learner or nontraditional student. By equipping the instructor to effectively design online courses in terms of online course interaction with both students and with the online content and materials, visual aesthetic in design and Web architecture, convenience and open access to materials, positive and useful user feedback, communication, and usability of both the course content materials and course Web site, students will develop a consensus toward a positive view on the instructional quality of the online course. It is important to understand that in order to foster an environment conducive to effective learning in the online atmosphere, we must pay close attention to the factors that affect instructional quality as discussed by Marsh and Roche (1997). For such research the future seems very bright and encouraging. There is a great of discussion on the effective and systematic design of instruction, effective design of visual aesthetics, design of communication structure, and the available of open access to course content and materials in online courses, specifically for adult learners and those individuals in nontraditional settings. This theme will be repeated as other aspects of online learning come under scrutiny. We know enough at this point to optimize quality in design and delivery, but the instructional quality of course content is more difficult to define and measure; that is why the more we discuss this issue, the more strategies, processes, and procedures will be developed to effectively engage designers and instructor in the development of online courses specifically for the adult learner and the nontraditional student.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION The findings of the survey research in this chapter clearly show that Web design aesthetics and accessibility of the course information were all

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important factors that affected the instructional quality of online and WB courses. The survey results also revealed that the WB learning environment would allow students to be more active participants in their learning process, increasing their critical and creative thinking skills as well as improving their problem-solving skills. Furthermore, the results revealed that by adhering to the instructional design process and the effective design of the course Web site, students could learn to develop learning skills such as communication, teamwork, collaboration, and time management, which would assist them in achieving ownership of the course learning outcomes, but also master the online WB course environment. The use of online and WB tools for their online courses allowed them to be innovative in their coursework, making their learning experience valuable and rewarding. On the practical side, this research provides instructional designers, educators, and trainers with the necessary information on the aspects that affect the instructional quality of online and WB courses as well as innovative approaches to teaching with educational technology. Online and WB learning environments in distance education are growing to meet the needs of the adult learning population or the nontraditional population. With advances in Internet and WB technologies reaching diverse locations, a diverse program can be offered to students throughout the world. The quality of instruction and the effective design of the online course will increase as the number of participants and the knowledge exchange among faculty and students. However, it must be understood that the instructional quality of WB and online courses in distance education programs is critical to the success of adult learners or nontraditional learners. Through utilizing the a variety of instructional design principles, Web design concepts, and virtual learning scaffolding model, instructors can incorporate multiple instructional routes to include all learners fostering active and dynamic learning environments.

A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

As a whole, the results obtained in this project were positive and encouraging. Students in general enjoy the online and WB learning environment. Nevertheless, they were eager to indicate the critical factors that affect the instructional quality of online courses. The research examined in this study provides educators with the relevant factors to the instructional quality and overall success of the student learning outcomes via online and WB courses. This method of course design and learning engages students actively in participating in their own learning process, that is, leading to the promotion of quality teaching and student learning for a more consistent and dynamic WB educational learning environment. This case study has attempted to address the factors that affect the instructional quality of adult learners in online distance learning programs, as well as key strategies for designing online instruction and issues surrounding this form of education. Understanding this new educational milieu will help instructional designers and educators in the struggle to create and deliver successful inclusive online courses.

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Chickering, A., & Ehrmann, S. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. Retrieved August 13, 2006, from http://www. tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html Daugherty, M., & Funke, B. L. (1998). University faculty and student perceptions of Web-based instruction. Journal of Distance Education, 13(1), 21–39. Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2001). The systematic design of instruction. Boston: AddisonWesley Educational Publishers, Inc. Hara, N., & Kling, R. (2000). Students’ frustrations with a Web-based distance education course. First Monday, 4(12). Retrieved August 13, 2006, from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_12/ hara/index.html Holmes, P. (2000). Online and just in time: The change implications of implementing a strategy to use technology in the delivery of learning solutions in a large organization (5th ed.). New York: Addison-Wesley Longman. Retrieved August 13, 2006, from http://www.t2b.com/au/resources/ Final-Project-Paper.pdf instruction. Jiang, M. (1998). Distance learning in a Webbased environment: An analysis of factors influencing students’ perceptions of online learning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York, Albany, NY. Khan, B. (1997). Web-based instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Press. Knowles, M., Holton, E., & Swanson, R. (2005). The adult learner: The definitive classic on adult education and resources development. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinermann. Marsh, H. W. (1982). SEEQ: A reliable, valid and useful instrument for collecting students’ evaluations of university teaching. The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 52, 77–95.

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Marsh, H. W. (1987). Student’s evaluations of university teaching: Research findings, methodological issues, and directions for future research. International Journal of Educational Research, 11, 253–388. doi:10.1016/0883-0355(87)90001-2 Marsh, H. W. (1997). Students’ evaluations of educational quality (SEEQ): An overview. Cambelltown, New South Wales: University of Western Sydney. Marsh, H. W., & Roche, L. A. (1997). Making students’ evaluations of teaching effectiveness effective: The critical issues of validity, bias, and utility. The American Psychologist, 52(11), 1187–1197. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.52.11.1187 McIssac, M. S., Blosher, J. M., Mahes, V., & Charalombos, V. (1999, June). Student and teacher perceptions of interaction in online computer-mediated communication. Educational Media International, 39(2), 121–131. doi:10.1080/0952398990360206 McMahon, J., Gardner, J., Gray, C., & Mulhern, G. (1999). Barriers to computer usage: Staff and student perceptions. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 15, 302. doi:10.1046/j.13652729.1999.00105.x

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Michael, M. M., & Tait, A. (2002). Open and distance learning: Trends, policies, and strategy consideration. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Morss, D. A. (1999). A study of student perspectives on Web-based learning: WebCT in the classroom. Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 9(5), 393–408. doi:10.1108/10662249910297796 Polloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Ryan, R. C., & Kasturi, S. (2002). Instructional design and use of interactive online construction exercises. In ASC Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference (pp. 61-70). Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Schrum, L. (1998). On-line education: A study of emerging pedagogy. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 78, 53–61. doi:10.1002/ ace.7806 Schwier, R. A. (2001). Catalysts, emphases, and elements of virtual learning communities. Implications for research and practice. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 2(1), 5–18.

A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

APPENDIX: DEFINITION OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS Active Learning A set of processes and principles whereby learners are actively engaged in the learning process, rather than “passively” absorbing information through lectures. Active learning involves reading, writing, discussion, and engagement in solving problems, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Active learning is also known as cooperative learning. Refer to the adult learning theory and principles for more information.

Adult Learning Theory and Principles A set of core principles developed by Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (2005) guide the teaching and learning of adults in educational or learning environments. Adult learning principles take into consideration the following assumptions: •

• •

•

•

Adults have the need to know why they are learning something. There must be specified goals and objectives that can be measured and evaluated. The instructor must also show the participants how the course and its materials will help them attain their goals. Adults have a need to be self-directed and autonomous over their learning and learning environment(s). Adults bring more work-related experiences into the learning situation. The content must be valuable, relevant, and useful to what the adult is learning. This knowledge must be then connected to the adult’s life experiences and knowledge base. Adults enter into a learning experience with a problem-centered approach to learning. The instructor must actively involve adult participants in the learning process and serve as facilitators for them. Adults are motivated to learn by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators.

Adult learning theory is especially important to consider in developing online and distance learning programs because the audience for many such programs tends to be adults, most of whom have not spent a majority of their time in a formal education setting.

Andragogy An educational approach characterized by learner-centeredness (i.e., the student’s needs and wants are central to the process of teaching), self-directed learning (i.e., students are responsible for and involved in their learning to a much greater degree than traditional education), and a humanist philosophy (i.e., personal development is the key focus of education). Related concepts include the following: active learning, facilitated learning, self-directed learning, humanism, critical thinking, experiential learning, and transformational learning.

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

Distance Education An educational process and system in which all or a significant proportion of the teaching is carried out by someone or something removed in space and time from the learner. Distance education requires structured planning, well-designed courses, special instructional techniques, and methods of communication by electronic and other technology, as well as specific organizational and administrative arrangements. Distance education can also be defined as related to the technology that drives instructional methods that allows the learner to study at sites physically removed from the instructor. Typically distance education environments employ video, data, print, and voice technologies.

Distance Learning A system and a process that connects learners with distributed learning resources. While distance learning takes a wide variety of forms, all distance learning is characterized by the following: (1) separation of place and/or time between instructor and learner, among learners, and/or between learners and learning resources, and (2) interaction between the learner and the instructor, among learners, and/or between learners and learning resources conducted through one or more media; use of electronic media is not necessarily required.

Instructional Design Also known as instructional systems design is the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of instruction. Instructional designers often use instructional technology as a method for developing instruction. Instructional design models typically specify a method, that if followed will facilitate the transfer of knowledge, skills, and attitude to the recipient or acquirer of the instruction.

Instructional Quality The quality of the interaction between faculty and students, primarily taking place in a classroom and intended to either transfer information from faculty to student or facilitate self-motivated student learning processes. Marsh (1982, 1987, 1997) and Marsh and Roche (1997) described instructional quality as “teaching effectiveness.” Marsh’s instructional instrument includes nine constructs: learning, enthusiasm, organization, group interaction, rapport, breadth, exams, assignments, and workload.

Learning Communities An approach to classroom instruction and organization based on democratic ideals, which is characterized by active teaching and learning, collaboration, belonging, shared decision making, and a strong sense of democratic participation. Learning communities are courses in which students and their professors experience a purposeful, coherent, and integrated learning environment together in a linked or interdisciplinary course.

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A Case Study of the Adult Learner’s Perception of Instructional Quality in Web-Based Online Courses

Learning Management Systems (LMS) LMS is a software application or Web-based technology used to plan, implement, and assess a specific learning process. Typically, a learning management system provides an instructor with a way to create and deliver content, monitor student participation, and assess student performance. A learning management system may also provide students with the ability to use interactive features such as threaded discussions, video conferencing, and discussion forums. The Advanced Distance Learning group, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, has created a set of specifications called shareable content object reference model (SCORM) to encourage the standardization of learning management systems.

Online Learning Defined as one where instruction and interaction are primarily based on the technologies available from the Internet and the World Wide Web. Students enrolled in a Web course interact with the class instructor and other classmates through Internet-based communications. See Web-based instruction for more information on this environment.

Perception The acquisition and processing of sensory information in order to see, hear, taste, smell, or feel objects in the world; also guides an organism’s actions with respect to those objects. Perception may involve conscious awareness of objects and events.

Web-Based Instruction (WBI) A form of computer-based instruction which uses the Web as the primary delivery method of information. A textbook is usually required and all other materials, as well as communication with the instructor, are provided through the course Web site. The terms online courses and Web-based instruction are used interchangeably with WBT. This work was previously published in Online Education for Lifelong Learning, edited by Y. Inoue, pp. 271-291, copyright 2007 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Section VI

Managerial Impact

This section presents contemporary coverage of the managerial implications of Web-based learning technology. Particular contributions address the cost of implementing e-learning courses and support on a traditional campus, and how to best address institutional factors that might impede adoption of e-learning technology. The managerial research provided in this section allows administrators, practitioners, and researchers to gain a better sense of how Web-based education systems can inform their practices and behavior.

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Chapter 6.1

Fulfilling the Promise:

Addressing Institutional Factors that Impede the Implementation of E-Learning 2.0 Judi Repman Georgia Southern University, USA Cordelia Zinskie Georgia Southern University, USA Elizabeth Downs Georgia Southern University, USA

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

As online learning continues to expand and evolve, new challenges emerge regarding the implementation of Web 2.0 tools and technologies in online pedagogy. The business model approach to online learning being embraced by many institutions may actually work against faculty who want to utilize Web 2.0 technologies to create e-learning 2.0 experiences for their students. Faculty and administrators need to recognize that differences in perspectives may significantly impact future directions of online courses and programs.

Online learning is changing the postsecondary landscape (Cox, 2005). The 2008 Horizon Report, a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, identified several ways that technology is impacting higher education including the growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking, the evolution of how we collaborate and communicate, access and portability of content, and the continual widening of the gap between students and faculty regarding their perceptions of technology. These trends also portend some of the challenges that exist with regard to e-learning

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-729-4.ch003

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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and specifically to the incorporation of Web 2.0 technologies into online instruction. Online learning by itself has proven to be a significant force in the reform of higher education as a result of increased access to courses and degree programs to students anytime/anywhere (Beldarrain, 2006). This rapid growth is challenging traditional instruction in higher education with the movement from teaching-centered to learning-centered and synchronous to asynchronous (Hartman, Dziuban, & Moskal, 2007). Course instructors must assume a different, broader role as the model of instructor as the center of the classroom is no longer effective in all situations (Grush, 2008; Levy, 2003). As e-learning continues to expand and evolve, new challenges emerge at the institutional level regarding implementation of Web 2.0 tools and technologies in online pedagogy. One such challenge is the growth of the business model of online learning which emphasizes control and efficiency, with less value placed on the innovation, creativity, and sense of community that comes with the use of Web 2.0 technologies. This chapter explores our belief that the growth of the business model of online learning may hinder or prevent the widespread development of E-Learning 2.0 communities. The objectives of this chapter include the following: •

•

•

•

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Briefly define the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to create E-Learning 2.0 communities of practice; Summarize key factors related to the business model with regard to online learning in higher education; Describe and discuss the disconnect between the “business model” approach and the use of Web 2.0 technologies within the online learning enterprise; and Suggest a series of action steps for faculty and university administrators to ensure that campus online learning initiatives avoid

“swapp[ing] the little red schoolhouses for the little online boxes we call course management systems” (Gary Brown, as quoted in Grush, 2008, p. 20).

BACkGROUND Definition of Terms Used The literature related to online learning frequently uses terms such as online learning, distance learning, and e-learning synonymously. For the purposes of this chapter, we are defining online learning as the widely used model that centers around the use of a course management system for synchronous and asynchronous communication between faculty and students. In the context of this chapter distance learning refers to the broader historical span of the field, dating back to correspondence courses and interactive television courses. We use the term e-learning 2.0 to indicate a newer model of online learning that incorporates the use of learner-centered Web 2.0 tools and technologies (blogs, wikis, social networking, folksonomies, etc.) as additions to or replacements for course management systems. Finally, the discussion presented in this chapter focuses on learning delivered entirely online, not on the use of online tools to support face-to-face instruction or on blended classes which substitute online technologies for parts of a face-to-face course.

The Growth of Web 2.0 Technologies Web 2.0 tools including blogs, wikis, podcasts, and folksonomies provide opportunities for knowledge building and collaboration for higher education in the 21st century, and these tools are learner-centered, affordable, and accessible (McGee & Diaz, 2007). It is easy to document the growth of Web 2.0 technologies. The blog index Technorati estimates 175,000 new blogs are cre-

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ated daily (“Welcome to Technorati”, n.d.) while the social networking site Facebook reports 100 million active users. Facebook statistics indicate that the fastest growing group user is adults over age 25 (“Facebook statistics”, 2008). The use of these technologies within higher education in general and e-learning in specific is the subject of considerable discussion. In its Horizon Report the New Media Consortium (2008) annually outlines cutting edge technologies (grassroots video, data mashups, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, social operating systems, and social intelligence are described in the 2008 edition) and identifies key trends that will impact higher education. The 2008 Report describes the following trends: •

•

•

•

The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking—combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization— is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of scholarship; The way we work, collaborate, and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases; Access to—and portability of—content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are introduced; and The gap between students’ perception of technology and that of the faculty continues to widen. (pp. 6-7)

The power of Web 2.0 technologies in education is twofold. First, the individual’s role changes from that of a passive recipient/consumer of information into the role of an active creator of content (Prensky, 2008; Richardson, 2007). The second aspect, which is equally important, is in the ease of connectivity and collaboration that the tools facilitate (McGee & Diaz, 2007; Richardson, 2006). The use of these tools has become pervasive, although that use is often outside of educational settings (Prensky, 2008; Villano, 2008).

Online Learning and Web 2.0 Technologies Online learning requires faculty to assume the role of facilitator as compared to the traditional role of transmitter of knowledge (Guri-Rosenblit, (2005); these faculty serve as “intermediaries between students and knowledge” (Beaudoin, 2006, p. 6). Grush noted that today’s students want ownership and authority over their learning and are able to create their own personal learning environments. Thompson (2007) posed an important question: “Will administration and faculty react against these students, or will they respond thoughtfully to a new student body that is accustomed to the Web 2.0 environment?” (¶9). The literature related to online learning provides abundant examples of faculty use of Web 2.0 tools to create innovative online learning experiences (see Boettcher, 2008, McGee & Diaz, 2007, and Villano, 2008 for examples and discussion). At the same time, many faculty who teach online recognize the digital divide that exists between their own understanding and use of technology and that of their students (Abel, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2005, 2008). Furthermore, there is a lack of research on faculty development regarding online teaching (McQuiggan, 2007) and online course development. Many institutions of higher education use a commercial or institutionally-developed course management system for instructional delivery. Course management systems usually include tools such as text, audio and video chat, e-mail, Instant Messaging (IM) and threaded discussion boards to facilitate student-faculty and student-student interactions. These tools can be used synchronously or asynchronously to provide instruction and support learning. Unlike Web 2.0 tools, course management system tools are used within the closed context of the system (Dalsgaard, 2006; Grush, 2008; Wilson, Parrish, Balasubramanian, & Switzer, 2007). Craig (2007) questioned whether it is possible to use the traditional course manage-

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ment system mandated by institutions and still provide a digital learning environment designed to “foster innovation and collaboration” (p. 157), as most course management systems are focused on administrative support (e.g., grading, attendance) rather than integration of innovative tools for creative and collaborative learning activities (Hiltz & Turoff, 2005; Papastergiou, 2006; Wilson et al., 2007). Although we have little evidence of the impact of Web 2.0 tools on student learning (Moore, Fowler, & Watson, 2007; Villano, 2008), the combination of Web 2.0 tools with existing models for online learning offers significant potential for a socially constructed learning environment. When participation in knowledge building is available to anyone/anywhere, the opportunities for learning and collaboration also multiply. While Beldarrain (2006) asserted that “the ever-evolving nature of technology will continue to push distance educators to use new tools to create learning environments that will indeed prepare students to be life-long learners, who can problem solve through collaboration with global partners” (p. 150), the impact of the use of these technologies on higher education reform is unknown (Wilson et al., 2007).

The Business Model of Online Learning The growth of online learning at all levels of education is also easy to document (Beaudoin, 2006). The Sloan Consortium regularly surveys colleges and universities across the United States about their involvement in online learning. In 2007, the results of five years of surveys showed online enrollments growing by 9.7% annually, which contrasts with a 1.5% growth rate in overall higher education enrollment. The survey also found that most institutions involved in online learning expect continued growth, particularly since the presidents of these institutions foresee

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increasing student demand for online course offerings (Allen & Seaman, 2007). Because of increased competition for students in today’s online world, higher education is being forced to rethink how things have always been done (Thompson, 2007). Thompson also noted that although higher education does not handle change to tradition very well, there is a willingness to experiment with new business models. Institutions of higher education are now using terminology once reserved for the corporate world such as market, targets of opportunity, revenue streams, business plans, return on investment, revenue distribution and generation, cost management, and product development (Lorenzo, 2006; Miller & Schiffman, 2006; Schiffman, Vignare, & Geith, 2007). Beaudoin (2006) noted that institutions operating more like for-profit institutions will thrive in the competitive marketplace. Online learning will be a key component of the business strategic plans of these thriving institutions. The increased pressure for all universities to do more with less often results in growth in online programs to offset rising costs (Mackintosh, 2006). Although Guri-Rosenblit proposed in 2005 that institutions with the greatest resources are less likely to have online instruction, Lorenzo (2006) noted that well respected institutions have now developed business models for online education. Efficiency and access have been noted in several studies (e.g., Schiffman et al., 2007) as the primary rationale for an increased presence of online programs at higher education institutions. The competing forces of efficiency/control and innovation/creativity created by the implementation of the business model have been described as centralized versus decentralized (Otte & Benke, 2006) and conservative versus progressive (Wilson et al., 2007). Many faculty view online learning as a way for administration to cut costs and increase student enrollment (Eynon, 2008). The business approach, i.e., “higher education as big business,”

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has engendered considerable faculty “pushback” to online learning initiatives (Carlson & Fleisher, 2002; Hartman et al., 2007), a limiting factor for the implementation of e-learning 2.0 on campuses. Carlson and Fleisher also noted that faculty believe that the “treating of the student body as customers has lessened the rigor of the curricula and teaching methods” (p. 1098). In contrast, administrators participating in a study conducted by Vignare, Geith and Schiffman (2006) perceived that faculty are slowing down the process by calling for quality without a real understanding of online learning. In such cases, faculty discussion of online learning focuses on a definition of quality that only encompasses face-to-face or perhaps hybrid/ blended classes. The underlying belief is that a quality program can only exist when students and faculty are physically present in the same place at the same time. Under the business model for online learning, the traditional practice of individual faculty creating and delivering courses often gives way to faculty creating courses for others to deliver, a typical corporate training model (Vignare et al., 2006). The design of online courses may follow an institutional template as uniformity in the delivery of online instruction is seen as efficient. This model allows an institution to shift delivery of instruction from full-time to part-time faculty similar to the operation of many for-profit institutions (Natriello, 2005). Natriello questioned whether university faculty would continue to have a role in instruction under the business model. Smith and Mitry (2008) emphasized that “only full-time faculty can stop avarice disguised as better, cost-effective practices” (p. 150).

ISSUES RELATED TO ACHIEVING E-LEARNING 2.0 IIN HIGHER EDUCATION As noted by Samarawickrema and Stacey (2007), “understanding enabling and impeding factors to

technology adoption in a higher education setting is not possible without understanding the power and politics related to the setting” (p. 320). At Georgia Southern University, our College of Education is experiencing growth in online learning that exceeds the national average as reported in the Sloan Consortium surveys. As faculty members and administrators we have been involved in distance learning in a variety of formats for many years but until recently online learning has not been a campus or university system priority. Our campus faces three realities resulting in a new focus on online learning. The first reality consists of financial challenges that have led to a closer examination of the potential of online learning to increase enrollment (and therefore revenue). The second reality for us is geographic. We are not located in the population center of our state and the pool of learners willing to drive to campus is limited. The final reality is one faced by all institutions of higher education. Today’s students have many more options available. We simply are no longer the only game in town. As we engaged in discussion of these issues on our own campus and at the university system level, we were struck by the disconnect between faculty excitement about new learning tools and the desire of administrators to control design and delivery of online instruction to enhance its potential as a revenue stream. As described in the previous section summarizing the background and literature related to both Web 2.0 and the business model for online learning, there is a distinct tension between the personalized, collaborative, participatory communities being developed in the world that exists outside of most higher education classes and the activities, resources, and instructional approaches that are frequently employed in online learning. As Otte and Benke (2006) noted, “there is no more powerful disincentive than the sense that online instruction is an external imposition and a threat to the faculty prerogatives” (p. 30). This section focuses on five issues where the plans of

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campus administrators to build the online learning enterprise intersect with the ideals of faculty actually charged with designing and teaching those classes.

Institutional Goals and Policies Regarding Online Learning “Colleges that want to have an effective [online] program need to consider all aspects of providing an education, which are much more than simply putting classes online.” (Levy, 2003, Conclusion section, ¶2). A connection between online learning and institutional goals is critical to successful implementation of online learning on a campus; without this, online learning can challenge the mission and values of the institution (Hartman et al., 2007; Mackintosh, 2006). Mackintosh noted that it is very important to integrate online learning into the strategic plan and vision of the institution to avoid the perception of online learning as something that “just happened to” the university. Administrators must take the lead in the progress and growth of online instruction, but they should not get too far ahead without faculty input and involvement as vision and plans should involve all stakeholders, i.e., avoid the “top-down” approach (Hartman et al., 2007; Otte & Benke, 2006). Too often a lack of meaningful dialogue about online learning results in lack of faculty “buy-in” to this new approach to teaching and learning (Smith & Mitry, 2008). Otte and Benke noted that ownership is needed for transformation; a disconnect between the mission for online learning and the institution as a whole limits transformation (Miller & Schiffman, 2006). “It is clear that the ultimate potential of online technology to enrich higher education resides less in the technology itself than in the practices and discourses that it prompts individually and institutionally” (Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, 2006, p. 597). Panda and Mishra (2007) noted that institutional policies should be developed on online learning that address not only design and

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implementation but evaluation and reflection, for institutional policy can play an important role in the adoption and effective use of online learning. Policies must consider faculty workload and compensation, curriculum, professional development and support, intellectual property rights, and assessment (Hartman et al., 2007; Levy, 2003; Wang, 2006). Cox (2005) stated that many faculty feel that the “institutional imperative to provide online education has taken precedence over most considerations of teaching and learning quality” (p. 1779). This institutional imperative may occur without any discussion of the development of metrics or assessments to ensure program quality, despite the fact that those metrics may be in place for traditional campus-based programs. To date, there has been a lack of assessment data for online courses; without data, how can one evaluate and improve the quality of these courses? Hartman et al. (2007) noted that assessment can assuage those with questions about quality regarding online learning. One problem that exists is the lack of a common definition of what is quality in this setting; stakeholders should work together to determine the attributes needed to produce quality online courses (Kidney, Cummings, & Boehm, 2007). Planning for inclusion of these quality standards in online programs should be part of the online program planning and implementation process.

Faculty Attitudes Toward Online Learning Many faculty members began teaching online due to top-down mandates, student demands, and imperatives to increase enrollment (Samarawickrema & Stacey, 2007). For many faculty, their only experience with online learning is uploading their text-based course materials into a course management system (Haber & Mills, 2008), most of which do not integrate Web 2.0 tools. Several researchers (Eynon, 2008; Mackintosh, 2006) noted that a transition to online instruction does not always lead

Fulfilling the Promise

to a transformation of the teaching and learning process. A study by Haber and Mills found that online learning consisted of processing text and other course materials with no groundbreaking components of e-learning incorporated into the course. Another study of online learning by Cox (2005) found that the instructional approach for the online course did not differ from traditional face-to-face instruction. Barriers to faculty developing and/or transforming their online courses include lack of skills, time, and support (Panda & Mishra, 2007) as well as a lack of recognition of online learning efforts in the traditional faculty reward structure (Grush, 2008; McGee & Diaz, 2007). Similarly, a study conducted by Hiltz, Kim, and Shea (2007) regarding teaching online listed the motivators for faculty as flexible schedule and more personal interaction with students and the de-motivators for online instruction as more work, inadequate compensation, lack of support, and lack of appropriate policies. Incorporation of additional elements such as Web 2.0 tools into online instruction is time-consuming, and faculty often see no motivation or reward to change their teaching and learning practices. McGee and Diaz (2007) noted that rapidly changing technology can be a demotivator for faculty. Faculty often lack the skills to create an effective online experience (Eynon, 2008; Smith & Mitry, 2008) or the imagination to integrate technology into teaching and learning (Grush, 2008). Professional development of faculty is key to enhancing the online learning experience for both faculty and students (Otte & Benke, 2006; Panda & Mishra, 2007). One problem noted by Cox (2005) is that sometimes professional development is offered by technology personnel who know nothing about teaching and learning. Research findings of Gibson, Harris and Colaric (2008) stated that perceived usefulness was the best predictor of acceptance of online teaching technology. However, according to Panda and Mishra (2007), faculty are not aware of positive things

that can be accomplished with online learning. Some faculty do not believe that students can have a sound pedagogical experience in the online environment; they feel that instructional integrity and quality are at risk (Cox, 2005). Cox stated that some faculty see an emphasis on information, not education, and on the convenience for students. Without appropriate institutional support or an administrative guarantee that quality is valued, the full potential of online learning may not be achieved. Natriello (2005) summarized this dilemma as follows: “In general, the current barriers to faculty involvement in distance learning may be the result of the unsettled nature of pedagogy for distance learning efforts. It is difficult to move to something new when the patterns of behavior required for success are not fully established.” (p. 1891).

The Digital Divide between Faculty and Students “Engage me or enrage me: What today’s learners demand” is the title of an article written by Marc Prensky (2005). Prensky (2001) is usually credited with developing the widely used terminology digital native/digital immigrant to describe the difference between our students who grew up connected to the network via a wide range of technologies and those of us beyond the age of 25 or 30 who grew up using technologies like typewriters and telephones. Current college faculty are either “Baby Boomers” (born between 1946 and 1964) or “Gen X’ers” (born between 1965 and 1982) and, as such, bring distinct generational characteristics into the higher education classroom. The current college students are termed the “Net Generation” (born between 1983 and 1991) and have meaningful differences from their professors (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). The Net Generation is used to having many options and selecting what they want or need. Net Generation learners use more graphics and expect fast-paced learning and a

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quick response (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). These students have a completely different way of thinking about technology – to the degree that these digital natives indeed do not “think” about technology. Conversely, most faculty, digital immigrants, are constantly in a learning cycle to stay current with new technology and emerging applications. They spend precious professional time developing the technology skills needed to implement various tools in online courses. Oblinger and Hawkins (2006) noted that while early adopters of online teaching possessed needed technology skills, many current online instructors lack the requisite skills and do not understand that the course is more than content. Blin and Munro (2008) concurred that the lack of transformation seen in online teaching practices is associated with lack of instructor competency and suggested that training alone is not sufficient to rectify this situation. A challenge that deepens the digital divide is that universities are handicapped by tradition and “are not the best environments to promote innovation in technology, certainly not for instructional purposes” (Beaudoin, 2006, p. 9). Blin and Munro stated that the cultural context of the institution must change regarding teaching practices. Craig (2007) noted that faculty must become familiar with Web 2.0 tools and must reflect continually on the changing nature of the e-learning environment in an effort to engage this “Net Generation”.

Reliance on Course Management Systems One impetus behind the research and discussion presented in this chapter was Wilson et al.’s article published in 2007 that identified the use of course management systems as a potentially conservative force in the distance learning revolution. Wilson and his co-authors made a strong case that the use of course management systems is a key factor in the technologizing of instruction, likening their use to a production system where institutions

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take “raw material (unskilled, unknowledgeable students), processing those students, and outputting graduates with the knowledge and skill they need” (p. 336). Larreamendy-Joerns and Leinhardt (2006) noted that online education “may fail to go the distance if technological solutions and pedagogical perspectives are imposed at the expense of diversity and variation” (p. 597). In our university system the use of a specific course management system is expected and even required in some of our online learning initiatives. Faculty are presented with a pre-defined course template, designed to incorporate a variety of what are considered best practices in online education. The tools used in the course template are the tools available within the course management system, including both synchronous and asynchronous communication, quizzes, and assessments. It often seems that the intent of a course management system is to duplicate the face-to-face instructional experience (Natriello, 2005). Craig (2007) asserted that institutions use course management systems to manage and formalize the learning environment; however, he questioned whether these systems would meet the needs of students who are used to creating their own content. Yet as Dede (2008) and Boettcher (2008) pointed out, Web 2.0 technologies go beyond a slight change in perspective about the way that learning and education “work”. Dede asserted that we are at a point where we have technologies available that call into question the nature of the educational enterprise and the role of the faculty member. Using the terminology of Classical knowledge and Web 2.0 knowledge, he further stated that proponents of Web 2.0 knowledge are questioning fundamental beliefs related to knowledge, expertise and learning. In contrast, Classical education proponents follow a model where “the content and skills that experts feel that every person should know are presented as factual “truth” compiled in curriculum standards and assessed with high-stakes tests” (Dede, 2008,

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p. 80). Achieving the goals implicit in a Web 2.0 knowledge world goes far beyond the “little online boxes” (Grush, 2008, p. 20) of course management systems (Boettcher, 2008; Mabrito & Medley, 2008; McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). In an e-learning 2.0 paradigm, communities of students become creators of knowledge for their communities and beyond. Creation of an e-learning 2.0 community requires tools with very different functions than tools included in most course management systems (Boettcher, 2008; Dede, 2008; McLoughlin & Lee, 2008; Papastergiou, 2006). Papastergiou (2006) completed an extensive review of the course management system literature. One of her research questions focused on the use of CMS to support innovative instructional approaches. Although only limited research has been done in this area, she did find examples of CMS being used to support collaborative, constructivist learning environments while at the same time noting that “the design process of a CMS [does] have an impact on the instructional approaches that can be implemented through it as well as on its expandability” (p. 606). It should also be noted that the use of open source learning management systems such as Moodle and Sakai frequently support a very different approach to e-learning. Wiley (2006) labels this the “empowering nature of open source software” (heading following ¶4). A course titled “Connectivism and Connected Knowledge” is currently being taught online using a wide range of Web 2.0 tools including the open source learning management system, Moodle (http://ltc.umanitoba. ca/connectivism/). The innate flexibility of open source course management systems is frequently highlighted as a major advantage over commercial course management systems (Sclater, 2008). Administrators and many faculty might be justifiably reluctant to stop using current commercial course management systems. These systems do allow faculty who are inexperienced with the use of any technology (much less Web 2.0 technologies) to design, develop and deliver online courses with

a manageable learning curve. Faculty and technology support staff have spent untold hours building repositories of instructional materials using course management systems and removing that support system would be challenging, at least in the short term. Some institutions and individuals have begun to modify course management systems to include more Web 2.0 tools while others are working to develop new course management systems based on a more learner-centered instructional paradigm (Boettcher, 2008; Papastergiou, 2006). Administrators will need to consider policy issues such as intellectual property, copyright, privacy, and archiving of learning products if instruction leaves the boundaries of course management systems for the Web (Boettcher, 2008; McLoughlin & Lee, 2008).

The Rapidly Changing Nature of Web 2.0 Technologies The Horizon Report (New Media Consortium, 2008) makes interesting reading on many levels, not the least of which is the attempt of the authors to read into the future and predict which new technologies will have staying power. The authors group technologies based on their timeto-adoption. In 2008, technologies with a one year or less time to adoption include grassroots video (YouTube) and collaboration webs (Google Apps). The two to three year adoption technologies include mobile broadband and data mashups while the four to five year technologies are collective intelligence (Wikipedia, Google’s Page Rank) and social operating systems (Yahoo Life!). The authors of the Report define the time-to-adoption horizon as the time during which the technology will be adopted for widespread use in a learningfocused organization. This prediction is based on the growth of use of the technology in the world outside of education. The Report is still simply a prediction which begs the question of where an individual or an institution should start in terms of using any of the technologies described. It also

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places higher education in the position of catching up to technologies being used for non-instructional purposes by the general public. Readers of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s “7 Things You Should Know About. . . .” find a similar range of cutting-edge Web 2.0 tools discussed within the context of their use in higher education. Current topics addressed in this series include Google Apps, Flickr, Ustream, and geolocation (available online at http://www.educause.e du/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495). Like The Horizon Report, the 7 Things series is designed to both raise awareness of new tools as well as suggest the potential use of those tools in teaching and learning. Blogs such as The NOSE (http://tatler.typepad.com/nose/emerging_technologies/), Stephen’s Web (http://www.downes. ca/), and The Wired Campus blog (http://chronicle. com/wiredcampus/) provide details about the use of emerging technologies in education in general as well as within e-learning environments. The 2008 Horizon Report includes a section on megatrends, which notes that “we have seen many of the technologies and practices highlighted in this series converge, morph, and shift over the years” (p. 7). Faculty may be reluctant to devote the time and effort required to develop learning experiences based on such rapidly changing technologies. Another delay in the time to implement a technology is the recommendation that faculty become immersed in using the technologies prior to adopting them for instructional purposes (Mabrito & Medley, 2008). And while faculty members in many institutions struggle to keep abreast of Web 2.0 technologies (and we count ourselves in that group), discussion of Web 3.0 has already become prevalent. Web 3.0, also known as the intelligent web or the semantic web, promises to once again revolutionize the way we use the web in our everyday lives (Web 3.0, 2008). As noted in the earlier discussion about faculty attitudes toward online learning, faculty already believe that online learning is more time consuming than face-to-face instruction. Having to master tools

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that “converge, morph, and shift” without warning could challenge even the most enthusiastic online instructor. As much as our students seem to demand use of new tools for collaboration and knowledge construction (New Media Consortium, 2008; Prensky, 2008; Thompson, 2007) they probably would be frustrated and unhappy if the Web 2.0 technology they were using for a project changed radically during the middle of a semester (or even worse, vanished or became a fee-based product).

ACTION STEPS TO MOVE THE E-LEARNING 2.0 AGENDA FORWARD Ensure that the Institutional Vision and Mission Support E-Learning 2.0 This action step encompasses several important concepts. The changing nature of teaching and learning (summarized earlier in this chapter) must be part of the dialog related to the institution’s mission and vision. Faculty and administrators need to be aware of the discussion that technology is transforming the way that today’s students learn. The institutional vision and mission also need to address the use of Web 2.0 technologies as part of this new teaching and learning environment. Research on the adoption of innovations has consistently found that the initial stage of adoption is awareness (Rogers, 1995). Providing regular information about the tools themselves along with examples of their use is an action step that should not be skipped. Our regular department meetings end with brief descriptions and demonstrations of a variety of instructional technologies, including Web 2.0 tools such as online surveys, blogs, and wikis. Simply because you have had one demonstration of the wiki concept does not mean that you should not revisit the topic. The capabilities of all Web 2.0 tools change frequently and the faculty audience

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also changes in its receptivity to new ideas. Sharing articles, web sites, blogs and other sources of information is another way to build awareness. Sending teams of faculty members to conferences and workshops focusing on Web 2.0 technologies could be another awareness strategy. While it is nice to reward faculty who have been early adopters, diffusion of innovation research stresses the important of identifying the opinion leaders in your institution and getting them beyond the awareness phase (Rogers, 1995). To complete the cycle, it then becomes important for participants in these efforts to have a voice in the regular review of mission and vision statements. In an e-learning 2.0 world, the alignment of mission and vision with the realities of teaching and learning become critical.

Model the Use of the Tools The truism that “we teach the way we were taught” holds true when it comes to Web 2.0 technologies, except in the case of these new tools it goes beyond that. Can you recall how long it took you to build the ATM/online banking habit? Yet if you drive by your local bank, you will see plenty of people lined up inside or at the drive-through window to do their banking business. Perhaps a better example is the airline industry. Can you recall when there were actually airline employees at a counter who would check in you and your bags for a flight? Now it is all about the self-service kiosk. Our ingrained patterns of behavior changed because technology was available to allow those tasks to be accomplished in a new way. You do not need a travel agent when you can go online, book your ticket, choose your seat, and check in the day before your flight. As faculty and administrators, it is important to take advantage of opportunities to model the use of Web 2.0 tools to complete those familiar tasks. Once a faculty committee has seen how Google Apps could be used to collaborate on a schedule or a document they will find it much easier to see how student groups could use

Google Apps for a class project. Like the airline self-service kiosk, when individuals are forced to use new tools to do something they need to do they will usually figure it out. Modeling the use of the tools may become another additional responsibility for early adopters of Web 2.0 but the payoff could be great.

Address Institutional Support One of the ironies of this discussion of e-learning 2.0 is that Web 2.0 tools, which are used so seamlessly by digital natives, cannot be easily integrated into instructional programs without extensive institutional support (Mabrito & Medley, 2008). Most campuses have offices or centers devoted to pedagogy and instruction that provide a variety of services to faculty in the form of training, workshops, resources libraries, and consultant services. Other centers or offices may be devoted to technology support services. In a Web 2.0 world, these functions cannot be separated. Much of the literature providing the framework for this chapter supports the assertion that we are moving into a Knowledge 2.0 or Pedagogy 2.0 world where technology and instruction are so intertwined that they cannot be addressed apart from each other (Dede, 2008; Mabrito & Medley, 2008; McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). As faculty examine their beliefs about pedagogy, administrators must examine how these centers function to support new instructional approaches. Who will have control over the online programs? Miller and Schiffman (2006) asserted that when online programs are housed in continuing education, access is the goal with the expectation to recover costs of operations. In contrast, institutions with online programs under the control of academic units seem to have the goal to improve quality in teaching. Otte and Benke (2006) suggested that an appropriate compromise would be for institutions to centralize resources with means and methods of instruction controlled by instructors.

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Wallace (2007) questioned how academic policies work in an online world. If a faculty member is asked to provide a policy in writing, does an electronic version count? Should traditional office hours still be required for full-time faculty teaching solely online? What about the development of student conduct codes addressing online behavior? How is faculty performance evaluated in an online course? Should the criteria differ from a face-to-face course evaluation? Craig (2007) addressed the tradition of timelines in academia. Should learning be contained within the traditional academic calendar, e.g., a semester-long course? Another major issue is the development of an assessment plan for evaluating the quality of online courses. Beyond support for pedagogy and technology, institutional support is critical in terms of policies related to such topics as intellectual freedom, copyright, privacy issues, and intellectual property. Faculty course creation is typically work-for-hire, which means that the institution “owns” course content. In a model where students become the creators of knowledge, who “owns” that intellectual property? In a world of mashups, what institutional policies need to be revisited to ensure that current copyright laws are followed? How are copies of student “work” retained in cases where grades might be challenged? What are the boundaries of intellectual freedom for both students and faculty members in the blogosphere where opinions and products developed as part of class requirements are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection? Can a faculty member require the use of a social networking site like Facebook for instructional purposes? While high speed/broadband Internet access is widely available, there are still parts of the United States (including rural southeast Georgia) where access is an issue. Does the institution have an obligation/ responsibility to students in this case? Just as the nation’s copyright laws have failed to keep pace with changes in technology, so have campus institutional support systems. Institutional

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support structures needed to support students who come to campus are quite different from support for online learners. The rapid growth of online courses and programs often happens prior to a discussion of critical institutional support questions. When these discussions are held, faculty members experienced with e-learning 2.0 need to be at the table.

Revisit the Faculty Reward System The institution needs to revisit the faculty reward system to show the value of innovative online course development. While early adopters were offered release time or stipends for online course development, there is a lack of compensation for today’s online faculty (Oblinger & Hawkins, 2006). Most faculty add online course development efforts on top of an already heavy workload. In many higher education institutions, there are increased expectations for scholarship and obtaining external funds. Time constraints may force faculty members to make a choice about where they will focus their professional efforts. This is a particularly critical (from the faculty perspective) support issue related to tenure and promotion. Craig (2007) noted that success for faculty at tenure and promotion time is still measured by print publications while success in the web environment is measured by the creation of tools and products that can be used and shared by others. Returning to the business model, another type of faculty reward that must be considered is revenue sharing. It is a common practice to charge an e-tuition rate for online courses/programs. Who will benefit from the revenue generated by these courses? Individual faculty? Departments? Colleges? All of the above? Is it fair for funds being generated by faculty teaching online to be shared with other faculty? It is essential for institutions to develop a plan prior to funds disbursement, and faculty input is key in this planning effort.

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Openly Acknowledge the Challenges and Issues Related to E-Learning 2.0 On many campuses, migrating courses from faceto-face to an online environment is not a choice, it is a requirement. When things formerly seen as optional become required, it may be tempting to try to convince faculty that development and delivery of quality online courses is easy. After all, our students use online and digital technologies constantly and often use them simultaneously. Faculty early adopters of online learning who have found ways to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their classes might share their excitement and enthusiasm without realizing that many faculty members have limited technology skills and simply are not aware of how Web 2.0 technologies can transform pedagogy. Mabrito and Medley (2008) asserted that the Net Generation is actually developing an entirely new learning style which directly results from their constant interaction with the digital world. This shift leads to implications for classrooms (i.e. learning spaces) and for pedagogy. Mabrito and Medley’s recommendations include having faculty participate in these learning spaces before trying to develop pedagogical strategies appropriate for those students. Again, for many faculty members this involves a significant commitment of time and effort that must be added to an already full workload. Faculty members may also be reluctant to acknowledge that they “don’t get it.” In the Classical model of higher education (Dede, 2008) faculty see themselves as content experts and in the traditional and familiar face-to-face classroom they also believe that they understand how to create effective learning environments. In the world of Web 2.0, all of the familiarity that scaffolds our actions is gone. In addition, while there is a growing body of literature sharing excitement about anecdotal use of Web 2.0 tools in instruction, there is little formal research that faculty can use to guide their actions. Recommendations are often made to make modifications and adjustments to widely used

models of instructional design but will that really work in a time when epistemology is experiencing Dede’s (2008) “seismic shift?”

CONCLUSION Technologies with the potential to transform the environment of e-learning already exist. The challenges facing higher education include evolving from a traditional culture to a future-thinking philosophy in which technology continues to change the way we think about teaching. The technology will continue to develop, and students will continue to immerse all aspects of their lives in digital experiences. Educators cannot become inconsequential participants in this changing culture. The support of campus administration for elearning 2.0, which may require business model approaches to be modified or abandoned, is a critical issue to be addressed. The tension created by the opposing forces of the business model and integration of Web 2.0 may hinder universities from seizing the opportunity to lead educational reform in our global learning communities. Faculty need to bring new technology opportunities to the table as administrators plan future directions for e-learning. Institutions need to determine a strategy that allows faculty to creatively implement Web 2.0 to improve and enhance instruction for today’s learning communities. Faculty need to support colleagues who are at the forefront of restructuring their online environments to adapt to technology opportunities. Support for faculty should include incentives for technology pioneers as well as rewards for all faculty who devote time to explore possibilities available to create future learning experiences. Although we have little evidence of the impact of Web 2.0 tools on student learning (Moore et al., 2007; Villano, 2008), the combination of Web 2.0 tools with existing models for online learning offers significant potential for e-learning

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2.0. When participation in knowledge building is available to anyone/anywhere the opportunities for learning and collaboration also multiply. While Beldarrain (2006) asserts that “the ever-evolving nature of technology will continue to push distance educators to use new tools to create learning environments that will indeed prepare students to be life-long learners, who can problem solve through collaboration with global partners” (p. 150), the impact of the use of these technologies on higher education reform is unknown (Dede, 2008; Natriello, 2005; Wilson et al., 2007). Higher education is not an institution comfortable with change. Given the history and tradition of higher education, the challenge of technology implementation may continue to be a game of catch up. Failure to keep abreast of these constant changes will define the preparedness of higher education to be relevant in the lives of 21st century students.

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Blin, F., & Munro, M. (2008). Why hasn’t technology disrupted academics’ teaching practices? Understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory. Computers & Education, 50, 475–490. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2007.09.017 Boettcher, J. V. (2008). ‘Socializing’ the CMS. Campus Technology, 21(11), 20–23. Carlson, P. M., & Fleisher, M. S. (2002). Setting realities in higher education: Today’s business model threatens our academic excellence. International Journal of Public Administration, 25(9/10), 1097–1111. doi:10.1081/PAD-120006127 Cox, R. D. (2005). Online education as institutional myth: Rituals and realities at community colleges. Teachers College Record, 107(8), 1754–1787. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9620.2005.00541.x Craig, E. M. (2007). Changing paradigms: Managed learning environments and Web 2.0. Campus-wide Information Systems, 24(3), 152161. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight. com/1065-0741.htm Dalsgaard, C. (2006). Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Retrieved from http://www.eurodl.org/materials/ contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htm Dede, C. (2008). New horizons: A seismic shift in epistemology. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(3), 80–81.

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Gibson, S. G., Harris, M. L., & Colaric, S. M. (2008). Technology acceptance in an academic context: Faculty acceptance of online education. Journal of Education for Business, 83(6), 355–359. doi:10.3200/JOEB.83.6.355-359 Grush, M. (2008). The future of Web 2.0. Campus Technology, 21(7), 20–23. Guri-Rosenblit, S. (2005). Eight paradoxes in the implementation process of e-learning in higher education. Higher Education Policy, 18, 5–29. doi:10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300069 Haber, J., & Mills, M. (2008). Perceptions of barriers concerning effective online teaching and policies: Florida community college faculty. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 32, 266–283. doi:10.1080/10668920701884505 Hartman, J., Dziuban, C., & Moskal, P. (2007). Strategic initiatives in the online environment: Opportunities and challenges. Horizon, 15(3), 157–168. doi:10.1108/10748120710825040 Hiltz, S. R., Kim, E., & Shea, P. (2007). Faculty motivators and de-motivators for teaching online: Results of focus group interviews at one university. In Proceedings of the 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Retrieved from http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/ HICSS.2007.226 Hiltz, S. R., & Turoff, M. (2005). Education goes digital: The evolution of online learning and the revolution in higher education. Communications of the ACM, 48(10), 60–64. doi:10.1145/1089107.1089139 Kidney, G., Cummings, L., & Boehm, A. (2007). Toward a quality assurance approach to e-learning courses. International Journal on E-Learning, 6(1), 17–30. Larreamendy, J., & Leinhardt, G. (2006). Going the distance with online education. Review of Educational Research, 76, 567–606. doi:10.3102/00346543076004567

Levy, S. (2003). Six factors to consider when planning online distance learning programs in higher education. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 6(2). Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ ojdla/spring61/levy61.htm Lorenzo, G. (2006). Business models for online education. Educational Pathways, 10(2), 69–95. Mabrito, M., & Medley, R. (2008). Why Professor Johnny can’t read: Understanding the Nt generation’s texts. Innovate, 4(6). Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?viewarticle&id=510 Mackintosh, W. (2006). Modelling alternatives for tomorrow’s university: Has the future already happened? In M. F. Beaudoin (Ed.), Perspectives on higher education in the digital age (pp. 1-20). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers. McGee, P., & Diaz, V. (2007). Wikis and podcasts and blogs! Oh, my! What is a faculty member supposed to do? EDUCAUSE Review, 42(5), 28–40. McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. W. (2008). Future learning landscapes: Transforming pedagogy through social software. Innovate, 4(5). Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/index. php?view=article&id=539 McQuiggan, C. A. (2007). The role of faculty development in online teaching’s potential to question teaching beliefs and assumptions. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 10(3). Available online at http://www.westga. edu/~distance/ojdla/fall103/mcquiggan103.htm Miller, G. E., & Schiffman, S. (2006). ALN business models and the transformation of higher education. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(2), 15–21.

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Moore, A. H., Fowler, S. B., & Watson, C. E. (2007). Active learning and technology: Designing change for faculty, students, and institutions. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(5), 43–60. Natriello, G. (2005). Modest changes, revolutionary possibilities: Distance learning and the future of education. Teachers College Record, 107, 1885– 1904. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9620.2005.00545.x New Media Consortium & EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2008). The horizon report. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-HorizonReport.pdf Oblinger, D. G., & Hawkins, B. L. (2006). The myth about online course development. EDUCAUSE Review, 41(1), 14–15. Oblinger, D. G., & Oblinger, J. L. (2005). Is it age or IT: First steps toward understanding the Net generation. In D. G. Oblinger & J. L. Oblinger (Eds.), Educating the Net generation. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.educause.edu/ books/educatingthenetgen/5989 Otte, G., & Benke, M. (2006). Online learning: New models for leadership and organization in higher education. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(2), 23–31. Panda, S., & Mishra, S. (2007). E-learning in a mega open university: Faculty attitude, barriers and motivators. Educational Media International, 44(4), 323–338. doi:10.1080/09523980701680854 Papastergiou, M. (2006). Course management systems as tools for the creation of online learning environments: Evaluation from a social constructivist perspective and implications for their design. International Journal on E-Learning, 5, 593–622. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20 Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

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Prensky, M. (2005). “Engage me or engage me”: What today’s learners demand. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(5), 60–64. Prensky, M. (2008). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40–45. Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Richardson, W. (2007, March). The seven C’s of learning. District administration. Retrieved from http://www.districtadministration.com. Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). New York: The Free Press. Samarawickrema, G., & Stacey, E. (2007). Adopting Web-based learning and teaching: A case study in higher education. Distance Education, 28(3), 313–333. doi:10.1080/01587910701611344 Schiffman, S., Vignare, K., & Geith, C. (2007). Why do higher-education institutions pursue online education? Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 61–71. Sclater, N. (2008, July 6). Are open source VLEs/ LMSs taking off in UK universities? Retrieved from http://sclater.com/blog/?p=114 Smith, D. E., & Mitry, D. J. (2008). Investigation of higher education: The real costs and quality of online programs. Journal of Education for Business, 83(3), 147–152. doi:10.3200/ JOEB.83.3.147-152 Thompson, J. (2007). Is education 1.0 ready for Web 2.0 students? Innovate, 3(4). Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?viewarticle&id=393 Vignare, K., Geith, C., & Schiffman, S. (2006). Business models for online learning: An exploratory survey. Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v10n2/ pdf/v10n2_5vignare.pdf

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Villano, M. (2008). Wikis, blogs, & more, oh my! Campus Technology, 21(8), 42–50.

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Wallace, L. (2007). Online teaching and university policy: Investigating the disconnect. Journal of Distance Education, 22(1). Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/ article/viewArticle/58/494

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Wang, Q. (2006). Quality assurance: Best practices for assessing online programs. International Journal on E-Learning, 5(2), 265–274. Web 3.0. (2008, August 25). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_ 3.0&oldid=234152612

Wilson, B. G., Parrish, P., Balasubramanian, N., & Switzer, S. (2007). Contrasting forces affecting the practice of distance education. In R. Luppicini (Ed.), Online learning communities (pp. 333-346). Charlotte, NC: IAP-Information Age Publishing.

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Chapter 6.2

Issues in Implementing Online Education in a Developing Country Tim Bristol Crown College, USA

INTRODUCTION This article highlights the issues that may arise when implementing online education in a developing country. In 2005, Faculté des Sciences Infirmières (FSIL) opened in Leogane, Haiti. The mission of this school is to provide nursing professionals for the country of Haiti, especially the southern half of the country. This facility was built with funds from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is managed by the l’Université Episcopale d’Haïti. The school maintains a curricular format similar to that of baccalaureate nursing programs in the U.S. Haiti is in great need of health care professionals. In Haiti, there are 11 nurses per 100,000 populaDOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch184

tion. In the U.S. this ratio is 770 per 100,000. Given that infant mortality is 10 times worse than that in the U.S. and that the lifespan is 15-20 years less, the need for qualified health care professionals is overwhelming. Even though the income of FSIL is 1/3 what is actually needed, the school has managed to keep enrolling students and maintaining the facility. They have also managed to maintain a computer lab with 13 computers and a stable satellite Internet connection. The author visited the campus in July of 2007. The purpose of this initial visit was to evaluate the information technology structure and the capabilities of the staff and students to determine what if any connections could be made between American nursing programs and FSIL. A SWOT analysis was conducted to assess internal strengths and weaknesses for FSIL as well as ex-

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Issues in Implementing Online Education in a Developing Country

ternal Opportunities and Threats related to using E-learning to enhance FSIL.

BACkGROUND Internet communication has become the essential technology for connecting learners and educators across the globe. This is important because internationally over 2 million students study abroad. Having an internationally diverse student body is important to consider because approximately 50% of students reside in countries that do not have the educational infrastructure to meet the needs of their populations (Scarafiotti & ClevelandInnes, 2006). The need for distance education is in developing countries is critical. Fortunately, the need for distance education in developing countries can be met with a tool with proven efficacy. In nursing education online learning has demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing critical thinking and professional socialization (Daroszewski, Kinser, & Lloyd, 2004; Nesler, Hanner, & Melburg, 2001; O’Neil, Fisher, & Newbold, 2004). In overall outcomes, the “no significant difference” phenomenon demonstrates that outcomes in the face-to-face classroom are no different than those realized in the online classroom(Vroeginday, 2005). These facts point to the very real possibility of successfully assisting developing countries by providing healthcare education through the power of online distance education(Marin, 2006).

SWOT ANALYSIS OF A THIRD WORLD NURSING INSTITUTION A nurse educator and e-learning consultant partnered with the Dean of Nursing at a baccalaureate nursing program in Leogane, Haiti. Together they analyzed the school’s assets and liabilities to develop the following SWOT analysis.

Strengths Strengths revealed in the assessment lay in the willingness of the dean to pursue this relationship. Moving from a face-to-face lecture-based environment to an online environment is a challenge for any academic program. To do this in an already stressed system requires commitment on the part of all involved. Another strength is the internal infrastructure. The computers, while three years old at the time, appeared to be well maintained as did the intranet and satellite-based Internet connection. Other strengths included the fact that the dean, administrator, and library director are all supplied with up-to-date computer equipment. The students are well-versed in navigating the internet, even though for many this is their first interaction with a computer much less the internet. Finally, students in all four years of the curriculum study both English and French. Most students are native speakers of Creole.

Weaknesses Internal weaknesses do exist. One of the most significant weaknesses is the lack of funds for repairs or software/hardware updates to the computer equipment. In most academic environments equipment that is three-years-old is cycled out of use. The age of these computers is also of concern because there is no air conditioning in the computer lab where temperatures can often exceed 90 degrees fahrenheit. Another issue is the bandwidth. While there is a high speed satellite connection, it is often sluggish when all computers are being used. Electricity can be problematic as the campus is powered during the day by a large generator. This generator also recharges a series of batteries that runs the campus and dorms at night. The city power is unpredictable but is sometimes used. Given that three (3) power sources are tapped, surges and drawls often occur which stresses the equipment as well. Another weakness relates to the faculty. There is a significant shortage of faculty in Haiti. The

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dean and two other nurses are the only faculty that are native Haitians living in Haiti. The dean is the only one that is a full-time employee. With the exception of two physicians and a few visiting scholars, there are no faculty who are academically prepared to be educators by the standards described in American licensing and accreditation standards. In spite of these incredible challenges, the students are receiving an education that will prepare them for generalist practice.

Opportunities Opportunities that exist are multifaceted. The first opportunity relates directly to the last weakness, faculty. If a solid e-learning system could be put into place, qualified faculty from countries such as America and Canada could be accessed on a regular and consistent basis. For instance, a Canadian nursing professor could teach pharmacology online for the FSIL nursing students. Another opportunity lays in the fact that as more ‘Western’ faculty interact with the program, there is increased exposure to the needs of Haiti. As schools begin to interact with FSIL, more students and faculty could potentially come for onsite intercultural learning experiences. The FSIL students may also benefit as they learn more about ‘Western’ practices and evaluate the best way to incorporate them into their own practice environments.

infrastructure. FSIL definitely stands out in a community of abject poverty. While most violence and crime exists in large population centers, such as Port au Prince, there is still the possibility that a desperate situation could result in a criminal act that could damage the fragile infrastructure. One final threat is the lack of Creole and French language competency in many ‘Western’ nursing faculty. This poses a likely barrier in pursuing a teaching position with FSIL regardless of the work by the Dean and students to accommodate this barrier.

FUTURE TRENDS Based on the SWOT analysis the following recommendations are being made. •

•

•

•

Threats

•

Finally, there are external threats that may arise if FSIL connects to other schools via e-learning. One of the greatest concerns of FSIL is that as more Haitian nursing students are exposed to more Americans and Canadians, the greater the chances are that these students will leave Haiti upon graduation. This is offset somewhat by the fact that 95% of FSIL students are in the program with a scholarship that requires them to serve in Haiti for two years after graduation. Another threat is the unstable government and community

•

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• •

Contact a textbook publisher to donate free e-learning courserooms (an area where the class is conducted virtually) for online education Train FSIL faculty and IT personnel in effective e-learning pedagogy and instructional design Seek donors for updated technology infrastructure components to ensure effective e-learning Recruit students to assist in e-learning and IT management Develop a web site and email system for FSIL Recruit American and Canadian nursing faculty to teach online Recruit American and Canadian nursing faculty and students to visit FSIL Work with donors to provide FSIL with upto-date English/French nursing textbooks.

To date some progress has been made on these recommendations. One health resources publisher has donated four e-learning courserooms for FSIL to use. Training was provided by an e-learning

Issues in Implementing Online Education in a Developing Country

consultant for three FSIL staff and three U.S. student workers in the use and management of the learning management system. Three FSIL faculty were trained online in effective e-learning pedagogy and instructional design by an e-learning consultant. The student workers are developing the web site under the direction of the director of IT at FSIL. The first online courses include pharmacology and English. Pharmacology will be taught to 3rd year FSIL nursing students by a nursing faculty member from Minnesota. English will be taught by a Haitian professor living in Canada. FSIL will receive its first group of U.S. nursing student visitors in Spring of 2008.

O’Neil, C. A., Fisher, C. A., & Newbold, S. (2004). Developing an online course: Best practices for nurse educators. New York: Springer. Scarafiotti, C., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2006). The times they are a-changing. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(2), Retrieved November 10, 2007, from http://www. sloan-c.org/publications/JALN/v2010n2002/ v2010n2002_2003scarafiotti.asp. Vroeginday, B. J. (2005). Traditional vs. online education: A comparative analysis of learner outcomes. Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA.

CONCLUSION

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

These small steps are important to lay the foundation for future work. This work is just beginning and will take considerable effort from all parties. The need for funding and donated resources is great. If other components of the recommendations can be addressed in the near future, FSIL promises to be a great benefit to the entire country.

Adult Learning: A model of education that puts the learner in control of their own development and whereby learning is relevant with the opportunity for immediate application. Asynchronous Learning: Learning that happens at different times. Example - The instructor posts a question in the forum and students come online through out the week to answer the question. Courserooms: A website that is password protected and includes tools such as a discussion forum, a gradebook, an exam tool, and an announcement area. Digital Divide: A phrase that describes the disparity in access to technology (particularly the internet) related to poverty. Distance Education: Education happens when participants are geographically separated. e-Learning: The use of technology to enhance education. In this article most of it refers to internet-based education. Haiti: A small country in the South Caribbean of approximately 8.5 million people. It is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. No Significant Difference: This refers to the empirical observation that outcomes for online and face-to-face learning are overall the same.

REFERENCES Daroszewski, E. B., Kinser, A. G., & Lloyd, S. L. (2004). Online, directed journaling in community health advanced practice nursing clinical education. The Journal of Nursing Education, 43(4), 175–180. Marin, H. F. (2006). Nursing informatics in South America. In V. K. Saba & K. A. McCormick (Eds.), Essentials of nursing informatics (4th ed., pp. 663-667). New York: McGraw-Hill. Nesler, M. S., Hanner, M. B., & Melburg, V. (2001). Professional socialization of baccalaureate nursing students: can students in distance nursing programs become socialized? The Journal of Nursing Education, 40(7), 293–302.

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Nursing Education: Education of individuals to prepare them for a career as a nurse.

This work was previously published in Encyclopedia of Distance Learning: Second Edition, P. Rogers, G. Berg, J. Boettcher, C. Howard, L. Justice, and K. Schenk, pp. 1287-1290, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 6.3

Costs of E-Learning Support: An Investigation Across 139 Small Projects Paul Lam The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Josephine Csete The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Carmel McNaught The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT Understanding the costing of e-learning informs decision-making on how to support the development and implementation of teaching and learning technologies in higher education. This paper describes costings and processes in a central e-learning support service that is especially applicable to face-to-face universities that use e-learning in a blended or supplemental mode. We differentiate three types of costs: infrastructure costs that are less sensitive to variation in the complexity of e-learning strategies, and edevelopment and e-delivery costs that are directly related to the nature of the strategies used. Using actual data from a three-year e-learning support project (e3Learning) with 139 sub-projects, the

paper illustrates how the calculations promote an understanding of e-learning in the following four dimensions: 1) total cost of running an e-learning support service, 2) individual costs attributable to each of the sub-projects, 3) ‘price-tags’ of elearning strategies, and 4) initial exploration of the cost-effectiveness issue.

THE ISSUE OF E-LEARNING COSTS Teaching and learning technology is highly resource-intensive. Bowles (2004) described the early phase of e-learning development as being characterized by rapid adoption of the technology, followed by a mature phase of reflection on prac-

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Costs of E-Learning Support

tice. The spirit of reflection leads to examination of issues such as determining costs and benefits. Even some years ago, there were concerns about the value of e-learning in supporting learning and justifying continued investment. Lytras and Pouloudi (2001), for example, stated that many e-learning strategies in practice are not as effective for learning as they were initially hoped to be. Nicol and Coen (2003) reported the challenges that university administrators and funding bodies have in collecting systematic information about costs and benefits of e-learning to inform decision-making. As Bates (2005) noted, any educational technology is not intrinsically good or bad; its effectiveness depends on how well it is used. Hence, studying the costs of e-learning does not imply that we should base all educational decisions purely on monetary considerations. Cost is only an additional source of information. Nicol and Coen (2003) commented that knowing the expenses is not the final solution; it only represents a guide for decision making: “It helps users to ‘reflect upon and structure their thought processes’ while making decisions in areas of professional practice” (p. 55). Knowing more about the costs in e-learning will increase our ability to figure out ways to maximize effects while minimizing costs (Twigg, 1999; Boettcher, 2004; Pätzold, 2005). When empirical evidence is lacking, costeffectiveness judgments must necessarily be speculative. In this spirit, the present paper, through analyzing actual expenses of a central support service on e-learning, aims to provide preliminary insights to the question “How much does e-learning cost?” (Ash & Bacsich, 2000).

STUDIES OF COSTS IN DIFFERENT MODES OF E-LEARNING USE Twigg (2003) described e-learning modes using three main classifications. The substantially online mode represents cases where teaching is

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mainly conducted online, and e-learning is the sole mode of delivery; this applies most often to distance education institutions. The replacement mode represents cases where the technology is intended to substitute for at least some of the traditional classroom activities. In the supplemental mode, e-learning is used to assist the traditional face-to-face teaching, and very often there is little change to the class activities. There are studies of costs in each of the three modes of e-learning use and their approaches tend to differ. In the substantially online mode, e-learning costs are relatively easy to identify as a substantial portion of the institution’s costs are related to the development and maintenance of the e-learning environment. Typically, these costs may include staff expenses, administration expenses, and preparation and delivery of online materials and activities. Bassi (2000) suggested grouping these costs into fixed costs (costs that tend to stay the same regardless of student size), and marginal costs (costs that increase per student head multiply by the number of learners served). There is also a distinction between direct and indirect costs among these fixed and marginal costs. The direct costs are money paid for services and equipment: trainers’ compensation, material development, material production and material distribution. The indirect costs are opportunity costs that teachers and departments, for example, pay through sacrificing some other revenue-generating activities because of their engagement in e-learning. In a professional training context, the indirect costs can also include opportunity costs of learners or compensation paid to them by their organizations in supporting them to study. The benefits of e-learning in this mode also seem to be more readily identifiable. As all of the instruction is occurring through e-learning, measurements such as the number of courses held, the number of students served, and the turnover rates of courses, etc. can be construed as benefits. Wentling and Park (2002) conducted an empirical study of balancing costs and benefits in a fully

Costs of E-Learning Support

online mode. They added up costs such as ‘faculty salary and benefit’, ‘TA and tech support’, ‘equipment and software updates’, and ‘coordination expense’; these costs were balanced by the revenue which was the ‘total revenue from tuition’. In the replacement mode, researchers tend to focus on comparing innovations with traditional methods and seek to justify the use of the new technologies when more learning is achieved with the same or fewer resources. In order to make comparisons, a rather limited set of the cost and benefit indicators are usually considered. For example, costs may involve the time and effort spent by teachers in both situations. Variation in administrative costs is often ignored in this mode. In order to make direct comparison of ‘benefits’ possible, often quantifiable measurements are collected such as the number of courses or students involved and/or student drop-out rates. Moonen (1997) described these measurements as “tangible efficiency indicators” and presents the rationale that “the system with the largest effects is the most efficient … when the effects are the same for both alternatives, the system with the smallest costs is the most efficient” (p. 70). Geith and Cometa (1999) conducted a study of costs in the replacement mode that focused on time as a major unit of measure. There were courses using various degrees and forms of the technology. On the one end of the spectrum, there were courses that ran in the traditional manner with no e-components. On the other end, there were anytime/anywhere courses in which students were told to access learning resources online, or attend lecturers through tele-conferencing means. They monitored the staff time spent in developing and delivering the courses and then converted the time into monetary terms. The comparison was done by calculating the cost per credit hour, and balancing that with the students’ number of hours actually spent in the course using the different methods. In the supplemental mode, an estimation of costs and benefits is perhaps the most complicated to calculate. There are challenges in identifying

costs, identifying benefits, and balancing costs against benefits (Nicol & Coen, 2003). Costs of e-learning in the supplemental mode are hard to distinguish as the resources and the personnel often are engaged in both face-to-face teaching and online activities. There are no easy ways to distinguish the portions of resources and staff effort paid to each of these two types of activities. Institutions generally lack a sophisticated activity-based costing (ABC) system which can provide costing information at the level of the specific activities (Moonen, 1997). Teaching staff are also not used to keeping records of how their time is spent and so “cost data [are] not available at the task level” (Geith & Cometa, 1999, p. 7). Further complicating the issue, benefits are often non-quantifiable in the supplemental mode. It is very difficult to isolate the additional learning benefits that e-learning might bring to the face-toface component of the courses (Draper, 1997) as learning outcomes are usually influenced by many factors in the learning environment. In addition, there are benefits external to course-level teaching and learning enhancement such as advantages at the level of “changes in organizational processes (e.g. improved communication)”, and “external standing of the institution (e.g. its public image)” (Nicol & Coen, 2003, p. 48). Though recognizably important as benefits, there seems to be no effective way to turn these into quantifiable numbers. Moreover, benefits of different e-learning cases cannot be easily compared as evaluation methodologies are often tailor-made to fit the specific teaching context, and the value assigned to benefits varies from one case to another (Anderson et al., 2002). Of course, even if costs and benefits can both be clearly identified, the judgment about whether the benefits are worth the costs is still difficult to make. Thus, “it is almost impossible to assess the effects of an educational process in a reliable monetary amount, the cost-benefit analysis is practically not applicable in an educational context” (Moonen, 1997, p. 70).

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COMPONENTS OF COSTING IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL MODE In order to study costing in the supplemental mode, careful formulation of the costing components is the first step. Costs seem to be attributable to two major components: the e-learning tasks and their agents. Regarding the e-learning tasks, we follow the suggestions made by Rumble (2001) who classified the following tasks as contributing to e-learning costs: • • •

Online materials development: Developing e-materials and interactive activities. E-delivery: Facilitating (and assessing) students’ learning online, accessing the website, and administering the course online. Infrastructure: Providing the infrastructure and support within which e-education can operate; planning and managing eeducation at the macro-level.

Regarding the e-learning agents, the work of Nicol and Coen (2003) serves as our starting point and we propose the following three types of agents as involved in the development, e-delivery and infrastructure tasks: •

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E-learning-related tasks are carried out by teachers and local support staff. Teachers write the content for the online materials and propose suitable learning interactions. The teachers monitor and supervise the creation of the materials and interactions (development work). There are also edelivery activities/tasks in which teachers and teaching assistants plan and implement the e-learning strategies in their courses (e-delivery). Collective effort at the level of department or faculty may also be involved. In addition, local level infrastructural support is involved, including the provision and

•

•

maintenance of department-based computers and network. Central services provided by the university. Information and technology service units are usually involved at this level, providing the institution-wide network and learning platforms to facilitate online learning (infrastructure). The library may also be involved in e-learning by providing access to online learning resources such as e-journals and e-books (e-delivery). Support units in the institution provide technical and pedagogical support. The range of support from these central units can vary, ranging from merely providing consultations on learning designs, to actually developing the materials (development) and systems needed for e-learning, and supporting the evaluation of the strategies for the teachers (e-delivery). The administrative and managerial system with which the services operate can be its infrastructural aspect.

McNaught and Vogel (2006) examined the diversity of e-learning support services that evolve within different university cultures. There are two extremes. At one extreme is the decentralized service in which teachers bid for funding and then act entirely independently, including contracting out their e-learning development. The other extreme is represented by a centralized service where a well funded e-learning support unit is present to provide a range of services (including, but not limited to development) to teaching staff who wish to use technology in their teaching. Previous empirical studies on e-learning costs in the supplemental mode reflect this diversity in university e-learning support. Maher et al. (2002), for example, examined the additional efforts expended by teachers and local support staff in technology-assisted situations in a decentralized context where the acquisition and/or development of the content materials were supported by, or funded by, resources at the departmental level; a

Costs of E-Learning Support

separate e-learning support team was not involved. Similarly, Geith and Cometa (1999) and Rumble (2001) also focused on costs related to teachers and local support staff, and subsumed the development of the learning materials under this cost category. Green et al. (2005), on the other hand, described three projects, the Campus Computing Project, the COSTS Project and the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service, which attended to more centralized expenses such as IT budgets, percentage of IT budget in total institutional budget, and central IT staffing, etc. These studies and reports in general confirmed that e-learning can be very costly and thus the issue of costing is important.

OUR STUDY The present study is based on an e-learning support service which was essentially a centralized process supporting supplemental e-learning. The support service was a little unusual in that it worked across three universities in an Asian context. The data from this three-year multiuniversity e-learning support project (described below) will be used to examine the following four costing issues: • • • •

the total cost of running an e-learning support service; the individual costs attributable to each of the sub-projects served; the ‘price-tags’ of e-learning strategies; and, an initial exploration of cost-effectiveness analyses in the supplemental mode.

The e3Learning project (for which the “e’s” stand for enriching, extending, and evaluating learning) was designed to assist teachers to better exploit the possibilities of web-assisted teaching. It offered a range of design, development and evaluation services. For each sub-project, a team was formed so that teachers had access to educational

and technical support. Full details of the design of this project are in James et al. (2003) and the project website (http://e3learning.edc.polyu.edu. hk/). Descriptions and working exemplars of many of e3L sub-projects exist on the website. The e3L project operated across three universities in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2006. The centralized processes in the project resulted in three advantages that allowed for this study of costs. First, the project treated each teacher’s request for e-learning development as a sub-project. Each sub-project had its own lifecycle which included planning, design and development, implementation, and evaluation. Thus the e3Learning project was not just an IT technical support project, but offered a comprehensive service that covered activities related to infrastructure, ematerial development and e-delivery and therefore allowed for the collection of data across a wide range of activities to build a more comprehensive understanding of costings. Second, the project was able to collect data across a relatively large number of teachers and projects. A total of 139 sub-projects were supported. Third, the nature of sub-projects ranged widely. Projects were created for many different disciplines in three different universities. Sub-projects also varied widely in terms of size and the nature of support requested. For example, 70 out of these 139 sub-projects had a strong evaluation component. These 70 evaluated sub-projects were all supplemental course websites for actual courses. The existence of a rich set of evaluation data from multiple sources enables us to get some sense of the effectiveness. Lam, McNaught and Cheng (2008) described the evaluation process and a summary of the evaluation data for all 70 evaluated sub-projects. The diversity of the sub-projects enables the present study to look at costs at two levels: overall costs as well as costs in relation to the nature of the e-learning strategies used. The funding came from a project grant assigned to the investigators in the three universities. The project followed on from an earlier e-learning

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service project called “Megaweb” (http://megaweb.polyu.edu.hk/) which had served only one university. The previous project handed over to the new project a considerable amount of start-up equipment and software. A significant portion of staff employed on the earlier project continued in the new project. The fact that the overall project was able to begin with personnel experienced in supporting e-learning would have an impact on the costs. Transfers of existing equipment would also artificially depress the costs in this area. A breakdown of the agents and the tasks attributable to e-learning costs in the present context are presented in Table 1. The shaded area indicates the main sources of data investigated. In other words, while we acknowledge that the total e-learning costs are in reality shared by many parties and units in a university, the present study has a limited scope and focuses on costs that fall under the central e-learning support service. The support team members described in this study were located in a central service unit, and were in roles dedicated to supporting e-learning. However, many of the types of support also required are not included in this study. Personnel

(such as technicians) in the departments and faculties who may have a part of their role to support e-learning are not included. Staff members who look after learning management systems (LMSs, e.g. WebCT) and train teachers and learners to use them have also been regarded as central services in this study and were not included in the calculation. Similarly, the costs paid by the central services to buy the licenses necessary to host LMSs were excluded as well. Lastly, the time and effort three professors spent on the project were chargeable to the accounts of the respective centres and teaching departments at three different universities and were not counted as expenses in the study.

COST CALCULATION METHOD Expenses were carefully kept by the project. In the present study, these expenses were retrieved and categorized into expenditure relating to one of the following types. The infrastructure expenses were the general expenses that were required to start the project

Table 1. The e-learning agents and the their e-learning activities Task

Agent

E-material development

E-delivery

Infrastructure

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Teacher and local support staff • •

Creating content Converting content into e-format

• •

Planning e-strategies Implementing the strategies

• •

Administration Computer and networking in department/faculty

Central IT services

e3L support •

•

--

•

Training on learning • platforms Training on information • literacy Maintenance of the • e-learning platforms

• • • • • •

Administration Network and e-learning platform Links to learning resources Macro-level e-learning decisions

•

• • •

Converting content into e-format Developing activities and interactions Consultation on strategies Implementing/ monitoring the strategies Evaluation

Administration Self-development Accumulation of experiences and reusable objects

Costs of E-Learning Support

and keep the project running. They are further classified and recorded as below. •

•

•

•

resources spent on administration – mainly the cost of the administrative staff, and the time spent on administrative work (such as student helper applications and claims); equipment/ office expenses – money spent on computers, media production equipment, computer software, and costs on stationery and paper; resources spent on professional development – time identified to be spent by staff members not directly on specific sub-projects but on reading, attending or presenting at workshops and conferences that prepared them to work more efficiently in the field, and; costs of investigation of new technologies – the costs spent on preparatory work such as investigation of the readiness of the mobile technology in facilitating teaching and learning. The costs included the time the researchers spent on these issues.

These costs were equally shared among all sub-projects when the costs of the individual teacher sub-projects were calculated. Each subproject was apportioned an equal split share of the fixed cost. The development work was done by the technical team which was composed of 1) full-time staff and 2) part-time student helpers. Staff and helpers reported the number of hours they spent on each sub-project. The reported hours led to the calculation of the specific development costs for each individual sub-project. The technical team, however, also found that not all their time should be accountable to development work. About 20% of their time was used in self-improvement, giving and attending workshops, learning new hardware and software, and self-reflection. As previously mentioned, these ‘professional devel-

opment’ activities were counted as infrastructure expenses. E-delivery support related to the pedagogyoriented services of the project. Consultation services were provided by instructional designers. If evaluation support was required, evaluation officers were available. Full-time technical staff who had been involved in the development work were also available to assist in e-delivery. The team then followed each sub-project and gave timely advice at the planning stage, during the implementation, at the evaluation stage, and even at the post-implementation stage. The instructional designers and evaluation officers reported the number of hours spent, also attributable to the individual sub-projects. The hours were then converted into monetary terms to represent the costs of the individual sub-projects for the pedagogical component. As with the development staff, about 20% of their time was spent on self-improvement, giving and attending workshops, and reflection. This was interpreted as “professional development” expenses under the infrastructure category. The conversion of hours into dollars was based on the actual salaries of the staff employed by the e3L project. Data concerning the outcomes came from two sources. First, project completion data (completion rate close to 95%) tracked whether the projects were successfully handed over to the teachers who had requested service. Second, towards the end of the project in August 2006, a questionnaire was sent to all teachers who had requested services as a means of evaluating the project. Sixty-five out of the 139 sub-projects returned the survey (response rate of 47%). In one question, the teachers were asked to report on the number of students who had used the developed website in each year. The number of students who had experience with (and potentially benefited from) the e-learning strategies in the last year of the project was the second source of data. Neither of these two types of data is an accurate measure of the benefits of the e-learning strategies.

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However, as discussed earlier, e-learning benefits are not easily distinguishable, quantifiable and comparable. Our simple strategy for beginning to understand e-learning benefits was quite useful as a preliminary endeavour at finding empirical data to compare costs and effectiveness. In addition, a number of evaluation studies were carried out using e3Learning date; details of many of these are at http://e3learning.edc.polyu.edu.hk/EvaluateRes.htm and summarized in Lam, McNaught and Cheng (2008).

FINDINGS The calculations allow us to analyze the costs of e-learning in the following four dimensions: 1. 2. 3. 4.

total cost of running an e-learning support service, individual costs attributable to each of the sub-projects served, ‘price-tags’ of e-learning strategies, and initial exploration of the cost-effectiveness issue.

Overall costs The infrastructure, e-development and e-delivery costs are illustrated in Figure 1, in US dollars. The cost of infrastructure was a major component of the overall expenses, occupying more than 40% of the total cost. As mentioned earlier, the project was not completely “created from scratch” as much of the equipment purchased in a previous project was reused. The expenses allocated to ‘equipment/ office expenses’ thus are considerably lower than a typical support service that would require more purchases. In addition, some programming of templates was reused. However, there was little reuse of previously constructed materials. It should be noted that a single staff position would perform multiple roles – especially between e-delivery and the infrastructure areas of project

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development and administration. In our analysis, the project staff were asked to allocate their time spent on each type of work. The costs spent on the actual development work comprised the second largest component, just below 40% of the total expenses. The majority of the resources were paid to full-time programmers while a comparatively small proportion was used to employ student helpers. The expenses spent on delivering the e-learning strategies that are accountable as costs paid by the support project were comparatively lower, occupying about 20% of the total expenditure. The money was found to be equally spent on instructional design and evaluation support.

Sub-Project Costs The second level of expenditure analysis identifies the costs in the individual sub-projects. The 139 sub-projects equally shared the infrastructural costs. The e-development and e-delivery costs were calculated depending on the actual usage of services of the various sub-projects, based on the actual time spent on the sub-projects by our project members for various development and delivery tasks. As a result, each sub-project had the same shared infrastructural cost (about USD 2,200 per share) but varied in the cost in the development and delivery dimensions. Also, the total expenses of the individual sub-projects were quite different from one another. The sub-project costs are illustrated in monetary terms in Figure 2. The distribution of the costs assumed a bell-shape curve which is skewed by a small number of high-expense projects. The total costs of sub-projects ranged from the lowest of about USD2,500 to as high as USD19,000. The difference is thus more than seven-fold.

Price Tags of E-Learning Strategies The expenses of the development and delivery services on these two dimensions were further

Costs of E-Learning Support

Figure 1. Overall costs of the project in U.S. dollars x10000 2.5

26 hours spent (student helpers)

new technology 195 professional development

instructional design

13 equipment/ office expenses

hours spent (staff)

6.5 administration evaluation 0 infrastructure

e -development

e -delivery

Figure 2. The range of sub-project costs

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analyzed. The development and delivery costs were classified into high, medium, and low costs depending on how far they ranged from the average expenses. The classification was done with a certain degree of subjectivity. The sub-projects with development costs lower than USD770 were considered as ‘Development Low’ sub-projects (e.g. simple enhancements to an existing WebCT course); while the sub-projects with development costs higher than USD3,850 were regarded as ‘Development High’ sub-projects (e.g. the development of complex animations or simulations). ‘Development Medium’ sub-projects were those where development costs were between USD700–3,850 (e.g. mounting multimedia case study material). Based on this classification, it turned out that there were 60 development-low sub-projects, 63 development-medium sub-projects and 16 development-high sub-projects. The sub-projects with e-delivery that had costs lower than USD640 were considered ‘Low’ subprojects; while the sub-projects with e-delivery costs higher than USD1,280 were regarded as ‘High’ sub-projects. ‘Medium’ sub-projects were those which cost USD640–1,280. After applying the above criteria, 69 sub-projects were classified as delivery-low, 56 as delivery-medium and 14 as delivery-high. Please note that the e-delivery component was a smaller portion of the sub-project’s cost than the development. The delivery-high costs were no match against the amount payable to high-development. Table 2 summarizes the distribution of the sub-projects. Most of the sub-projects fell in the low-low and medium-medium range. One hundred and eleven of the 139 sub-projects (80 percent) could be classified as low to medium e-delivery and e-development support. A fairly typical pattern for their progress is as follows. Average to low delivery usually involved brief discussion and planning of the pedagogical issues beforehand between the teacher(s) involved and the support team members. Teachers involved in this type of project would become most familiar with

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three team members: the instructional designer, the evaluation officer and the technical development support staff. Teachers would not require much help in writing and revising instructions and content of online materials as they would do that themselves, but would usually welcome assistance in conducting simple evaluations at the end of the course to collect students’ feedback on the new attempts (through student surveys and often focusgroup interviews as well). The development costs were spent on building relatively simple learning materials and/or the building of a simple course website usually through using the functions of the existing LMS. The remaining 28 non-typical sub-projects are interesting. Vignettes of a representative case in each of these categories are described below to explain how the strategies can lead to different patterns of expenses.

A High-Development and Low-Delivery Sub-project The teacher created two simulations to show dynamic phenomena, two games to test students’ understanding and two activities to illustrate problem-solving processes. Student helpers were employed during the summer to help the teacher develop and improve the materials. The students provided fresh ideas on how to better represent (with pictures, animations, simulations, and short quizzes) the various important ideas in the course. The students also designed a few exercises that assisted students to solve problems in this subject. The development cost was high since creating games and multimedia online materials takes a great deal of time. There were also needs for reviewing and further revising the games and materials during the production stage. The delivery cost was low since despite initial consultation with the teacher concerning instructional design, there was not much work associated with the evaluation of the final materials.

Costs of E-Learning Support

Table 2. Number of sub-projects (out of 139) of different combinations of technological and pedagogical costs e-delivery

Low

Medium

High

(sub-total)

Low

32

24

4

60

Medium

28

27

8

63

e-development

High

9

5

2

16

(sub-total)

69

56

14

139

A Low-Development and High-Delivery Sub-Project The teacher in this sub-project prepared selflearning materials for students to prepare for a government required language examination. The development cost was low because the teacher made use of ready-made materials provided by a third-party content provider and the cost was not chargeable to the support team. A great deal of effort was expended by the support team to evaluate the effectiveness of the package and the learning activities as requested by the teacher. The evaluation was done in two consecutive years with students in four cohorts.

A High-Development and High-Delivery Sub-Project This project involved revamping an existing website. A special feature in this course site was the abundance of course-related materials – the scope of this subject was broad, but the lecturer tried hard to include as many resources in the site as possible to help students enjoy and learn. The teacher put up lecture notes, PowerPoints, quizzes, video clips, links and references, and past papers with answer keys. The high development costs induced were mainly because of a few multimedia and interactive resources. They included a quiz system (written in Flash; not using the existing function provided by the LMS), video clips, animated explanations of key concepts

with Cantonese voice-overs, and an online roleplay game. Evaluation of this course site focused on the changes of learning approach before and after access to the online self-learning materials. Students’ examination scores were also collected and analyzed. The team supported the evaluation in four cohorts of the course. Even towards the end of the project, the revisions of the materials were still ongoing, mostly about correcting bugs in the quiz system and the games. The problems with the game were more than just technical. There were also design problems as the teacher and the students who assisted him were novices in designing educational games. The above analysis in general shows that elearning strategies, depending on the nature and design of the strategies, can vary a great deal in the resources needed in the development and delivery stages.

Some Comments on Cost-Effectiveness Seven of the 139 sub-projects were recorded as incomplete at the end of the overarching project. This relatively low rate of non-completion was a positive feature of this overall project. The overall economy of the e3Learning project was very satisfactory (on average spending only less than USD4,500 a sub-project). Considering the seven less successful cases, four were in the high-development category, two in the medium-development category, and one

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in the low-development category. They were all low-delivery because they had never reached the implementation stage and the costs spent on evaluating the strategies were minimal. The low-development sub-project might have needed at least a medium level of development cost if the teacher had been more enthusiastic about the development and provided the developers with the necessary course content. Table 3 represents the range of costs of the 65 sub-projects that returned the project-end survey, together with the reported number of students (in brackets) using the materials in the year 2005–06. It should be noted that the four high-development sub-projects took up nearly 17% of the expenditure for 65 courses. The 32 mediumdevelopment sub-projects cost 51%, while the 29 low-development sub-projects used 32%. It is interesting to compare the costs of these 65 sub-projects with the number of students they supported. The expensive sub-projects were little used (8%), the medium sub-projects supported 50% of the students while the inexpensive strategies were used with 41% of the students. Care must be taken though in interpreting these numbers as the analysis involves only a very limited numbers of sub-projects (especially in the highdevelopment category).

DISCUSSION The setting up and maintenance of a support service requires the allocation of a large amount of resources. The administration costs and the resources needed to continuously train staff and prepare them for the latest technology should not be underestimated. Thus, there seems to be an argument for e-learning support that is centralized rather than decentralized as the costs of running multiple teams will almost certainly be substantial. As in the case of the project reported on in this paper, the overall cost amounted to approximately USD640,000 but the sum supported 139 sub-projects. This amounts to about USD4,500 a project on average. The sub-projects in this study involve teaching and learning strategies used in specific courses, and thus are different from the extremely high-cost development projects that cost millions and intended for use by thousands or tens of thousands. The costing method in this study has enabled a way to calculate the costs of the individual sub-projects, and the calculation revealed that e-learning strategies can have widely different costs. The variance mainly comes from the fact that e-learning strategies can have a large range of development needs. Some of the variance can

Table 3. The 65 sub-projects and student use in 2005–06 academic year No. of sub-projects and students involved

Actual cost

Low

Medium

High

Sub-total

Cost (USD, rounded to the nearest 100)

Low

16 (615)

10 (962)

3 (277)

29 (1854=~41%)

91,400 (32%)

Medium

13 (664)

13 (1321)

6 (265)

32 (2251=~50%)

147,400 (51%)

High

1 (149)

2 (125)

1 (100)

4 (374=~8%)

48,700 (17%)

(sub-total)

30 (1428)

25 (2408)

10 (642)

65 (4478)

287,500 (100%)

e-delivery e-development

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Costs of E-Learning Support

also be caused by the expenses related to delivering the strategies. The study reviewed some sub-projects that used exceedingly high or low amounts of development and delivery services. The experiences in these few sub-projects tend to show that the costs and the returns do not have a simple proportional relationship. This seems to be especially true in the high-development sub-projects. The expectation of high benefits from high investment does not seem to be borne out. On the contrary, we found that the more expensive projects are often in danger of lengthened development even to a point of incompletion. The numbers of students who are able to benefit from these expensive strategies tend to be inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on their development. There are many factors that may have influenced the success of such materials. For example, the building of complex e-learning materials need to have very carefully compiled instructions, a high level of cooperation between the teacher and the development team, good mechanisms for developing and evaluating the products, and a high demand of expertise from the support team, etc. McNaught et al. (in press) provide more reflections of the challenges met in complex e-learning sub-projects. The implication seems to be that the support team should conduct detailed feasibility studies concerning both the technical and pedagogical aspects of a complex e-learning strategy before the project commences. The team should also consider whether there are other alternatives to the strategy. For example, can the key functions being sought after be fulfilled by any existing e-learning tools? Also, rather than creating the materials from scratch, can the content be met by reusing some existing e-learning objects or packages, or by making modifications to readymade materials? However, reuse of ‘learning objects’ has not been very successful in Hong Kong (McNaught, 2007).

This cost-effective discussion, however, is inevitably preliminary and indicative. We are clearly aware of the fact that actual benefits should be measured in terms of the real learning benefits students obtained rather than merely through a head count. Thus, an obvious counter-argument to our statement above can easily be: students who used the complex and expensive strategies had such an improvement in learning that it is still worth the costs. More research certainly is needed. The experience and findings of the e3L project have had direct influence on the e-learning support services that resulted after the project formally ended. The high completion rate and the general positive tenor of the evaluation data compares favorably with similar outcomes from other individually funded and organized projects in Hong Kong. In addition, the costs appear to be lower that costs from other previous funding arrangements. While these comparisons are somewhat anecdotal, the evidence has been sufficient to persuade internal funding managers that centralized e-learning support services seem to be the best arrangement for us to pursue. The positive report on institutional advantages for e-learning by the Joint Information Systems Committee (2008) in the UK complements the decisions made in our universities in Hong Kong.

CONCLUSION The main focus of this paper has been on the expenses of e-learning strategies in traditional campus-based universities: i.e. the supplemental mode of e-learning use. We have used the records of the expenses used and the activities undertaken in a centralized support project to firstly explore the overall cost components of e-learning support and services, and secondly to examine the range of expenses in the individual teacher sub-projects we have supported. Even though understanding the costs of sub-projects cannot give us a direct

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and simple answer to the question of whether elearning strategies are cost-effective, the analysis so far is very useful in at least two ways. First, the discussion drew attention to the major costing components in e-learning services and may enable better consideration in the future regarding the allocation of resources in subsequent e-learning support projects. Second, the discussion highlighted the broad range of sub-project costs and the fact that costs and learning benefits are not necessarily proportionate. Care, thus, has to be paid in order to ensure high pedagogical benefits especially from the sub-projects that demand high costs. Because of obvious practical limitations, however, our insights are mainly about the support expenses, and much of the time and effort paid by teachers, local support staff and the central services are not examined in this study.

Bassi, L. (2000). How much does elearning cost? Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www. linezine.com/2.1/features/lbhmec.htm

ACkNOWLEDGMENT

e3L project website. (2008). Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://e3learning.edc.polyu.edu. hk/

Funding support from the University Grants Committee in Hong Kong is gratefully acknowledged, as is the collaborative support of many colleagues in our three universities.

REFERENCES Anderson, C., Day, K., Haywood, D., Heywood, J., Land, R., & Macleod, H. (2002). Evaluating networked learning; developing a multi-disciplinary, multi-method approach. In C. Steeples & C. Jones (Eds.), Networked learning: Perspectives and issues (pp. 169–192). London: Springer-Verlag. Ash, C., & Bacsich, P. (2000). A new cost analysis model for networked learning. Proceedings of the European Distance Education Network (EDEN) conference (pp. 208–210), Prague, Czech Republic, 16–17 March.

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Bates, A. W. (2005). Technology, open learning and distance education (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Boettcher, J. V. (2004). Online course development: What does it cost? Campus Technology. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://connect. educause.edu/Library/Abstract/OnlineCourseDe velopmentWh/35735?time=1204536851 Bowles, M. S. (2004). Relearning to e-learn: Strategies for electronic learning and knowledge. Victoria: Melbourne University Press. Draper, S. (1997). Prospects for summative evaluation of CAL in higher education. ALT-J, 5(1), 33–39.

Geith, C., & Cometa, M. (1999). Cost analysis results: Comparing distance learning and oncampus courses. Teaching, Learning, Technology Group. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/F_Eval_Cases/ Geith_Cometa.htm Green, K. C., Smallen, D., Leach, K., & Hawkins, B. L. (2005). Data: Roads traveled, lessons learned. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(2), 14–25. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www.educause. edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0520.pdf James, J., McNaught, C., Csete, J., Hodgson, P., & Vogel, D. (2003). From MegaWeb to e3Learning: A model of support for university academics to effectively use the Web for teaching and learning. In D. Lassner & C. McNaught (Eds.), ED-MEDIA 2003 (pp. 3303–3310). Proceedings of the 15th annual World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, 23–28 June.

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Joint Information Systems Committee. (2008). Exploring tangible benefits of e-Learning: Does investment yield interest? Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/publications/camel-tangible-benefits.pdf

Moonen, J. (1997). The efficiency of telelearning. Journal of Asynchronous Networked Learning, 1(2), 68–77. Retrieved Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/ jaln/v1n2/pdf/v1n2_moonen.pdf

Lam, P., McNaught, & Cheng (2008). Pragmatic meta-analytic studies: Learning the lessons from naturalistic evaluations of multiple cases. Association of Learning Technologies Journal ALT-J, 16(2), 61–79.

Nicol, D., & Coen, M. (2003). A model for evaluating the institutional costs and benefits of ICT initiatives in teaching and learning in higher education. ALT-J, 11(2), 46–60.

Lytras, M. D., & Pouloudi A. (2001). E-learning: Just a waste of time. In D. Strong, D. Straub, & J. I. DeGross (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems AMCIS (pp. 216–222). Boston, Massachusetts. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://64.233.179.104/ schola r?h l=en&l r =&q= cache:f l 2ylkYExkJ:amcis.8m.com/AA043.PDF+ Maher, M.W., Sommer, B., Acredolo, C., & Matthews, H. R. (2002). What are the relevant costs of online education? Davis, 22. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://trc.ucdavis.edu/trc/papers/ relevantCosts.pdf McNaught, C. (2007). Developing criteria for successful learning repositories. In J. Filipe, J. Cordeiro & V. Pedrosa (Eds.), Web Information Systems and Technologies (pp. 8–18). Dordrecht: Springer. McNaught, C., & Vogel. D. (2006). The fit between eLearning policy and institutional culture. International Journal of Learning Technology, 2(4), 370–385. McNaught, C., Lam, P., Cheng, K-F., Kennedy, D. M., & Mohan, J. B. (in press). Challenges in employing complex eLearning strategies in campus-based universities. International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning.

Pätzold, H. (2005). Increasing value without increasing effort? The use of WebCT in accompanying face-to-face lectures. Journal of Distance Education Revue De L’Éducation À Distance, 20(2), 78–84. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde/ article/viewFile/83/62. Rumble, G. (2001). The costs and costing of networked learning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 75–96. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/ v5n2/pdf/v5n2_rumble.pdf Twigg, C. A. (1999). Improving learning & reducing costs: Redesigning large-enrollment courses. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Center for Academic Transformation. Twigg, C. A. (2003). Improving quality and reducing costs: new models for online learning. EDUCAUSE Review, 38(5), 28–38. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://www.educause. edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0352.pdf Wentling, T. L., & Park, J. (2002). Cost analysis of e-learning: A case study of a university program. 2002 Academy of Human Resource Development Annual Conference (AHRD ’02), Hawaii. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://learning. ncsa.uiuc.edu/papers/AHRD2002_wentling-park. pdf

This work was previously published in International Journal of E-Adoption, Vol. 1, Issue 1, edited by S. Sharma, pp. 61-75, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 6.4

E-Learning University Networks: An Approach to a Quality Open Education Elena Verdú Pérez CEDETEL, Spain María Jesús Verdú Pérez Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The achievement of coordination activities and the creation of university networks are considered to be fundamental mechanisms to bring together the different higher education systems as well as to promote synergies between less developed regions and more developed ones. ODISEAME (Open Distance Inter-University Synergies between Europe, Africa, and Middle East) is an interdisciplinary and intercultural e-learning project whose main goal is to create a Euro-Mediterranean network of universities for the cooperation in the design and development of tele-learning experiences. This four-year project ended in June of 2006 with its final phase when several multilingual and multicultural learning experiences were carried out in an efficient way. These experiences were developed in all the official languages of the participant countries, as well as in English, using a

Web-based multilingual virtual space. This article describes the ODISEAME project and the elearning experiences derived from it and presents some conclusions from their evaluation. It finally shows the importance of university networks in the process of establishing the European higher education area.

INTRODUCTION The phenomenon of globalization is generating important changes. On one hand, it creates new markets, it fosters progress and economic growth, it makes greater scientific development possible, and permits universal access to culture and science. However, it is also believed that this phenomenon can bring the disappearance of cultural diversity, as well as economic imbalances and an increase in the existing gap between different countries in

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E-Learning University Networks

terms of development. The European Commission maintains that, in order to build a common future, it is necessary to cooperate in the construction of a way toward change. However, the social and cultural identity of each agent should be kept. In fact, one of the main objectives established in the Barcelona declaration, which was adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in 1995, was to bring people of different cultures closer by means of partnerships in social, cultural, and human affairs with the aim of developing human resources, promoting understanding between cultures, and exchanges between civil societies. EUMEDIS (Euro MEDiterranean Information Society) is one of the initiatives of the European Commission for the development of the information society in the Euro-Mediterranean region. It was designed specifically to bridge the digital gap that exists between the European countries and our Mediterranean neighbours. The group of priority sectors tackled by this initiative includes education. Globalization has an influence, not only on the economic field, but also on the transfer of knowledge and higher education. The universal nature of higher education institutions will increase due to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and distance learning, as well as the increasing mobility of teachers, researchers, and students. In this respect, and taking the idea of the context of the European Higher Education Area, the collaboration networks among European Universities play a decisive role, just as the Spanish Ministry of Education states in the corresponding framework document (2003). Consequently, the achievement of coordination activities and the creation of networks are considered to be fundamental mechanisms to bring together different higher education systems as well as to promote synergies between less developed regions and more developed ones (Commission of the European Communities, 2001; Spain, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, 2003). Furthermore, it is widely believed

that all this process should be carried out with the maximum respect to cultural diversity. The ODISEAME project, which was coordinated by CEDETEL, was framed within the EUMEDIS initiative previously described and sought to contribute to the improvement of higher education in the participant countries, applying new technologies to the educational process. Thereby, the project offered Web-based courses corresponding to education programmes of 12 Universities from Europe and the Mediterranean border. Specifically, the countries that participated in the project are Germany, Cyprus, Spain, Jordan, Malta, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey. The base of the ODISEAME project was an interdisciplinary research on the application of ICTs to different aspects of the learning process, including the design of educational contents, their delivery, and the interaction among students and teachers. Students, teachers, content providers, service providers, teaching experts, technicians, etc., participated in this research project, which also involved important aspects such as intercultural and multilingual ones, especially in the development of the virtual learning experiences that were carried out with the participation of students and teachers from the different participant countries (Verdú, Verdú, Regueras & De Castro, 2005). These experiences were developed in a virtual environment in the language of every partner as well as in English. The development of the ODISEAME project is described next and the results obtained during the e-learning experiences are analysed.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT The ODISEAME project underwent different phases from its onset in September 2002 until its end in June 2006. The final objective of the achieved tasks was the carrying out of intercultural tele-learning experiences through the

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Table 1. Characteristics and possibilities of the different scenarios Characteristics

Possibilities

Scenario 1

High Internet access speed. Multimedia equipment.

Synchronous and asynchronous communications. Multimedia contents.

Scenario 2

Low Internet access speed. Multimedia equipment.

Asynchronous communications. Text contents. Multimedia contents can be offered with some limitations.

Scenario 3

Low Internet access speed No multimedia equipment.

Asynchronous communications. Text contents.

Internet. The description of the preliminary tasks developed during the first phases can help us gain a better understanding of the complexity of the development of such types of experiences, which counted with the participation of teachers and students from countries with different languages, cultures, and technological levels.

Analysis of the Existing Resources and Needs in the Partnership During the first year of the project, the current situation of the participants was analyzed taking into account the available network infrastructures as well as general aspects of the curriculums and learning needs of the participating institutions. The objective was to have a clear picture of the actual framework in the different partner regions in order to define and design suitable contents and find possible areas for cooperation in the virtual learning experiences. After the analysis of the network infrastructure and equipment available in all participating institutions, these were classified according to three scenarios depending on criteria like multimedia capacities of the users’ equipment, the availability of a broadband Internet access from the institution, or the connection speed within its network. Table 1 summarises the characteristics and possibilities of the three scenarios. Each partner, according to its scenario, received a number of recommendations regarding

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the development of the distance learning experiences, the type of communication to be held among students and teachers (synchronous, such as videoconference, or only asynchronous, such as electronic mails), and the kind of contents to be offered during the virtual courses (text, voice, image, video, etc). Several case studies indicate the primary importance of organisational cultures or norms together with an administrative structure, when an organisation implements or plans to implement distance learning (Cho & Berge, 2002). Accordingly, during the first year of the ODISEAME project, a study of the educational programmes and general aspects such as organization, was also made for all partner universities. The aim was to find common needs and interests and analyze the possibilities with regard to student and teacher exchanges, collaboration in courses or other research areas, etc. Taking this study as a base, the didactic units to be designed and developed by each partner institution were selected. Finally, the overall result was that the majority of courses were technical or engineering courses, since these were the areas where more synergies among the participants were found. There were also courses about language learning and transversal subjects like scientific research methodology and project evaluation.

E-Learning University Networks

Design and Development of the Courses During the second year of the project, the teachers of the partner institutions designed and implemented the selected courses. They were assisted by an interdisciplinary workgroup of different specialists belonging to the participant institutions and with expertise in tele-learning issues. The design involved giving a detailed description of the courses, not only in terms of objectives, timing, assessment, contents, language, etc., but also in terms of educational design with the view of their implementation for virtual learning and taking into account the constraints imposed by the network infrastructure and the equipment available in the target institutions. It is interesting to analyze briefly some of the training modules designed such as the ones given by the University of Valladolid, which correspond to three technical courses related to computer networks. The development of these training modules can be summarized as follows (Verdú, Regueras, De Castro, & Verdú, 2004): •

•

• •

•

The theoretical contents of each unit would be offered in hypermedia format with additional and complementary information in PDF format. Some lessons would be delivered as recorded video presentations by means of the “Conference Room” tool of the ODISEAME platform, which is described in the next section. Practical exercises would be proposed to the students in order to be discussed by means of a news group. Some interactive activities would be proposed too, as well as optional laboratory exercises; since several studies indicate that students’ comprehension of problems is considerably improved and some misconceptions are resolved when interactivity is applied (Bolliger & Martindale, 2004; Ioannidou, Paraskevopoulos & Tzionas, 2006; Khalifa & Lam, 2002). Students would be able to follow their own progress by means of the execution of feedback tests.

•

Teachers would answer all students’ doubts through a mailbox. In addition, the most interesting questions would be presented by teachers in order to be discussed at discussion forums.

The design of the training modules was followed by an evaluation process, which consisted of a study of the initial design as well as the implementation of the modules, and a beta-test training experience with a small group of teachers and students. Following the example of the courses of the University of Valladolid, some of the more noteworthy conclusions obtained from the beta-test process were the following: • •

The courses were well structured and designed. So, we could conclude that the methodology used was suitable for this kind of learning. Users valued interactivity as one of the most positive points. Interactivity was not only an instrument to motivate students, but also a quality element. The high quality of the interactive activities designed by the teachers facilitated the learning process a lot. Figure 1 shows one of these interactive activities in which students had to complete some data about network diagrams or routing tables and were able to check immediately whether their results were correct. Owing to the complexity of some of these activities, two ways of solving them were offered: a “guided mode” (with information regarding how to solve the exercise step by step) and a “non-guided-mode.” This characteristic was very much valued by students as well.

Design and Development of the Multilingual Virtual Learning Space During the second year of the project, the multilingual virtual learning space was also designed, implemented, and evaluated. The training modules were then integrated into the virtual space to allow the performance of the online courses. The ODISEAME virtual space integrates a series of communication services as well as content developing and management services in order to offer telematic support to the learning

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E-Learning University Networks

Figure 1. Interactive activity of the “TCP/IP Course”

process. Therefore, the main different services of the e-learning platform are as follows: •

•

•

•

•

•

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Content generator: It enables teachers to generate their own didactic units from a list of resources previously entered in their resource database. A resource can be an image, a document in a certain format, an audio file, a video file, a slide presentation including an explanatory video file, etc. Content area: This area includes the courses, interactive activities, laboratory exercises, live and recorded conferences, and self-assessments to be done by the enrolled students. All these contents are previously generated by the teacher with the aid of the content generator. Notebook: This is an agenda for students to plan their work. The teacher can use this application to give them advice regarding working timetables. Activities: This is a collaborative work area, which consists of a series of workspaces shared by teachers and students. In these spaces, a student is able to hand in the practices requested by the teacher or to work within a work-group. Communications: There are synchronous communication tools such as the videoconference and asynchronous communication tools such as the question box or discussion forums. Conference room: Teachers are able to deliver

•

a live or recorded conference based on a PowerPoint file and a video through the Internet. The application synchronizes all the slide changes and transitions with the lecturer’s video and audio. Tools designed for the assessment and monitoring of students enable teachers to create assessments and auto-assessments based on a database with previously created items, including multiple-choice questions, paired questions and even open text questions to be evaluated by the teacher. The teacher can check the evolution of each student (results and time employed by the student), as well as compare students within a same group.

It is noteworthy that the ODISEAME platform is multilingual and multi-skin. This means that it has been designed to be used in different languages and with different appearances according to users’ preferences. Figure 2 shows the main screen of the virtual learning space. The platform was assessed taking into account both technical and pedagogical aspects, by means of stress tests and surveys filled in by target users and focus groups. The objective of this assessment was to detect any weak points in the platform in

E-Learning University Networks

Figure 2. Main screen of the ODISEAME virtual learning space

order to improve it prior to the learning experiences (De Castro & Verdú, 2006). Regarding the technical assessment, the trial phase consisted of stress tests performed against the server in which the platform is installed. With the stress tests, we aimed at measuring the performance of the platform when there are multiple users using the platform at the same time. We used the Web Application Stress (WAS) tool by Microsoft. Then, we were able to identify the pages with poor performance and found that the increase in the response time was related to the interaction with the database, not with the size of the pages. Therefore, the interaction with the database was analysed and the necessary improvements were undertaken to minimize the delay. We managed to reduce the response time of the pages with worst performance by 10%. The pedagogical aspects of the virtual learning space were checked by the partnership and a reduced group of students who joined some beta-test training experiences. Doing an overall assessment that involved the use of the mentioned tools, 75% of those surveyed described the tools as “good” and only 4% of those surveyed considered their use as inadequate, either because they found them difficult to use or because they were not adequate for a University course. The most valued tool with regard to achieving the objec-

tives of the teaching/learning was the Contents tool, with 92 points out of 100, followed by the Discussion Forum with 80 out of 100. Finally, we collected contributions and comments from the partners through discussion forums, as well as the suggestions derived from the surveys, and we made some improvements to the platform in terms of its design, its userfriendliness, and its navigability.

THE E-LEARNING PILOT EXPERIENCES The International Nature of the Experiences Distance educators view computer-mediated education as an excellent format to encourage a variety of adult learning styles while serving an ethnically diverse student population (Muirhead, 1999). In fact, one of the challenges facing instructional designers is in producing e-learning systems that take account of individual differences such as nationality, gender, and, more importantly, from an educational perspective, cognitive learning style (Graff, Davies & McNorton, 2004). In the ODISEAME project, the cultural, social, and

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Figure 3. Percentage of applications received per country 30 25 20 15 10

educational diversity was clear and was thus taken into account from the outset. Before and during the pilot experiences, the offered courses were advertised in all participant countries placing posters in different university buildings as well as including advertisements in Web pages, mailings, and newsletters. Thanks to these electronic means, students from countries, which were not participating in the project, such as Latin American countries had the chance to join these e-learning experiences. It was pleasing to find that higher education students were very interested in e-learning. In fact, a large number of course applications were received by the ODISEAME staff within just a few days. We received applications for joining the ODISEAME courses by people from 51 different countries. As Figure 3 shows, 28.4% of the applicants were Spanish, 27.4% were Palestinian, and 14.7% were Turkish. These are data, which should be highlighted as the Internet penetration in Spain in March 2006 was 38.7%, according to data of Internet World Stats (www.internetworldstats.com), whereas few people have a PC and connection to the Internet in Palestine, with 4.9% of Internet penetration, or in Turkey, where the Internet penetration is 13.7%, much lower than the average in Europe. However, we only received 0.38% of applications from Germany where the Internet penetration is 59%.

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When the virtual learning experiences were just starting, the disparity in participation of students from different countries was discussed during a project meeting held in Granada in May 2005. Up to that moment, most students who had requested to join the ODISEAME courses were Spanish, so we discussed why students from other countries had not applied for the courses. The following possible reasons of this fact were discussed: • • •

Many courses are in English and the knowledge of the English language can be a restriction for students. Lack of infrastructure and equipment available for students at home. Lack of dissemination of the courses in other countries.

It is true that one of the most obvious obstacles for universal access to the Internet in the Arab world is the fact that the Internet has always been an English-dominated medium which reinforces the opinion that it is not designed by or for Arabicspeaking cultures, whereas, from a technical standpoint, the use of Arabic presents no major impediment (Verdú et al., 2005). While many Arabs use English or French as their preferred language on the Internet, the majority of Arabs use Arabic, according to Jean Louis Cardahi,

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Figure 4. Age groups of the students

31 - 40 years 16%

> 40 years 11%

26 - 30 years 20%

Minister of Telecommunication of Lebanon in 2003 (Cardahi, 2003). However, the first reason regarding the language of the courses seemed not to be applicable in our case as the attendants of that meeting expressed that they usually gave their courses in English at their Universities, especially when the courses are related to technical topics. Most courses in our project are related to technical topics so this reason had to be dismissed as the main reason. On the other hand, the second reason related to the lack of infrastructure and equipment available for students at home did not solve the question either since, as previously mentioned, few applications were received from countries with higher PC and Internet penetration such as Germany. In conclusion, although the lack of equipment limited the number of students from some countries who would have liked to join the courses, we finally agreed that in some cases the courses had not been disseminated sufficiently. In fact, after this meeting, there was a high response of Turkish students as the partners in Turkey strengthened their dissemination actions. Even though students and teachers from different partner countries were expected to participate in these experiences, finally, when the courses were delivered in the mother tongue of

18 - 25 years 53%

the partner countries, most of the students usually came from the partner country that delivered the course. This is the case of the courses given in Arabic and Greek, in which only Jordanian and Cypriot students participated respectively. However, we must highlight that there was an important participation of Latin American students (Argentinian, Colombian, Mexican...) in those courses delivered in Spanish. We can conclude that the courses developed in English attracted a larger variety in the nationalities of their participants due to the fact that knowledge of the English language is widespread. However, in the case of those courses developed in Spanish, there was also a great variety of nationalities because of the participation of many students from Latin America where the dissemination of the project was very successful. According to the results of the surveys described next, in general, those people who joined the ODISEAME courses had a good command of English, and only 10% of students showed a low written and reading level of English. When people specified knowledge of a second language, they usually indicated a low level in writing, reading, and speaking. This explains why the courses delivered in the mother language of the partners, instead of in English, did not have a great variety

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of nationalities participating except, as said before, for the case of the courses delivered in Spanish.

ANALYSIS AND STUDY OF THE RESULTS As well as the students’ nationality, other important aspects were analysed from the results of certain surveys. When the courses came to an end, students had to fill in a questionnaire that included the following question areas: • • • •

Personal details: Nationality, age, sex, education level, computer skills, etc. Quality of the course: Scheduling, structure, methodology, contents, tutorship, etc. Tele-learning service: Assessment of the usefulness and easiness of each tool, availability, and speed of the platform, etc. Other observations regarding the most positive aspects of the online course, aspects that could be improved, tools missing in the platform, etc.

Since one of the main advantages of e-learning is spatial flexibility, enabling participants to follow a course from home, we considered it interesting to ask students about the place from which they had accessed the online courses. As was to be expected, we found that most of the students (74%) accessed the online courses from home. However, 19% of students accessed them from a university and a small percentage did so from the office or from an Internet café, probably because they did not have a PC or an Internet connection at home. These data show that, although the number of students joining this kind of virtual international exchanges depends on the Internet penetration in the participant countries, it is not determinant as students who are interested in taking online courses offered by universities of other countries go to the computer rooms of their university in

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order to be able to participate in these kinds of courses. In Figure 4, we show the age groups of the participants. As it was expected, dealing with university courses the majority of students were between 18 and 25 years old, a typical age range for university students. Twenty percent of the students were between 26 and 30 years old and within this group, almost half of them were also university students. However, important percentages of students, more than 30%, were not university students and were working. Within this group of workers, all of them had a degree. This is natural since the courses require a high level of knowledge. In the current knowledge society, lifelong education seems to be necessary to be competitive in the labour market and workers must constantly update their knowledge and skills. E-learning arises as a good solution to fulfil this educational need since it provides workers with the flexibility they need to be able to do their chosen courses. Most students were male (71%) while only 29% were female. One of the main reasons of this disparity in gender may be the technical component of most of the courses offered in the ODISEAME project. In general, technical degrees are studied by men, although recently, there are many women joining these university technical degrees. On the other hand, nursing schools for example, are full of women although this situation is starting to change. Habits and traditions are key factors when choosing university degrees (Verdú & De la Torre, 2006). In Figure 5 we show the answers to the questions “has the level of learning been satisfactory?” and “has the level of motivation been kept high throughout the course?” Most of the students polled answered that the level of learning had been high or very high. Also, a majority indicated that the level of motivation was kept high or very high. In the courses carried out through the Internet, it is known that the students’ familiarity with

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Figure 5. Level of learning (on the left) and level of motivation throughout the course (on the right)

Figure 6. The design of the contents is attractive and motivates you to study (on the left) and the proposed exercises and practices have facilitated the learning process (on the right)

computers has a considerable impact on motivation. Thereby, the probability of a decrease in the motivation during the course can be much higher, even causing the student to give up the course, when low computer skills join the common risks of giving up online courses such as the feeling of isolation or the lack of student-teacher interaction. As many of the offered courses were related to engineering or technical subjects, only 7% of students had low computer skills while 69% and 24% had medium and high computer skills, respectively. In Figure 6 we show the answers to the questions: “is the design of the contents attractive and does it motivate you to study?” and “have the proposed exercises and practices facilitated the learning process?” Sixty-seven percent of students considered that the design of the contents had motivated them to study and had been attractive and 76% of the students considered that the proposed exercises and practices had made

the learning process easier. The most noteworthy aspect in these results is that, in the courses with interactive activities or animations, practically all students had positively evaluated the previous issues. Therefore, the results validate and reinforce the hypothesis of the importance of interactivity in order to motivate students and improve comprehension. However, since the particular statistics of other courses without interactive activities also received positive assessment, it can be concluded that the teachers’ job, for example in dynamizing the course by means of discussion forums, is fundamental in order to keep the motivation level of students. In online learning, it is very important for the teacher to dynamize the virtual course to motivate students and avoid the isolation feeling that they suffer on many occasions during these types of experiences. According to the results of the survey, the teacher did a good job in that sense, as the majority of students considered that the tutor

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had promoted students’ participation very much (27%) or much (32%) by means of the different tools of the platform (forums, question box, etc.). Besides, most students (73%) thought that the tutor had promptly answered students’ questions. One of the difficulties of tele-learning is distance assessment. Nearly 70% of the students polled considered that the assessment was totally or mostly in line with the aims of the course. The achieved assessments were different for the different courses, although in general teachers assessed students taking into account their participation in discussion forums and the tasks done. The ODISEAME tele-learning platform allows the creation of assessments, which can be answered in a limited period of time. This characteristic makes doing distance assessments feasible, but always running the risk of not being able to identify the student who is really being assessed. Regarding the design of the virtual learning space, nearly 80% of the students polled thought that it was appropriate to offer higher education courses as well as to reach the learning objectives. Students appreciated the usefulness and easiness of the different tools and revealed a preference for content delivery and discussion forum tools. Besides, a lot of students mentioned that they missed a chat. The last section of the questionnaire allowed students to give their opinion about the advantages and disadvantages of tele-learning. A lot of those polled agreed that the great advantage of telelearning is its flexibility with respect to the place from which the course is accessed and the time when it is followed. Other advantages that were mentioned by students are the following: • • •

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Students learn at their own pace. Therefore, a lot of them study in a more relaxed way. Forums provide a great discussion area, allowing students to share their answers, ideas, and references. Tele-learning is very useful for those students who are physically unable to access the campus.

• • • •

The contents of the course are always accessible. Asking the teacher many questions is less embarrassing in distance education than in face-to-face lessons. It promotes the active role of the student in the learning process instead the traditional passive role. It allows users to meet people from other countries and cultures and, therefore, to know very different opinions, which enriches the learning process.

However, students mentioned also some disadvantages of tele-learning against traditional learning: • • • • • • • •

Difficulty when working in groups. Passiveness of some participants. Little interaction between the teacher and the student. The experiences are a little impersonal. It is easy to lose motivation. Students’ questions are not instantly answered. Need to have up-to-date equipment. In language courses, students missed conversation activities.

Finally, in order to learn students’ opinion about this intercultural virtual learning experience in general, we included a question in the survey directly asking about the degree of satisfaction with the virtual learning experience and most students (71%) answered that they were very satisfied or satisfied with the experience. We consider that these are good results, taking into account that most participant teachers did not have previous experience in this type of teaching. Moreover, we indicate two very interesting details: the vast majority of students (95%) stated that they would recommend these online courses to other students and, also, the vast majority (94%) would enrol in online courses if they could get credits from their University.

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CONCLUSION The ODISEAME project shows that e-learning makes the removal of frontiers in education possible, allowing the exchange of students and promoting the equality of opportunities, as those who cannot travel for economic or other reasons can attend courses given by foreign institutions without moving from their countries. Besides, we have proved that higher education students are interested in this type of learning, which provides them with spatial and time flexibility. Internet penetration in a country is influential when it comes to attracting students to the online courses, but it is not determinant. If students are greatly motivated, they go to the computer rooms of their universities or to Internet cafés in order to be able to participate in the online courses. On the other hand, we have found one drawback. There are some differences regarding network infrastructures and users’ equipment. This fact generates inequality when accessing educational resources. In that sense, the EUMEDIS initiative is a good example of international transfer of technology from the European Union to the MEDA countries. The access infrastructure available determines whether the interactive activities, which are very effective in this type of learning, can be done in a suitable way. We have demonstrated that interactive activities are very recommendable, since they motivate students and improve their comprehension. However, a lot of the ODISEAME courses do not have this type of activities and the reasons are not only infrastructure constraints. The design and the implementation of interactive activities demand high technical knowledge. Unfortunately, many of the participant teachers lacked it. In spite of these differences, the project has contributed to bring different disciplines closer, which is a need in this type of learning and the first step in order to enable teachers without technical knowledge

to design quality interactive activities inside interdisciplinary workgroups. After analysing the results of this project, we can conclude that it is possible to build good international and intercultural e-learning projects through intensive collaboration and to transfer technology and knowledge. Although many teachers were used to traditional methods of teaching and had no experience in e-learning at the beginning of the project, ODISEAME has allowed them to participate in an e-learning programme by means of remote but close collaboration among partners. The ODISEAME consortium is proud to have created a network of teachers and researchers participating remotely in a collaborative elearning project given the added difficulty of its multicultural and multilingual nature. Anyway, many teachers have stated that they did not notice any difference in behaviour and participation between European and MEDA students. Taking the nationality of the students into account, the results of our surveys did not show relevant differences. Thus, different cultures can collaborate in a university education process without significant difficulties. Therefore, countries as economically, culturally, and socially different as Palestine and Spain reacted in a similar way when faced with an e-learning proposal. Finally, with the creation of this cooperation network of universities in the Euro-Mediterranean area, the project has contributed to the process of European convergence and has given response to one of the objectives established in the Ministers Conference of the countries participating in this process celebrated in Bergen in 2005: to disseminate and make understand the Bologna process in other continents, interchanging and sharing experiences with neighbour regions, and reinforcing the importance of respect to interculturality (Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education, 2005).

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REFERENCES Bolliger, D., & Martindale, T. (2004). Key factors for determining student satisfaction in online courses. International Journal on E-Learning, 3(1), 61-67. Cardahi, J. L. (2003, December). Language in support of integration and regional information strategies—The role of telecommunications. Speech of the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Geneva: ITU. Retrieved August 20, 2006, from http://www.uneca.org/aisi/wsis2003/Jean%20 Louis%20Cardahi%20-%20Lebanon.htm Cho, S. K., & Berge, Z. (2002). Overcoming barriers to distance training and education. USDLA Journal, 16(1). Retrieved August 31, 2005, from http://ww.usdla.org/html/journal/JAN02_Issue/ article01.html Commission of the European Communities. (2001, October 10). La dimensión regional del Espacio Europeo de la Investigación (The regional dimension of the European Higher Education Area). Bruselas: Author. Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education. (2005). The European higher education area—Achieving the goals. Bergen: Author. De Castro, J. P., & Verdú, E. (2006). The e-learning platform as a key to success: Evaluation of the ODISEAME e-learning platform. In E. En Verdú, M J. Verdú, J. Carrasco, & R. López (Eds.), Best practices in e-learning: Towards a technologybased and quality education (pp. 85-99). Valladolid, Spain: Boecillo Editorial Multimedia.

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Graff, M., Davies, J., & McNorton, M. (2004). Cognitive style and cross cultural differences in Internet use and computer attitudes. European Journal of Open, Distance, and E-Learning (EURODL), 2004/II. Retrieved January 23, 2005, from http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2004/ Graff_Davies_McNorton.html Ioannidou, I. A., Paraskevopoulos, S., & Tzionas, P. (2006). An interactive computer graphics interface for the introduction of fuzzy inference in environmental education. Interacting with Computers, 18(4), 683-708. Khalifa, M., & Lam, R. (2002). Web-based learning: Effects on learning process and outcome. IEEE Transactions on Education, 45(4), 350-356. Muirhead, B. (1999). Attitudes toward interactivity in a graduate distance education program: A qualitative analysis. Parkland, FL: Dissertation. com. Spain, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport. (2003). La integración del sistema universitario español en el Espacio Europeo de Enseñanza Superior (documento marco) (The integration of the Spanish higher education system into the European Higher Education Area (framework document)). Madrid: Author. Verdú, E., & De la Torre, I. (2006). The social and cultural dimension of e-learning: Analysing the results of a multicultural and multilingual e-learning project. In E. En Verdú, M. J. Verdú, J. Carrasco, & R. López (Eds.), Best practices in e-learning: Towards a tecnology-based and quality education. (pp. 157-171). Valladolid, Spain: Boecillo Editorial Multimedia.

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Verdú, M. J., Regueras, L. M., de Castro, J. P., & Verdú, E. (2004). ODISEAME project: An approach to a Web-based multilingual and collaborative learning. In L. En Cantoni, & C. McLoughlin (Eds.), Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2004, World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (pp. 4857-4862). Norfolk, VA: AACE.

Verdú, E., Verdú, M. J., Regueras, L. M., & de Castro, J. P. (2005). Intercultural and multilingual e-learning to bridge the digital divide. Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences, 3597, 260-269.

This work was previously published in Journal of Cases on Information Technology, Vol. 9, Issue 2, edited by M. Khosrow-Pour, pp. 12-25, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 6.5

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication for their Classroom Teaching Carol Kahan Kennedy Fordham University, USA Maureen Hinkley Fairfield University, USA

ABSTRACT Although research has been conducted on the benefits and drawbacks of online courses, more is specifically needed in teacher-education to increase understanding of the transfer process from technology integration learning to the classroom. This study was designed to evaluate a model for blending technology with traditional classroom methods in preparing teachers to do the same. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to examine the collaborative and scaffolding approaches to the teacher-learners construction of meaning in the online discourse. Data has been collected from blended graduate-

level courses taught in the area of educational technology for in-service and pre-service teachers from 2001 through 2006. These findings will be used to help identify best-practices for technology integration with teacher-education through informed applied research, and to create a new model for more comprehensive future blended course design.

INTRODUCTION This study is intended to inform the construct for teacher-learners’ transfer of technology first to their teaching dogma, secondly to their pedagogi-

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

cal praxis and ultimately for the students’ learning environment.. What evidence does the situated praxis of online discussions in the teaching of teachers offer to further the research of meaningful technology transfer into their classrooms? The data accumulated from blended course online discussions with in-service and pre-service teachers was examined on the basis of the topics of threaded discourses, content of responses, identification of originator of a thread, and occurrences of collaboration in forming meaning. This in-depth evaluation of the online interactions and subject of discussions will contribute to creation of a model for teacher-learners as participant practitioners in online learning.

LITERATURE REVIEW Rourke, Anderson, Garrison and Archer (2001) have focused on one specific element, “Social Presence,” of the Community of Inquiry Model, (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) and created a template for assessing how students actually project themselves socially into an online conferencing environment such as an online class. In the model three components are identified: the cognitive presence of students, the teaching presence of the instructor and the social presence of the students. The authors tested the template, utilizing content analysis of transcripts to assess students’ social presence density in a conferencing environment. Their study indicates that this is a good way to provide quantitative description of the effectiveness of an online environment, and to examine the suggested relationship interactions and changes that are affected by the instructor’s, the students’ and cognitive presence. Angers and Machtmes’ (2005) qualitative study identifies the “adoption and use of technology in the classroom is determined by teachers’ attitudes and beliefs.” (Angers, 2005, p.780). Their findings regarding that “Teachers beliefs about classroom practice appear to shape their goals

for technology, ” (Angers, p.789). This evaluation examines how these intrinsic beliefs are expressed, changed over time and influenced by participating in online classes, thereby guiding the teacher-learners to become expert-practitioners. How can an instructor design a teacher’s learning experience to achieve these results? Stephenson’s (2002) work includes a collection of articles with numerous authors focusing on how to transition from theory to practice, create effective online learning environments using theoretical frameworks and evidence-based research and pedagogy to assist learners in maximizing the creation of knowledge from online learning. Each of these articles talked about a transformative shift in the pedagogical paradigm from the instructormanaged classroom construct to a learner-centric online pedagogy. Several features of learning online that are identified as important for both instructors and learners include the following: access to resources, heuristics, attention to different learning styles and needs, access to experts, both online and offline, tracking and recording of dialogue, transactions among students, teachers, student-student, a variety of types of engagement, including synchronous and asynchronous, feedback, good design of the web environment, easy links to multimedia, universal design, opportunities for telementoring and interaction with experts both within and outside of the institution, an the opportunity to work in collaboration with peers and groups online and globally. Each of these features is also expected to be flexible and learner-controlled. Also important, as Stevenson’s (2002) work indicates, students must be informed of the difference in the online environment as offering more than a lecture delivered online, as well as encouraged to use the interactivity, and to take responsibility for their own learning and participation in order for the paradigm to shift from classroom teacher to a multi-media learner centric environment. While Kozleski (2004) emphasizes the economic contribution of technology as being

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imbedded in education, she identifies changes to teachers’ dogma and pedagogy as critical for the transference of technology in education. A central effort of this study was to identify discrete teacher learning which would underscore, “rather than harnessing the curriculum, understanding education as a technology transfer activity opens the dialogue about how and what to teach.” (Kozleski, p.191). Borko (2004) identifies elements of a situated analysis of teacher learning as a learning program, with teachers as the learners, the instructors become the guides for the teachers as they construct new learning along with the context in which the teachers learning occurs. The impetus for this study came as a response to the meta-analysis done by Mary Tallent-Runnels, Julie A. Thomspons, William Y. Lan and Sandi Cooper (2006). Their research suggests that courses taught totally online are called “online courses” and those taught partially online be labeled “blended courses.” While many researchers have studied some combination of these relationships and the factors that influence them. This study is intended to further our understanding of what and when meaning is being situated in the teachers understanding of the technology for the new role it will now play in their teaching within their classrooms. Kotrlik and Redman (2005) examine the “Extent of Technology Integration In Instruction By Adult Basic Education Teachers,” researching how much adult basic education teachers integrate technology into their curriculum and have learned how to use technology themselves, recommending the four methods cited by Ginsburg,(1998). These methods include considering technology as specific curriculum learning digital literacy skills, technology as an instructional delivery system, as another component to instruction for learning skills, and as a tool to enhance heuristic skills, write, and comprehend. The authors cite the process of learning to integrate technology from learning to adapt to using technology to

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construct new learning environments. There are several discreet barriers for adult learners as teachers: how to integrate technology, including the lack of opportunity to learn from their peers, ask and answer teaching-related questions, and actual practice in online discourse. Teacherlearners do not generally engage technology on a higher level, and lack the opportunity to make innovative integrative use of it in their practices. According to this study, not much progress has been made since the 1995 Office of Technology Assessment report. Yet his study illuminates more about the online component of blended courses potential to greater opportunity for teacher-learners to participate in discourse, learn from the instructor and their peers, and gain knowledge along with insights on how to better integrate technology into their curriculum, thereby overcoming these barriers. As opposed to how teachers are facing impediments to technology integration, Ertmer, Ottenbreit-Leftwich and York (2006-2007) have examined “Exemplary Technology-Using Teachers: Perceptions of Factors Influencing Success.” This study examines teachers who actually use technology meaningfully in their classrooms despite internal and external challenges, including lack of time, resources, technophobia, access and institutional support. While other articles cite the barriers that lead to full implementation of technology, this study’s emphasis is the most important indicators that may help teachers overcome these known obstacles. Interestingly, one of the findings suggests that digital immigrants, those teachers with more than five years of teaching experience, but less technology savvy and confidence, are actually more likely to direct their students to use technology in a more effective, meaningful way to enhance learning than their less-experienced, digital native colleagues who have more technology experience and confidence, but lack the expertise and management skills of more seasoned educators.

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

The more experienced teachers appreciated the value of the use of technology more than the more novice teachers who felt more at ease using the technology, but used it less effectively. This supports the data-analysis in this study particularly in the Introduction to Technology MD 400 course section with fewer digital natives, but more experienced teachers who are digital immigrants and contributed a larger number of transactional postings. The Ertmer, et al. (2006-2007) study also examined what intrinsic and extrinsic factors affected the use of technology to identify which characteristics were more likely determinants for the use of technology in the classroom. The results of the study indicated that the teachers who used technology in the most exemplary way felt that the factors such as confidence and experience (intrinsic) rather than extrinsic factors such as availability, quality of resources and their own time were most influential in their effectiveness.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORk. While Swan (2004) examines the relationships that exist between online interactions and learning in the online environment, she adapts a model that visually presents the interface, learning and supporting discourse when looking at teacherlearners’ interactions with their peers, content and instructors that takes place in online discussion forum. Her supporting Meta-analysis methods and the creation of a succinct chart, comparing research findings related to implications for practice became the template for representing the data of this study. Taking a slightly different approach from Swan’s model, Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, and Archer (2001) focused on creating a model of cognitive presence, as relates to the text-based online learning environment, drawing upon their previous model of Community of Inquiry (Garrison et. al., 2000), expanding it to include

the element of “Social Presence”. Thus, they created a template for assessing how students actually project themselves socially in an online conferencing environment. The new model used for this study has four stages; the first stage, “critical inquiry” uses triggering events in the online discourse, where the instructor explains expectations. Second is the “exploration phase” where students are asked to understand the nature of the problem or issue and explore it in a relevant manner. This is followed by the “integration phase” where students are expected to construct new meaning extrapolated from the exploration phase and make a contribution to the discourse within the online learning community of inquiry. In the final phase a resolution is reached regarding the issue that was proposed by the triggering events, marking the transition from the initial hypothesis to practical application within real practice, thus demonstrating true understanding and knowledge acquisition. These four phases are the elements identified, and analyzed in the collection of data amongst the 14 blended courses over a period of five years.

EVALUATION METHODOLOGY Sample Population: Characteristics and Description The sample population is comprised of adult students who are participants in a Graduate Teacher Education Program at a Jesuit university. Some of these sample teacher-learners were majoring in educational technology, while others were taking their required educational technology course and electives. The teacher-learners range in age from recent graduates of a Bachelor’s program, to older, returning students who are making career changes or enhancements. The majority of the students are either pre-service or in-service teachers pursuing a Master’s Degree.

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The instructors’ combined population demographics included a total number of 188 students, 14 blended classes, conducted from the Fall of 2001 through the Summer of 2006. A representative sample of the courses evaluated may be found in the Appendices. Both instructors have eight years of experience teaching on-site, online and blended courses in educational technology for graduate-level teacher education.

The Role of the Instructor The course design along with the instructors’ pedagogical praxis and paradigm choices were also examined. For example, both instructors made use of inquiry-based teaching methods in class and online. Each instructor utilized constructivist modeling, with methods such as scaffolding and fading throughout all of the courses and online blended components. Supporting the pedagogical role for the instructors is the creation of a social/ emotional presence that sets a climate for cognitive presence while supporting discourse stitches together the community of inquiry modeled by Garrison’s et al. (2003) “Community of Inquiry Model”.

Online Discussions The online postings were evaluated using methods amongst quantitative and qualitative techniques in terms of topics, and content. Particular attention was given to teacher-learners’ references to prior experiences and knowledge in connection to their new learning within the content and topics of the online discussions. Special interest was paid toward whether or not the online portion of the courses contained evidence of the teacher learners situating technology in their future pedagogical praxis.

down the responses and dialogue into discernable categories. However, after the first analysis, it became evident that this coding was not descriptive or telling enough of what we were seeing. There was clearly an apparent progression of engagement in the online community. Next the total number of postings per class, were examined as well as each posting in terms of quality of these postings and any related syllabi criteria. The second set of codes (see details below) were created to more closely align with the first three phases of the Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, and Archer (2001) model for the online discussions formative assessment (critical inquiry), knowledge-transfer (exploration phase) and summative assessment (integration phase) of the online component.

Parameters Examined Formative assessment-prior knowledge • •

Initial analysis of the data suggests the Instructor/Teacher-Mentor’s pedagogical approach to the online setting show movement from leading to some combination of modeling online behavior and heuristics for teacher-learners. Knowledge transfer- making meaning of the process of learning •

•

Processing of Data

•

The analysis of the data consisted of several steps. The first set of coding was used initially to break

•

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FA-SC comments situated in the classroom FA-NSC comments situated in other than the classroom- e.g. Theory, hypothetical

MM-PC meaning being made from peers from online collaboration (this may appear conjointly with other codes) MM-SC meaning making is situated in classroom connections MM-SM meaning-making is situated in course materials/content MM-SMC meaning is being constructed from both classroom and course materials

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

•

•

•

Summative assessment-critical thought; re-engineered approach to teaching and/or learning SA-NET other, learning is evidenced, for example new teaching and/or learning dogma SA-NET vision for teaching is situated with technology applied to practice

Discussion of the evaluation results Identification of Characteristics for Online Pedagogical Practices The evidence of the online postings allowed for more in-depth assessment of teacher-learners’ levels of engagement with material as well as analysis of teacher-learners’ construction and integration of meaning for learning.

Instructor’s Role The role of instructor evolved over all of the courses in the online component from being the leader/authority with a strong presence to the role of the facilitator. This was due to intentional modeling scaffolding and fading by both instructors. Teacher-learners’ interest and willingness to participate and take on more directive roles increased in all courses as they became more familiar with their classmates, and more at ease with the online environment. The students’ interactions were more collaborative online in the learning process, ultimately generating ideas on their own. In essence, collaborative learning had moved beyond both the content and the classroom. Thus suggesting strong support for the element of ‘social presence’ that Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, and Archer (2001) had added to the Garrison et al. (2000) Community of Inquiry Model.

Course Design How to Structure Online Same/ Different Course Requirements? In all courses evaluated the students were required to log on and participate in a meaningful manner over the course of the semester. For some courses online participation was a minimum of 8 meaningful postings required with the online discussion comprising 5% of their grade in other courses once a week of 15 meaningful postings were required for as much as 10% of the final assessment. Both seemed somewhat effective in keeping students actively participating. Each instructer noted that in the future, perhaps some guidelines for the timing of postings would be given in order to avoid ‘bunching’ or students waited until the last minute to complete their required postings.

Learning Affects The online environment provided a shared experience for the learners, while extending the opportunity to situate the new technological teaching in the teacher-learners praxis for their future pedagogy. And most importantly, it was an authentic activity where teacher-learners, who were learning how to use technology in the classroom, were actively participating in using technology in the online format. By the end of the courses the teacher-learners appeared to have evolved from novice to expert practitioners, knowing how to use the online environment effectively for learning. Many reflected that they liked the online environment and would consider taking online courses in the future. Not one teacher-learner objected to blended component in any of the courses. Rather the following quote is reflective of an overall very enthusiastic outcome, “I was able to collaborate with colleagues in WebCt which was something I had never participated in.”

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From the coded data three general types of interactions emerged as mechanisms for the transfer of knowledge in the online learning component; interaction with content, interaction amongst the teacher-learners, and interactions with the instructor.

Interaction with Content From the examination of the data we were able to see how the online component helped to relate to the content provided in the actual classroom and required text and readings. The online electronic text and resources were relevant to the themes of the classroom discussions and supported them in a different modality. The blended component provided a way to clarify content and in-class discussions, help teacher-learners relate to content presented in both the classrooms texts and electronic texts. Eventually the enculturated students were able to emulate the model and identify additional supporting electronic materials for their classmates to consider, discuss and use in their own practices. Example of Discussion Topic- Reflection of a hands-on in-class workshop with guest Educational Video Center instructor–using video making projects in the classroom. “The use of videos and cameras in the classroom is an additional resource that educators can use to enhance their curriculum. Presently, I believe that many teachers use documentary videos in their classroom. Wouldn’t it be exciting for the teacher and student to produce their own documentary? I do not believe that video and video-making are widely used in my school district. Possibly cost is a determining factor… The workshop on “Street Interviewing” was very educational to me. What questions to ask, how to ask them and who will ask the questions are key discussion areas that a group must deal with before the actual taping can begin. The entire process was a whole new experience to me. The entire process involves preparation and team

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work as well as self evaluations. No individual members of the group were unimportant. This is extremely important for those of us who are in teaching and use group work as a way to engage our students. Participation and involvement are criteria that I encourage in my classroom…” MD 546 Spring 06.

Interactions Amongst Teacher-Students Discussion Topic- the dilemma of purchasing equipment and resources for the classroom and school-article initially posted by Instructor A “I agree with most everyone (in the discussion online) that purchasing technology is something that should be a well thought out process. Not all teachers in all classes need the newest and latest technology. Sure it helps to aid in learning and caters to different styles however as they said in the article, many teachers are not experienced with using all of the technology out lately. It is important first to consider the need, the purpose, the usefulness, etc. Everyday something new is coming out, to just spend money carelessly (with good intentions) does not make sense.” MD 40001 Spring 06.

Examples of Shared Experience One teacher student responding to another’s point e.g.-“(so and so)made an interesting point here about the …” very affirming. Then the teacherstudent goes on to give an example specific to their experience that might overcome the classmates difficult experience. This was a very common sequence to teacher-students’ online discourse behavior; approaches repeating a pedagogical teaching, coaching model used in many classrooms and seeing much evidence of creating a similar paradigm with an online format for praxis. Because this study is specific to teacher-learners in educational technology courses evidence is not conclusive for other student demographics of

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

online populations for having such strong ‘native’ teaching/learning/collaborative behaviors. In a number of online segments teacher-students address responses to a specific classmate(s); ‘to so & so’…”I wonder if your priorities are in the wrong place. As I see it, content and learning material doesn’t have to be complex…” After hearing all of the positive reassurance, I am considering taking an online class this summer. It seems that if you are able to manage your time efficiently and can work independently, an online course is a great solution for those needing flexibility. (posting from MD 400-01 spring 06) Sharing on WebCt has been a wonderful venue to communicate ideas and thoughtful comments. This is my first class with this type of dialogue, I think it is so enriching and beneficial to all. In addition, I have learned so much from others in the class, demonstrated by our projects and presentations and web interactions. Reflecting on the end of the semester we truly have evolved into a warm community of learners supporting technology cross curriculum, and integrating each person’s interest and background. (posting from MD 400-02 Fall 05)

Interactions with the Instructor Phrasing of instructor-posed questions was important to elicit responses that were relevant to the theme, topic, discussion and any collaborative projects. The majority of responses were on-topic, and demonstrated that the students were able to make meaning of the themes and the context presented. Other trends we noted in the findings revealed that the teacher-learners were not simply addressing only one person in their responses, indicating a higher level of participation. The less instructormodeling there was, the more collaborative, open discussion there was among the teacher-learners. The majority of the students had less difficulty

with the technology interface of WebCt, thereby enabling them to participate in the discussion earlier and more fully in the term. The majority of these students came in with some basic understanding of media, including online learning. They were not necessarily Digital Natives, but they were not “newbies” either. Overwhelmingly the majority of data coded from all class postings was found for the knowledge transfer phase of the online discussions. Teacher-students most frequently used this component of the course to make meaning, sort their new learning and finally to revision of their teaching methods. For example, students were frequently sorting out the meaning of the text assignment and sharing online what they further researched on the internet. This type and level of engagement with the learning is just not possible during an in-class discussion. One unanticipated finding consistent with all of the courses was the high totals for Hits versus Read versus Posted. It is difficult to determine the reason for this outcome. Are the teacher-learners spending more time surveying and reading material, reflecting, assimilating prior to critical participation as a precursor to the occurrence of sharing critical thought? The evidence suggests further study is needed in this area. There was, however, little evidence of the fourth or final phase of the Community of Inquiry Model, “resolution” or enculturation within the online component. Very few teacher-learners actually stated they had tried some new technology teaching techniques in their classrooms. It was noted that the online discussions ended with the onset of the final papers and project portions of the courses which did require some curricula plans designed to incorporate technology. In any form of teaching teachers, whether it is online or onsite, we recognize that “learning by doing” is the most effective, impacting them the most when applied directly to their ability to transfer to the classroom. By design, the hybrid environment combining face-to-face and online

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learning reinforces and offers opportunities for more in depth meaning making. Through participation in this format, a different dynamic is created, allowing teacher-learners to relate to their own experience and background knowledge, while also affording them opportunity to construct new knowledge. They also function as expert practitioners, as was the case in MD 546 when Instructor A asked her students to review one of the textbooks, “Tech Tactics.” In the online forum they were asked to present their own review of the book and recommendations for use by teachers. They offered excellent, authentic reviews in the collaborative environment. By the end of this course, the online interface became seamless and invisible, allowing the teacher-learners to participate effortlessly, and to create their own meanings that were transferable to others in their profession.

What Were the Differences Among Classes? Instructor A’s MD 546, Integrating the Arts, Technology and Music into the K-12 classroom showed some different results from the more novice classes. This class required the entry level, MD 400 be completed in order to enroll, therefore the students were more tech-savvy and experienced. These students needed no time to get right into the discussion, necessitating less moderating. However, there were fewer postings and less participation online than in the MD 400 classes. Students worked more collaboratively in class and online throughout the semester and attended many hands-on workshops. This was a small class; many of the teacher-learners already knew each other, had taken previous classes together and were much more at ease using technology in any format. Their final projects required some online collaboration. The blended component featured less prominently for them. One other finding indicated that in the introduction-level class where there were only females, who were less technology

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savvy but had more classroom experience, with far greater number of postings and more substantive content ( 375 postings) than those of the class with males, who were more tech savvy but with less pedagogical experience ( 232). This raises the question of whether the all-female class, which included many ELL/ESL teacher-learners, felt freer to participate in the discussion and express their views than the mixed-sex class. The Community of Inquiry Model in either form (Garrison et al 2000 or Rourke et al (2001) do not appear to account for the learning affects amongst the levels of interaction.

CONCLUSION The combination of constructivist and online learning models has great potential to inform outcomes for teacher learning and knowledge transfer to the classroom. Additionally, we recommend examining the actual methods and time it takes to develop collaborative community, or community of practice online, including assessment of depth of social presence Evaluating the construction of knowledge utilizing technology requires a multi- dimensional modeling approach. The comparative analysis in these hybrid course designs focused on the online environment with teacher-student participants who are constructing meaning for learning methods to incorporate technology into their own curricula. This layered construct is also thought to be fluid with continuous looping through elements of the learning environment. For example, the teacher-learner, while participating in the online discourse, may be either reflecting on a prior classroom teaching experience and/or imagining a different lesson with some technology enhancement or vehemently rejecting it’s relevance. In any case, the teacher-learner in the online discussions, for the purposes of this evaluation, is understood to be taking some course content and collaborating,

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

creating meaning with fellow colleagues while collecting, organizing, summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing information. All of which will lead the teacher-learners themselves to some decision-making and knowledge about the educational experience they will construct for their students. What evidence can online discourses provide for illuminating the signaling for transfer to the teacher-learners own pedagogy?

FUTURE WORk Giving teacher-learners experiences online increases their confidence and directly exposes them to collaborative learning from their peers and instructors. There is further need to examine ways to deepen learners’ social and cognitive presence as well as their interactions with the instructor in the online environment that can enhance the use of technology in actual classroom activities. As engagement and technology awareness increases, the teacher-learners become more effective in the planning of curricula using technology for their own students. These are all intrinsic factors which will influence their success regardless of their access to resources, time availability and other extrinsic factors which they cannot control. After careful analysis there were several categories that might be included in a future evaluative study; “Generative” wherein students generated new ideas, proposed other links to materials, posed questions and constructed new knowledge. The other category was “Clarification” where students were asking for clarification of ideas, assignments and collaborations. As in most research endeavors new questions emerged from the process: Include the examination of final projects as part of the assessment of technology transfer and enculturation to the teaching praxis? Would these projects reveal some level of transfer from the online environment to use of technology in actual classrooms? How do we create more generative

postings, whereby the students construct their own meaning? How do course instructors facilitate to deepen social presence online? What is the role of scaffold instruction and when should the instructor fade? One goal would be to build on the evidence for teacher-learners’ use of the online discourse in making meaning for the transfer of technology to their teaching in their classrooms through better-informed curricula design and pedagogical methods in the construction of technology learning environments for teachers’ education. This present study illustrates how a closer examination of student online data can help to inform online curriculum, teaching practices and effective learning in a blended course environment for teacher-students to increase technology enriched curricula transfer to their classroom praxis. With this data and results, a new model for assessing online learning may emerge to help construct the most meaningful online experience for teacher-learners. Perhaps it is more than just taking the Community of Practice Model one step further to include technology awareness. Any new paradigm would need to embrace a more multifaceted scope to outline the intersecting layers and levels of ‘social’ presence and their implications for the actual inquiry outcomes.

REFERENCES Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing environment. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2). Angers, J., & Machtmes, K. (2005). An Ethnographic-Case Study of Beliefs, Context Factors, and Practices of Teachers Integrating Technology. The Qualitative Report, 10(4), 771-794. Ausbel, D. (1963). The psychology of meaningful learning. New York: Grune & Stratton.

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Borko, H. (2004). Professional Development and Teacher Learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3-15.

Kozleski, E. (August 2004). Technology Transfer and the Field of Education. Comparative Technology Transfer and Society, 2(2), 176-94.

Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Research, 18, 32-42.

McCrory, R., Putnam, R., & Jansen, A. (2008). Interaction in Online Courses for Teacher Education: Subject Matter and Pedagogy. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 16(2), 155180. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Ertmer, P., Ottenbreti-Leftwich, A., & York, C. (2006-07). Exemplary Technology - using Teachers: Perceptions of Factors Influencing Success. Journal of Computing Education, 23(2), 55-61. Garrison, R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(3)87-105. Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-Learning in the 21st Century: A framework for research and practice. London: RoutledgerFalmer. Ginsburg, L. (1998). Integrating technology into adult learning. In C. Hopey (Ed.), Technology, basic skills, and adult education: Getting ready and moving forward (Information Series No. 372, pp. 37-45). Columbus, OH: Center on Education and Training for Employment. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 423 420) Joia, L. (2001). Evaluation of a Hybrid SocioConstructivist Model for Teacher Training. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 9(4), 519-549. Norfolk, VA: AACE. Herrington, A., Herrington, J., Kervin, L., & Ferry, B. (2006). The design of an online community of practice for beginning teachers. Contemporary Issues in Teacher Education, 6(1). http://www. citejournal.org/vol6/iss1/general/aricle1.cfm Kotrlik, J., & Redmann, D. (2005). Extent of technology integration in instruction by adult basic education teachers. Adult Education Quarterly, 55(3), 200-219.

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Miles, M., & Huberman, A.M. (2004). Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. (1995). Teachers and technology: Making the connection. OTA report summary. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 386 154) Qi, J., & Vandersall, K. (2007). Facilitating reflective practice for pre-service teachers through electronic portfolio development. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 2609-2616). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Resnick, L. (1987). Education and learning to think. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Rouke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing Social Presence in Asynchronous Text-based Computer Conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, http:// cade.athabascau.ca/vol14.2/rouke_et_al.html. Retreived 6/28/08. Steinbronn, P., & Merideth, E. (2008, March). Perceived Utility of Methods and Instructional Strategies Used in Online and Face-to-face Teaching Environments. Innovative Higher Education,265(14). Stephenson, J. (Ed.) (2002). Teaching & Learning Online: Pedagogies for new technologies. VA: Stylus Publishing.

An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

Swan, K. (2004). Relationships Between Interactions and Learning In Online Environments. The Sloan Consortium, Sloan-C.

Tallent-Runnells, M., Thompsons, J., Lan, Y., & Cooper, S. (2006, Spring). Teaching courses online: A review of the research. Review of Educational Research , 76, 93-135. Wakefield, J. (1996). Educational Psychology: Learning to be a problem-solver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

APPENDIX A Table 1. CS/MD 475 Empowering computers for best educational practices Spring 2003 Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

Totals

Hits

417

369

331

307

364

1788

Read

168

133

138

168

110

717

Posted

33

38

35

26

25

157

Requirements for online participation: On-line contribution 120 (possible 10 each week); No timing for postings, no requirement for number or amount of participation.

Table 2. CS/MD 475 Empowering computers for best educational practices Summer 2004 Hits

Read

Posted

Student 1

82

52

4

Student 2

107

70

1

Student 3

145

85

10

Student 4

104

41

7

Student 5

163

98

12

Student 6

105

27

5

Student 7

54

27

3

Student 8

142

71

23

Student 9

229

83

4

Student 10

162

63

7

Student 11

161

51

5

Student 12

126

34

5

Student 13

190

87

6

Student 14

198

99

5

Totals

1968

888

97

Course requirements for online participation: On-line weekly contribution 80 (possible 20 pts/@wk post by Sunday)

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Table 3. CS/MD 475 Empowering computers for best educational practices Summer 2005

Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

Student 6

Student 7

Student 8

Totals

Hits

128

71

139

181

183

51

211

196

1160

Read

42

34

67

65

67

24

67

66

432

Posted

11

2

13

10

5

2

11

4

58

Course requirements for online participation: On-line weekly contribution 80 (possible 20 pts/@wk post by Sunday)

Table 4. CS/MD490 Achieving an interdisciplinary approach to teaching through technology Fall 2003 Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

Student 6

Student 7

Totals

Hits

154

68

158

54

146

68

184

832

Read

83

27

82

30

51

26

82

381

Posted

12

11

15

2

11

6

12

69

Course requirements for online participation: On-line contribution 120 (possible 10 @ week)

Table 5. CS/MD490 achieving an interdisciplinary approach to teaching through technology Fall 2005 Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

Student 6

Student 7

Student 8

Student 9

Student 10

Totals

Hits

488

149

672

516

331

491

629

128

474

699

4577

Read

279

88

279

314

177

244

322

38

250

291

2282

Posted

30

14

55

32

25

23

42

1

71

18

311

Course requirements for online participation: On-line contribution 120 (possible 10 @ week) participate in on-line discussion group, due Tuesday by midnight.

Table 6. CS/MD490 Achieving an interdisciplinary approach to teaching through technology Fall 2006 Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

Student 6

Student 7

Student 8

Student 9

Student 10

Totals

Hits

926

399

305

447

696

446

229

261

278

928

4915

Read

241

237

146

224

240

224

141

145

154

224

1976

Posted

35

24

19

17

19

32

22

15

31

20

234

Course requirements for online participation: On-line contribution 120 (possible 10 @ week) participate in on-line discussion group, due Tuesday by midnight.

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Table 7. ED/MD 546 integrating the arts, music and technology into the K-12 curriculum Spring 06 Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

Student 6

Student 7

Totals

Hits

165

38

63

71

190

176

180

883

Read

116

30

36

35

53

90

116

120

596

Posted

15

1

16

0

10

11

7

18

78

Requirements for online participation: On-line contribution Total 78 postings At least 8 postings for the semester, weekly reading of online postings. No timing for postings. Observed large discrepancies between hits, read and actual posting

Table 8. MD 400-01 Introduction to educational technology Spring 06 Student 1

Hits

Read

Posted

272

231

14

Student 2

73

55

1

Student 3

528

368

17

Student 4

532

374

17

Student 5

334

251

15

Student 6

475

374

18

Student 7

416

338

18

Student 8

397

304

13

Student 9

564

375

25

Student 10

321

237

16

Student 11

388

307

23

Student 12

555

387

27

Student 13

296

175

20

Student 14

573

333

25

Student 15

296

175

20

Student 16

536

373

19

Student 17

347

277

21

Student 18

374

304

10

Totals

7277

5274

312

Course requirements for online participation: On-line contribution Postings A minimum of 8 postings, weekly reading of online postings; Professor followed closely, especially for students who not participating regularly; Large discrepancies between hits, read and actual postings One student did not meet required postings

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An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teaching Educators and its Implication

Table 9. ED/MD 400-02 introduction to educational technology Spring 2006 Hits Student 1

0

Read 0

Posted 0

Student 2

266

215

4

Student 3

218

140

13

Student 4

294

107

17

Student 5

289

189

14

Student 6

301

209

5

Student 7

202

89

15

Student 8

36

16

1

Student 9

409

239

15

Student 10

324

144

6

Student 11

337

150

14

Student 12

300

211

15

Student 12

364

239

15

Student 13

286

153

10

Student 14

120

47

9

Student 15

357

226

15

Student 16

167

103

9

Student 17

236

199

15

Student 18 Totals

215

143

10

4721

2189

202

Requirements for online participation: On-line contribution 202 Postings 8 Postings for the semester, weekly reading of the online postings; No time requirement, but professor followed up regularly, especially students who were not participating enough; Large discrepancies between hits, read, and actual postings. Four students did not meet required postings.

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APPENDIX B Figure 1. Hybrid model template for assessment of technology enculturation in teacher-student learning Category

Indicators

Formative Assessment

Knowledge Transfer

Evaluation

Finding Example

Expression of prior learning, understanding of uses for technology in education

Stated previous use and/or learning of technology

When asked online by the instructor about their impressions for a curricula proposed in the text teacher-students responded with specific reference to the pieces they liked and disliked as they related to their teaching demographics e.g., “As a middle school teacher I have a hard time agreeing this strategy would be effective for a young teenage mind”

Comments situated in current classroom teaching praxis

Presents details of classroom teaching/learning prior to course experience

“Since my teaching career started 3 years ago I have been offered little training regarding using new technologies.”

Expression of new understanding for use of technology in teaching

Comments suggesting meaning being made from course materials

“I enjoyed the first chapter of the textbook. The ideas were great ones but I was a bit curious as to how we can implement these ideas.”

Comments suggesting meaning being made from peer-to peer online

“I’m not all together sure whether to accept (so & so’s) approach to student problem solving …It seems very laissez-faire and doesn’t give much guidance to the student. I was curious…

Comments suggesting meaning being made from instructor to teacher-student online

I went online to find more information about (so & so) and found some (so & so) Unit plans that could probably be applied to any subject. (gives url reference) By seeing it in context it gave me a better understanding of the process of (so & so)…”

Comments suggesting meaning being made from course materials

“I went on the TEA website to see how their long range plan was going, and I was impressed to see that they have been modifying it as needed. I think part of being successful with technology is being flexible.”

Comments suggesting meaning being made from peer-to peer online

“Regarding the statement “purposes and plans are those of the learners” I think we can take this to mean that we need to consider what the learner needs to take away from the lesson, rather than just putting a lesson out there. If one reads Kilpatrick’s words another way, they can be taken to mean that educators must take into consideration the needs and interests of the learners and adapt the lessons accordingly. Does anyone else agree (or disagree) with (so & so) philosophies?”

Comments suggesting meaning being made from instructor to teacher-student online

When instructor asked about, ‘ the impact of Computers in the efforts toward Social Equity?’….teacher student responded with a question that challenged the premise of the instructor’s question-“Do you think it is true that technology has had an effect on “civic agenda”, “addressing equality” and creating desire for more education?”

Offers new perception of technology and uses for classroom pedagogy

I do agree with his statement, “we learn what we live.” Rather than endorsing a laissex-faire attitude for the educator I think it puts more of an onus on the educator to connect the learning to the students’ lives. In essence, this is what we have been discussing, to create context for students to help them apply what they are learning.”

Offers different view of technological mechanisms and uses for student learning

One student who was traveling and missed the in-class session contributes on line – “In the spirit of best educational practices, the aesthetic concept is doomed if educational technology is infused with an “on task”, asynchronous point of view. Allowing for innovation, collaboration and creative thinking will lead to new and exciting uses of educational technologies. If that happens, then many new examples of best educational practices will begin to emerge.”

Expression of new understanding for use of technology for student learning

Summative Assessment

Critical thinking

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 2, edited by E. M. W. Ng; N. Karacapilidis; M. S. Raisinghani, pp. 61-79, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global). 1391

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Chapter 6.6

Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign:

The Transformation Toward E-Learning David Kendrick University of Northern Colorado, USA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As Web-based technologies march forward, improved access to higher education by traditional and non-traditional student, alike, is a certainty, but such technologies as a mechanism for lowering costs are still subject for further exploration. Course redesign from traditional to electronic delivery serves not only to grant access or improve achievement for the student, but can offer a cost savings for the institution. Educational leaders in higher education may consider the Web-based redesign alternative as not only a learning instrument, but a means to cut instructional costs. An explanation and application of a cost-measuring instrument, as well as reviews

of literature and Web-based instructional models or strategies, is at the heart of this examination of course redesign. Educational content has become a commodity. Improved networks provide rapid and flexible dissemination of course content, opening up numerous options for organizing programs. Rather than designing content delivery around the schedule and resources of the provider, the institution, it can be customized around the needs of the recipient (Lovett, 1996). Courses, programs, and even degrees, can be organized around a combination of flexible course modules to accommodate particular student/client needs. Technology-mediated instruction, taken to its anywhere-anytime extreme, makes traditional academic calendars and curricular structures irrelevant or even a barrier to effective education.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-870-3.ch005

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign

THE ISLAND UNIVERSITY AND THE COST OF LEAVING THE ISLAND Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC), located on the Coastal Bend of the Texas coast, is a doctoral-granting institution with a strong emphasis in education, nursing, and coastal studies. It has a tradition of serving primarily as a regional institution for the citizenry of South Texas; however, as the fastest growing public institution in the state, it has attracted interest nationally and internationally. How does a once regional-serving institution expand cost-effectively and technologically without compromising the integrity of the classroom environment? There are a number of considerations for the design and development of the online classroom. First is the issue of economics. Unless there is a minimum, sustainable number of students at a distance to benefit from the virtual classroom implementation, the university administration will view the initiative as an inefficient waste of resources. There must be institutional policies and procedures in place. There should be a realistic long-range plan considering equipment, skilled personnel, resources, and instructional impact (Hsu, 1999). Furthermore, as part of the planning and development strategy, there should be emphasis on cultivating an atmosphere of connectivity between sites and participants (Schrum, 1996). Course development, whether for traditional classroom environments or high-tech settings, has been viewed as a significant drain on education funds. For web-based strategies, the cheaper and easier route has been to purchase pre-developed courses, much like a textbook or telecourse, and adapt the materials for campus use. The Florida Community College Distance Learning Consortium has successfully consolidated the licensing of instructional content since its creation in 1996 (FCCDLC, 2004). The Consortium has saved approximately 50 per cent over the individual institution costs by combining purchases and leveraging resources to make upfront buyouts of

high-use course content. Where the course content changes rapidly, such as the case of information technology training, the Consortium has achieved favorable results in state-level master agreements for IT courseware by working with collaborating institutions, pooling their resources towards larger, otherwise unaffordable, purchases (Opper, 2002). Participating institutions benefit by large volume discount pricing. There is a key distinction between licensing and development activities: Licensing curricular content for use becomes an ongoing expense while development is a one time, up front cost. The reality is that any course, whether developed from scratch or licensed and adapted, requires revision within a year or two of its introduction; therefore, in the long run, development can cost more up front and, yet, still obligate the institution to later maintenance costs. The critical factors to consider are the stability and durability (the test of time) of the content and the number of students served (Opper, 2002). While shared resources bring about greater choice and supply of curricula, effective instructional technology collaboration at the higher education levels may not necessarily translate to success in cost-effectiveness terms in K-12 school systems. One study that investigated the implications of distance education for cost-effectiveness and equity in the allocation and use of educational resources involved participants from nine New York school districts utilizing interactive television as their distance education modality. The results revealed that distance education did, indeed, allow small and rural schools to expand their curricula; however, interactive television distance education courses cost substantially more to offer than traditional on-site courses (Brent, 1999). Districts varied considerably in their utilization of the network and participating students did not benefit equally. In question is the reliance on interactive television, as opposed to web-based learning, as the choice of distance learning modality. Some forms of distance education can result in lower unit costs than those of classroom-based instruc-

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tion. There is, however, little evidence about the relative costs of information-technology-based distance education (Rumble, 1999). The costs and benefits of distance education must be weighed. The costs of providing distance education must be analyzed and stakeholders identified. Solutions may be pursued that include focusing on niche programs for which a market exists, understanding the competition, being wary of public education administrators who offer distance education programs for mainly financial gain, and tracking the real costs of technical program support and infrastructure (Willis, 2003). The Library Education Experimental Program (LEEP) at the University of Illinois, ChampaignUrbana, defies traditional efforts to perform economic analysis as it was never intended to operate as a profit center. Research into its creation suggests a need to rethink the cost-benefit model as applied to distance learning. Although the program does not reveal a dramatic profit, it has resulted in a number of non-monetary benefits that may be difficult to quantify but are of great value to the university and its students (Lorenzetti, 2002). Choosing an accurate yardstick by which to measure the value of distance learning is no easy task. Institutions engaged in the investment process in distance education are hard pressed to understand the costs and benefits of distance courses. Among the cost factors involved in such courses are capital and recurrent costs, production and delivery costs, and fixed and variable costs. The benefits of distance education relate to student/ instructor satisfaction, learning outcomes, and return on investment. The more effective systems excel in access, flexibility, ease of use, and the potential to reach new markets (Bartolic-Zlomislic & Bates, 2002). One study attempted to identify criteria on which to assess technology’s cost-effectiveness. The participants were involved in an Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) initiative in Ohio titled the Telecommunity Project. Results indicated

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that the value of IDL cannot be measured in the traditional way and that perception of the value of educational technology is heavily influenced by the focus and mission of the institution (Hawkes, 2000).

NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE Technology utilization is born out of necessity and in the state of Texas where population centers are spread across wide expanses of rural territory, this is particularly true. The TAMU-CC College of Education has developed a strong program in higher education administration, among other areas, and has sought to develop a cost-effective, as well as an instructionally effective, means of delivering courses to new audiences. This case study takes the first step in examining such feasibility. Again, it seeks to do so without compromising the learning process; that is, there can be no significant difference, regardless of cost, regardless of technologies, in the learning outcomes, in student achievement. Throughout the past decade, e-learning or distance education has established itself as a viable means of instructional delivery with achievement levels rivaling and, in some cases or disciplines, surpassing traditional course delivery in terms of student achievement. The majority of evidence has revealed no significant differences in learning outcomes and perceptions, attitudes, or satisfaction with online modes of delivery. A number of courses of varying disciplines have been subjected to comparative studies involving a traditional or lecture course and a form (usually web-based) of e-learning course. The “No Significant Difference Phenomenon” transcends any boundaries of discipline; that is, the course of study or the nature of the course, in most cases, is not necessarily the determining factor of success in the online environment (Carey, 2001). In order to control college prices and, simultaneously, avoid compromising the educational

Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign

outcomes and quality, there has been a fair degree of redesigning the higher education system at the state levels. Changes vary from a comprehensive review aimed at eliminating program redundancy to the increased usage of instructional technology – an effort popular among politicians and their constituents, but received with some degree of caution by the traditional higher education community (Blumenstyk, 1995). It is not unusual that instructional technologies to provide higher education to greater and, more importantly, more diverse student populations would be welcomed by government leaders; but to do so at a lower cost, coupled with the fact that there will exist no significant difference in the users’ achievement level, makes it that much more attractive. Such programs are perceived to offer less expensive means to provide educational services and to alleviate the pressures of increased enrollment, as well (Institute for Higher Education Policy, 1994).

A CASE STUDY FOR A NEW MODEL Within university systems, collaboration of online resources and delivery has taken hold for either the sake of learning effectiveness or perceived cost efficiency. At Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, courses and programs once considered confined to traditional instructional delivery have been remodeled for the e-learning environment. For example, in a radically different approach in teaching/learning strategy, the College of Nursing has developed and implemented an innovative e-learning system of modules, eLine, to further its reach and effectiveness within the community, in collaboration with the Del Mar College, and across the state. Furthermore, the College of Education, expanding its reach in a growing doctoral program in Educational Administration and Research, has redesigned what were once traditionally-delivered courses for asynchronous online delivery.

A pilot study, ex-post-facto in design, was conducted to compute and compare the cost associated with the on-line and traditional delivery of selected doctoral courses in the College of Education at TAMU-CC. The following research questions guided the study: 1.

2.

What are costs associated with delivery of on-line and traditional doctoral courses at TAMU-CC? Is there a difference in instructional costs between traditional delivery and delivery of redesigned virtual courses?

This study examined two doctoral courses in the College of Education: EDLD 6331 Educational Innovations and EDLD 6306 Higher Education in a Democratic Society. Each section of traditional and e-learning courses was a product of the same instructor teaching the same course as to control for course type and delivery effects. Due to non-probability nature of the sample, no generalizations to other populations or disciplines were made. However, the successful implementation of this study within the College of Education can be replicated outside of the college for the examination of more radical transformations in course redesign as is taking place with the “eLine” modular course program within the TAMU-CC (e.g., College of Nursing). Being a pilot study and a pilot design for the outreach to new clients, the study was welcomed by the administration of the department and college. The department has in the past served outlying clients by bringing them to the instruction. The new model is to export the instruction to the clients. Of course, web-based instruction is not new, unusual, or unique; however, institutions of higher education infrequently or never directly measure instructional costs, breaking them down in accordance with the procedure and instrument provided by the National Center for Academic Transformation. The Course Planning Tool, the instrument designed by the National Center for Academic Transformation at the Rensselaer Polytechnic

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Institute for the PEW Program in Course Redesign was used to measure cost differences. Permission to use the instrument has been granted and encouraged from Carol Twigg, Ph.D., Executive Director, the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT). The instrument had been pilot-tested with one redesigned course in the College of Nursing at TAMU-CC. The results of the pilot study indicate, on the surface, what initially appears to be a cost increase, rather than a savings. The redesign for EDLD 6306 Higher Education in a Democratic Society revealed an 85.9 per cent increase in instructional costs while EDLD 6315 Multicultural Analysis resulted in an even greater increase in instructional costs at a 187.0 per cent increase over traditional delivery. Why would the redesign of these two courses seemingly result in an increase in instructional costs? It is a matter of scale. Doctoral courses, such as these, fill less than twenty seats – physically and virtually; whereas, those programs examined by the NCAT address undergraduate courses, often multi-sectional, catering to hundreds of students. Does this mean that doctoral courses are not cost effective for redesign? To the contrary, not included in the equation is the matter of state formula funding, raising the value of the doctoral student up to ten fold that of the undergraduate; therefore, a redesign bringing access to potential doctoral students otherwise previously denied becomes profitable and necessary. It should be noted that the study concerns itself with measurable instructional costs and does not address what is often perceived as “values” (student/instructor satisfaction or learning outcomes, for example): nor does it address overall departmental or institutional return on investment. Course redesign is at the heart of the efforts of The Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (CATa, 2005) which has sought new strategies for cost effective delivery – some through e-learning and some not, but all intentionally diverging from tradi-

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tional teaching and learning structures - at over thirty institutions. Under the aegis of the PEW Foundation, the Center has examined new ways that a limited number of disciplines in higher education can take advantage of the capabilities of information technology to transform their academic practices. If universities could redesign their instructional approaches using technology to achieve cost savings, could they experience quality enhancements to learning, as well? After all, a redesign resulting in cost savings with diminishing academic achievement or poor retention would be of little value. Redesign projects focused on large-enrollment, mainly introductory courses, in an effort to impact the greatest student numbers and generate significant cost savings (CATb, 2005). This case study at TAMU-CC is a minor example of the transformations taking place at dozens of institutions across the country, the difference being that this particular case study focuses on doctoral courses and the NCAT study examines undergraduate courses significantly larger in scope.

CHALLENGES BEYOND THE CASE STUDY: LOOkING BACk, THINkING FORWARD Historically, distance education initiatives have targeted the nontraditional student. The implementation of two-way, inter-active television networks has brought courses and entire programs to the un-served or underserved. Constantly improving web-based technologies expand the effort further. The aim is no longer toward the nontraditional learner, exclusively. The technology has allowed instructional and course designers to expand the scope of distance education to include more traditional learners. Indeed, as the technology has improved, there has been tremendous growth in distance education capabilities. Looking back, in 1987, only ten states offered a distance learning program. Only five years later, every state had a

Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign

program in place (IHEP, 1994). The original hope has been that technology could address a number of higher education challenges, including the rising costs of education. Support continues as 95 per cent of educational leaders believed that their legislatures would support future educational technology endeavors (Ruppert, 1996). In times of tight budgets, technology may be one of the few educational investments that states are willing to support (Blumenstyk, 1994). The governors of the western states were the first to agree to the creation and acceptance of virtual universities to deliver courses through computer networks, television, and other technologies, and award its own degrees. Unlike traditional universities that offer credentials, the virtual university may simply award credentials on the basis of an assessment of mastery of subjects (Blumenstyk, 1995). The western states are experiencing unprecedented growth, particularly in school-age populations, where funding for new campuses may be unavailable. Alternative delivery systems have enormous appeal to legislators who perceive higher education as labor intensive. Utah, for example, projecting a doubling of growth from the mid-nineties so 2010, is depending on distance education to accommodate the expansion. Its commissioner of higher education committed to the replication of nine existing campuses, but, just the same, pledged to keep building of brickand-mortar campuses to a minimum (Blumenstyk, 1994). Some state and educational leaders have been unpleasantly surprised by the initial costs of implementing technology-based solutions that were originally aimed at addressing financiallybased instructional problems. They questioned whether technology-based instruction actually reduced costs. Virtual campuses appeared to be less expensive than physical buildings. There were, however, significant start-up costs - millions of dollars for microwave transmission systems, fiber networks at $10,000 per mile, and the installation and accommodation of an otherwise “unwired”

classroom can run $40,000 (Institute for Higher Education Policy, 1994). A more cost-effective solution over telecourse (interactive television) is becoming obvious: web-based technologies utilizing broadband Internet connectivity. This modality has its expense, as well. There is the cost of virtual student services, library databases, and the royalties for copyrighted online teaching materials (IHEP, 1994). Improved access to higher education by traditional and non-traditional student, alike, is a certainty, but distance learning technologies as a mechanism for lowering costs are still subject for further exploration. Programs, course offerings, and delivery methods have evolved over the years, over the decades in the cases of some institutions; however, it will take a significant perceived advantage of a new delivery system to convince a large number of institutions to adopt it. The question remains: Will institutions embrace online education as a permanent system of instructional delivery? The evidence would answer in the affirmative as eighty-one per cent of all institutions of higher education offer at least one fully online or blended course. Complete online degree programs are offered by 34 percent of the institutions (The Sloan Consortium, 2004). The statistics are more compelling at public campuses with 97 per cent offering at least one online or blended course and 49 per cent offering a complete online degree program. When asked about the role of distance learning for the future of their institution, 67 per cent answered that they see it as critical long-term strategy (2004). Evidence does not suggest that this trend will reverse any time soon.

REFERENCES Bartolic-Zlomislic, & Bates. (2002). The costs and benefits of investing in online learning. Distance Education Report, 6(9), 3.

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Blumenstyk, G. (1994). Networks to the rescue? The Chronicle of Higher Education, A21. Blumenstyk, G. (1995). Campuses in cyberspace. The Chronicle of Higher Education, A18. Brent, B. (1999). Distance education: Implications for equity and cost-effectiveness in the allocation and use of educational resources. Journal of Education Finance, 25(2), 229–254. Carey, J. (2001). Effective student outcomes: A comparison of online and face-to-face delivery modes. DEOSNEWS, 11(9). Retrieved from http://www.ed.psu.edu/ascde/deos/deosnews/ deosarchives.asp CATa. (2005). Center for Academic Transformation at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Retrieved in March 2005, from http://www. center.rpi.edu CATb. (2005). Center for Academic Transformation, Program in Course Redesign. Retrieved in March 2005, from http://www.center.rpi.edu/ PewGrant.html Hawkes, M. (2000). The cost factor: When is interactive distance technology justifiable? T.H.E. Journal, 28(1), 26–32. Hsu, S. (1999). How to design a virtual classroom: 10 easy steps to follow. T.H.E. Journal, 27(2), 96–98.

Lorenzetti, J. (2002). Toward an expanded costbenefit analysis for distance programs. Distance Education Report, 6(24), 1–6. Lovett, C. (1996). How to start restructuring our colleges. Planning for Higher Education, 19. Opper, J. (2002). Funding and cost containment of educational technology: Shifting policy and practices. Retrieved in September 2002, from http:// www.wcet.info/projects/tcm/whitepaper2.pdf Rumble, G. (1999). Cost analysis of distance learning. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 12(2), 122–137. Schrum, L. (1996, March). Teaching at a distance: Strategies for successful planning and development. Learning and Leading with Technology, 23(6), 30–33. The Florida Community College Distance Learning Consortium. (2004). Retrieved in October 2004, from http://www.distancelearn.org/mainPage.cfm The Sloan Consortium. (2004). Entering the mainstream: The quality and extent of online education in the United States, 2003 and 2004. Retrieved in November 2004, from http://www. sloan-c.org/resources/survey.asp Wills, B. (1993). Distance education: A practical guide. Educational Technology Publications.

Institute for Higher Education Policy. (1994). Assessing distance learning from a public policy perspective. Policy Steps, 3, 7–9.

This work was previously published in Cases on Distance Delivery and Learning Outcomes: Emerging Trends and Programs, and D. Gearhart, pp. 72-78, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Section VII

Critical Issues

This section addresses conceptual and theoretical issues related to the field of Web-based education, which include issues related to instruction, collaboration, and academic integrity. Within these chapters, the reader is presented with analysis of the most current and relevant conceptual inquires within this growing field of study. Particular chapters address the impact of a student code on distance learning classrooms, the use of blogs in Web-based educational projects, the role of orientation materials in online courses, and various methods to promote collaborative effort among students. Overall, contributions within this section ask unique, often theoretical questions related to the study of Web-based learning technologies and, more often than not, conclude that solutions are both numerous and contradictory.

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Chapter 7.1

Adult Learners, E-Learning, and Success:

Critical Issues and Challenges in an Adult Hybrid Distance Learning Program Jeffrey Hsu Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA Karin Hamilton Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA

ABSTRACT Adult learners have a set of specific and unique needs, and are different from traditional college students. Possessing greater maturity, interest in learning, and also career and life-oriented objectives, they have different expectations for their education, as well as different backgrounds and goals. This chapter examines what adult learners are, theories of adult learning, and the applicability of online learning to adult learners. Specific teaching methods and techniques are discussed for online and hybrid distance learning courses, as well as hybrid arrangements; encompassing teaching methods, types of exercises and activities, intensive course structures, block scheduling, and the use of modular DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-788-1.ch007

course segments. Examples from an adult learner hybrid distance learning undergraduate program, Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Global Business Management, are also provided. Future trends and areas for further research conclude the chapter.

INTRODUCTION While the focus of undergraduate post-secondary education has for many years targeted students who have completed high school, are in their late teens and early 20’s, and are obtaining a degree for their future career, adult students have gained influence and prominence in terms of their rapidly increasing numbers, and in terms of their characteristics and influence on the educational market. This emerging group of students is becoming a force, and in the

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Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

not too distant future, likely a majority, of students who enroll in educational programs. These adult students, who for various reasons did not obtain a college degree earlier in their careers and lives, are now becoming an important component of undergraduate student enrollment and recruitment and are receiving increased attention by educational institutions. Adult learners, categorized as non-traditional students, are fundamentally different from traditional undergraduates. Their backgrounds, needs, orientation, and objectives are unique and can affect the entire realm of teaching, scheduling, student services, and use of technology in education. The objective of this chapter is to examine the various issues, considerations, pedagogical techniques, and challenges which exist when educating adult students. Focus and attention is directed to online and e-learning, especially teaching in a hybrid distance learning environment. Insights and experiences obtained from theory, research, and practice are offered together with actual examples from a program designed to meet the unique learning needs of adults, the Global Business Management (GBM) program offered by the Silberman College of Business (SCB) at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). The goal is to provide a comprehensive look at the complex set of issues and considerations which are associated with adult learner students in relation to undergraduate college studies in a hybrid distance learning setting.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ADULT LEARNERS Adult learners comprise a significant portion of a category known as “non-traditional” undergraduate students, which now includes nearly half of all college students in the U.S (Horn, 1996). Some of the core characteristics of non-traditional students are that they delayed enrollment (did not

enter college after high school; or started and did not finish), are likely to attend school part time, have full-time jobs and careers, and are likely to be married with dependents (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). Other related, but proportionately smaller populations may also be included in the non-traditional student category; such as older adults returning to the workforce (and college) as well as those who may have retired from a position and are seeking new careers in different areas. In contrast to the stereotypical undergraduate student who enrolls in college as the next logical step after high school, 73% of adult non-traditional students attend college for the purposes of career advancement, to improve their knowledge in a subject area, and/or to complete a degree to add to their credentials (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). These aspects help to categorize adult learners as a specialized population, together with their educational need for current, relevant and technically oriented content, and their goals of career development and mastery of practical (and accompanying conceptual/theoretical) skills. Many adult students are or were previously employed full-time and therefore understand that higher education is not only desirable, but necessary in today’s highly competitive global economy. In fact, many jobs which will be available in the future will require higher-level cognitive skills that only a portion of current workers possess (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999). Because the global economy has placed new demands on both workers and the workplace, the goals of adult students can differ significantly from those of 18 to 21 year old students. Adult students frequently bring to the classroom a number of positive qualities including enthusiasm and a genuine desire to learn, selfdirectedness, a desire to have an immediate application of learned material, a strong practical emphasis, and the ability to gain experiences related to new learning. Adult students tend to be more active in class participation, are eager

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and more engaged to learn for the enrichment of their careers and lives in general, and can better make use of real-life application when approaching their academic studies (Merriam, 2001; Knowles, 1984). Much of this is related to their previous work experience, and also to their goals of personal and professional advancement. Adult students tend to exhibit higher levels of practical emphasis, self-directedness, and to have stronger critical thinking skills. Of particular significance, adult learners were found to operate more on the level of dialectic and contextual relativism, rather than the lower level skills of multiplicity and dualism (Espana, 2004). They possess the ability to engage in and prefer course activities which emphasize problem solving, decision making, collaboration, practical application, and active learning. (Merriam, 2001; Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 1998). It is also likely that adult students have incomplete, interrupted, and/or negative educational histories, which may have contributed to their decision to leave school earlier in life. Some may possess a less than adequate educational background, and associated learning and study skills may also be lacking (Merriam, 2001). Another challenge faced by adult learners is the tendency to be constrained by time and scheduling limitations. Daytime class attendance is usually not feasible and the amount of time which can be devoted to attending class and completing coursework must be carefully budgeted.

ADULT LEARNING THEORIES AND THE NEEDS OF ADULT LEARNERS The body of theoretical knowledge relative to adult learning provides insights and perspectives that help distinguish their needs from those of traditional undergraduate students. By aligning certain expectations, goals and objectives of adult learners (provided in italics below) with theories that support these distinctions, a clearer

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picture of the educational needs of adult learners can emerge. Adults are practical and focus on aspects of a lesson most useful to them in their work. Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge that may include work-related activities, family responsibilities, and previous education. They need to connect learning to this knowledge/experience base. Adults need to understand clearly the purpose and rationale of learning something, tend to take much greater responsibility for their own lives, have an enthusiasm and eagerness to learn, and are life-centered rather than problem- or task-centered (Knowles, 1980; Frey & Alma, 2003). The importance of a topic for managing certain kinds of life situations and career scenarios should be emphasized, as adults do not always value learning without practical application and a meaningful rationale. Students should be encouraged to bring out their knowledge in the form of experiences and examples to share with the class, whether in the classroom or in some online medium (discussion board, group discussions, etc.) (Frey & Alma, 2003). Adults view learning as a means to an end, not an end in itself.Cercone (2008) and Lowry (1989) advanced the concept that adults are able to initiate and study/learn a subject without requiring or seeking extensive help from others. This quality of being self-directed; that is more independent, persistent, self-confident and attentive to organization, contrasts with the dependency typically observed in younger, traditional undergraduates. Adult learners tend to be less interested in survey courses. They tend to prefer single concept, single-theory courses that focus heavily on the application of the concept to relevant problems. Andragogy, or the concepts and principles concerned with teaching and educating adults (Knowles, 1980), determined that adults want to relate what they have learned to their work and careers. Moreover, aspects of adult learning can be broken down into certain components, including the need to build a reservoir of knowledge,

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

orientation towards developing social roles, moving toward self-direction, and also emphases on immediate application and problem-centeredness (Knowles, 1977). Adults need to be able to integrate new ideas with what they already know if they are going to keep - and use - the new information. Information that conflicts sharply with what is already held to be true, and thus forces a re-evaluation of the old material, is integrated more slowly. Transformative learning theory can be useful in understanding what might be a point of epiphany or of frustration for instructors teaching adult students. According to the theory, students can be transformed by the learning process, so that after learning, they may approach a task, subject, or skill, from a different perspective than previously. When transformative learning occurs, the person “sees the world differently,” and can better understand things having new perspective and insight. Closely related is the concept of critical reflection, in that reflection can help to bring about new perspectives in the learner (Cercone, 2008; Frey & Alman, 2003; Mezirow, 1997). The theory of perspective transformation (Mezirow, 1990), focuses on change in the learner which comes about through the process of critical reflection and a changing of viewpoints and perspectives from which one views aspects of the world. An example of this might be a student’s view on technology, which could start by being resistant and negative, but after further discovery of computing power and capability, can change to a new sense of appreciation. Adults tend to have a problem-centered orientation to learning and generally want to immediately apply new information or skills to current problems or situations. The principle of experiential learning (Kolb, 1984) can address this educational preference by emphasizing experience, reflection, conceptualization, followed by action generating a dynamic cycle progressing from one stage to the next. There are a number of different exercises and activities which can come under this classification, and while relevant

to adult learners, some believe it should not be the primary focus of adult learning but only one component of it (Brookfield, 1995). Because adults are goal-directed, they appreciate a learning experience that is clearly defined, well organized, and with goals and objectives centered on their interests, careers, and expectancies. Adults require clear statements of expectations, an understanding of how their work will be graded and evaluated, and prompt and regular feedback (Frey & Alman, 2003). An important application of Knowles’s theory is that feedback, flexibility, and control are most appreciated. This includes receiving timely evaluations and being able to understand the value in, and level of, what they are learning, together with flexible schedules and formats. Although it is understood that some courses have topics which are recommended and required for all, it would be best to offer some flexibility (type of application, case to review, project options, etc.) avoiding a “one size fits all” arrangement (Frey & Alman, 2003). Removing obstacles to learning helps increase persistence and motivation for adults. The fact that learning is only one aspect of adult lives, and is intertwined with work and family responsibilities should be recognized (Knowles, 1977). McClusky (1963) offers a useful perspective on balancing work/school demands called the theory of margin. What is known as a student’s margin for learning is a function of both load and power (M=L/P). In other words, learning is affected by a student’s life roles and demands, together with one’s power (or resources/abilities). Learning can occur when the right balance of external life demands can be met by the existing power or resource level. Several concepts address the need to remove obstacles and provide time economies and balance. The ability to chunk and group information into modules and learning units is invaluable, since it helps to structure the material, and also provides students with logical starting and stopping points in completing their work. When courses within a sequence or a program are organized with well-

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structured and consistent formats, then adults would be able to better appreciate the relationships between subjects, or between different approaches. (Frey & Alma, 2003; Stilborne & Williams, 1996). Administrative areas that complement the learning experience can also impact the ability of adult learners to balance their work/life/ educational demands. Many adult students, given that they attend class on evenings, and especially weekends, may receive less support than daytime and weekday evening students. This includes support for technical issues and problems, additional help and tutoring for certain subjects, support for cohorts and groups, and also administrative needs (advising, registration, etc.) (Frey & Alman, 2003). While not technically in the realm of the classroom, educators need to be aware that adult learning can be negatively impacted out of the frustrations borne from poorly conceived scheduling and/or inaccessible services. In reviewing the diverse theories on adult learning, the main focus should be on the fact that adult learning requirements differ fundamentally from those of younger students. To be effective, a holistic approach targeted towards adults’ specific needs to be implemented when designing courses and programs.

E-LEARNING AND ADULT LEARNING The use of technology in the teaching and learning process is becoming increasingly commonplace, especially in business, sciences, and related fields. Development has been rapid, with considerable choice and variability in terms of online education, ranging from fully online courses, degrees, and programs, to those which use a hybrid (classroom/ online) approach, and those which use course management systems and portals primarily to support courses which meet regularly in a classroom (Ahn, Han & Han, 2005). While there has been a great deal written and discussed about the applicability of online and 1404

distance learning to the various kinds of students, programs, and course content, the objective in this section is to examine research which can shed light into the methods that would work best for adult learners (Martyn & Bash, 2002). Distance learning (which is related to online and e-learning) can be defined as students using computing and communications technologies, interactivity, and also asynchronous communications to learn remotely, without the need for face-to-face class sessions (Beck et al, 2004; Wahlstrom, Williams, & Shea, 2003). The relevance of online and distance learning to adults is directly related to the nature of adult students, who can take advantage of the benefits of both flexibility and asynchronous communications. Although adults are more time constrained, they tend to demonstrate higher levels of motivation and persistence towards completing their courses and programs. From this perspective, it appears that distance learning provides an ideal option, since it allows for “anytime, anywhere” communications, the ability to log in at all hours and at one’s own convenience, and is appropriate for students who exhibit a higher level of selfdirection, focus, and initiative (Chaffee, 1998). Unlike traditional classroom structures where classes are conducted in real-time using lectures, discussions, and activities, distance learning is conducted without the instructor and students necessarily being online at the same time. While some real-time activities can be supported through virtual chat rooms, white boards, and other facilities, the most common usage is for students and instructors to communicate through threaded discussions, message boards, e-mail, and some kind of online Internet-based portal or course management system (CMS). These can be educational tools such as Blackboard or WebCT, through a customized website, or some other kind of communications system (Martyn & Bash, 2002). Hybrid distance learning, which includes both classroom sessions and online communications in the course, provides another option. Classroom sessions are scheduled intermittently, and coordi-

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

nated so that the online interaction forms a type of “virtual classroom” extension where significant interaction can occur. When implemented properly, the ability for closer, personal interaction in class can be enhanced, and also extended outside of the classroom (Martyn & Bash, 2002). An example of this can be found in the Global Business Management (GBM) program offered at the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). The courses in this program, which are designed for adult undergraduate business students, were structured to combine both face-to-face classes (Friday evenings and weekends) and extensive support using a course management system (Blackboard). This design feature encourages primary interaction to occur in the classroom and then extends interaction outside the classroom online to establish rapport between the instructor and the students, and also among the students. The use of online learning therefore ensures that communication and collaboration continues throughout the duration of the course, fostering development of a learning community. (Hamilton, 2002) Online learning meets several needs of adult learners previously identified, including selfdirected learning, flexibility and motivation. Generally more independent, adults seek an online environment which supports their desire for a more “take-charge” approach that allows self-resolution of problems. This is in contrast to more dependent learners who rely heavily on their instructor to focus and direct their learning. In connection with self-direction is the need for flexibility, an integral component of online learning, and one of its desired benefits. Adults who have work and family obligations can adapt well to the asynchronous nature of online interaction. Greater interest and desire for online interaction is related both to the greater work hours and a student’s distance from campus (Perez Cerijo, 2006). Online learning has drawbacks in that it has been found to have a high attrition level, some-

times as high as 70% or more (Flood, 2002; Tyler-Smith, 2006). The causes of these problems are often linked to a lack of internal motivation, especially if online course components and lessons are not properly designed (such as lessons using only typed lecture notes and/or pages of mainly theoretical and conceptual material). The concepts of andragogy would not be met, and there would be low completion and satisfaction rates. However, these can be better met through improving usability, self-direction, authentic activities, collaboration, and critical reflection.

E-LEARNING TECHNIqUES THAT ADDRESS ADULT LEARNING NEEDS To address the inherent challenge of high e-learning attrition, it is useful to review technical considerations as well as those issues and methodologies which address applicability to and needs of adult learner students using online and distance learning. Improvements in the online experience could first be realized through objectively assessing and enhancing technical aspects of course delivery. While this may seem to be a minor issue, the structure of the online course could have a major impact on the effectiveness of the online segment of the course. Proper course design assessment should include a review of the overall usability and design of screens (user interface design), as the effects of poor usability can affect learning, satisfaction, and the desire for students to take further courses in their program or in an online modality. Taking into account technological limitations can also help, such as avoiding the display of too much text on a single screen or graphics which take too much time to load up on a page. Instructors who are employing an online course module or segment may need to consult with an instruction designer or do some usability testing/review before employing new online course materials. While the effective use of graphics, charts and tables can aid learning, the improper or overuse

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of these can produce information overload (Hiltz & Turoff, 1985) and actually reduce learning because there is too much information, often improperly structured, for a student to absorb. Effective and clear navigation, proper consideration of accessibility, and the use of multimedia can help to maintain interest and increase learning, especially when human memory aspects are taken into account. The cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Clark and Mayer, 2003) describes how learning can be enhanced or diminished using multimedia elements. Since humans have two information processing channels, visual and auditory, it is important that the material presented complements rather than competes with each channel. When there is too much text on a screen, or when audio and text are presented simultaneously, but do not support each other, learning declines. Similarly, students can be distracted from learning when the use of unrelated music, sound effects, or secondary material is presented with the main material. Another technical issue frequently faced by online instructors is that there is need when instructing adult learners to emphasize critical tasks over those which are more routine and easily presented online. The most critical tasks, however, are typically the most difficult to model or represent online. It is easy, for example, to put text up on a screen, but far more challenging to create multimedia presentations which explain complex tasks (Powers, 2005). So, it may be useful to decide which aspects of a course would best be presented in class and which would be designed for online delivery. Reviews by faculty and students prior to deployment would also be helpful to provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. One means of providing those learning a new method, technique, or skill, is to offer, aside from exercises, worked-out examples and demonstrations which can help a student to better understand the specific steps in that kind of problem solving.

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This focus on strategies and skills can be helpful to improve a student’s confidence in attempting to solve a problem on his or her own (Powers, 2005).

Self Direction and Adult Online Learning The need for self-direction in their studies is of paramount importance to adult students, given their limited campus and classroom time and also because most of their time is spent off campus. The definition of self-direction can be described as being “active participants in their own learning process” (Zimmerman, 2001). In other words, these students take initiative and actually work toward formulating their own learning goals, select materials for learning, and also select strategies for solving a problem (Knowles, 1975). Feedback from students in a study of adult online learners appear to favor independent learning without extensive guidance and instructor presence. However, the need for an instructor to guide and coach students through the learning and also to provide meaningful examples for the concepts and topics presented appear to be important components to effective self-directed online course activities (Young, 2006). While there is definitely a need for adult students studying online to exhibit self-direction and work independently, feedback is also critical to the learning process (Knowles at al., 1998). Instructors should be mindful of the need to allow adult learners to pursue various aspects of their learning in a self-directed manner, however also remembering that feedback and guiding/ coaching is both needed and expected.

Authentic Activities As mentioned previously, adult learners do not seek strictly factual and conceptual learning, but rather, a combination of concepts, theory, and application which can help to enhance their lives and

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

careers. Therefore, it is suggested that authentic activities be assigned to adult learners especially with constructivist approaches in mind. Reeves, Herrington, and Oliver (2002) argue for the development of authentic classroom activities, which tend to move away from teachercentered “instructivist” approaches in favor of those which emphasize constructivist types of teaching and learning. The traditional concept is that instructional activities are designed with the purpose of providing a means for practice and that repeated and successful practice brings about mastery of a skill. In connection with this, learning happens when skills are taught and presented in a logical structure, order, or method. This more traditional, behaviorist approach, is geared towards specific performance as is required when using objective evaluation methods. This is contrasted to the constructivist approach, which is more in line with authentic activities. It is suggested that authentic activities are those kinds which are complex, constructive, and collaborative, used to solve more real-life, application-oriented, and “authentic” problems. Of particular relevance to this is the contribution of collaboration through groups, where the minds of several work together to solve a problem rather than providing an emphasis on individual learning (Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2002). There are a number of key aspects and characteristics of authentic learning, including the need to have real-world relevance, to tackle ill-defined and complex tasks, to provide students the means to de-compose a large problem into smaller steps, and to use various kinds of tools and resources in problem-solving. Collaboration, the integration of values and beliefs, and the need to integrate across different topic and subject areas, are also important aspects of authentic activities. Ideally, authentic activities should be effectively linked with assessment, have outcomes which can be applied more universally rather than for a specific domain, and be able to emphasize diversity and value (Reeves, Herrington, & Oliver, 2002). The

role of exercises and practice problems would be to help reinforce the concepts taught. In general, online sessions should include more, rather than less, practice problems and exercises than face-toface classes. It is better to integrate practice and exercises into a lesson, rather than make it something which follows afterwards. Proper practice should include directions, questions, feedback, and responses (Clark & Mayer, 2003). The use of online and e-learning technologies would help to supplement the development and implementation of authentic learning, in that the Internet and online portals can provide support for a number of the features inherent in authentic learning activities. These include support by providing a wealth and diversity of resources, such as multimedia tools (documents, graphics, video, links, etc.).

Collaboration Another important aspect is to allow students to work as a team, whether by group e-mail, discussion board, real-time chat interaction, or by providing workspaces where documents and other working deliverables and items can be shared. The ability to use hyperlinks and other non-linear navigation through a set of resources allows students to follow a thought or idea more effectively than the linear approach inherent in most printed and traditional resources. The ability to publish information using weblogs, or to have a group collaboratively edit, modify, and update information using wikis would be helpful. These could help to promote more critical reflection and thought, and also to perhaps bring in the thoughts, ideas, and critiques by both external experts as well as the course instructor. The fact that the Internet is easily accessible helps to enable time-challenged adults to contribute and participate at times more suitable to them, since most interaction is asynchronous, online, and does not require travel as in a FTF meeting. Collaborative learning is defined as “working in a group of two or more to achieve a common

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goal, while respecting each individual’s contribution to the whole (McInnerney & Robert, 2004). Higher levels of achievement, connections, and positive psychological factors arise from the collaborative approach, rather than from a competitive or individual approach. (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991; Smith, 1995). Benefits also include higher order thinking, socialization, and the ability to engage in critical thinking (Jegede, 2002; Schultz, 2003). Reduced anxiety, increased levels of student feedback, and greater levels of reflection have also been observed. Since collaborative group work is frequently assigned online, it would be useful to examine the work by An et al. (2008) who outlined the factors which contribute to and detract from effective group work. Factors contributing to effective group online collaboration include the need for individual accountability, whereby each member feels responsible for contributing to the team’s output, rather than “social loafing”, i.e. letting others do it. There should also be a sense of camaraderie within the group, promoting the ability to come to a consensus without diminishing the contributions of anyone, obtaining clear instructions about a project or assignment from the instructor, and also selecting a proactive team leader who can manage the group and produce positive results and outcomes (McInnerney & Robert, 2004). Negative factors include predominance of technical problems, unclear guidelines from the instructor, inability to come to a team consensus, difficulties in communicating through writing (which is the primary format for much of online communications), and lack of accountability on the part of individuals in the group (McInnerney & Robert, 2004). Discussion forums play a dominant role in online and distance learning as the primary means for dialog and communication. They generally offer threaded discussions so that the various topics, replies, and interactions evolve and are managed in an organized manner. In support of adult learn-

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ing, discussion forums encourage discourse, and ultimately learning among participants, and can help to build learning communities (Garrison, 2003). Discussion is certainly an effective learning format from the perspective of andragogy (Knowles, 1990), critical evaluation of ideas, and the creation of new ideas (Bloom, 1956). The advantages of using discussion forums can also facilitate learning new ideas by relating concepts to previous knowledge (Anderson & Garrison, 1995), and, in fact, many aspects of what makes face-to-face discussions effective can also be found in online discussions (Hiltz, 1990). The ability to collaborate and discuss also brings about results in learning which are claimed to be superior to those trying to learn a topic alone because of the social aspect (Vygotsky, 1978). Since adults bring a wealth of personal experience to a course, it can be suggested that discussions with a group of adult learners is an especially useful means of sharing knowledge and allowing all members to learn (Kramlinger & Huberty, 1990). Some of the problems inherent in discussion forums include the lack of visual clues and body languages which are easily noted in face-to-face meetings. In addition, students who are less outgoing may not participate actively in discussions because of timidity, lack of interest or knowledge on the subject, or inability to express oneself clearly in writing (Nonnecke & Preece, 2001). Allowing for anonymous participation, and assigning credit or grades for participation has been found to have a positive impact on participation rates.

PROGRAM AND STRUCTURAL APPROACHES TO ADULT LEARNER EDUCATION One of the first areas of improvement made by schools seeking to address adult learner needs focused on removing administrative obstacles often confronted by adult students. Many programs began to offer evening and weekend hours

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

for classes, advisement, bursar, and various other service functions; direct assistance with financial aid; online registration; and even babysitting. Improvements in program and course structure to help adult learners better manage the learning process and their educational programs might be considered as a next step. The techniques discussed below involve the use of intensive courses, block course scheduling, and the presentation of course material using modules. The underlying reasons why these methods can and would be helpful to adult students are explained relevant to theories and previous research. Most traditional courses operate using the semester or quarter system, in which class sessions are held in a similar schedule throughout the course duration. While this is likely to be the most common format, and works for many types of students and classes, adults typically have limited time to devote to class and academic work, and are generally more available to attend class on evenings and weekends. This frequently increases the length of time needed for them to complete an undergraduate degree to sometimes twice as long. One solution is to use what is known as the intensive or compressed course format. Simply put, this is the structure where courses meet for longer periods of time each meeting, from a few hours to the length of an entire business day so that the entire a course is completed in a shorter timeframe, such as 4 to 8 weeks. Compressed formats allow for more prompt completion, while at the same time increasing the level of course intensity. Since the material in a 16 week course is taught and completed within the span of a few weeks, there are greater demands placed on both the instructor and the students during the limited time the course is running (Daniel, 2000; Scott & Conrad, 1991). The concept of intensive courses is not new to education as it is used both for summer session courses as well as for certain graduate programs where the goal is to appeal to students who can only attend classes outside of daytime hours .

There have been discussions about the pedagogical soundness of intensive courses. Students tend to prefer this format, since it allows for more prompt course and degree completion, and offers convenience for some, as it is easier to attend several weekend day-long classes, than to attend for two or three hours over a span of sixteen weeks. Some faculty and educators, however, tend to regard this approach as nothing more than an attempt to satisfy students’ desires for faster completion and greater convenience, while at the same time causing a decline in academic learning and standards. Concerns include claims that there is insufficient time for students to absorb the material, the fact that instructors may tend to teach less because of the short course duration, and that overall learning would suffer in the interests of expediency. Surprisingly, this usually is not the case with intensive courses. In fact, research comparing the learning outcomes of students taking intensive compared to traditional length courses found that those who took the intensive version had equal, and in some cases better performance than those using traditional semester-long scheduling (Serdyukov et al, 2003). How can this be true? It may be attributed to the fact that students taking an accelerated course are able to devote more focused, concentrated study time, allowing for deeper investigation of a certain topic or subject. Because of the short course duration, class meetings are frequently supplemented by distance learning, e-mail, and other means to continue the learning process outside of the classroom. Intensive courses are typically scheduled back-to-back rather than concurrently, so that students need to meet one set of instructor preferences and address only one set of classroom procedures that accompany course delivery, such as the course timetable and required submittals. This is in contrast to traditional scheduling where multiple courses are taken concurrently and thus force separate and contrasting requirements. The

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results of these include better development and learning of concepts and skills, together with a higher level of concentration and immersion (Csikszentmihalyi, 1982; Espana, 2004; Scott & Conrad, 1992). A separate technique related to intensive courses is block scheduling. As previously discussed, the concept of presenting courses which meet in compressed time formats can improve immersion, retention, and learning for adult students. The use of blocked time formats combined with an intensive course schedule can also help to improve the learning process by allowing sufficient time for a greater variety of teaching methods and activities to be employed. Other benefits of block scheduled courses is that there are generally better relationships among students, improved rapport between students and the course instructor, and also higher levels of academic achievement overall (Canady & Rettig, 1995; Cawelti, 1994; Gaubatz, 2003; Hotterstein & Malatesta, 1993; O’Neil, 1995; Reid, 1995) . One particularly useful technique in block scheduling is to arrange courses so that there is a logical sequence within a given subject area—i.e. to follow certain, perhaps prerequisite courses with those that require the previous knowledge in order to fully grasp the content. By utilizing the same instructor to teach in logical sequence a set of core or foundation courses followed by courses that apply knowledge, a dynamic could be created whereby understanding of the material is developed more gradually and flows from one course to the next. In addition, blocking courses in this manner builds cohorts for that given subject. The second course could be used to reinforce, challenge or build upon concepts introduced in the first. Time savings could be realized in that students would be able to devote less time to learning instructor preferences and more time to learning content. Instructors would benefit from knowing the academic strengths and weaknesses of students and could immediately customize content of the second course to maximize overall mastery of the subject. An example where this technique is useful 1410

can be found in the Statistics I and II sequence of the GBM program. Taught by the same instructor, Statistics I centers on developing facility in basic statistics, allocating time primarily to practice and reinforcement. Course content for Statistics II focuses on the use of statistics in business and in the media, deconstructing the use of statistics within an argument and how conclusions could differ under various statistical approaches. Another application of this technique involves the structuring of course material into modules which emphasize a certain task, skill, or concept. Instead of looking at material in terms of broad subjects comprised of various theories, facts, and concepts, adults would benefit from having content packaged into modular, structured learning units. These units would have a specific sequence of readings, activities, discussion, and exercises so that not only is the theoretical and conceptual knowledge gained, but also practical application on a realistic problem or task (Dillenbourg et al., 1996; Hafner & Ellis, 2004; Sloffer et al, 1999). One example of modular course material structuring is the GIL (Guided Independent Learning) module concept used in the courses taught in FDU’s GBM program. Carefully structured, GIL modules are focused toward a specific application, skill, or learning outcome. Background readings and materials are included to build foundation knowledge. A multi-step exercise which emphasizes problem solving and managing complex real-life scenarios follows in which students are required to work independently. Examination, discussion and evaluation typically forms the third step whereby the instructor supplies additional understanding, closes knowledge gaps, and challenges the understanding of relevant themes and concepts (Hamilton, 2002).

NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR ADULT LEARNING The fast growth of the Internet, World Wide Web, course portals, and course management systems

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

has greatly changed the face of education. A revolution of sorts is taking place as educators grapple with how best to deploy these new resources to support the learning process. The need is especially critical in various scientific and technical subject areas where the use of technology in the workplace is commonplace and ever-evolving, and in business, which is undergoing similar decision points regarding how much and when to adopt new technologies. As a result, new technologies and tools, such as Web 2.0, and also social networking are rapidly being implemented into the classroom. While there is overlap between these two categories, it can be more convenient to think of Web 2.0 incorporating such tools as weblogs, instant messaging, wikis, and podcasts, and social networking encompassing Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Weblogs, or blogs as they are commonly referred, have been around for a number of years and were first used as a tool for individual expression. This is a kind of website where a user can offer an ongoing, continually updated diary-like presentation of information, which can then be responded to asynchronously by readers and members of the blog’s community. Having grown in stature, they are now used as a tool for information dissemination as well as for eliciting public response. The advantages of weblogs are that they allow for instant and dynamic publishing, enable someone to keep an ongoing discussion stream operating, and also allow for replies and feedback from readers and members of the blog (Flatley, 2005; Wagner, 2004). Weblogs are best utilized when there are materials which can be presented or “published” such as a report, essay, or analysis of a case or problem. Serving as a catalyst for ongoing discussion and critique, weblogs can create a collaborative work environment that allows critical reflection and analysis to occur. Blogging is well suited to adult learners because it provides the ability to publish and share information, opinions, and materials with other

users. While improper use of the technology could result in “uncritical ranting,” (Mason, 2006), if discussion is supervised and kept on track, blogs can be a useful tool to meet many adult learner preferences. Opportunities for critical reflection on material being studied, online peer reviews and commenting, and sharing of workplace experiences can all be enhanced through blogging. Wikis, which come from the Hawaiian word “wiki wiki” meaning fast, are yet another tool that when properly deployed, can enhance course-related communications, collaboration and sharing. What is unique about wikis is that not only can a certain document be made available publically to others and on the Internet, but that all contributors and viewers are allowed to edit and to add/delete from the shared document. Online collaboration, subject to certain rules and customs expected for that particular wiki, is built-in (Leuf & Cunningham, 2001). The additional learning benefit provided when using wikis is that groups working on a common submittal must arrive at a consensus regarding the review process and also in determining which revisions are to be kept. Instant messaging (IM) has been in use for quite some time primarily for casual communications between persons which can be conducted in realtime, eliminating the time lag and asynchronous nature inherent in e-mails. Because it enables quick, informal communication without the need for excessive formality, the technology has been embraced by business. Although this tool had mixed results for classroom use, it would appear to be an ideal communication means for collaborative adult student groups working on a specific project (Kinzie, Whitaker, & Hoffer, 2005). Podcasts can also be beneficial, and their use resulting in positive outcomes for adult learner students where repetition is helpful in aiding understanding or comprehension. These are audio and video files which have been produced for playback by the instructor and contain recordings of lectures, supplemental materials, review sessions, and other relevant course information.

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These are recorded and playable on a computer or handheld device such as iPods and MP3 players (Lim, 2005; Lum, 2006). Social networking tools are quickly becoming ubiquitous. Because of the widespread use of these kinds of tools, their popularity and availability, and the fact that younger students are familiar with these tools, it should be considered whether these can be employed in adult learner classes. It also should be remembered that many adult students did not grow up with many of these technologies as have many of their younger undergraduate counterparts. Closing the technology gap in this area may therefore prove to be quite useful to the adult student who is seeking a degree with the goal of learning more current tools and techniques. The use of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social networking would be useful to adult learners, because of the need for various means to support both constructivist approaches to learning, and also to bring about greater collaboration, sharing, and interactive activities such as “peer reviews” and the like. While the applicability of these tools may vary according to the course, subject, and specific activity, in general these can help support learning and should be considered as a part of the “toolbox” of possible resources. This clearly is an area that deserves more emphasis and attention, because of the rapid pace in which technology changes are occurring and also because mastery of these technologies helps learners develop facility in all aspects of information gathering.

THE FDU GLOBAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT (GBM) PROGRAM A downturn in enrollment of adult non-traditional students in the undergraduate part-time business program at the Silberman College of Business (Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, USA) prompted the need to explore the reasons for attrition and to develop an appropriate remedy. Focus groups revealed that adults were de-moti-

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vated by a learning environment geared to younger students, the length of time needed to complete an undergraduate degree, course scheduling that was random and frequently out of alignment with work and family responsibilities, and the lack of financial aid for part-time study. In consideration of these needs, a program was designed to allow adult students to pursue and earn a college degree through a “hybrid” approach using both face-to-face classes and web-based distance learning. Intensive courses geared to the strengths and interests of adult students were offered in a block schedule format and supported by a standardized e-learning structure. GBM students were required to have a minimum of 2 or 3 years full-time business work experience so that they could contribute real-life examples to share with others when undergoing coursework. The overall goal was to combine the advantages of both technology and classroom interaction into the educational experience. Courses were slotted on Friday evenings and Saturdays during the day to accommodate work schedules, and structured in modules designed so that GBM students would take no more than 3 courses at any given time within each semester. Where possible, courses in the same subject area were scheduled sequentially under the guidance of the same professor. This provided an opportunity for GBM students to immerse themselves in a topic and for professors to carry over and reinforce key concepts from the first course into the second. One of the cornerstones of the GBM program was the development and adoption of Guided Independent Learning (GIL) modules. This outcomebased approach requires students to receive and understand the requirements and components of a given assignment, use textbooks and other secondary sources to complete the assignment and also use asynchronous conferencing (i.e. Blackboard) to pose questions and provide answers to other students (and the instructor) while working on the assignment. Students frequently work in teams to share knowledge and improve submissions.

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

Effective use of asynchronous conferencing is fundamental to the proper implementation of GIL modules and is used by the instructor to monitor student progress, clarify the requirements of an assignment, point to additional resources to help students complete the assignment, prompt or participate in student discussions, provide encouragement or challenge student opinions to bring about a change in perspective. Other e-learning tools are being explored to enrich resources available to the “independent learner,” such as podcasts to introduce a particularly challenging concept, and blogs to provide a forum for discussion and reflection. Class time is utilized for presentation and sharing of work, and also lecturing by the professor to close knowledge gaps that emerge or to elevate thinking to the next level. Armed with new knowledge, students typically are required to demonstrate mastery of a concept by resubmitting an improved assignment, writing a retrospective, or completing additional work to build upon what was learned. An example of a GIL module underscores how the principles of adult learning with e-learning are combined. ENGL 1101 College Writing Workshop is a required first semester course in the GBM program and focuses on moving students to a higher-order level of thinking required to successfully complete college-level work by building analytical writing skills. One assignment requires students to find and email to the instructor using the conferencing feature in Blackboard, a workrelated article having unfamiliar subject matter, challenging vocabulary, or an advanced writing style. After some asynchronous discussion, an article is selected by the instructor which students are required to read prior to class. During class, they are challenged by the instructor to explain/ evaluate/ question critically what was written. The instructor uses the opportunity to connect the learning to aspects in one’s life and work by lecturing for example, on the value of basing decisions on facts vs. opinion. After the class,

students conduct Internet-based research and post additional examples found in the workplace of decisions devoid of proper fact-gathering and the results that ensued. As a final step, students individually write a retrospective on the module, using the examples posted to factually back their impressions/opinions. Utilizing GIL modules meets many adult learning goals and preferences. Learning is focused on mastery of a single skill, yet provides flexibility and self-direction in how the learning might be approached. A constructivist approach is used in that authentic real-life, real-time examples form the foundation of the assignment, and collaboration brought into play for discussion and for building a shared “resource bank” to draw upon and help deepen the understanding of all student participants. The iterative process whereby the student first works independently, then collaboratively, and then independently helps to foster critical reflection and, in some cases, perceptual transformation. One can envision where e-learning tools can supplement and improve delivery of content using GIL-based modules, although this area is new to GBM instructors and not yet fully developed. However, some possible next steps could include use of podcasts to demonstrate a comparison between data-driven and opinion-based decisionmaking, and incorporation of blogs that require contributors to practice fact-based arguments. By standardizing the use of GIL modules and reaching agreement on a standard set of protocols for setting up course content on Blackboard, communication with instructors and fellow students, and assignment delivery, instructors in the GBM program worked together to help remove technological barriers. Newly enrolled students were trained in the protocols during program orientation and typically got up to speed quickly, thus conserving instructor time. While much work remains to be done, especially in the area of incorporating new technology, students in the GBM program have reported a high

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level of satisfaction in the value of the education received and appreciation for the methods used to help them persist in earning a degree.

CONCLUSION/SUMMARY The educational market of the 21st century is dynamic and changing, and adult learners are becoming a key growth sector in university programs. Because of their maturity, professional background, and life experience, the teaching of adult students should be different from that of traditional students (characterized mainly by those who attend after high school, and are younger and generally lack professional and extensive life experience). Learning theories attest to the fact that adult learners are fundamentally different from traditional university students and would benefit from the employment of different teaching, learning and e-learning approaches. Earlier in this paper, the characteristics of adult learners, theories on andragogy, goal-directedness, practical application, experiential learning, and integration/ transformation were discussed. In addition, critical reflection and collaboration were reported in research as methods which can help to enhance the educational experience of adult students. These theories underscore the importance for instructors who teach adults of moving away from pedagogical approaches (teaching children) toward andragogical methods (teaching adults). In alignment with this, a number of techniques were introduced which have been found to contribute to an effective adult learning experience in the areas of course and program structure, classroom techniques, and online learning methods. E-learning can be used to greater effectiveness in educating adult learners. Because many of them are experienced in using technology at work, adults would have fewer problems engaging in the self-directed, independent learning required to successfully complete online activities.

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Course and program structure is another key element to consider. The modular approach to adult learning appears to be well-suited to adults who have found it very helpful to have linked assignments and resources presented in a structured manner. A review of student experiences in the GBM program at FDU indicated that adult students were quite satisfied with the program, especially in comparison to previous experiences where they attended traditional courses with younger undergraduate students. Students in the program who completed either questionnaires or were interviewed confirmed they did seek practical, application-oriented, and career-focused courses. Some reported that they especially liked the fact that instructors were aware that GBM students brought reserves of knowledge to the classroom which they were encouraged to draw from, (critically) reflect on, and apply to new situations in their course work. Because of the emphasis on project-based learning which drew upon real-life situations in many GBM courses, the goals of practicality, critical thinking, and perspective transformation were met. This provided opportunities for students to approach a challenging problem, think through various issues and possible solutions, or to prepare arguments in support of a position. For instance, creating an online marketing campaign as a course project in a (GBM) marketing course was deemed to be far more than useful and meaningful than memorizing concepts and terms from a textbook for recall on an exam. E-learning was found to work best as a supplement to the classroom meetings and was used in a hybrid format, with various combinations of face–to-face and online content. Because of work schedules, travel time, and family obligations, the availability of online access and resources greatly extended and continued the learning process outside the classroom. Students not only continued learning through the exploration of online resources and tools throughout the week, but also

Adult Learners, E-Learning, And Success

had the benefit of online collaboration among class team members and with the instructor. Positive comments were also received regarding the benefits of being able to explore various online resources, dig deeper into a subject, and work collaboratively toward tackling projects to explore different possible solutions to an actual business problem. These help to support the principles of self-direction, flexibility, and authentic activities. The use of online discussion boards for students to communicate and express opinions on a certain topic was found to be highly beneficial, both for discussion of concepts, and as a good alternative to e-mail, since threaded discussions helped produce a better structure and outline of topics discussed. For example, it was noted that some GBM students did not always contribute insightful, thoughtful questions and comments during class; but often did so during the online discussions outside the classroom when they could devote more time to thinking about the materials or a working on an assignment. There was some discussion of the design aspects of e-learning, including the need to take account of usability, ensure proper placement and presentation of multimedia elements, provide examples or illustrations to aid the learning process while online, and to properly organize course materials presented online. This was mentioned because it is often given less attention than it deserves, and should be properly addressed. For example, when instructors design online screens and lesson information poorly, learning is negatively impacted. Having too much text or too much multimedia on a screen, or exhibiting inconsistencies in structure or organization can de-motivate adult learners, since being slowed or hindered in completing coursework is particularly frustrating for those having limited time. Therefore, making every effort to make learning materials accessible, platforms easy to navigate, and communication preferences clear should be an integral part of any online course or course component.

Collaboration, self-directed learning, and flexibility are also supported in GBM and were found to be important factors to help ensure effective learning through the online portion of the course. Since classroom time is limited, online learning accounts for a significant proportion of the student to student (and student to instructor) interaction. Group projects were found to be effective in bringing about collaborative learning, and to promote the sharing of the varied expertise of the team members. The use of an online CMS (Content Management System) discussion board and e-mail was found to help maintain a communication flow between weekly class sessions. The ability to learn on one’s own in a self-directed manner is also supported; in that GIL modules provide resources from which to help seek solutions, delve further into a topic, or to survey a subject as needed. The flexibility of learning new information, communicating with others in a group, and also constructing a project or solution collaboratively online was also found to be a positive aspect of the program. In connection with this, adult student support is also critical. If a new technology is being employed, some kind of training, or an online tutorial needs to be included. Providing help to users who have difficult navigating through the screens of content, supplemental materials, and even assignment descriptions is important. There should be a program coordinator outside the classroom, as well as instructors who are available both in person, and especially, online during the week, to help guide and direct the students as needed. In conclusion, the Global Business Management (GBM) program was designed to meet the needs of adult learner students, and has been successful in terms of helping students to learn more effectively, using a combination of modular course designs, authentic problems and assignments, clear definitions of goals and objectives, effective “student-friendly” online content design, providing student support, offering a practical/work-oriented emphasis, fostering collaboration, and offering

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classes using both intensive and block scheduled program sequencing. A review of the effectiveness of the GBM program in educating adult learners underscores the need for utilizing this kind of a holistic approach.

FUTURE TRENDS/ AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Much more needs to be done in terms of examining the ways to most effectively ensure the success of adult learners. While this chapter focused on various techniques which proved effective for an adult learner undergraduate business program, there are opportunities for studying the key considerations and factors which might affect other kinds of programs that vary by focus, degree, and student population. New forms and types of course problems and exercises which can encourage higher levels of effective collaboration, critical reflection, and transformative learning should be studied, especially in the context of applying these together within e-learning formats and various emerging technologies. The use of constructivist, Web 2.0 tools need to be further explored and studied, with particular attention on how adult learner students can use them to reach greater levels of critical thinking and selfdirected learning. Because of the relatively short history of these technologies in education, there are many promising research opportunities emerging which are viable in this area. Finally, innovative new methodologies for, and the effective use of, intensive courses and block scheduling formats at the higher education level need to be more fully explored and developed.

REFERENCES Ahn, J., Han, K., & Han, B. (2005). Web-based education: characteristics, problems, and some solutions. International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2(3), 274–282. doi:10.1504/ IJIL.2005.006370 1416

An, H., Kim, S., & Kim, B. (2008). Teacher perspectives on online collaborative learning. Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education, 8(1), 65–83. Anderson, T., & Garrison, D. R. (1995). Critical thinking in distance education: Developing critical communities in an audio teleconference context. Higher Education, 29, 183–199. doi:10.1007/ BF01383838 Beck, P., Kung, M., Park, Y., & Yang, S. (2004). E-learning architecture: challenges and mapping of individuals in an internet-based pedagogical interface. International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 1(3), 279–292. doi:10.1504/ IJIL.2004.004884 Bloom, B. (1956). The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Classification of Educational Goals Handbook 1: The Cognitive Domain. New York: McKay Press. Boak, G. (1998). A complete guide to learning contracts. Hampshire, England, Gower Publishing Ltd. Canady, R., & Rettig, M. (1995). The Power of Innovative Scheduling. Educational Leadership, 53(3), 4–10. Cawelti, G. (1994). High School Restructuring: A National study. Arlington, VA: Educational Research Service. Cercone, K. (2008). Characteristics of Adult Learners with Implications for Online Learning Design. AACE Journal, 16(2), 137–159. Chaffee, J. (1998). Critical thinking: The cornerstone of remedial education. Paper presented at Conference on Replacing Remediation in Higher Education, January, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. Clark, C., & Mayer, R. (2003). e-Learning and the Science of Instruction. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1982). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. San Francisco, CA: Jossey and Bass. Daniel, E.L. (2000). A Review of Time Shortened Courses Across Disciplines. College Student Journal, June. Dillenbourg, P., Baker, M., Blaye, A., & O’Malley, C. (1996). The Evolution of research on Collaborative Learning. In E. Spada, & P. Reiman (Eds.), Learning in Humans and Machine: Towards an interdisciplinary learning science (pp. 189-221). Oxford: Elsevier. Espana, J. (2004). Teaching a Research-Oriented, Graduate Global marketing Course to Adult Learners in a One-Month Format. Journal of American Academy of Business, 4(1-2), 418. Flatley, M. (2005). Blogging for Enhanced Teaching and learning. Business Communication Quarterly, 68. Flood, J. (2002). Read all about it: online learning faces 80% attrition rates, TOJDE, 3(2). Frey, B., & Alman, S. (2003). Applying adult learning theory to the online classroom. New Horizons in Adult Education, 17(1), 4–12. Garrison, D. R. (2003). Self-directed learning and distance education. In M. G. Moore & W. G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of distance education, (pp. 161-168). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gaubatz, N. (2003). Course Scheduling Formats and their Impact on Student Learning. National Teaching and Learning Forum, 12(1). Hafner, W., & Ellis, T. J. (2004). Project-Based, Asynchronous Collaborative Learning. In [January.]. Proceedings of HICSS, 2004, 15–23.

Hamilton, K. C. (2002). Teaching Adult Learners: A Supplemental Manual for Faculty Teaching in the GBM Program at FDU. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University, Silberman College of Business. Hiltz, S. R. (1990). Evaluating the Virtual Classroom. In L. Harasim, (ed.), Online Education (pp. 134 – 184). New York: Praeger. Hiltz, S. R., & Turoff, M. (1985). Structuring computer-mediated communication systems to avoid information overload. Communications of the ACM, 28(7), 680–689. doi:10.1145/3894.3895 Horn, L. (1996). Nontraditional Undergraduates. U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Hottenstein, D., & Malatesta, C. (1993). Putting a school in gear with intensive scheduling. The High School Magazine, 2, 28–29. Howland, J., & Moore, J. (2002). Student Perceptions as Distance Learners in Internet-Based Courses. Distance Education, 23(2), 183–195. doi:10.1080/0158791022000009196 Jegede, O. (2002). Facilitating and sustaining interest through an on-line distance peer-tutoring system in a cooperative learning environment. Virtual University Gazette, 35-45. Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Smith, K. (1991). Active learning: cooperation in the college classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company. Kinzie, M., Whitaker, S., & Hoffer, M. (2005). Instructional Uses of Instant Messaging During Classroom lectures. Educational Technology and Society, 8(2), 150–160. Knowles, M. (1975). Self-directed learning: A guide for learners and teachers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Knowles, M. (1977). The Modern Practice of Adult Education, Andragogy versus Pedagogy, 8/e. New York: Association Press. Knowles, M. (1980). Malcolm Knowles on “how do you get people to be self-directed learners?” Training and Development Journal, 34(5), 96–99. Knowles, M. (1984). Andragogy in action: Applying modern principles of adult education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey and Bass. Knowles, M. (1990). The adult learner: a neglected species, (4/e). Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing. Knowles, M., Holton, E., & Swanson, R. (1998). The Adult Learner, 5th Edition. Houston, Texas: Gulf Publishing. Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: experience as a source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Kramlinger, T., & Huberty, T. (1990). Behaviorism versus Humanism. Training and Development Journal, 44(12), 41–45. Leuf, B., & Cunningham, W. (2001). The WIKI Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Lim, K. (2005). Now Hear This- Exploring Podcasting as a tool in Geography Education. Nanyang Technological University. Lowry, C. (1989). Supporting and facilitating self-directed learning, ( . ERIC, ED312, 457. Lum, L. (2006). The Power of Podcasting. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 23(2), 32. Martyn, M., & Bash, L. (2002). Creating New Meanings in Leading Education. In Proceedings of the Twenty-Second National Conference on Alternative and External Degree Programs for Adults, Oct 9-12, 2002, Pittsburgh PA.

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Mason, R. (2006). Learning technologies for adult continuing education. Studies in Continuing Education, 28(2), 121–133. doi:10.1080/01580370600751039 McClusky, H. (1963). Course of the adult life span. In W. C. Hallenbeck (Ed.), Psychology of adults. Chicago, IL: Adult Education Association of U.S.A. McInnerney, J., & Robert, T. (2004). Collaborative or cooperative learning? In T.S. Roberts (ed.) Online collaborative learning: theory and practice (pp. 203-214). Hershey PA: IGI Publishing. Merriam, S. (2001). Andragogy and self-directed learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 89, 3–13. doi:10.1002/ace.3 Mezirow, J. (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 74, 5–12. doi:10.1002/ace.7401 National Center for Education Statistics. (2002). Nontraditional undergraduates. NCES Report Nonnecke, B., & Preece, J. (2001). Why Lurkers Lurk. In Proceedings of the AMCIS Conference, Boston. O’Neil. (1995). Finding Time to Learn. [November.]. Educational Leadership, 53(3), 11–15. Perez Cereijo, M. (2006). Attitude as predictor of success in online training. International Journal on E-Learning, 5(4), 623–639. Powers, M. J. (2005). Effective online learning: recognizing e-learnability. PAACE Journal of Lifetime Learning, 14, 49–64. Reeves, T., Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2002). Authentic Activities and Online Learning. In Proceedings of HERDSA 2002.

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Reid, L. (1995). Perceived Effects of Block Scheduling on the Teaching of English, (ERIC #: ED 382 950).

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Schulz, B. (2003). Collaborative learning in an online environment: will it work for teacher training? In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 503-504). Charlottesville VA: AACE.

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Scott, P. & Conrad, C. (1991). A critique of intensive courses and an agenda for research, (ERIC#: ED 337 087). Scott, P. A., & Conrad, C. F. (1992). A critique of intensive courses and an agenda for research. In J.C. Smart (Ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. New York: Agathon Press. Serdyukov, P., Subbotin, I., & Serdyukova, N. (2003). Short-Term Intensive College Instruction: What Are The Benefits For Adult Learners? Technology and Teacher Education Annual, 2, 1550–1552. Sloffer, S. J., Dueber, B., & Duffy, T. M. (1999). Using asynchronous conferencing to promote critical thinking: two implementations in higher education. Proceedings of HICSS-32, Maui Hawaii. Smith, K. (1995). Cooperative Learning: effective teamwork for engineering classrooms. Engineering, University of Pittsburgh. Stilborne, L., & Williams, L. (1996). Meeting the needs of adult Learners in Developing Courses for the Internet. In . Proceedings of INET, 1996, c4. Tyler-Smith, K. (2006). Early attrition among first time e-learners. MERLOT Journal of online Learning and Teaching, 2(2), 73-85. U.S. Department of Education. (2002). The Condition of Education 2002, NCES 2002-025. Washington, DC: NPO.

Wagner, C. (2004). Wiki: A technology for conversational knowledge management and group collaboration. Communications of the AIS, 13, 265–289. Wahlstrom, C. Williams, B.K., & Shea, P. (2003). The successful distance learning student. Belmont, CA: Scratchgravel. Young, S. (2006). Student views of effective online teaching in higher education. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 20(2), 65–77. doi:10.1207/ s15389286ajde2002_2 Zimmerman, B. J. (2001). Theories of selfregulated learning and academic achievement: an overview and analysis. In B.J. Zimmerman & D.H. Schunk (eds.), Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: theoretical perspectives (2/E, pp.1-37). Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

ADDITIONAL READING Brookfield, S. (1991). The development of critical reflection in adulthood. New Education, 13(1), 39–48. Brookfield, S. (1995). Adult learning: an overview. In A. Tuoinjman (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford, UK, Pergamon Press. Chang, C. (2001). A study on the evaluation and effectiveness analysis of web-based learning portfolio. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32(4), 435–458. doi:10.1111/1467-8535.00212

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Chyung, S. Y. (2007). Invisible Motivation of Online Adult Learners During Contract Learning. Journal of Educators Online, 4(1). Cross, K. (1981). Adults as Learners. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Daley, B. (2002). An exploration of electronic discussion as an adult learning strategy. PAACE Journal of Lifelong Learning, 11, 53–66. Garnham, C., & Kaleta, R. (2002). Introduction to hybrid courses. Teaching with Technology Today, 8(6). Retrieved from http://www.uwsa.edu/ttt/ articles/garnham.htm. Glowacki-Dudka, M. & Barnett, N. (2007). Connecting critical reflection and group development in adult education classrooms. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher education, 19 (1), 43-52. King, K., & Lawler, P. (2003). Trends and Issues in the Professional Development of Teachers of Adults. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, (98): 1–92. doi:10.1002/ace.93 Koohang, A., & Durante, A. (1998). Adapting the traditional face-to-face instructional approaches to on-line teaching and learning. Refereed Proceedings of IACIS. Morris, L. V., Xu, H., & Finnegan, C. L. (2005). Roles of Faculty in Teaching Asynchronous Undergraduate Courses. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 9(1). Perry, W. G. (1970), Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Scott, P. (1994). A Comparative Study of Students Learning Experiences in Intensive and SemesterLength Courses. In Proceedings of NAASS, Portland Oregon, Nov. 1993.

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Scott, P. (1995). Learning experiences in intensive and semester-length classes: Student voices and. experiences. College Student Journal, 29, 207–213. Scott, P. (1996). Attributes of High-Quality Intensive Course Learning Experiences: Student Voices and Experiences. College Student Journal, 30(1), 69–77. Singh, P., & Martin, L. R. (2004). Accelerated Degree Programs: Assessing Student Attitudes and Opinions. Journal of Education for Business, 79(5), 299. doi:10.3200/JOEB.79.5.299-305 Stephens, M. (2007). Messaging in a 2.0 World. Library Technology Reports, 43(5), 62–66. Tekinarslan, E. (2004). Project based distributed learning and adult learners. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 5(2), 74–80. Thompson, G. (1988). Distance learners in higher education. In Chere, Campbell, Gibson (eds.) Higher Education: Institutional Responses for Quality Outcomes (pp. 9-24). Madison WI: Atwood Publishing. Thompson, M., & Deis, M. (2004). Andragogy for Adult Learners in Higher Education. Proceedings of the Allied Academies International Conference, New Orleans LA, 9, 1. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wlodkowski, R. J. (2003). Accelerated Learning in Colleges and Universities. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 97(Spring), 5–15. doi:10.1002/ace.84 Young, G. (2002, March 22). Hybrid teaching seeks to end the divide between traditional and online instruction. The Chronicle of Higher Education, A33–A34.

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kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Andragogy: The principles and concepts behind teaching adults. Authentic Activities: Teaching and learning with an emphasis on real-world, complex, and collaborative activities. Block Scheduling: The scheduling of classes using larger (and sometimes, sequenced) blocks of time. Collaboration: Teaching and learning activities which emphasize teamwork, group work, and other situations where students work together on a task. Critical Reflection: The use of careful deliberation and thought to produce new insights. Hybrid Distance Learning: The employment of both classroom sessions and online communications sessions in a course.

Intensive Scheduling: Scheduling formats where courses are taught in a shorter time frame than a semester or quarter. Pedagogy: The art and science of teaching children. Perspective Transformation: The process of learning through changes in viewpoint and approach. Self-Direction: The situation where students are active participants in their own learning process. Transformative Learning: The process by which newly gained (or changed) perspectives provide better insight and understanding.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in E-Learning: Issues and Trends, and H. Yang and S. Yuen, pp. 116-137, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.2

Instructor Presence in Online Distance Classes Janet Lear University of Nebraska at Kearney, USA

INTRODUCTION Instructor presence are words that call to mind a professor at the front of a classroom lecturing to a room full of students. Today the image associated with instructor presence is quite different. The vision is one of an individual engaged with the student, leading, and mentoring students, and facilitating classes either visibly in the classroom or invisibly in the online environment. Instructor presence is a broad phrase that refers to the instructor’s jobs of structuring and presenting the materials as well as providing feedback and engaging with the student academically through e-mail, by telephone, or by instant messaging either text or video. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch174

The roles are different but the outcome is the same, student learning. Gone are the days where the instructor was the center of the class, lecturing and passing along knowledge to students. Because today’s learner is actively involved in the building of new knowledge, learning is more student-focused. As the environment changes, the instructor assumes a variety of roles from designer to facilitator to mentor. The new roles are the same for both instructors in the face-to-face classroom and instructors in the online environment. Instructors for classes in the online environment cannot just compile a site for the class with materials available to the students. Instructors need to have an online presence as they facilitate the class mentoring students, providing activities, encouraging students, and communicating with student on a regular basis.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Instructor Presence in Online Distance Classes

Online instructors should be willing to provide the leadership and mentoring necessary for students to become engaged and flourish. Distance education literature discusses the importance of both interaction and sense of community to student learning and the part that the instructor plays in creating the learner-centered environment. Developing a classroom community online, then, is a process that begins with social interactions among individuals and progresses to developing a sense of belonging and trust so that learners will engage with the instructor, their peers, and the subject matter in an active way. In the beginning the instructor is the common denominator, and the instructor’s ability to be present without being visible holds the class together while the students become acquainted. As the class progresses, the instructor’s presence keeps the conversation moving and the subject matter interaction on track.

BACkGROUND As early as 1997, Sherron and Boettcher (1997) discussed the changing role of the instructor. Later Morris, Xu, and Finnegan (2005) reviewed the literature and found the roles included managing online communications and encouraging and providing activities to build community. Because instructors in the online environment play an important role in online learning through the structure they provide as well as their interaction with students, their presence in an online environment is just as essential to the online classroom as it is to the face-to-face classroom. The various roles are defined in the literature for online learning. Students may do the learning, but teachers are at the center of this process as they provide instructional leadership fostering motivation, creating activities, and creating the supportive and encouraging environment agreed Hoy & Hoy (2003). If students are to grow as independent learners in the online environment, instructors should provide structure, leadership,

and a respectful environment (McLoughlin & Luca, 2002; Jiang, Parent, & Eastmond, 2006; Waltonen-Moore, Stuart, Newton, Oswald, & Varonis, 2006). Lewis & Abdul-Hamid (2006) interviewed faculty members teaching in an online environment and found fostering interaction, providing feedback, facilitating learning, and maintaining enthusiasm and providing organization were all important functions. They concluded that the role of the online instructor “is neither static nor one dimensional” (96). Instructor now have several tasks including creating the online classroom, providing the interaction, and motivating students to become active participants in their own learning. In addition, instructors must also energize students “when the going is tough” (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004, 7). Palloff and Pratt (2003) also encourage instructor presence in their principles of good practice with four suggestions—encouraging student-faculty contact, encouraging student cooperation, giving prompt feedback, and communicating high expectations. Moore defined three levels of interaction for online education—learner-content, learnerinstructor, and learner-learner interaction, all of which relate to the instructor in some form. The instructor facilitates the learner/content interaction through assignments and presentation of material. The instructor is directly involved in the interaction with the student through synchronous and asynchronous communication providing feedback and motivation. The instructor plays a significant role in the learner/learner interaction through group projects, discussion board opportunities, and the virtual group responsibility for helping their peers (Moore & Kearsley, 2005).

INSTRUCTOR PRESENCE If the role of instructors is changing as the literature suggests, what is the role of the instructor in online courses? Is instructor presence important

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as distance education writers suggest or should an online instructor just make the material available and wait for the students to ask questions? These questions and many others occur to online instructors because the time commitment for teaching online will definitely be more than in other classes if all the literature available is correct. Instructors in the online environment play an important role in online learning. They design courses that allow flexibility for today’s alwayson student (Baird & Fisher, 2003; Palloff & Pratt, 2003). Feedback from the instructor is an important ingredient to the process because it lets students know when their thinking is on track and when it needs revised or redirected. Instructors provide support, feedback, encouragement, subject matter, assignments, and opportunities for interaction just as the literature suggests, but is this important to students? Students have been surveyed for their perceptions of the importance of instructor presence. Shea, Pickett, and Pelz (2003) found that satisfaction and learning took place when instructors provided high levels of instructional design, organization, and teacher presence. Other researchers including Thiele (2003) and Swan (2002) reported similar findings stressing that communication, prompt feedback, encouragement, and discussion were important to students. In an effort to explore this concept of instructor presence, this author went to students and asked both quantitative and qualitative questions to discover the answer. During Phase 1 of the mixed methods study, all instructor-controlled elements from Roblyer’s Rubric for Assessing Interactive Qualities of Distance Classes (social/rapportbuilding design, instructional design, technology resources, and evidence of instructor engagement) were correlated with learner engagement and found to be significant. Students perceived that the instructor elements studied did contribute to learner engagement. Instructional design and instructor engagement, however, were found to have the highest correlation (Lear, 2007).

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For Phase 2 of the study, a sampling of the students participating in the initial quantitative study who volunteered to be interviewed was asked about the importance of the instructor. For those students participating in the interview process, 81% indicated the instructor alone or in conjunction with the content and other students was important to the student’s participation in the class (Lear, 2007). One participant felt that “instructors need to understand the amount of work and responsibility . . . and give feedback on a regular basis to provide structure and consistency. The tone is set by the instructor.” Another participant expressed isolation during her class with little instructor presence and compared her class to another online class of a friend: “They have really active, thought-provoking discussions, and the instructor would weigh in with, ‘you know I look at it this way, what do you think’ and a whole new thread was sparked.” This study supported the findings of Jiang, et al. (2006) who found that student-instructor interaction increased satisfaction. It also supported the findings of Waltonen-Moore, et al. (2006), Thiele (2003), and McLoughlin and Luca (2002) all of whom highlighted the importance of instructor presence to the online environment. Instructor presence as evidenced by instructional and social/rapport design and instructor engagement highlighted by instructor feedback and comments including responding to students quickly, and being a participant in the ongoing online discussions as well does make a difference to the active learner. •

•

•

Instructors with a desire to promote active learning need to recognize the new roles that this style of learning creates. Instructors have a responsibility to create an open environment where students feel welcome to share, agree, disagree, and discuss in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. Instructors should respond in a timely manner to students’ questions and comments and participate in the online discussions.

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•

Instructors should design assignments and discussions that allow students to interact not just with the content but with other students as well.

FUTURE TRENDS All indications are that online learning will continue to prosper, and the number of students engaged in online learning will continue to increase. Should this trend continue, then instructors will need to develop the skills necessary to be fully engage students in the learner-centered classroom where students are active and in control of their learning. In the future researchers may want to investigate other instructor factors such as writing style, online experience, teaching and learning style, and personality type. These characteristics may influence course design, interactivity, activities and assignments, and overall class design. Hybrid classes are those classes that meet a specified number of times, but also utilize the Internet for a portion of the class experience. Depending on the students and the instructor, the class may meet just two or three times throughout the semester or on a more regular basis. If a trend to mix the face-to-face classroom and the online environment continues to grow, research should look at the impact on instructor presence.

CONCLUSION The transition from the instructor at the center of learning to the student at the center of his/her own learning places new roles on the instructor. Online instructors who value learner-centered education should be willing to be actively involved in the learning process and have a desire to provide the leadership and mentoring necessary for interaction and learning to flourish. Instructor interactive design and presence did influence sense of community and learner

engagement. One way to help establish a thriving online classroom community is to not only design a meaningful level of interactivity that help learners to become engaged but to also be an engaged instructor, responding to students quickly and participating in the ongoing online discussions.

REFERENCES Baird, D. E., & Fisher, M. (2005). Neomillennial user experience design strategies utilizing social networking media to support “always on” learning styles. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 34(1), 5–32. doi:10.2190/6WMW-47L0M81Q-12G1 Conrad, R., & Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: activities and resources for creative instruction. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons. Hoy, A. W., & Hoy, W. K. (2003). Instructional leadership: A learning-centered guide. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Jiang, M., Parent, S., & Eastmond, D. (2006). Effectiveness of web-based learning opportunities in a competency-based program. International Journal on E-Learning, 5(3), 353–361. Lear, J. L. (2007). Interactive class design and sense of community in online distance education classes: A mixed methods research study. Doctoral dissertation. University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Lewis, C. C., & Abdul-Hamid, H. (2006). Implementing Effective Online Teaching Practices: Voices of Exemplary Faculty. Innovative Higher Education, 31(2), 83–98. doi:10.1007/s10755006-9010-z McLoughlin, C., & Luca, J. (2002). A learnercentred approach to developing team skills through web-based learning and assessment. British Journal of Educational Technology, 33(5), 571–582. doi:10.1111/1467-8535.00292 1425

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Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance education: a systems view. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Morris, L. V., Xu, H., & Finnegan, C. L. (2005). Roles of faculty in teaching asynchronous undergraduate courses. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 9(1). Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2003). The Virtual Student: A Profile and Guide to Working with Online Learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Shea, P. J., Pickett, A. M., & Pelz, W. E. (2003). A follow-up investigation of “teaching presence” in the SUNY learning network. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(2). Sherron, G. T., & Boettcher, J. V. Distance Learning: The Shift to Interactivity. CAUSE Professional Paper Series, #17. Swan, K. (2002). Building learning communities in online courses: the importance of interaction. [from EBSCO database.]. Education Communication and Information, 2(1), 23–49. Retrieved March 22, 2006. doi:10.1080/1463631022000005016 Thiele, J. E. (2003). Learning Patterns of Online Students. The Journal of Nursing Education, 42(8), 364–366. Waltonen-Moore, S., Stuart, D., Newton, E., Oswald, R., & Varonis, E. (2006). From virtual strangers to a cohesive online learning community: The evolution of online group development in a professional development course. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14(2), 287–311.

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Distance Education Online: Classrooms where the students and the instructor are separated from each other in time and space. Other terms that also refer to online distance education include

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Internet-based education and Web-based education. The primary means of delivery for online distance education is the Internet, with materials available to students 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Students may access the material whenever the time is best for each individual student’s lifestyle and from a place where the student has Internet access and a computer to connect to the Internet. The majority of interaction is asynchronous, not real time. (See Moore & Kearsley, 2005; Simonson, et al., 2003.) Engagement: Act of participating in the class, promoting involvement of others though discussion and feedback and includes both the instructor and the student. Hybrid Class: A class where students meet a predetermined times during the semester. Hybrid classes generally are those that utilize both the face-to-face classroom and the online environment. The class may meet at the beginning and end of the semester or at specified times during the semester for presentation of special materials. Instructor Presence: The condition of being available or “present” for students even though they may not be able to meet with the instructor face-to-face. Instructor Engagement: Includes the actions of the instructor to be a part of the class—feedback to students, posting materials and assignments, and encouraging students to be involved with the material and the other students. Includes but is not limited to the use of e-mail, telephone, discussion forums, and instant messaging. Interaction: One event or object influencing another. Interaction for the online classes may be student and student, student and instructor, or student and content, with the focus on the process. (See Su et al, 2005.) Interactivity of Design: Technology “for establishing of connections from point to point (or from point to multiple points). . . more feature-oriented and emphasizes the characteristics of delivery.” (See Su et al, 2005.) Learner-Centered Education: The learner is at the center of the education process and actively

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engaged in his/her own learning. The instructor is the facilitator or mentor. Student Engagement: Includes but is not limited to students’ interactions within the class with the material, with the other students, and with the instructor through e-mail, telephone, discussion forums, and instant messaging.

This work was previously published in Encyclopedia of Distance Learning: Second Editon, and P. Rogers, G. Berg, J. Boettcher, C. Howard, L. Justice, and K. Schenk, pp. 1216-1219, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.3

Collaborative Work in Online Learning Environments:

Critical Issues, Dynamics, and Challenges Erman Yukselturk Middle East Technical University, Turkey Kursat Cagiltay Middle East Technical University, Turkey

ABSTRACT The focus of this study is on issues that impact the success of collaborative working online learning groups. The issues of how such groups work collaboratively, how to facilitate them, and what makes work in such groups satisfactory and successful were explored. The data were colleted by semistructured interviews from the participants in an online, project-based course. Hackman and Morris (1975)’s model was used as an analysis framework while interpreting the data. According to the results, it is found that group homogeneity plays a major role on successful group work. The second major finding is the importance of face-to-face commuDOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-753-9.ch006

nication among online teams. The findings of this study are especially important for those people who are planning to organize activities which involve collaborative learning groups.

INTRODUCTION Group work is an important part of the teaching and learning process in traditional face-to- face educational environments. Instructors can use it as an instructional strategy to create social interaction among group members. Learning is most effective when students work in groups, verbalize their thoughts, challenge the ideas of others, and collaborate to achieve group solutions to problems (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1994; Johnson,

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Collaborative Work in Online Learning Environments

Johnson, & Stanne, 2000; Palloff & Pratt, 1999). Collaborative learning is a specific form of group work which is viewed as working together in small groups towards a common goal (Gokhale, 1995). Collaborative learning offers many benefits to learners and it is further defined as a technique that supports constructivist learning. Constructivists believe that knowledge is a result of social construction of meaning in a particular social context. Students interact not only with their instructor, but also with one another (Brandon & Hollingshead, 1999). Given the increasingly widespread use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), individuals around the globe are beginning to participate collaboratively in organizations for learning and work (Riel, 1993; Travica, 1997). Specifically, a host of synchronous and asynchronous Internet and Web-based tools are being widely used to support and facilitate these purposes. As proposed by researchers and practitioners promoting social learning theories (Bonk & Cunningham, 1998) and distributed learning (see, for example, Thach & Murphy, 1994), a collaborative team approach may be the most effective means for learning and working in online or virtual environments. The members of an online group generally do not have the advantage of face-to-face interaction and communication, but instead rely solely upon an assortment of computer-supported cooperative learning and work tools. The current state of technology is such that online team members can technically function well, despite being dispersed across the globe (Chinowsky & Rojas, 2003). With the help of ICT, more and more projects have been conducted by online teams. Even though groupbased activities in organizations and educational institutions have significantly increased recently, research on group work has stayed behind (Guzzu & Salas, 1995). Graham (2002) stated that there is need for more educational research on computermediated teams.

In parallel to this need, this study explored issues in collaboratively working online learning groups in an online course. The analysis framework is based on Hackman and Morris (1975)’s model for analyzing the elements that impact group behavior and performance. They stated that groups are bounded by three phases of group patterns that include entry, process, and outcome elements. Entry elements consist of all contingency factors that affect group formation. Process elements are related to actual activities in which a group engages. Finally, outcomes are what the groups produce and achieve (Carabajal, LaPointe, & Gunawardena, 2003). In the scope of this study, the impact of these elements was analyzed in an online, project-based course. As a result, the researchers looked for answers for the following main research question: •

How do group system variables (entry, process, outcomes) impact online group development in an online, project-based course?

While answering this main research question, the researchers tried to answer the following subquestion: What are the most important issues in creating and supporting groups that work collaboratively in an online environment? Some of the key issues that are addressed in this study are: group member characteristics, participation in group work among members, technology use (choice of communication medium) by group members, and the effect of other factors on the performance of such a group.

METHOD Participants The participants of this study were chosen from an online, project-based course which was offered in

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Table 1. The characteristics of participants Participants

Gender

Age

Education

Occupation

Participant-1

Male

24

Undergraduate Student at Mechanical Engineering Department

Student

Participant-2

Male

35

Graduate of Civil Engineering Department

Participant-3

Male

32

Graduate of Economics Department

Participant-4

Female

22

Undergraduate Student at Statistics Department

Participant-5

Male

27

Graduate of Biology Department

Participant-6

Male

25

Graduate of Industrial Engineering

Participant-7

Female

26

Undergraduate Student at Philosophy Department

Participant-8

Female

25

Graduate of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department

the Online Information Technologies Certificate Program. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the participants.

Description of Online Certificate Program and Online Project Based Course The Online Information Technologies Certificate Program (ITCP) is one of the first Internet-Based Education Projects of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. It is based on synchronous and asynchronous communication methods over the Internet, which is offered by the Computer Engineering Department. The online certificate program has been offered since May, 1998. It includes eight fundamental courses of the Computer Engineering Department, and comprises four semesters which last nine months. The courses in the program are given by the instructors of Computer Engineering Department. The main aim of the online ITCP is to train participants in the IT field. Furthermore, the online ITCP provides opportunities for people who would like to improve themselves in advanced IT area, and desire to make progress in their existing career (Isler, 1998; Isler, Vural, & Koc, 1998; Yukselturk, 2005). The program provides online lecture notes, learning activities, and visual aids. One instructor

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Civil Engineer Inspector Student Content Creator Industrial Engineer Student Electronic Engineer

and two assistants are assigned for each course. Also, each course has an e-mail address, a discussion list, and chat sessions to provide interaction between instructors and participants. At the end of each term, there are face-to-face sessions for each course. During the face-to-face sessions, the instructors explain the course topics thoroughly, and students have a chance to meet with their classmates and instructors (Isler, 1997, 1998). The Software Development Project is one of the courses of this online program. Students take it at the end of their program to apply their theoretical knowledge into practical problems. The main aim of this course is to develop a software project. This project can be developed alone or in groups of up to four members. Software development projects are divided into the following phases: project proposal, analysis, design, implementation, and test. Documents are prepared in each phase. These documents consist of requirements that groups will prepare during the course. For example, the document of project proposal consists of six parts: project’s aim, definition, scope, methods and software tools that will be used, milestones, and plan. They are evaluated, and feedback is given to students by course instructors and two assistants. Each project phase is prepared by the students timely. The time table of project phases is given in the course Web site. At the end of

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the course, projects are presented to instructors and their fellows in a face-to-face session (Isler, 1997, 1998).

Procedure This is a case study which is an in-depth study of a chosen event, activity, and process of a group using extensive data collection (Merriam, 1988). A case study approach is advantageous when “why” and “how” questions are being asked, and it is recommended when the investigator believed that the contextual conditions are highly relevant to the phenomenon under study (Yin, 1994). It means that case study method is useful to understand a particular situation, course, and program in depth, such as online, project-based course in this study. Qualitative methods (semistructured interviews and observations) were used to collect relevant data. Subjects were chosen among the students who attended the Software Development Project Course. 46 students attended the courses, and 28 students prepared their projects alone. In addition, 18 students decided to form eight different groups with two or three members to prepare their project. For this study, semistructured interviews were conducted with eight students to obtain information about the elements that impact their online group work processes. Students were chosen randomly from one member of each group. The interviews lasted about 30 minutes, and were conducted at the end of the semester. Interview questions were developed around the central themes related to the group system variables (entry, process, outcomes). For example: What are the group member characteristics? How do group members communicate with each other? What are the difficulties that group members are faced with? Moreover, each student was observed while presenting the course project in a face-to-face session. In this study, the data process went through iterative cycles of examining the patterns and ideas that emerged from the collected data, exploring similarities and differences among the

participants, and searching for confirming and disconfirming evidences that would be incorporated into the conclusions (Merriam, 1998; Miles & Huberman 1984). In an initial data sort, the researchers first looked for similarities in the data from the participant interviews, the observations and the documents of each group. Second, the researchers looked for data that captured major differences among those groups. In order to clarify issues and to arrive at a list of critical issues of the process, categories and themes were created.

FINDINGS Data were analyzed according to Hackman and Morris’ (1975) model: “entry,” “process,” and “outcome” elements or categories. For each category, critical issues and common characteristics were identified. These are described in the following sections.

Entry Elements of Online Groups Under this item, three major categories emerged from the data: Issues about group member characteristics, group size, and task-related issues.

Group Member Characteristics In this study, eight different groups with two or three members were formed while preparing their projects in the online, project-based course. The results demonstrated that there were several reasons stated by the participants to form a group in this online course. According to the participants, one of the main reasons of forming groups was that they supported and helped each other during their project. For example, one participant stated that one person might not see his or her mistakes, but members in the online groups could check other members’ work, so they could better accomplish their projects. Another participant mentioned that

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they chose a comprehensive project, therefore it was hard to complete it alone. Moreover, all of the online groups—except one —chose group members who they already knew before the course or program. Also, four group members stated that they decided to form a group before determining a topic for the project. Only one participant found another group member by using the course discussion list. The results of the study showed that group members had similar characteristics to those in the online groups. Members’ gender and ages were nearly the same. In addition, many were students at the same departments, or graduated from the same departments. They knew each other before, and they could access and communicate with their group members easily in their daily life. Also, participants who already knew other group members expressed that they knew how members were going to behave in the project, and so they trusted each other. Moreover, all group members considered that they were literate about common computer technology at the beginning of their project. This software development project course is the last course of the certificate program. Before this course, participants completed six basic computer engineering courses, such as introduction to C programming, data structures and algorithms, database management systems, and operating systems. However, participants stated that they did not have much experience about preparing such a project. Also, they were interested in information technology, and they used some computer technology in their work settings. Only two members in different groups were good at some programming languages and database programming. The results demonstrated that the members’ personal characteristics and interests were divergent even though they had many similarities. For example, one participant stated that his/her group members had different characteristics, such as one of them is relaxed, the second one is stubborn, and the third one is harmonious. Also,

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members’ professional occupations and interests were different in two groups, such as one of them is a teacher in a primary school, the second one is a content creator in a company, one of them works in a university, and one works in a company. The member characteristics had several effects on the projects. Four participants mentioned that previous experience had not positively affected their projects, because the project topics were not related to their professional occupation. They expressed that limited knowledge about this kind of project development process led them to put forth more effort, especially when all members do not know about the topic. Members who were wellinformed about project tasks guided the project and helped other group members when they needed it. In addition, members with different interests affected group works positively since members might see many things from different perspectives, but reaching agreement in the groups took more time. As a summary, participants mentioned about several advantages and disadvantages of homogenous and heterogeneous group characteristics.

Group Size Participants mentioned that the size of online groups was determined by several factors in this type of online course. Four participants expressed that nature, scope, and aim of the project affected the group size. One participant mentioned that member properties might also affect the group size. He stated that member properties such as background knowledge and allocating time for the project might affect group size directly. In addition, most of the participants stated that two or three people are enough for this type of project. Only one participant thought that these types of project could be prepared alone. Moreover, participants mentioned advantages and disadvantages of group size with more or less members. For example, a more comprehensive project could be prepared, and work division among members was easier with more members in the groups. On the other

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hand, they thought that members might ignore their duties or might less wish to contribute their duties in the crowded groups, since they might think that one of the other members in the groups might complete the tasks. Also, one participant stated that it was difficult to reach agreements, or difficult to decide about project tasks with more members. Another participant mentioned communication problems in the groups with more members; for example, meeting or communicating with all group members at the same time or place might be a problem.

Task Related Issues All participants mentioned that tasks in their projects were related to developing software project phases. Each group proposed different project topics in the course. For instance, one group prepared an online portal for inter-city travelers. Through this portal, one may find someone to travel together with and share the experiences. Another group prepared an online assessment system (e.g., quizzes, exams for instructors to use in their courses). The third group prepared a Web site for online shopping bookstores to receive an order. The other group prepared software for companies that sell products by installments to follow their customers’ payments. Moreover, four group members stated that their friends and their relatives had mentioned their requirements. For instance, one member expressed that his father worked in a bookstore. He distributed books in a small town. His work was busy, especially in some months, and there was some disorganization in this bookstore, therefore he often mentioned his need to receive an order more easily, and more accessible by customers. In addition, there were many project ideas stated by members in a similar way at the beginning. They stated that they chose a feasible topic with common interests of all members. Although they had some ideas before the project, they investigated similar examples, and they adapted or got ideas from similar projects

in real life. Also, participants mentioned that they learned or had to learn and use various programs, techniques, and methods while preparing their project phases. For example, they learned programming languages (e.g., Java, PHP, database, MS Access, My SQL), and used photo editors to draw shapes and objects. These were new for many members in the groups, therefore they were faced with several difficulties. The online groups generally followed course requirements that were given in the time table at the beginning of the course. Course contents and examples helped them in preparing documentation. Participants stated that the course handout was crucial to complete the project components. Also, two participants mentioned that they made a plan according to the course time table. Actually, there were two ways groups followed for working during their project. In the first way, there was no work division among group members. These group members could meet often face-to-face in their daily life. They generally worked together with computers at the same place. If there were remaining works, one of the members finished them. In the second way, they made a plan before the project deadline of each phase of the project, and they met face-to-face, and discussed and worked at the same place. These group members could not meet face-to-face easily in their daily life. During the face-to-face meetings, they started with a simple idea, then improved it. They analyzed tasks, prepared drafts, and also they decided to divide tasks among members. Then, members completed their responsibilities alone with getting feedback from other members. In both ways, participants stated that they worked irregularly—sometimes hard, sometimes little. For instance, they worked hard especially when a deadline became closer. Also, participants stated that work divisions among members were distributed according to the backgrounds or previous experiences of members, and also it depended on members’ voluntary or convenient workload during that time.

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Participants stated that during the face-toface meetings, members discussed together, and listened to each other’s views. They generally accepted ideas and reached agreement at the end of meetings. One participant stated that each member explained his or her ideas frankly during the group work. In addition, members who had more knowledge in the groups affected the decision, and members who dealt with the project more influenced the decision in the groups.

Process Elements of Online Groups Under this item, we have found these major categories: issues about participation to group works, dynamics of group leadership, communication patterns, and finally, group history.

Participation in Group Works In the online groups, the important issue was members’ participation in the project. In this study, five group members stated that members worked equally in group work. They performed what they had planned. Also, they taught or assisted among members, and they sometimes controlled each other’s works. However, three participants stated that group members did not work equally in their projects. Some members worked more to complete tasks in the project. Furthermore, two groups received help from their friends, such as computer specialists working in the same company when they needed. The reasons of seeking help from others and working unequally in the project were as follows: having less knowledge about project tasks, having not enough time due to members’ other responsibilities (e.g., job, family), and having different expectations from their project. These findings are similar to the face-toface project-oriented groups. These online participants were different from traditional students, and they had various responsibilities (i.e., jobs, families) during their life in this study. Therefore, they could not always spend

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enough time for their project tasks. Also, most of the participants had little knowledge about this type of project. Moreover, there were some differences in their motivations and aims to attend the online program, even though the major aim of almost all participants was the same at the beginning of the project. They prepared this project to improve themselves and learn new things from information technology field. In addition, some of them thought that they used it for special purposes (e.g., their family would use it in their job). Some participant thought they could get money by selling their project or this type of project. Other main aims were thinking it for social purposes, getting enough grades to pass the course, and using it in their job.

Leadership In all groups, they did not select group leader at the beginning of the project. Especially, two members stated that there was no leader in the group, and one participant said that the leader appeared sometimes in the project. In addition, they thought that some members might take the leader role in the groups while preparing project tasks. For example, they guided other members when they needed. According to the participants, common characteristics of group leaders were as follows: more disciplined, more knowledgeable, more experienced, and proposers of the project idea. In addition, the participants who especially met less face-to-face stated that leaders worked more than other group members, and also they had more free time.

Communication Patterns All groups used all communication methods and tools during their project. The results of the study showed that e-mail, online chat, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings were mainly used among members in the groups. Especially, all group members met face-to-face at least five times dur-

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ing the project before the project phase’s deadline came. Also, some groups met face-to-face more, since members could often see each other in their daily life. During the face-to-face meetings participants discussed, worked, and decided something together, and then used communication tools to see and give feedback about each other’s works. They used e-mail while writing short messages and sending their project files or related files. Members used phone for coordination and informing of their work, meeting plans, and so on. Most of the participants stated that they did not much use online chat during their project. Participants who met more face-to-face used computer-mediated communication tools rarely. In general, they used phone and e-mail. On the other hand, participants who met less face-to-face communicated much, especially when a deadline becomes closer, with the help of all communication methods (i.e., online chats, e-mail, phone, and face-to-face). The results showed that members used all online communication tools; however, they preferred face-to-face meetings more. Two participants stated that in a short time they could talk about more things and work faster and spend more time on social activities. They thought that face-to-face meetings were more productive than online meetings. Also, one participant thought that they had to read the same documents and discuss them at the same time while preparing their project tasks, so they met face-to-face, and then implemented some part of the tasks together. In addition, they mentioned disadvantages of online communication tools. For example, one participant expressed that e-mail took much time to send or respond to, due to its asynchronous nature. Another participant stated that they talked to each other with ICQ and phone, but they were not enough. They needed face-to-face meetings to conclude their duties. Similarly, three participants mentioned that e-mail and phone calls were not enough, due to their limited knowledge about the project topic. They said that they also learned from each other during the face-to-face meetings.

Moreover, participants in the online groups mentioned that they did not much interact with course instructors. They generally contacted the course instructors when they were faced with problems in their project. They used generally the course discussion list to interact with the course instructors. Also, they used discussion lists to inform of their project progress, and to request clearance of their duties. They said that instructors replied to their messages in a short time. Furthermore, they used rarely the online chat session in the courses, due to the time inadequacy, being busy with their jobs, and having other responsibilities during chat session time in the online course.

Group History After group work, members mentioned group history issues. Five participants stated that they knew each other more, they became closer, and now they communicate more in their daily lives. Furthermore, members in the online groups mentioned their other activities to each other while preparing their projects. For example, three members stated that they discussed project duties during lunch breaks. One participant shared friendly conversations often—that were related to daily life—among group members. Also, two university students stated that they met frequently face-to-face, due to being students at the same department; therefore, they attended the same activities, such as playing football. In addition, members who stayed in different cities met at the same place by traveling among cities while preparing their project tasks.

Outcome Elements of Online Groups Under this item, issues about difficulties, conflicts, production, and satisfaction about group work are found as major categories.

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Difficulties and Conflicts Members in the online groups were faced with some difficulties while preparing their project phases. First, members mentioned that they were faced with finding an original project topic that would be prepared in a four-month online course. Second, most of them stated that they had anxiety at the beginning of the project, since they thought that their knowledge was inadequate, and they were incapable. Also, they stated that preparing project processes were too complex for them, and they did not know how to complete project phases, due to the limited knowledge. Therefore, they had to work hard and learn many things to prepare the project components in the given deadline. The third problem was living and working in different places. Participants mentioned that meeting at the same time with all group members was difficult, due to their busy schedules. They expressed that they might have different responsibilities when they decided to work together. It was difficult for some members in the online groups to allocate enough time for preparing their tasks, and find suitable time for face-to-face meeting and online chats. Moreover, participants mentioned several negative events while preparing their projects. For example, three group members stated that some phases of the project were too difficult for them with having little experience. One of them mentioned that they worked all night to prepare some part of the project. Another participant explained that they did the same duties lots of times to prepare documents. Also, one participant mentioned problems in their computers, which were broken down. Furthermore, one participant talked about their remembrance. His leg was broken, and they worked with members with communicating MSN messenger tools. They started to work at 11 am, till 10 pm. Participants stated that there was not much disagreement in the online group work. In general, when problems occurred, they discussed together

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how to solve it, and members guided each other for solving their problems. During the discussions, members did not insist on their ideas —they told opinions about all topics, and they sometimes accepted opposite ideas.

Production All groups finished their projects at the end of the course. Six group members stated that they reached their basic aim of the project. They thought that they did the best that they could do while preparing their project, and they accepted that group members learned many things from each phase of the project. Only two participants thought that they did not reach the aim exactly, due to being busy and less knowledgeable about the project topic. They stated that their project still required more work. For example, one participant explained that they gave up some ideas and duties due to time inadequacy.

Satisfaction The results showed that most participants were satisfied with group work in this online course. For instance, six participants stated that they were satisfied with group work, and they would regroup with the same group members. Two participants expressed that if they were not formed in the group, they would have been faced with more difficulties. They mentioned advantages of forming a group during the online course. For example, they stated that they shared success and failure among each other in the online group. They motivated and guided each other when they needed, and also they taught and learned from each other. On the other hand, two participants criticized some points of group works in this online course, even though they were generally satisfied. In other words, they were dissatisfied with some points in the group work. According to them, one of the disadvantages was that it was difficult to reach a common decision point during the group work.

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Also, they stated that group work took more time than individual work.

Recommendations for Online Project-Based Courses Some participants made recommendations for this online project-based course. For instance, not all students formed a group in this course, even though some of them were willing to form. Course instructors might help them in forming groups by finding appropriate members at the beginning of the course. Moreover, they thought that there should be at least one person who is knowledgeable about each project task in the group. He or she might guide other members when the problems arise. Therefore, they learned more things and worked more effectively in shorter time. Also, there was not much interaction among the groups in this course. Groups also should share their experiences and ideas with other groups during the course.

DISCUSSION This study analyzed the dynamics and factors that affected success and effectiveness of online groups. Eight online groups with two or three members were analyzed in an online project-based course. Participants preferred to form a group while developing their project, even though there was no enforcement in the online course. They expressed that they had gained significant benefits from group work. For example, participants stated that group members accomplished tasks that could not be done by individuals alone. They brought multiple perspectives to solve a single problem. Also, group work allowed individuals to observe perspectives of other group members, thus expanding each one’s own perspective. It is a general consensus that information and communication tools offer one of the most exciting and effective

ways to teach people how to collaborate by connecting groups, regardless of the location. In this study, the dynamics that affect group learning are combined into entry, process, and outcome variables (Hackman & Morris, 1975). Entry variables in the group systems represented the design and compositional characteristics of a group, such as member personalities, knowledge, skills and abilities, group size, and task-related issues that influenced how groups performed. Process variables in the group systems influenced group activities in which members engage, such as participation, leadership, communication pattern, and group history. Outcome variables in the group systems were related to what the groups produce and achieve during the course, such as difficulties, conflicts in the groups, and satisfaction and production of groups. Group composition has a significant impact on group performance and effectiveness in any context in the literature. According to previous research (i.e., Hackman & Morris, 1975; Mennecke, Hoffer, & Wynne, 1992; Carabajal et al., 2003), while forming learning groups, the members’ knowledge, skills, and abilities are significant factors. Carabajal et al. (2003) stated that each group member brings his or her knowledge, experience, belief, and abilities to the group. With regard to group member characteristics, one of the main issues raised in our study was group heterogeneity or homogeneity. Several advantages and disadvantages of homogenous and heterogeneous groups are reported in the literature. For example, Cohen (1994) stated that heterogeneous groups provide more opportunities for learning, because a variety of new perspectives are exposed that enables production of creative, high-quality solutions for the students. This statement was supported by various studies in the literature (i.e., Guzzo & Dickson, 1996; Milliken & Martins, 1996; Volkema & Gorman, 1998). However, Schullery and Schullery (2006) stated that in heterogeneous groups, “communicative,

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cognitive, and cultural differences increase the potential for conflict, while decreasing desirable processes such as shared leadership, cohesiveness, information sharing, and satisfaction” (p. 543). Also, other researchers showed that homogenous groups bring higher levels of cohesiveness and satisfaction (i.e., Perrone & Sedlacek, 2000). As a summary, it might be possible to create real-lifelike learning situations with heterogonous groups being dispersed across the globe, especially in computer-supported environments. According to the results of the study, the group members generally preferred to form homogeneous groups in regard to entry variables. For example, members’ gender and age levels were similar. They were students at or graduated from the same department. Their prior knowledge about computer technology and the online course project were limited. Also, members knew each other before, and they could access and communicate with their group members easily in daily life. So the homogeneity among group members affected fairly the selection of group members, activities in group processes, and group outcomes in this study. In these homogenous groups, participants generally preferred to form groups with members who they already knew and they had previously worked with. In other words, they preferred to work with a group member who knew how to behave, and how to interact or communicate with each other. Trust is a critical issue in healthy group development. Handy (1995) and Lewis (1998) stated that trust is a key ingredient in successful virtual organizations, and in order to foster trust and start to work together effectively in virtual team, they need to meet in person. Online or traditional groups are dependent on every member completing his/her assigned tasks in an efficient and effective manner. While completing tasks, equal participation is significant, since it leads to increased satisfaction for group members (Beebe & Masterson, 1997). Researchers found that conflict is more likely to occur in

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online groups when compared with face-to-face groups (Mortensen & Hinds, 2001). Also, conflict frequently occurs especially in the project group process, since group members have diverse skills, disciplines, knowledge, and experiences (Chen, 2006). On the contrary, the results of this study showed that there was not much of a problem with task distribution and task completion among members, due to the homogeneity in the groups. Members generally worked equally in group works, and they helped each other while preparing and completing their tasks. Task divisions were distributed based on members’ experiences and convenient workload during that time. Furthermore, each participant agreed that they discussed their project components among members while making decisions, and they generally reached the agreement over time at the end of the meetings. In addition to the benefits of forming homogenous groups, the results demonstrated that there were several difficulties in these groups. One of the major difficulties members were faced with was limited experiences about tasks in this type of project. Most members were faced with this kind of project for the first time. They did not know how to perform their tasks at the beginning. Furthermore, some members had time allocation problems in the groups. For example, some members had problems withspending enough time for their project duties, due to the other responsibilities (e.g., job, family). Therefore, members in the groups sometimes could not work at the same time together. Moreover, although members have a general goal for preparing their project (i.e., improving themselves and learning new things), each member in this study had a different implicit goal as well. These factors affected group effectiveness negatively during the group works. Vrasidas and McIsaac (1999) stated that group members’ task orientations, strategy orientations, goal orientations, and motivation affect participation and interaction in the groups. Also, researchers mentioned several factors that affect individual participation in online groups: mem-

Collaborative Work in Online Learning Environments

bers’responsibilities outside the online community (Kember, 1995), technical skills and equipment (Lea & Spears, 1992), and preferences and needs for interaction (Vrasidas & McIsaac, 1999). It was found that one of the factors affecting group effectiveness was task-related issues, which included task types, division, coordination and interaction between members, and the ways they used them while performing their tasks. In this online course, participants had to complete their projects in four months. General tasks and types were defined clearly by the phases of software development project for participants. Also, a timeline and examples for completing project tasks were provided for each group at the beginning of the course. Course instructors evaluated groups’ project progress and gave feedbacks regularly. Each document of groups was evaluated based on the requirements expected for each project phase. These feedbacks were given through course discussion lists and e-mail. If the groups needed more feedbacks, instructors helped them during online chat sessions. Groups generally completed the projects on time. This type of design helped groups to complete their projects. Groups started to work on the online course by proposing their project topics to the course instructors, and completed other requirements. Results showed that each group chose different project topics that related to meet the need in their real life requirements. Members reached the agreement of a common and feasible topic related to all member interests, after investigating similar ones in real life. As a summary, task types were extracted by the group members, based on their project proposals in the course. Task type is critical to the success and speed with which online groups make decisions in the literature (see Gallupe & McKeen, 1990; Daly, 1993). Also, research stated that group performance is highly dependent on developing clear plans, goals, and priorities. Groups’ tasks were designed to require substantial task and goal interdependence (Porter & Lilly, 1996).

Group size, and their fit with the group’s task, also played a very important role while creating learning groups. Actually, there is no common idea for an optimal group size for collaboration and cooperation learning in the literature. It is dependent on several variables, such as the type of task, the age and maturity of the group members, and the resources available to complete the task (Graham, 2002). Similarly, according to the participants in this study, group size was dependent on project properties, background knowledge of members, and allocating members’ time for the project tasks. Furthermore, there is limited research related to size factors in online groups in the literature. Researchers suggested that small groups are more preferable for selecting group size (Johnson et al., 1994). In this study, preferable group size among participants was two or three people, which was enough for this type of project. Members stated that work division was easier in the groups with more members, but they thought that the more members in the group, the more they ignore their duties, and the less they wish to contribute to the duties. Also, they agreed that it was difficult to meet at the same with all group members, and to reach agreements about project subjects. Group leadership is another process variable for a successful collaboration. Grenier and Metes (1995) stated that leadership in the virtual environment has a major influence on the outcome of the initiative. They mentioned that directions and boundaries are determined with the help of leadership in the projects. Although there is no clear leader among members in the online groups in this study, leaders who had more knowledge and guided other members appeared sometimes. Also, they had more time, worked hard, and generally stated a project idea. Communication among group members is one of the most important process predictors of group effectiveness. Larson and LaFasto (1989) stated that groups must communicate effectively in order to establish clear and specific goals and

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objectives, so that they might function effectively as a group. The result of this study demonstrated that the face-to-face meetings were more productive than other communication types, even though participants used all types of communications, such as e-mail, online chat, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings during their project. For instance, they sometimes used e-mail to send short messages, send files, and make coordination, used phone calls to talk to each other in a short time, and used MSN messenger and ICQ tools to discuss their project’s phases instantly. However, group members preferred face-to-face meetings more. All groups whose members could meet often face-to-face in daily life, or could not meet face to face easily, made a plan according to the course requirements, and generally worked together faceto-face while preparing their projects. Especially, groups whose members could meet often faceto-face did not prefer to use computer-mediated communication tools. Actually, they did not need to use them. On the other hand, participants who met less face-to-face communicated with each other through all available communication methods. They sent e-mails to each other, attended online chats, and met face-to face. According to Warkentin, Sayeed, and Hightower (1999), people could use multiple modes of communication during the face-to-face conservations, such as voice tone, inflection, volume, eye movement, facial expressions, hand gestures, and other body language. However, the virtual environment brings some challenges to effective communication, including time delays in sending feedback, differences in salience and interpretation of written text, and assurance of participation from remote team members (Crampton, 2001). Furthermore, Salter and Gann (2002) found that, despite modern information and communication technologies, face-to-face interaction and the immediacy of sketching are still the most important elements for developing new ideas and solving problems. Similarly, the results showed

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that members preferred face-to-face meeting periodically, if it was proper for all group members. These face-to-face meetings were reported as a positive impact on group performance, and they helped the development of positive interpersonal relationships among group members. These findings were consistent with previous studies on the benefits of face-to-face meetings for virtual teams (e.g., Lewis, 1998; Saunders, 2000). Online teams tend to have more of a taskfocus and less of a social-focus than traditional teams, and virtual teams appear to lessen their task-focus over time (Walther & Burgoon, 1992). On the other hand, group members met regularly face-to-face physically, and also, they organized social activities with each other in the groups. For example, they met frequently face-to-face, and discussed their project duties during lunch breaks. These activities that strengthen the socioemotional development of the group are other advantages of meeting face-to-face during group work projects. Group performance and member satisfaction are two major outcome variables in group work studies (Powell, Piccoli, & Ives, 2004). In this study, almost all groups completed the major aims of their project, and they were satisfied with the online group work. According to Hackman (1989), these results are important, since member satisfaction influences their willingness to collaborate and contribute to future group works. In addition, some participants mentioned difficulties that they were faced with during group work, and stated several recommendations for online, project-based courses. For instance, one of the difficulties for the participants was having little knowledge about project tasks. The second one was allocating enough time to work together for project tasks. Also, they stated that, sometimes, it was difficult to reach a common decision point during the group work. One of the results of the study showed that interaction between members and instructors through communication tools was not enough.

Collaborative Work in Online Learning Environments

Group members generally contacted the course instructors through discussion lists when they were faced with problems in their project. Instructors could play a better role in stimulating interaction in CSCL environments. Burge (1994) found two types of instructor behaviors required in online collaborative learning: discussion management (e.g., providing structure, pacing and focusing the class discussions), and contribution (e.g., giving fast and relevant technical help, sending timely and individualized, content-related messages and feedback). Therefore, online instructors must make extra effort for distance learners to prepare more effective learning environments.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Learners in online groups may produce more than they ever could have working individually. This popular and new form of group learning comprises various dynamics that have very complex natures. Such a method can only be productive if we are well-prepared for potential problems, and ready to take necessary actions in advance. Based on the results of this study, the following recommendations can be offered for instructors or designers who will deal with similar computer-supported collaborative work: •

•

• •

Designing online course structure carefully: The course content must be compatible with the students’ entry behaviors. The projects must be related with real life experiences. Helping form groups: In the courses, students must be advised to form groups; they must be supported on this issue. Keeping groups small: Group size must be kept small. Providing a leader member in groups: Group member has to be picked among the most knowledgeable members. He/She must have available time for the project.

•

•

Suggesting face-to-face meeting to members, in addition to using CMC: Online group members must be encouraged to have face-to-face meetings. Interacting with group members: Instructor must follow the groups’ performance, and make all efforts to keep the interaction level high.

CONCLUSION Distributed learning systems on the Internet are growing exponentially, and because of these systems, organizations reach greater numbers of students. Student mobility continues to increase across subject areas, geographic borders, and curriculum areas; therefore, increasing popularity of online group work is inevitable. Nevertheless, there are some cautions to consider while designing or using them in online collaborative environments. Therefore, there is need for more educational research that has focused specifically on online groups. In this study, issues in collaboratively working online learning groups were explored in an online, project-based course. Analysis framework is based on Hackman and Morris (1975)’s model for analyzing the elements that impact online group behavior and performance. It was found that group homogeneity plays a major role in successful group work. The second major finding was the importance of face-to-face communication among online teams. This study has some limitations. One of them was making group formation voluntary. For the next study, all members of the course must form a team. In this study, the participants had a chance to communicate face-to-face. So, geographically separated project members may act differently. This has to be explored. The nature of a project has also a significant role on the study. Similar studies need to be replaced on teams with different tasks.

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REFERENCES Beebe, S., & Masterson, J. T. (1997). Communicating in small groups. New York: Longman. Bonk, C. J., & Cunningham, D. J. (1998). Searching for learner-centered, constructivist, and sociocultural components of collaborative educational learning tools. In C. J. Bonk & K. S. King (Ed.), Electronic collaborators: Learner-centered technologies for literacy, apprenticeship, and discourse (pp. 25-50). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Brandon, D. P., & Hollingshead, A. B. (1999). Collaborative learning and computer-supported groups. Communication Education, 48(2), 109– 126. doi:10.1080/03634529909379159 Burge, E. J. (1994). Learning in computer conferenced contexts: The learner’s perspective. Journal of Distance Education, 9(1), 19–43. Carabajal, K., LaPointe, D., & Gunawardena, C. N. (2003). Group development in online learning communities. In M. G. Moore & W. G. Anderson (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (pp. 217-234). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Chen, M. (2006). Understanding the benefits and detriments of conflict on team creativity process. Creativity and Innovation Management, 15(1), 105–116. doi:10.1111/j.14678691.2006.00373.x Chinowsky, P., & Rojas, E. (2003). Virtual teams: Guide to successful implementation. Journal of Management Engineering, 19(3), 98–106. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(2003)19:3(98) Cohen, E. (1994) Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Crampton, C. (2001). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science, 12(3), 346–371. doi:10.1287/orsc.12.3.346.10098

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Daly, B. L. (1993). The influence of face-to-face versus computer-mediated communication channels on collective induction. Accounting, Management, and Information Technologies, 3(1), 1–22. doi:10.1016/0959-8022(93)90006-R Gallupe, R. B., & McKeen, J. (1990). Enhancing computer-mediated communication: An experimental study into the use of a decision-support system for face-to-face versus remote meetings. Information & Management, 18(1), 1–13. doi:10.1016/0378-7206(90)90059-Q Gokhale, A. A. (1995) Collaborative learning enhances critical thinking. Journal of Technology Education, 7(1). Retrieved November 1, 2007, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v7n1/ gokhale.jte-v7n1.html Graham, C. R. (2002). Understanding and facilitating computer-mediated teamwork: A study of how norms develop in online learning teams. Unpublished dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington. Grenier, R., & Metes, G. (1995). Going virtual: Moving your organization into the 21st century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Guzzo, R., & Dickson, M. (1996). Teams in organizations: Recent research on performance and effectiveness. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 307–338. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.47.1.307 Guzzo, R. A., & Salas, E. S. (1995). Team effectiveness and decision making in organizations. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Hackman, J. R. (1989). Groups that work (and those that don’t). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hackman, J. R., & Morris, C. G. (1975). Group tasks, group interaction process, and group performance effectiveness: A review and proposed integration. In Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 45-99). New York: Academic Press.

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Handy, C. (1995). Trust and virtual organization: How do you manage people whom you do not see. Harvard Business Review, 73(3), 40–50. Isler, V. (1997). Sanal Ďaiversite. Paper presented at Inet-tr ’97: Türkiye Internet Konferansi, Ankara, Turkey. Isler, V. (1998). Distance education experiences of the middle east technical university. Paper presented at the MEDISAT-EUREKA Joint Workshop: Internet as a Medium for Innovation and Technology Development in Eastern Mediterranean. Tubitak-Bilten & EU/INCO-DC. Isler, V., Vural, H., & Koc, S. (1998). ODTÛ sanal Kampüsü: Deneyimleri. Paper presented at YA/EM ’98: Yöneylem Arastirma Konferensi, Ankara, Turkey. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. J. (1994). Cooperative learning in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Stanne, M. B. (2000). Cooperative learning methods: A meta analysis. The Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota. Kember, D. (1995). Open learning courses for adults: A model of student progress. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Larson, C., & LaFasto, F. M. (1989). Teamwork: What must go right/what can go wrong. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Lea, M., & Spears, R. (1992). Paralanguage and social perception in computer-mediated communication. Journal of Organizational Computing, 2(3-4), 321–341. Lewis, R. (1998). Membership and management of a virtual team: The perspective of a research manager. R & D Management, 28(1), 5–12. doi:10.1111/1467-9310.00076

Mennecke, B., Hoffer, J. A., & Wynne, B. E. (1992). The implications of group development and history for group support system theory and practice. Small Group Research, 24(4), 524–572. doi:10.1177/1046496492234005 Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of new methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Milliken, F. J., & Martins, L. (1996). Searching for common threads: Understanding the multiple effects of diversity in organizational groups. Academy of Management Review, 21(2), 402–433. doi:10.2307/258667 Mortensen, M., & Hinds, P. (2001). Conflict and shared identity in geographically distributed teams. The International Journal of Conflict Management, 12(3), 212–238. doi:10.1108/ eb022856 Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: JosseyBass Publishers. Perrone, K. M., & Sedlacek, W. E. (2000). A comparison of group cohesiveness and client satisfaction in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 25(3), 243–251. doi:10.1080/01933920008411465 Porter, T. W., & Lilly, B. S. (1996). The effects of conflict, trust, and task commitment on project team performance. The International Journal of Conflict Management, 7(4), 361–376. doi:10.1108/eb022787 Powell, A., Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams: A review of current literature and directions for future research. The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 35(1), 6–36.

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Riel, M. (1993). Learning circles: Virtual communities for elementary and secondary schools. Retrieved November 1, 2007, from http://lrs. ed.uiuc.edu/Guidelines/Riel-93.html Salter, A., & Gann, D. (2002). Sources of ideas for innovation in engineering design. Research Policy, 32, 1309–1324. doi:10.1016/S00487333(02)00119-1 Saunders, C. S. (2000). Virtual teams: Piecing together the puzzle. In R. W. Zmud (Ed.), Framing the domain of IT management: Projecting the future through the past (pp. 29-50). Cincinnati, OH: PinnFlex Education Resources. Schullery, N. M., & Schullery, S. E. (2006). Are heterogeneous or homogeneous groups more beneficial to students? Journal of Management Education, 30(4), 542–556. doi:10.1177/1052562905277305 Thach, L., & Murphy, K. L. (1994). Collaboration in distance education: For local to international perspectives. American Journal of Distance Education, 8(3), 5–21. Travica, B. (1997). The design of the virtual organization: A research model. Paper presented at the Association of Information Systems Americas Conference, Indianapolis, IN.

Volkema, R., & Gorman, R. (1998). The influence of cognitive-based group composition on decision-making process and outcome. Journal of Management Studies, 35(1), 105–121. doi:10.1111/1467-6486.00086 Vrasidas, C., & McIsaac, M. S. (1999). Factors influencing interaction in an online course. American Journal of Distance Education, 13(3), 22–36. Walther, J. B., & Burgoon, J. K. (1992). Relational communication in computer mediated interaction. Human Communication Research, 19(1), 50–88. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1992.tb00295.x Warkentin, M., Sayeed, L., & Hightower, R. (1999). Virtual teams versus face-to-face teams. In K. E. Kendall (Ed.), Emerging information technologies improving decisions, cooperation, and infrastructure (pp. 241-262). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Yin, R. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing. Yukselturk, E. (2005). Online information technologies certificate program. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE, 6(1). Retrieved November 1, 2007, from http://tojde. anadolu.edu.tr/tojde17/articles/erman.htm

This work was previously published in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Best Practices and Principles for Instructors, and K. Orvis and A. Lassiter, pp. 114-139, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.4

A Pedagogical Approach to the Design of Learning Objects for Complex Domains Emanuela Busetti Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy Giuliana Dettori Istituto di Tecnologie Didattiche del CNR, Italy Paola Forcheri Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy Maria Grazia Ierardi Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche del CNR, Italy

ABSTRACT In this article we describe an approach to the design of learning objects (LOs) suitable to support learning in complex domains. We briefly discuss, from an educational point of view, the methodological choices underlying the design of LOs to be used as didactical materials in a distributed Web-based environment, presently under development, devoted to robotics education at the university level. We show how our pedagogical

approach to knowledge acquisition and to the use of technological tools is realised by means of didactical units which can be implemented as LOs with various aims and correspondingly different structures. We also address the issue of supporting students’ learning in ways that differ according to the requirements of each situation and illustrate how such support can be implemented by means of our pedagogically oriented LOs.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Pedagogical Approach

INTRODUCTION In an active approach to learning, oriented to the acquisition of nontrivial knowledge, to the solution of complex problems and to the development of self-regulation abilities (Ausubel, 1963; Bruner, 1966; Novak, 2002; Piaget, 1976), students build new knowledge based on their previous one, by means of personal reflection and social interaction (Dillenbourgh, 1999; Jonassen & Land, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978). In this framework, an important role for the teacher consists in supporting the students through this process, increasing their motivation, promoting initiative and control, guiding them in knowledge exploration, and organising the use of tools. Following this theoretical characterisation, learning is seen as developing from activities of three different kinds, that is, (1) individual, (2) teacher guided, and (3) in collaboration with peers. Technology can play a meaningful role in all kinds of activities by offering nontrivial working tools and individually adaptable hypermedia learning materials, easing communication and collaboration with peers, supporting self-assessment, as well as by performing some functions which have always been of teachers, such as scaffolding and problem posing. The increased possibilities of effectively implementing such an active and articulated approach to learning offered by the current development of information and computer technologies (ICT), turns out very useful when the object of study are complex domains, as for instance, mechatronics education at a university level (i.e., the design of robot control). Actual work on the real tools is crucial for suitable learning in this field, and the use of simple simulation programs cannot be sufficient. For economical reasons, however, most universities put at students’ disposal a laboratory where only experiments on some specific class of robots can be carried out, and labs with different equipments are spread across several universities. The possibility of sharing such resources at a distance would allow students to avail themselves

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not only of tools to simulate the operation of equipment, which is available in other universities, but also of the very robots located elsewhere, by means of telepresence. Exploiting this possibility is the basic idea of the Telepresence Instant Groupware for higher Education in Robotics (TIGER) project, which aims at building a Web-based environment to operatively access robot labs distributed in several Italian universities, hence providing for the students an educational context that transforms the potential of technology into a real opportunity to build up knowledge and experience. The considered application field is very complex and is characterised by the need to keep a strict connection among theoretical knowledge, methodological competence, and operational skills necessary for the use of robotic laboratories (Fabri, Falsetti, Ramazzotti, & Leo, 2004). Moreover, students are required to develop good abilities of self-regulated work and to be able to fully avail themselves of virtual environments on the Web. In order to meet the needs of this application, we designed an educational framework (Busetti, Dettori, Forcheri, & Ierardi, 2005a) where LOs (Littlejohn, 2003) are the central tools used to keep a strict connection among theoretical, methodological, and operational competence. This is obtained by defining a typology of LOs, apt to meet the variety of requirements which characterise education on robot control. In this paper, we characterise these LOs. We then consider the issue of suitably supporting students’ learning in ways that differ according to the competence of the students and the characteristics of the tasks addressed. Based on an analysis of the literature, we point out different types of support that students may need in different learning situations and show how they can be realised by means of our pedagogically oriented LOs. With our contribution, we aim to propose an approach to the design of educational environments which combine the

A Pedagogical Approach

learning object paradigm with the current pedagogical view of teaching in complex fields.

POTENTIALITIES AND LIMITS OF LEARNING OBJECTS LOs have been conceived as chunks of selfconsistent educational material suitable to be used as instructional components in a variety of contexts. This idea is central to the implementation of e-learning, since it eases, at least in principle, the construction, at limited costs, of flexible, Web-based courses (Malcolm, 2005), which can include contributions of several educational institutions and hence can constitute a means of cultural interchange and mutual enrichment. In order to effectively implement this concept, an ICT-based technology has been worked out, aiming to suitably catalogue such materials as concerns content, educational objectives, context of use, technical characteristics, and so forth, so as to allow its efficient localisation, retrieval, selection, sharing, and adaptation, independently of the creation context (Quinn & Hobbs, 2000). The characterising features which support cataloguing are usually called metadata; for their descriptions, a standard was created (IEEE, 2002). In an LO-based educational framework, a course, or, more generally, an instructional proposal, is viewed as a set of instructional units, each of which is self-consistent, endowed with precise educational objectives and modifiable. The use of LOs, however, also provides an effective technological basis to promote autonomous learning, in that it puts at users’ disposal libraries of instructional material of various kinds where the learners can freely choose those of their interest. Finally, LOs can promote teachers’ professional improvement, in that they offer the possibility to develop structured material by elaborating other teachers’ productions and hence giving the opportunity to learn from each other’s experience (Busetti, Dettori, Forcheri, & Ierardi, 2004).

Despite the many potential benefits, however, LO technology is still scarcely diffused in schools and universities (Griffith & Academic Co-Lab Staff, 2003), mostly due to the number of problems that rise when implementing it into real contexts and trying to merge it with the currently used pedagogical approach to teaching (Busetti, Forcheri, Ierardi, & Molfino, 2004; Friesen, 2004). In particular, starting an effective process of transferring this technology requires its reinterpretation, so that it can be effectively proposed as a tool to realise educational processes which results are pedagogically well founded and are apt to capture teachers’ experience in a variety of didactical situations. The design of LOs within the TIGER project was carried out along these lines.

EDUCATIONAL FRAMEWORk The TIGER project is developed within the general framework of current education at the university level, in particular regarding robotics education. The design of robot control requires a particularly strict integration between methodological and operational competence, as can be obtained by a learning-by-doing approach. The situation is, however, made particularly difficult by the fact that robots are delicate and expensive devices, and students need to undergo a suitable preparation with exploratory activities on recognition of the environment’s features before they can materially access the real tools. This motivated the need to develop telepresence environments, including the development of a rich and articulated range of abilities; such as technical; instrumental and methodological competence; metacognitive and self-regulatory abilities; and relational abilities so to be able to perform collaborative work on complex tasks (Fabri et al., 2004). Accordingly, from a pedagogical point of view, our proposal is based mainly on a constructivist approach to knowledge, where learning is

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viewed as resulting from personal activity and comparison with the activity of others. We briefly remind here that the constructivist approach relies on active learning, oriented to the acquisition of nontrivial knowledge and skills, to the solution of complex problems, to the focus on constructing knowledge rather than transmitting it, and to the development of self-regulation abilities. In this view, new knowledge is built up, based on the previously acquired one, by means of personal reflection and social interaction; by analysing and combining experiences; and by abstracting concepts and consciously applying them to the solution of new problems. Moreover, tools need to be provided and activities suggested, so as to help the learners develop metacognitive abilities (i.e., awareness and regulation of cognition) as well as abilities to control one’s own motivation and to plan, monitor, and self-evaluate one’s own learning (Hacker, Dunlosky, & Graesser, 1998; Pintrich, 1999; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). Our view, hence, is essentially learner centred. Nevertheless, we think that teachers have an important role to play by introducing concepts and guiding their deepening, posing problems; organising the overall activity; and supporting and assessing as well as keeping up student’s motivation. In this framework, technology can play a meaningful role in every component by offering nontrivial working tools and individually adaptable hypermedia learning materials; easing communication and collaboration with peers; and supporting self-assessment, as well as by performing some functions which are traditionally of teachers, such as scaffolding and problem posing. Hence, in order to face the complexity of the considered educational situation, we decided to let the TIGER system put at a user’s disposal a variety of resources apt to help students to take initiative and control their own learning, as well as to encourage them to interact with their peers and with the teacher. Moreover, we organised and structured the students’ work by integrating individual activity with learning guided by the

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teacher and learning in collaboration, by designing different ways to provide support to students’ learning according to the students’ needs and the characteristics of the problems at hand. To this end, we devised tools and functions which could be apt to implement this process and worked out a suitable organisation for the educational materials by defining a typology of LOs.

STRUCTURING THE DIDACTICAL ACTIVITY Educational Modules as Initiators of Constructive Learning Processes Based on the educational framework outlined, we oriented our designing effort by considering LOs from a teacher’s point of view. We started from observing the behaviour of a teacher who designs some educational activity. The starting point of this process is devising an overall learning experience, based on previous educational work, as well as on new contents to be learned and abilities to be acquired. Then, the teacher organises the overall path in a number of educational modules, each focused on addressing a specific topic, either theoretically or by means of some activity. These modules are actually initiators of learning experiences. Thus, they include a specific educational objective and a pedagogical approach to it. They also make use of general-purpose, complementary material, aiming to possibly give different orientations to the learning process they plan. They organise the use of both conceptual and material tools so to be functional to the work development and to suggest the interactions among the actors of the educational experience. Following our pedagogical framework, each didactical module includes, or refers to, a combination of the following resources:

A Pedagogical Approach

• • •

•

•

individual or group activities; simulation tools or actual access to the laboratory; tools which are meaningful in relation with the module’s content, so as to support collaboration, reflection, and evaluation of the experience (notebook, portfolio, qualitative and quantitative evaluation forms, filled in by teacher, peers and the student him/herself, etc.); materials to support the development of activities (outlines of activities, proposed exercises, theoretical material, methodological indications, examples, guide to the use of the laboratory, suggestions of tools to use, etc.); reports on experiences made by peers, if the teacher considers it suitable to make them available, as well as possibly existing materials related with the tools used, such as journal papers, Web sites of industries producing the tools, glossaries, and notes of use);

• •

assessment and self-assessment material; a pretest aiming to help the students assess whether or not they are prepared to tackle the module under consideration.

Each module includes a description of the work to be done, motivates its introduction, guides the student to acquire specific skills, and encourages the development of self-regulation abilities. In order to implement this view of learning so as to cope with the requirements of complex domains, we devised a variety of LOs and tools reflecting the articulated organisation of educational materials and activities that experienced teachers usually employ in their work. This correspondence is shown in Figure 1.

From Educational Modules to Structured LOs Learning modules are realised by means of LOs, designed to structure and guide an articulated educational activity. We designed these LOs,

Figure 1. Correspondence between pedagogical conception and technological environment Pedagogical conception Activity organisation

Tools for manipulating, representing and communicating

Technological Tools

Educational modules Complementary material

Functional LOs

Structured LOs

Activity management Technological environment

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which embody the modules, so that they can, in turn, make use of, or refer to, other LOs with a different structure, corresponding to materials necessary to carry out the proposed activities. This organisation implies having at the learner’s disposal LOs of different types, depending on the characteristics of the educational modules they embody: (1) structured LOs, based on a precise educational objective, characterised by a type which determines their structure and didactical function and (2) functional LOs, which do not include a specific pedagogical orientation but have a general-purpose or context-related function. These correspond to complementary materials. These two types of LOs are, in turn, divided into different subtypes, according to their structure and function. The hierarchy resulting from this characterisation of LOs is represented in Figure 2. Functional LOs can take different types according to the kind and function of their content. We distinguish, in particular, two general types, that is, (1) context-dependent ones, containing material that is relevant only in connection with some particular module; these include presentations,

assessment modules, and so forth and (2) generalpurpose ones, whose content may be relevant for any module of a whole, articulated course; such as glossaries, templates, and so forth. These two types of functional LOs, in turn, are subdivided into several subtypes, according to their specific function. Hence, we give to each of them names such as glossary LO, presentation LO, template LO, assessment LO, and so forth. Also, structured LOs can take different forms, depending on the objective of the correspondent modules. As a teacher can decide to apply a different educational approach in different phases of the overall learning path, based on the specific requirements of the situation (which depends on the students’ competence and maturity level, and partially also on the nature of the topic addressed), we can devise different kinds of didactical modules. This possible diversification of modules led us to introduce a characterisation of structured LOs with different didactical aims, as shown in Figure 2. We describe here briefly the three types we consider necessary for our purposes:

Figure 2. Types of LOs devised in our proposal LO

Structured

Problem LO

Functional

Mixed LO

Guided LO

Context dependent

Conclusion

Presentation Pre/post-test

General

…..…

Template

Glossary …….

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1.

2.

3.

Modules guided by the teacher. In this case, the control of the activity, which initially relies most on the teacher, gradually passes to the students while they develop some abilities. Such modules aim to introduce content knowledge or some basic approach to problem solving. In this case, teaching and learning are very structured, though still based on the performing of activities. We call guided LOs the correspondent of such modules. Modules oriented to autonomous exploration, where the control is strongly demanded to the student (or group of students). In this case, a problem situation is proposed. The module includes groups of questions leading the students towards activities necessary to solve the given problem, as well as materials and tools relevant with respect to the task assigned. Here the evolution of learning cannot be completely planned a priori, nor can it easily be evaluated with traditional methods. This approach is suitable for students who have already acquired a basic preparation. It aims to develop high level cognitive abilities, as well as to support metacognition and autonomous learning. We call problem LOs the correspondents of such modules. Modules based on a mixed approach, combining teacher guidance and autonomous exploration. These can be formed by the combination of more than one LO of the previous two types. They correspond to mixed LOs.

We wish to remark that both a problem LO or a guided LO may be suitably applied to support the learning of a same topic, but with different pedagogical aims, as illustrated by the examples in the next section.

Examples of Structured LOs Guided LOs and problem LOs can be used to tackle a same problem by applying different pedagogical approaches, which could be required by the characteristics of some educational situations. Let us see, for example, a meaningful problem among those considered within the TIGER environment, that is, how to analyse the unexpected behaviour of a robot. To acquire this ability, it is necessary that students learn to analyse conceptually and understand several problem situations; they must learn to reflect on the variables of the problems and on the elements of the context that may influence their behaviour, on what tests should be carried out to verify such influence, and on the order to follow when performing such tests. The complexity of this task depends on the characteristics of the problem at hand. This motivates the need to have LOs of different kinds on this topic, so to assist the students during the subsequent phases of their learning. If the students are at the beginning of their work in this field, and have no practical experience, teacher’s guidance is necessary to help them learn by examples how experts reason on this kind of problems; hence, we will make use of a guided LO, like the one sketched in Figure 3. We note that in this case the activity is articulated into five phases. First, the teacher (real or virtual) gives a general idea of the situation and motivates the problem. The second phase is still characterised by a central presence of the teacher, who shows how to reason to find the cause of the problem so as to tackle it effectively; the focus is on developing analytical abilities, not on the acquisition of some procedure, since it is obviously not possible to figure out a priori all the possible causes of unexpected behaviour. The students start to become active by record-

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Figure 3. The structure of a guided LO for the “unexpected behaviour” problem Guided LO Analysis of a problem of Unexpected Behaviour Phase 1Focus the situation and the problem

Phase 2Observation and reflection

Work schematisation Problem motivation

Movie: the teacher in the lab tackles a case of unexpected behaviour, reasoning aloud Text: reasoning transcription Activity: take notes of the reasoning steps and of the tools used (send the notes to the teacher)

Feedback from the teacher Phase 3Guided analysis, procedure

Phase 4Solution of a similar case

Indication: representations of the steps carried out by the teacher Activity: written comparison between student s notes and the above representation; comment

Activity: analysis of a similar case Suggestions: indication of tools to use, request to write down a work plan

Phase 5(Self-) Evaluation

Test Preparation of a guide to cause determination Report on the activity carried out, and comparison of results

Figure 4. The structure of a problem LO for the “unexpected behaviour” problem

Problem LO Analysis of a problem of Unexpected Behaviour Phase 1Orienting and focusing

Phase 2Observing the problem Organizing the solution process Selecting tools Using tools Conclusions Reflecting on the process

Phase 3Guided analysis, procedure

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Work schematisation Problem motivation

Describe the situation and goals to reach Visualize the normal functioning of the system, if wished Suggestions to Construct and analyse a model of the system Break the problem into parts Interpret the symptoms as relations among variables Recall experiences on similar cases Generate hypotheses Work out texts to evaluate the hypotheses Interpret the results

Activity Solve the problem Make an agenda for the work to do Control the procedure: take notes of the observations, decisions, conclusions Argue the solution approach chosen

Final report on the activity Self-evaluation of the work done Feedback from the teacher

A Pedagogical Approach

ing the reasoning steps exemplified. A feedback from the teacher at this point aims to check if the students are approaching the task in the correct way. In the next step, the students are asked to analyse deeply the procedure applied, so to make sure they understand correctly all important steps, still supported by comments of the teacher. In the fourth phase, they are requested to solve (conceptually), by themselves, a similar case and to sketch a work plan. Finally, they need to selfevaluate their work before being evaluated by the teacher. The self-evaluation phase, in particular, is very important for the students to improve their metacognitive abilities (which include awareness of what they know and do not know). This is an important prerequisite for them to be in condition to proceed in their learning path. In Figure 4, on the other hand, we show the structure of a problem LO on the same topic. Here the activity consists of only three phases, where the central and most important one must be carried essentially autonomously. The initial phase still consists in focus on the situation considered, analogously to what happens in the previous example. The second phase points out the goals to be reached and offers the possibility to visualise the normal functioning of the observed robot. It also gives suggestions on what tools could be chosen and how they should be used to solve the problem, as well as recalls on how to organise the work from a conceptual point of view. Finally, a phase of self-evaluation and formal evaluation concludes the module. Some examples of LOs of either kind implementing constructivist educational ideas are mentioned in Table 1.

SUPPORTING THE LEARNING PROCESS When designing some educational activity, teachers also need to reflect on what kind of support to provide, as well as when and how to give it. From

a theoretical point of view, speaking of educational support to the learning process refers to the interactions that take place within an educational context and give rise to learning. It is sometimes called scaffolding, with an overloaded term which can be used to refer both to support in general and to a particular kind of it, also called Scaffolding or, more rarely, Fading, as specified in the Scaffolding Section. The term scaffolding was first introduced within the constructivist framework in order to metaphorically represent effective interactions (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). The idea of scaffolding is related to Vygotsky’s (1978, p. 86) studies on the “zone of proximal development,” which is the area of learning where students are not able to proceed by themselves but can do it under an expert’s guidance. Distinctions within this concept were later introduced, emphasising different points of view on the supporting activity and consequent differences in the didactical planning, as described next.

Modelling Modelling received great attention in the framework of social learning theory (Bandura, 1977). This term refers to the kind of support that guides the students to improve their problem solving abilities by observing experts’ behaviour. In this case, attention is focused on the analysis of expert’s results, on what knowledge they use, and on what cognitive and metacognitive processes they carry out during a problem solving activity. Modelling includes the analysis of meaningful cases and implements an approach to educational support which is problem oriented and guided by the teacher. An important aspect of modelling is to focus on the observation of expert’s reasoning models, not only on the analysis of experts’ results. The didactical aim of LOs implementing modelling is thus to lead students to spot and reflect on the differences between how they tackle problems and how teachers do.

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Table 1. Examples of different kinds of LOs to implement educational principles of constructivism Examples of realisation Principles

Guided LO

Problem LO

Learning content and abilities to acquire should be meaningful to the student

− Preliminary presentation of the work to do − Gradual content development on a meaningful problem − Activity evaluation − Feedback

− Activity based on a real problem − Activity evaluation − Feedback

Learning content and abilities to acquire should be connected to the students’ previous knowledge

− Use of pretests − Spiral organisation of teaching − Examples connected with students’ experience

− Reasonably challenging problems − Pretests − Presentations showing the competencies required

The development of self-evaluation abilities and metacognitive reflection should be encouraged

− Self-evaluation − Activities focused on the a posteriori analysis of a module, as concerns difficulties encountered and motivation to learn

− Self-evaluation − Activity control: activity planning, monitoring and adjustment, choice of tools to use, and so forth

− Analysing some content according to different modalities (graphical, numerical, textual ...) and from different viewpoints (technical, economical, social, …) − Use of tools of different kind and nature − Interactive classes

− Use of tools of different kind and nature − Analysis of articulated issues − Projects in collaboration − Peer evaluation

− Evaluation while carrying out the work − Feedback − Reflecting on the quality of possible problem solutions

− Presentation and discussion of own activity highlighting the individual learning aspects − Discussions on on-going work at different phases

The comparison among different viewpoints and different problem representations should be encouraged

Evaluation should become a self-analysis tool, aiming to bring further learning

Teacher should act as learning facilitator

Learning entails social mediation and negotiation

Learning should take place in real contexts

− Activities favouring autonomous reflection; for example: • make hypotheses on the causes of some phenomenon • compare different solutions to a given problem − Activities entailing the use of typical tools to solve problems in the considered domain − Active participation to a teleclass in the lab − Reflecting on the video of a class in the lab

− Group projects

− References to real situations well known to the students − Activities promoting knowledge transfer; for example: • determining the adaptability of a given solution to a different problem or situation • giving examples of different situations for which a certain conceptual solution is suitable

− Presentation of a real situation where a considered problem can take place − Proposal of tools of common use for solving problems

Coaching The term coaching refers to the teacher’s activity supporting students’ efforts to solve some task. In this case, the emphasis is on students’ work. Here, the teacher follows and regulates students’ activity, by analysing it and providing

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− General indications of possible paths to follow − Questions helping to focus the main aspects of a problem

feedback and suggestions. This kind of support, hence, develops during the activity and entails a high degree of interaction between students and teacher. It is not necessarily limited to class activity, though, since distance communication tools, such as e-mail, CMC platforms, or vid-

A Pedagogical Approach

eoconferences can be used to allow coaching in ICT-based environments. In our pedagogically oriented framework, coaching is realised by structured LOs entailing a direct intervention of the teacher or containing links to functional LOs and communication tools.

Scaffolding The term scaffolding refers to any incentive or help, adapted to the student’s ability level, intentionally given in order to help a student to perform some task (Jonassen, Mayes, & McAleese, 1993). In this case, the focus is mainly on knowledge to be acquired and tasks to be tackled, taking into consideration the systemic factors that may affect performance. A distinctive characteristic of scaffolding is to decrease over time and finally disappear. It can also include some activities which are typical of modelling and coaching, provided they are implemented so as to progressively decrease while the learners acquire the ability to work on their own. From the point of view of application, scaffolding can be subdivided into categories taking into account the requirements of the educational situation at hand (Reiser, 2004; Winnips & McLoughlin, 2001). It is hence possible to talk of motivational, procedural, cognitive, metacognitive, and strategic scaffolding. In our pedagogical approach it can be realised through the interaction among student, teacher, and peers mediated by structured LOs.

Choosing the Right Kind of Support It is clear that none of the mentioned types of support can be considered the best one for any case, since each of them have potentialities which make it more or less suitable in different educational situations. They should, hence, not be considered as opposite choices, but combined and integrated,

even within a same activity. Figure 5 shows, as example, a guided LO focused on modelling expert reasoning, which makes use of the three mentioned kinds of support in different phases of the proposed activity. Creating an effective support is, in general, a complex task (Rasku-Puttonen, Eteläpelto, Arvaja, & Häkkinen, 2003). It is clearly difficult, as a matter of fact, to find a balance between the current development point of students and possible achievements. In order to effectively lead to actual learning, the support given should evolve, over time, to follow the changes of the learning needs (Fretz et al., 2002; Masters & Yelland, 2002), but unfortunately it is not easy to devise and implement rules to guide such evolution. Nevertheless, we can propose some general criteria apt to express at least partially the ever-changing nature of an effective educational support, pointing out, for each of them, what kinds of LOs and tools of our pedagogical framework can be used for that end: •

•

Develop a pedagogical approach integrating teacher-guided work with an autonomous one, by gradually mixing activities of these two kinds, based on the development reached by the students in the considered topic. These kind of activities can by realised by means of mixed LOs. Include in an educational path, moments in which personal activity comes before the analysis of the activity of others. This kind of activity, which aims at letting students try to figure out, on their own, individual ways to tackle problems, instead of replicating solving approaches of others, can be realised by asking them to hand in their results before accessing educational materials, such as: ◦ best-cases worked out by peers, when the assignment consists in solving a problem or working out a project;

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◦

• •

•

• •

•

syntheses and overall considerations of the teacher, when the assignment consists of analysing some problem situation; and ◦ argued evaluation made by teachers or peers when the assignment is a selfevaluation task. Allow students to get help from peers who are possibly online. Use evaluation as an occasion of learning, including the possibility for the students to hand in—a second time—their work after a first evaluation, making use of the knowledge gained from the evaluation received and from examples of best cases. Include the use of adaptable tools, apt to grant different kinds of support based on the actions made with them. For instance, a collection of frequently asked questions can be used as coaching, if students use them to get the answers to implicit or explicit questions; cognitive scaffolding, if students use them to rapidly refer to known procedures and methods which are functional to a task they are working on; and metacognitive scaffolding, if teachers ask their students to organise and update them.

Conclusion We propose an approach to the design of learning objects aiming to realise educational proposals based on the idea that mastering a topic can be achieved through a process of autonomous construction and reflection. By mastering a topic we mean the ability to autonomously and effectively use methodologies and conceptual tools in the solution of complex problems.

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Students’ attitudes and preferences, specific contents, and learning environment determine the need to organise and enrich teacher’s action so as to make sure that students master the conceptual knowledge, which is the basis of complex fields like the considered one. This explains our proposal to combine within an articulated educational intervention moments in which the control of learning depends on the teacher with moments in which such control is given to the students. Our vision of LOs models a teacher’s behaviour while planning an educational activity with this orientation. When we realise this structure with a (structured) LO, we endow the LO with the same pedagogical approach of the correspondent didactical proposal. This approach, which is currently adopted within the TIGER project, has several advantages from the educational point of view: it gives an operative tool to help the teacher gain familiarity with the concept of LOs; it enriches the expressive power of LOs by representing not only learning materials but also pedagogical orientations; it gives the possibility to shape templates based on different points of view, hence providing materials which are easier to re-use in different educational situations than ready-to-use proposals; and it gives indications on a possible approach to create LOs of a constructive kind, hence capturing the essential nature of the didactical process, which is constantly in evolution.

Acknowledgment This work has been partially supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, FIRB Research Project, Telepresence Instant Groupware for Higher Education in Robotics (TIGER), and the project Virtual Communities for Education (VICE).

A Pedagogical Approach

Figure 5. Use of different kinds of support within a guided LO Guided LOs observation of the teacher s behaviour textual transcription of the reasoning

Functional LOs and working tools Exploring: observing teacher s behaviour

indication on the analysis to perform Request of reporting the analysis on the form

notes Esploring and controlling: reconstructing teacher s reasoning

feedback Visualisation of the reasoning steps

Synthesis

notebook

Reflecting, explicitating: comparing personal construction with that suggested by the material

Control and sharing

Modelling

Support to

Coaching

Input for

form to be filled in

filled in form sent to the teacher

form completed with the comparison sent to the teacher teacher s opinion on the student s work

Scaffolding

References Ausubel, D. (1963). The psychology of meaningful verbal learning. New York: Grune & Stratton. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. New York: General Learning Press. Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Busetti, E., Dettori, G., Forcheri, P., & Ierardi, M. G. (2004). Guideline towards effectively sharable LOs, ICWL 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3143, 416-423. Busetti, E., Dettori, G., Forcheri, P., & Ierardi, M. G. (2005). A pedagogical approach to the design of learning objects. International Conference m-ICTE 2005 (pp. 290-294). Caceres, (E), pp. 7-10.

Busetti, E., Dettori, G., Forcheri, P. & Ierardi, M. G. (2005a). Devising a typology of LOs based on pedagogical assumptions. In R. Lau, Q. Li, R. Cheung, W. Liu (Eds.), Advances in Web-Based Learning - ICWL 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Busetti, E., Forcheri, P., Ierardi, M. G., & Molfino, M. T. (2004). Repositories of learning objects as learning environments for teachers. Proceedings of ICALT 2004 (pp.450-454). IEEE Computer Society Press. Dillenbourgh, P. (Ed.). (1999). Collaborative learning—Cognitive and computational approaches. Oxford UK: Elsevier Science Ltd. Fabri, D., Falsetti, C., Ramazzotti, S., & Leo, T. (2004). Robot control designer education on the Web robotics and automation. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and automation (ICRA ’04) (pp. 1364-1369). New Orleans, LA.

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Fretz, E. B., Wu, H.-K., Zhang, B., Davis, E. A., Krajcik, J. S., & Soloway, E. (2002). An investigation of software scaffolds supporting modeling practices. Research in Science Education, 32(4), pp. 567-589. Friesen, N. (2004). Three objections to learning objects. In R. McGreal (Ed.), Online Education Using Learning Objects (pp. 59-70). London: Routledge. Griffith & Academic Co-Lab Staff (2003). Learning objects in higher education. Academic ADL Co-Lab with Sponsorship by WebCT. Retrieved from http://www.academiccolab.org/resourc-

es/webct_learningobjects.pdf

Hacker, D. J., Dunlosky, J., & Graesser, A. C., (Eds.). (1998). Metacognition in educational theory and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. IEEE (2002). Draft Standard for Learning Object Metadata:http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/ LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf Jonassen, D. H., & Land, S. M. (Eds.). (2000). Theoretical foundations of learning environments. NJ: Erlbaum Associates. Jonassen, D. H., Mayes, T., & McAleese, R. (1993). A manifesto for a constructivist approach to technology in higher education. In T. Duffy, J. Lowyck, & D. Jonassen (Eds.), Design environments for constructivist learning. (pp. 231-247). Springer Verlag. Littlejohn, A. (Ed.). (2003). Reusing on line resources: A sustainable approach to e-learning. London: Kogan Page. Malcolm, M. (2005). The exercise of the object: Issues in resource reusability and reuse. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1), pp. 33-42.

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Masters, J., & Yelland, N. (2002). Teacher scaffolding: An exploration of exemplary practice. Education and Information Technologies, 7(4), 313-321. Novak, J. D. (2002). Meaningful learning: The essential factor for conceptual change in limited or inappropriate propositional hierarchies leading to empowerment of learners. Science Education, 86(4), pp. 548-571. Piaget, J. (1976). The grasp of consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pintrich, P. R. (1999). The role of motivation in promoting and sustaining self-regulated learning. International Journal of Educational Research, 31(6), 459-470. Quinn, C., & Hobbs, S. (2000). Learning objects and instruction components: Formal discussion summary. Educational Technology & Society, 3(2), 377-393. Rasku-Puttonen, E., Eteläpelto, A., Arvaja, M., & Häkkinen, P. (2003). Is successful scaffolding an illusion?—Shifting patterns of responsibility and control in teacher-student interaction during a long-term learning project. Instructional Science, 31(6). Reiser, B. J. (2004). Scaffolding complex learning: The mechanisms of structuring and problematizing student work. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), pp. 273-304. Winnips, J. C., & McLoughlin, C. (2001). Six learner supports you can build. In C. Montgomerie & J. Viteli (Eds.), In Proceedings of ED Media 2001: World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, AACE (pp. 2062-2068). Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 17, 89-100.

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Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. A. (Eds.). (2001). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theoretical perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 5, Issue 2, edited by S. Chang; T. Shih, pp. 1-17, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.5

Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach Nikos Karacapilidis University of Patras, Greece Manolis Tzagarakis University of Patras, Greece

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

Arguing that a varying level of formality needs to be offered in systems supporting argumentative collaboration, this article proposes an incremental formalization approach that has been adopted in the development of CoPe_it!, a Web-based tool that complies with collaborative principles and practices, and provides members of communities engaged in argumentative discussions and decision making processes with the appropriate means to collaborate towards the solution of diverse issues. According to the proposed approach, incremental formalization can be achieved through the consideration of alternative projections of a collaborative workspace.

Designing software systems that can adequately address users’ needs to express, share, interpret, and reason about knowledge during a session of argumentative collaboration has been a major research and development activity for more than 20 years (de Moor & Aakhus, 2006). Designing, building, and experimenting with specialized argumentation and decision rationale support systems have resulted to a series of argument visualization approaches. Technologies supporting argumentative collaboration usually provide the means for discussion structuring, sharing of documents, and user administration. They support argumentative collaboration at various levels and have been tested through diverse user groups and contexts. Furthermore, they aim at exploring argumentation as a means to establish a common ground between diverse stakeholders, to

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Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support

understand positions on issues, to surface assumptions and criteria, and to collectively construct consensus (Jonassen & Carr, 2000). When engaged in the use of these technologies, through a software system supporting argumentative collaboration, users have to follow a specific formalism. More specifically, their interaction is regulated by procedures that prescribe and –at the same time –constrain their work. This may refer to both the system-supported actions a user may perform (types of discourse or collaboration acts), and the system-supported types of argumentative collaboration objects (e.g., one has to strictly characterize an object as an idea or a position). In many cases, users have also to fine-tune, align, amend or even fully change their usual way of collaborating in order to be able to exploit the system’s features and functionalities. Acknowledging that the above are necessary towards making the system interpret and reason about human actions (and the associated resources), thus offering advanced computational services, there is much evidence that sophisticated approaches and techniques often resulted to failures (Shipman & McCall, 1994). This is often due to the extra time and effort that users need to spend in order to get acquainted with the system, the associated disruption of the users’ usual workflow (Fischer, Lemke, McCall, & Morch, 1991), as well as to the “error prone and difficult to correct when done wrong” character and the prematurely imposing structure of formal approaches (Halasz, 1988). As a consequence, we argue that a varying level of formality should be considered. This variation may either be imposed by the nature of the task at hand (e.g., decision making, joint deliberation, persuasion, inquiry, negotiation, conflict resolution), the particular context of the collaboration (e.g., legal reasoning, medical decision making, public policy), or the group of people who collaborate each time (i.e., how comfortable people feel with the use of a certain technology or formalism). The above advocate an incremental formalization approach, which has been adopted

in the development of CoPe_it!, a Web-based tool that is able to support argumentative collaboration at various levels of formality (http://copeit.cti.gr). CoPe_it! complies with collaborative principles and practices, and provides members of communities engaged in argumentative discussions and decision making processes with the appropriate means to collaborate towards the solution of diverse issues. Representative settings where the tool would be useful include medical collaboration towards making a decision about the appropriate treatment of a patient, public policy making involving a wide community, collaboration among students in the context of their project work, organization-wide collaboration for the consideration and elaboration of the organization’s objectives, Web-based collaboration to enhance individual and group learning on an issue of common interest, and so forth. According to the proposed approach, incremental formalization can be achieved through the consideration of alternative projections (i.e., particular representations) of a collaborative workspace, as well as through mechanisms supporting the switching from one projection to another. This article focuses on the presentation of this approach. More specifically, Section 2 comments on a series of background issues related to reasoning and visualization, as well as on related work. Section 3 presents our overall approach, illustrates two representative examples of different formality level and sketches the procedure of switching among alternative projections of a particular workspace. Finally, Section 4 discusses advantages and limitations of the proposed approach and outlines future work directions.

BACkGROUND ISSUES The representation and facilitation of argumentative discourses being held in diverse collaborative settings has been a subject of research interest for quite a long time. Many software systems

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have been developed so far, based on alternative models of argumentation structuring, aiming to capture the key issues and ideas during meetings and create a shared understanding by placing all messages, documents and reference material for a project on a “whiteboard”. More recent approaches pay particular attention to the visualization of argumentation in various collaborative settings. As widely argued, visualization of argumentation can facilitate problem solving in many ways, such as in explicating and sharing representations among the actors, in maintaining focus on the overall process, as well as in maintaining consistency and in increasing plausibility and accuracy (Kirschner, Buckingham Shum, & Carr, 2003). Generally speaking, existing approaches provide a cognitive argumentation environment that stimulates reflection and discussion among participants (a comprehensive consideration of such approaches can be found in (Karacapilidis, Loukis, & Dimopoulos, 2005)). However, they receive criticism related to their adequacy to clearly display each collaboration instance to all parties involved (usability and ease-of-use issues), as well as to the structure used for the representation of collaboration. In most cases, they merely provide threaded discussion forums, where messages are linked passively. This usually leads to an unsorted collection of vaguely associated positions, which is extremely difficult to be exploited in future collaboration settings. As argued in van Gelder (2003), “packages in the current generation of argument visualization software are fairly basic, and still have numerous usability problems”. Also important, they do not integrate any reasoning mechanisms to (semi)automate the underlying decision making processes required in a collaboration setting. Admittedly, there is a lack of consensus seeking abilities and decision-making methods. Taking the abovementioned into account, we claim that an integrated consideration of visualization and reasoning is needed in an argumentative collaboration context. Such an integrated

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consideration should be in line with incremental formalization principles. More specifically, the integration should efficiently and effectively address problems related to formality (Shipman & Marshall, 1994). As discussed in Shipman and McCall (1994), “users want systems be more of an active aid to their work –to do more for them; yet they already resist the low level of formalization required for passive hypertext”. Existing work on incremental formalization argues that problems related to formality have to be solved by approaches that (1) do not necessarily require formalization to be done at the time of input of information, and (2) support (not automate) formalization by the appropriate software. At the same time, the abovementionedintegrated consideration should be also in line with the information triage process (Marshall & Shipman, 1997), for example the process of sorting and organizing through numerous relevant materials and organizing them to meet the task at hand. During such a process, users must scan, locate, browse, update, and structure effortlessly knowledge resources that may be incomplete, while the resulting structures may be subject to rapid and numerous changes.

OUR APPROACH The research method adopted for the development of the proposed solution follows the Design Science Paradigm, which has been extensively used in information systems research (Hevner, March, Park, & Ram, 2004). Having followed this paradigm, our main contribution lies in the development of a Web-based tool for supporting argumentative collaboration and the underlying creation, leveraging and utilization of the relevant knowledge. Generally speaking, our approach allows for distributed (synchronous or asynchronous) collaboration and aims at aiding the involved parties by providing them with a series of argumentation, decision-making and knowledge

Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support

management features. Moreover, it exploits and builds on issues and concepts discussed in the previous section.

Analysis of Requirements A series of interviews with members of diverse communities (from the engineering, management and education domains) has been performed in order to identify the major issues they face during their argumentative collaboration practices. These issues actually constitute a set of challenges for our approach, in that the proposed collaboration model and infrastructure must provide the necessary means to appropriately address them. These issues are: •

•

Management of information overload: This is primarily due to the extensive and uncontrolled exchange of comments, documents and, in general, any type of information/ knowledge resource, that occurs in the settings under consideration. For instance, such a situation may appear during the exchange of ideas, positions and arguments; individuals usually have to spend much effort to keep track and conceptualize the current state of the collaboration. Information overload situations may ultimately harm a community’s objectives, requiring users to spend much time on information filtering and comprehension of the overall collaboration status. Diversity of collaboration modes as far the protocols followed and the tools used are concerned: Interviews indicated that the evolution of the collaboration proceeds incrementally; ideas, comments, or any other type of collaboration object are exchanged and elaborated, and new knowledge emerges slowly. When a community’s members collaboratively organize information, enforced formality may require specifying their knowledge before it is fully formed. Such emergence cannot be attained when the col-

•

•

•

laborative environment enforces a formal model (i.e., predefined information units and relationships) from the beginning. On the other hand, formalization is required in order to ensure the environment’s capability to support and aid the collaboration efforts. In particular, the abilities to support decision making, estimation of present state or summary reports benefit greatly from formal representations of the information units and relationships. Expression of tacit knowledge: A community of people is actually an environment where tacit knowledge (i.e., knowledge that the members do not know they posses or knowledge that members cannot express with the means provided) predominantly exists. Such knowledge must be able to be efficiently and effectively represented. Integration and sharing of diverse information and knowledge: Many resources required during a collaborative session have either been used in previous sessions or reside outside the members’ working environment. Moreover, outcomes of past collaboration activities should be able to be reused as a resource in subsequent collaborative sessions. Decision making support: Many communities require support to reach a decision. This means that their environment (i.e., the tool used) needs to interpret the information types and relationships in order to proactively suggest trends or even calculate the outcome of a collaborative session (e.g., as is the case in voting systems).

Conceptual Approach To address these issues, our approach builds on a conceptual framework where formality and the level of knowledge structure during argumentative collaboration is not considered as a predefined and rigid property of the tool, but rather as an

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adaptable aspect that can be modified to meet the needs of the tasks at hand. By the term formality, we refer to all the rules enforced by the system and to which all discourse actions of users must comply. Allowing formality to vary within the collaboration space, incremental formalization, for example, a stepwise and controlled evolution from a mere collection of individual ideas and resources to contextualized and interrelated knowledge artifacts, can be achieved. In the proposed collaboration model, projections constitute the “vehicle” that permits incremental formalization of argumentative collaboration (see Figure 1). A projection can be defined as a particular representation of the collaboration space, in which a consistent set of abstractions able to solve a particular organizational problem during argumentative collaboration exists. With the term abstraction, we refer to the particular discourse types, relationships and actions that are available at a particular projection, and with

which a particular problem can be represented, expressed and—ultimately—be solved. Each projection of the collaboration space provides the necessary mechanisms to support a particular level of formality. More specifically, the more informal is a projection, the more easeof-use is implied; at the same time, the actions that users may perform are intuitive and not time consuming (e.g., drag-and-drop a document to a shared collaboration space). Informality is associated with generic types of actions and resources, as well as implicit relationships between them. However, the overall context is human (and not system) interpretable. On the other hand, the more formal is a projection, ease-of-use is reduced (users may have to go through training or reading of long manuals in order to comprehend and get familiar with sophisticated system features); actions permitted are less and less intuitive and more time consuming. Formality is associated with fixed types of actions, as well as explicit relationships

Figure 1. Alternative projections of a collaboration space t2 se ol

Formal Projection

To

To o

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Informal Projection

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between them. The overall context in this case is both human and system interpretable. An informal projection also aims at supporting information triage. It is the informal nature of this projection that permits such an ordinary and unconditioned evolution of knowledge structures. While such a way of dealing with knowledge resources is conceptually close to practices that humans use in their everyday environment (e.g., their desk), it is inconvenient in situations where support for advanced decision making processes must be provided. Such capabilities require knowledge resources and structuring facilities with fixed semantics, which should be understandable and interpretable not only by the users but also by the tool. Hence, decision-making processes can be better supported in environments that exhibit a high level of formality. The formal projections of the collaboration space come to serve such needs.

Examples To better illustrate our approach, this subsection presents two alternative (already implemented) projections of a particular collaborative session (the session is about which is the most appropriate treatment for a patient with breast cancer). The first one is fully informal and complies with the abovementioned information triage principles, while the second one builds on an IBIS-like formalism (Conklin & Begeman, 1989) and supports group decision making.

Informal Projection As mentioned earlier, the aim of an informal projection of the collaboration space is to provide users the means to structure and organize information units easily, and in a way that conveys semantics to users. Generally speaking, informal projections may support an unbound number of discourse element types (e.g., comment, idea, note, resource). Moreover, users may create any

relationship among discourse elements (there are no fixed relationship types); hence, relationship types may express agreement, disagreement, support, request for refinement, contradiction, and so forth. Informal projections may also provide abstraction mechanisms that allow the creation of new abstractions out of existing ones. Abstraction mechanisms include: • •

•

•

Annotation and metadata: the ability to annotate instances of various discourse elements and add (or modify) metadata. Aggregation: The ability to group a set of instances of discourse elements so as to be handled as a single conceptual entity. This may lead to the creation of additional informal subprojections, where a set of discourse elements can be considered separately, but still in relation to the context of a particular collaboration. Generalization/Specialization: The ability to create semantically coarse or more detailed discourse types. Generalization/specialization may not lead to additional informal projections but may help users to manage information pollution of the collaboration space leading to ISA hierarchies. Patterns: The ability to specify instances of interconnections between discourse elements (of the same or a different type) as templates acting as placeholders that can be reused within the discussion.

Figure 2 presents an example of an informal projection of the collaboration session considered. Medical doctors discuss the case of a particular patient aiming at achieving a decision on the most appropriate treatment. Since initially the process of gathering and discussing the available treatment options is unstructured, highly dynamic and thus evolving rapidly, the informal space provides the most appropriate environment to support collaboration at this stage. The aim is to bring the session to a point where main trends crystallize,

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Figure 2. Instance of an informal projection

thus enabling the switch to a formal projection (upon the participants’ wish). In the example of Figure 2, three approaches to the patience’s treatment –proposed by three different users –have been (so far) elaborated, namely “modified radical mastectomy”, “lumpectomy”, and “radiation”. Each proposed treatment is visible on the collaboration space as an “idea”. Participants may use relationships to relate resources (documents, links etc.), comments and ideas to the proposed treatment. The semantics of these relationships are user-defined. Visual cues may be used to make the semantics of the relationship more explicit, if desired. For instance, a red arrow indicates comments and resources that express objection to a treatment, while green arrows express approval of a treatment. Note that the resource entitled “On tumor sizes positions” seems to argue against the solution of “lumpectomy” while, at the same time, it argues in favor of “modified radical mastectomy”. This is due to the information contained in it (in that some “chunks”

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advocate or avert from a particular solution; this is to be further exploited in a formal projection). Other visual cues supported in this projection may bear additional semantics (e.g., the thickness of an edge may express how strong a resource/ idea may object or approve a treatment). Informal projections also provide mechanisms that help aggregating aspects of collaboration activities. For example the colored rectangles labeled as “solution-1”, “solution-2” and “solution-3” help participants visualize what the current alternatives are. Although –at this projection instance –these rectangles are simply visual conveniences, they play an important role during the switch to formal projections, enabling the implementation of abstraction mechanisms.

Formal Projection While an informal projection of the collaboration space aids the exploitation of information by users, a formal projection aims mainly at the

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exploitation of information by the machine. As noted previously, formal projections provide a fixed set of discourse element and relationship types, with predetermined, system-interpretable semantics. More specifically, the formal projection presented in Figure 3 is based on the approach followed in the development of Hermes (Karacapilidis & Papadias, 2001). Beyond providing a workspace that triggers group reflection and captures organizational memory, this projection provides a structured language for argumentative discourse and a mechanism for the evaluation of alternatives. Taking into account the input provided by users, this projection constructs an illustrative discourse-based knowledge graph that is composed of the ideas expressed so far, as well as their supporting documents. Moreover, through the integrated decision support mechanisms, participants are continuously informed about the status of each discourse item asserted so far and reflect further on them according to their beliefs and interests on the outcome of the discussion.

In addition, the particular projection aids group sense-making and mutual understanding through the collaborative identification and evaluation of diverse opinions. The discourse elements allowed in this projection are “issues”, “alternatives”, “positions”, and “preferences”. Issues correspond to problems to be solved, decisions to be made, or goals to be achieved. They are brought up by users and are open to dispute (the root entity of a discoursebased knowledge graph has to be an issue). For each issue, users may propose alternatives (i.e., solutions to the problem under consideration) that correspond to potential choices. Nested issues, in cases where some alternatives need to be grouped together, are also allowed. Positions are asserted in order to support the selection of a specific course of action (alternative), or avert the users’ interest from it by expressing some objection. A position may also refer to another (previously asserted) position, thus arguing in favor or against it. Finally, preferences provide individuals with a qualitative

Figure 3. Instance of a formal projection

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way to weigh reasons for and against the selection of a certain course of action. A preference is a “tuple” of the form [position, relation, position], where the relation can be “more important than” or “of equal importance to” or “less important than”. The use of preferences results in the assignment of various levels of importance to the alternatives in hand. Like the other discourse elements, they are subject to further argumentative discourse. The above four types of elements enable users to contribute their knowledge on the particular problem or need (by entering issues, alternatives, and positions) and also to express their relevant values, interests and expectations (by entering positions and preferences). Moreover, the system continuously processes the elements entered by the users (by triggering its reasoning mechanisms each time a new element is entered in the graph), thus facilitating users to become aware of the elements for which there is (or there is not) sufficient (positive or negative) evidence, and accordingly conduct the discussion in order to reach consensus. Further to the argumentation-based structuring of a collaborative session, this projection integrates a reasoning mechanism that determines the status of each discourse entry, the ultimate aim being to keep users aware of the discourse outcome. More specifically, alternatives, positions and preferences of a graph have an activation label (it can be “active” or “inactive”) indicating their current status (inactive entries appear in red italics font). This label is calculated according to the argumentation underneath and the type of evidence specified for them (“burden of proof”). Activation in our system is a recursive procedure; a change of the activation label of an element is propagated upwards in the discussion graph. Depending on the status of positions and preferences, the mechanism goes through a scoring procedure for the alternatives of the issue (for a detailed description of the system’s reasoning mechanisms, see Karacapilidis & Papadias, 2001). At each discussion instance, the system

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informs users about what is the most prominent (according to the underlying argumentation) alternative solution. In the instance shown in Figure 3, “modified radical mastectomy” is the better-justified solution so far. However, this may change upon the type of the future argumentation. In other words, each time an alternative is affected during the discussion, the issue it belongs to is updated, since another alternative solution may be indicated by the system.

Switching Projections The projections discussed could individually serve the needs of a particular community (for a specific context). However, they should be also considered (and exploited) jointly, in that a switch from one to the other can better facilitate the argumentative collaboration process. Adopting an incremental formalization approach, a formal projection can be considered as a filtered and machine-interpretable view of an informal one. Our approach is able to support cases where argumentative collaboration starts through the informal projection (see Informal Projections section), where instances of any discourse element and relationship type can be created (by any participant). Such collaboration may start from an empty collaboration space or may continue elaborating an informal view of a past collaboration session (existing resources and relationships between them can thus be reused). At some point of the collaboration, an increase of the formality level can be decided (e.g., by an individual user or the session’s facilitator), thus switching to the formal projection (see Formal Projections section), where discourse and relationship type instances will be transformed, filtered out, or kept “as-is”. They are determined by the associated (visualization and reasoning) model of the formal projection (consequently, this process can be partially automated and partially semi-automated). For instance, referring to the projections discussed earlier, the colored rectangles shown in Figure 2 will be transformed

Web-Based Collaboration and Decision Making Support

to the alternatives of Figure 3 (each alternative is expressed by the related idea existed in Figure 2). Moreover, provided that a particular resource appearing in the informal view has been appropriately annotated, the formal projection is able to exploit extracts (“chunks”) of it and structure them accordingly. Such extracts appear as atomic objects at the formal projection. For instance, consider the multiple arguments in favor and against the alternatives of Figure 3; these have been resulted out of the appropriate annotation of the resources appearing in Figure 2. One may also consider a particular argumentative collaboration case, where decrease of formality is desirable. For instance, while collaboration proceeds through a formal projection, some discourse elements need to be further justified, refined and elucidated. It is at this point that the collaboration session could switch to a more informal view in order to provide participants with the appropriate environment to better shape their minds (before possibly switching back to the formal projection). Note that there may exist more than one informal projection that is related to a particular formal view (depending on the type of the discourse element to be elaborated). Switching from a formal to an informal projection is also supported by our approach.

Other Issues In addition, our approach permits users to create one or more private spaces, where they can organize and elaborate the resources of a collaboration space according to their understanding (and their pace). Although private in nature, users are able to share such spaces with their peers. Moreover, each projection is associated with a set of tools that better suit to its purposes. These tools enable the population, manipulation and evolution of the discourse element types allowed in that particular projection. There can be tools allowing the reuse of information residing in legacy systems, tools

permitting authoring of multimedia content, annotation tools, as well as communication and management tools. A Web-based prototype version of CoPe_it!, supporting various levels of formality using projections as the ones described in previous sections, has been implemented. The prototype makes use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), to deliver the functionalities of the different projections to end-users. Based on these technologies, concurrent and synchronous collaboration in every projection is provided. Individual collaboration sessions are stored in XML format. There is at least one XML schema for each formality level (i.e., projection) that encodes and implements the constraints and rules that are active in it. More formal levels are manifested as more strict XML schemas, where types and relationships are fewer and more explicit than in cases of less formal levels.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Referring to Shipman and Marshall (1994), we first draw remarks concerning the advantages and limitations of the proposed approach against issues such as cognitive overhead, tacit knowledge, premature structure, and situational differences. Speaking about the first issue, we argue that our approach mirrors working practices with which users are well acquainted (they are part of their ordinary tasks), thus exhibiting low “barriers to entry”. Moreover, it reduces the overhead of entering information by allowing a user-friendly reuse of existing documents (mechanisms for reusing existing knowledge sources, such as e-mail messages and entries or topics of Web-based forums, as well as multimedia documents, such as images, video, and audio, have been also integrated). In addition, our approach is able to defer the formal-

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ization of information until later in the task. This may be achieved by the use of the appropriate annotation and ontology management tools. In any case, however, users may be averted from the use of such (usually sophisticated) tools, thus losing the benefits of a more formal representation of the asserted knowledge resources. A remedy to that could be that experienced users perform such processing. One should also argue here that, due to the collaborative approach supported, the total overhead associated with formalizing information could be divided among users. Speaking about management of tacit knowledge, we argue that the alternative projections offered, as well as the mechanisms for switching among them, may enhance its acquisition, capturing, and representation. Limitations are certainly there; nevertheless, our approach promotes active participation in knowledge sharing activities which, in turn, enhances knowledge flow. Reuse of past collaboration spaces also contributes to bringing previously tacit knowledge to consciousness. Our approach does not impose (or even advocate) premature structure; upon their wish, participants may select the projection they want to work with, as well as the tasks they want to perform when working at this projection (e.g., a document can be tagged or labelled whenever a participant wants; moreover, this process has not to be done in one attempt). Finally, considering situational differences, we argue that our approach is generic enough to address diverse collaboration paradigms. This is achieved through the proposed projection-oriented approach (each projection having its own structure and rationale), as well as the mechanisms for switching projections (such mechanisms incorporate the rationale of structures’ evolution). The proposed approach is the result of action research studies for improving argumentative collaboration. It has been already introduced in

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diverse educational and organizational settings for a series of pilot applications. Preliminary results show that it fully covers the user requirements analyzed in Analysis of Requirements section. Also, it stimulates interaction, makes users more accountable for their contributions, while it aids them to conceive, document and analyze the overall argumentative collaboration context in a holistic manner. In addition, these results show that the learning effort for the proposed tool is not prohibitive, even for users that are not highly adept in the use of IT tools; in most cases, an introduction of less than an hour was sufficient to get users acquainted with the tool’s features and functionalities. Concluding, we argue that the proposed approach provides the means for addressing the issues related to the formality needed in argumentative collaboration support systems. It aims at contributing to the field of social software, by supporting argumentative interaction between people and groups, enabling social feedback, and facilitating the building and maintenance of social networks. Future work directions include the extensive evaluation of the corresponding system in diverse contexts and collaboration paradigms, which is expected to shape our mind towards the development of additional projections, as well as the experimentation with and integration of additional visualization cues, aiming at further facilitating and augmenting the information triage process.

ACkNOWLEDGMENT Research carried out in the context of this article has been partially funded by the EU PALETTE (Pedagogically Sustained Adaptive Learning through the Exploitation of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge) Integrated Project (IST FP6-2004, Contract Number 028038).

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REFERENCES Conklin, J. & Begeman, M. (1989). gIBIS: A tool for all reasons. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(3), pp. 200-213. de Moor, A. & Aakhus, M. (2006). Argumentation support: From technologies to tools. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), pp. 93-98. Fischer, G., Lemke, A. C., McCall, R., & Morch, A. (1991). Making argumentation serve design. Human Computer Interaction, 6(3-4), pp. 393419. Halasz, F. (1988). Reflections on NoteCards: Seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems. Communications of the ACM, 31(7), pp. 836-852. Hevner, A. R., March, S. T., Park, J., & Ram, S. (2004). Design Science in Information Systems Research. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 28, No 1, pp. 75105. Jonassen, D. H. & Carr, C. S. (2000). Mindtools: Affording multiple representations for learning. In S. P. Lajoiem (Ed.), Computers as cognitive tools II: No more walls: Theory change, paradigm shifts and their influence on the use of computers for instructional purposes (pp. 165-196). Mawah, NJ: Erlbaum. Karacapilidis, N. & Papadias, D. (2001). Computer supported argumentation and collaborative decision making: The HERMES system. Information Systems, 26(4), pp. 259-277.

Karacapilidis, N., Loukis, E., & Dimopoulos, S. (2005). Computer-supported G2G collaboration for public policy and decision making. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 18(5), pp. 602-624. Kirschner, P., Buckingham Shum, S., & Carr, C. (2003). Visualizing argumentation: software tools for collaborative and educational sense-making. Springer Verlag, London, UK. Marshall, C. & Shipman, F. (1997). Spatial hypertext and the practice of information triage. In Proceedings of the ACM HT97, Southampton UK. Retrieved July 22, 2007, from http://www.csdl. tamu.edu/~shipman/papers/ht97viki.pdf Shipman, F. M. & McCall, R. (1994, April 24-28). Supporting knowledge-base evolution with incremental formalization. In Proceedings of CHI’94 Conference, pp.285-291. Boston, MA. Shipman, F. M. & Marshall, C. C. (1994). Formality considered harmful: Issues, experiences, emerging themes, and directions. (Tech. Rep. ISTL-CSA-94-08-02). Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CA. van Gelder, T. (2003). Enhancing deliberation through computer supported argument visualization. In P. Kirschner, S. Buckingham Shum, & C. Carr (Eds.), Visualizing argumentation: Software tools for collaborative and educational sensemaking (pp. 97-115). London: Springer-Verlag.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 2, Issue 4, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 12-23, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.6

Teaching Dimension in Web-Based Learning Communities Francesca Pozzi Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR, Italy

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

The article tackles the issue of the teaching dimension in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) contexts. In particular, it describes two Web-based courses that were held in 2006—one by the Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche – CNR and one by the University of Genoa, which, while sharing the socioconstructivist theoretical framework, adopt different approaches as far as the teaching dimension is concerned: While in the former course tutors were asked to cover all the functions typically required by e-tutors, in the latter, experience functions were distributed across a variety of actors. The aim of the work is to foster reflections about strong points and weaknesses of the two approaches, thus leading to considerations concerning the applicability of the models even in contexts different from the original ones.

As it is well known, the use of telematics in the learning processes brings about radical changes in the educational context in that it allows students to interact with peers independently from any spatial or temporal constraint. CSCL (computersupported collaborative learning) is a very challenging research field investigating how collaborative processes carried out in online contexts may lead to the construction of new knowledge and thus to learning (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1991; Dillenbourg, 1999; Kanuka & Anderson, 1999; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). In this context, several studies have been devoted to the tutor’s role, which is seen as a key factor for fostering an effective collaborative learning process. In this article, we address the teaching dimension, a more general concept con-

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Teaching Dimension in Web-Based Learning Communities

cerning not only the tutoring function, but rather all the initiatives and actions undertaken during a course with the aim of supporting collaboration and learning processes of the learning community. The concept is wide in that it may refer to actions and behaviours by any actor involved in the learning community, including students. In particular, the work aims at comparing two courses while sharing the socioconstructivist theoretical framework, adopted different approaches as far as the teaching dimension is concerned. Thus, the article describes the different choices and reflects on strong points and weaknesses of the two approaches.

THEORETICAL BACkGROUND In CSCL contexts, one of the basic assumptions is that discussion and negotiation among students may play a key role in the learning process because, while interacting and sharing their points of view, students develop their critical thinking and thus gain a better understanding of things. Thus, in order to allow and enhance interactions among students and between students and tutors, the actors of the learning experience should not act just as individuals, but rather they should feel like part of a community. Shaffer and Anundsen (1993) define a community as a dynamic whole that emerges when a group of people share common practices, are interdependent, make decisions jointly, identify themselves with something larger then the sum of their individual relationships, and make a long-term commitment to well-being (their own, one another’s, and the group’s). From this perspective, a learning community, that is to say, a community that has been set up with learning purposes, makes no exception, and it is up to designers and tutors to set up the learning environment in such a way that the community can “form, storm, norm, perform and finally adjourn” (Tuckman, 1965).

A Web-based learning community is characterized by its size (the number of people involved), the general features of learners (background, technical skills, age, gender, etc.), the roles members play, and the social structures employed in the various learning phases, which are usually coupled with the learning strategies adopted (Pozzi & Persico, 2006). All these characteristics have to be defined by designers according to the context and the learning goals, and are afterward managed by tutors and teachers during the course in such a way that students achieve the learning objectives. As a matter of fact, within CSCL contexts, the role of the tutor has always been recognized as being determinant. Even if nowadays it is more and more frequent to talk about human support—a general expression stressing the fact that support in CSCL may come from the various members of the learning community (other students, experts, technicians, etc.; Lund, 2004)—it is undeniable that tutors have a primary role in supporting the learning process in all its dimensions. In 1995, Berge enlighteningly identified four main functions of the online tutor: the social, the pedagogical, the managerial, and the technical functions. Similarly, Paulsen (1995) and Mason (1991) spoke about organizational, social, and intellectual roles. More recently, Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, and Archer (2001) defined what they call “teaching presence” in terms of “the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (p. 5). The teaching dimension thus entails design and organizational aspects, discourse facilitation, and direct instruction (Anderson et al.). A tutor taking care of design and organizational matters creates working groups, assigns roles for carrying out the activities, identifies leaders, suggests the time schedule, and so forth. In order to carry out such functions, the tutor should be able to evaluate students’ individual

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competences, behavioural characteristics, and their personal interests to form groups accordingly. Furthermore, since during an online course the platform (usually a computer conferencing system) is the prime (and often the only) communication channel, it is very important that the tutor provides support in making the technology as transparent as possible for students. As far as facilitating discourse is concerned, the tutor is in charge of fostering the learning process by sustaining a generative debate, focusing discussion on key points, providing stimuli, and enhancing interactions while being flexible and nondirective. Besides these, he or she helps students in recognizing others’ contributions as meaningful and is able to attribute value to every participant by pointing out their specificities. Furthermore, the tutor has to make sure that written communication does not create inhibition. As a matter of fact, if computer-mediated communication (CMC) may reveal to be effective for those people who do not like face-to-face interactions, perhaps because they may feel more protected during a virtual exchange, handwritten communication may represent an obstacle for someone else because of a number of reasons, including the lack of immediate feedback, the impossibility to associate any gesture or facial expression to written text, the fact that one may perceive written communication to be too definitive, or even because one may feel alone when writing. For all these reasons, the tutor is in charge of making interactions fluent and guaranteeing effective and rich communication within the learning community. Finally, direct instruction entails proposing content or activities, monitoring the process, and assessing results. The three aspects pointed out by Anderson et al. (2001) as constituting the teaching presence cover the variety of responsibilities tutors are typically in charge of during an online collaborative learning experience. Nonetheless, depending on the context, tutors may share responsibilities with others (teachers, technicians, etc.); moreover, as

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time goes by and the learning community grows, responsibilities may sometimes be undertaken by students, either on a voluntary basis or as an assigned task. In this article we describe the case of two Webbased learning communities the teaching dimension was interpreted in two different ways.

TWO EXAMPLES OF WEB-BASED LEARNING COMMUNITIES The present article describes two online courses carried out in 2006, that is, TD-SSIS, a teacher training course, and a Master in Specialized Legal Translation.

TD-SSIS TD-SSIS was a blended course designed and run by the Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche - CNR in the context of the Italian system for teacher training (SSIS is the acronym for Specialization Schools for Secondary Teaching, the institutions that in Italy are responsible for teacher training.) The course, which in 2006 was in its seventh edition, had the goal “to promote the development of instructional design competence, with special focus on the evaluation and selection of learning strategies, techniques and tools and on the implementation of educational technology in the school context” (Delfino & Persico, in press). The course envisaged an alternation between face-to-face lectures aiming at presenting topics and online sessions aiming at carrying out collaborative activities. The TD-SSIS 2006 community was composed of 108 students of all disciplines, six tutors, and one technician. The course lasted 8 weeks involving 6 face-to-face lectures and 4 online modules (only the online component of the course is addressed here). The first module was devoted to socializa-

Teaching Dimension in Web-Based Learning Communities

tion among the members of the community and familiarization with the communication system. During this phase, both students and tutors were asked to introduce themselves. Moreover, students, working in groups, were asked to collaboratively choose a slogan for identifying their own groups. This activity served the double purpose of introducing collaboration as the prime working strategy from the very beginning of the course and of creating a common sense of identity within the groups. During the second module, that is, Educational Technology for School, learners worked in groups and were asked to analyse some online educational resources and collaboratively define a list of criteria for evaluating such resources. Within the third module, which was focused on the issue of educational technology and design principles, each group was asked to analyse an existing pedagogical plan, identify its weaknesses, and collaboratively propose possible changes. The peculiarity of the task was that it was carried out through role-play, where each learner was asked to act out a predefined profile. Role-play is a very useful collaborative technique allowing responsibility to be distributed between the participants and taking advantage of individual attitudes whilst promoting reciprocal interdependence (Renner, 1997). As a result, in TD-SSIS the artefacts produced by the groups should encompass the different viewpoints of all the members performing their roles. Finally, during the last module of the course, that is, Conclusions, an individual metareflection was required addressing the overall learning process. The platform used for carrying out the activities was Centrinity FirstClass® (http://www.centrinity. com), a computer conferencing system that can be easily configured in conferences and subconferences to allow easy communication among a large number of students working on different activities. In particular, since the structure of the course envisaged four modules, the FirstClass learning environment was organized into four main conferences (one for each module), which in

turn contained subconferences for each working group. In addition to the conferences devoted to the learning activities, other conferences were aimed at supporting participants. In particular, the Meta-Reflection area was devoted to gather considerations and reflections about the learning process at hand, the Café conference was intended to be an asynchronous chat room for socialization, the Help conference gathered all the messages concerning any technical problems learners may face while using FirstClass, News contained any new useful information, and Library was used as a repository for all the learning materials to be used during the course (Figure 1). As far as the social structure of the learning community is concerned, a great constraint was represented by the large number of students that, as it was, did not allow the adoption of collaborative strategies. Thus, the idea underpinning the design of the course was that of creating smaller groups working in parallel to allow collaboration. Groups were not fixed for the whole duration of the course: During the first phase of the course (first and second modules), the community was divided into 6 interdisciplinary groups (18 to 20 persons each), whilst during the second phase (third and fourth modules), groups were rearranged, and 14 disciplinary groups were created (7 to 9 persons each). Such change was due to both logistical and didactical reasons and caused a turnover of tutors as well, who tutored one group during the first stage and managed different groups during the second stage of the course.

Master F@rum The Master in Specialized Legal Translation (simply Master F@rum in the following) is a Webbased postdegree specialization master’s course designed and run by the Foreign Language Faculty (University of Genoa) within the F@rum project (http://www.farum.unige.it). In 2006 Master F@ rum carried out its fourth edition. The main aim of Master F@rum was to develop competences

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Figure 1. The TD-SSIS main conferences in FirstClass

and skills in the specialized legal translation field for translators who work in local and international organizations, companies, and translation agencies. Furthermore, the course aimed at developing both skills in the usage of computers for translating and collaborative attitudes within the professional context (Rossi & Sarti, 2004). The course was run completely online and only the final exam was carried out face to face. The 2006 edition lasted 25 weeks and included both assisted theoretical modules and practical ones. As far as the theoretical modules are concerned (i.e., terminology, Italian law, English law, French law, German law, informatics), students were provided with learning materials and then were asked to carry out individual tests for verifying their understanding of the studied materials. As for the practical modules (i.e., translations), they included both individual and collaborative translations (we focus exclusively on the collaborative modules). During the collaborative activities, groups were asked to work on a text and produce the translation into the required language. In parallel with didactical activities, students took part in a simulation “where they face authentic (i.e. resembling real worlds complexity) problem

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situations. To this aim learners are grouped to form virtual translation agencies, where they work as if employed in a real company, meet in dedicated virtual spaces, fight external competition, etc.” (Rossi & Sarti, 2004). As we will see in the following, the simulation covered the whole duration of Master F@rum and entailed both didactical activities and social games. The learning community of the course was composed of 41 students, 8 tutors, 1 technician, and 12 teachers. Each teacher was responsible for her or his module and thus was in charge of preparing and launching activities according to the course calendar, offering expertise on content, and assessing learning outcomes. Students were subdivided into 8 groups (5 to 6 persons each) whose composition was determined by their specialization languages. Groups were fixed and each of them had its own reference tutor, who was in charge of supporting the group mainly in organizational aspects (deadlines, problems with technicalities, etc.). The communication system used within the course (called deneb.pro) is a Web-based application that was specifically created for Master F@ rum and is organized into virtual rooms; rooms

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are devoted to the specific subject matters (one module to one room) where students may find learning materials and have access to forums for contacting teachers. In addition, there are rooms for groups (one room to one group) where collaborative activities are carried out; within such rooms it is possible both to interact through asynchronous forums and to share documents (Figure 2). Finally, there is a common room where students may address general logistical or technical questions; this room is guarded in turns by all the tutors. The Café area of deneb.pro is a synchronous chat room.

SOCIAL/COGNITIVE PROCESSES AND TEACHING DIMENSION As we have seen, in TD-SSIS, during the Socialization module, tutors acted mainly as social promoters, whilst during the following didactical

modules (Modules 2 and 3, and Conclusions), they took charge in all the aspects of the teaching dimension, that is, design and organizational aspects, discourse facilitation, and direct instruction. In particular, during the didactical activities, tutors launched the learning activities, provided feedback, moderated discussions, and organized and managed working groups. Besides these, it is worthwhile noting that after the initial strong socialization input, the schedule of the course did not envisage any other activity directly aimed at fostering the social presence (Rourke et al., 2001): The Café and the Meta-Reflection conferences, which could be used for social purposes, were optional and free. This implied that it was up to the tutor and to his or her personal attitudes to take care of the social dimension of groups. From this perspective, the already mentioned rearrangement of groups that occurred after the second module certainly did not help in that at the beginning of the third module, tutors have activate personal initiatives for getting around the fact that people

Figure 2. A group room in the Master F@rum communication system

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did not know each other. Altogether, in the TDSSIS experience, tutors were completely in charge of all the aspects of the teaching dimension. The only exception was represented by Module 3, where within the role-play, two students per group were each assigned either the role of school director or rapporteur, and so they were entailed to coordinate and facilitate discussion, thus partially undermining the tutor’s role. Within Master F@rum, the approach was quite different. As far as the start-up of the course, an initial socialization phase was not envisaged and a personal introduction either by the students or the tutors was never explicitly required; rather, the learners, who worked in groups from the very beginning, were required to collaboratively set up a virtual translation agency and to elaborate a document presenting it. As already mentioned, the peculiarity of the course consisted of the simulation, which acted as the real catalyst of the social presence by fostering interaction, collaboration, and a positive attitude toward distance learning (Bricco & Rossi, 2004). According to the simulation, the virtual agencies had been selected by the European Union (EU) for participating in a tender, and thus during the course, a certain number of collaborative activities were proposed and, according to the results obtained by the groups, a classification was created. The simulation was managed by two ad hoc tutors (EU consultants) who had the specific role of lunching the simulation activities. Such activities involved either didactical, collaborative tasks (aiming at fostering the collaboration process within the groups and a certain competition among groups) or social games (thus aiming at simply creating a friendly climate). The simulation, which started from the beginning of Master F@rum and ended with it, contributed to the creation of relationships among members of the community. Thus organized, Master relied on different actors as the main catalysts of the teaching dimension: teachers, who were in charge of individual activities and student assessment; tutors,

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whose responsibilities were shared between EU consultants, in charge of collaborative processes and in general at supporting the social presence of the community; and other tutors acting in the proper sense of the word, who never took directly the responsibility of facilitating the discourse, but rather were asked to provide logistical information, remind students of deadlines, provide technical support, and so forth. In Figure 3, the two different approaches are graphically represented.

DISCUSSION When looking at the two experiences, one may easily infer that within Master F@rum, functions were distributed among the various actors (teachers, tutors, EU consultants) while in TD-SSIS, each tutor was required to act at different levels. In particular, it is interesting to notice that within Master F@rum ad hoc tutors were expressly appointed to take care of collaborative and social processes and had been definitely differentiated from the other tutors (in charge of the managerial and technical functions). In other words, actions aimed at fostering the social processes came from external entities (i.e., the EU consultants) who did not participate in the everyday life of groups, while tutors who did follow group life were assigned to a “cooler” role. Consequently, neither EU consultants nor tutors were considered part of groups and, apart from seldom exceptions, no strong relationships between tutors and students emerged from the course. On the contrary, within TD-SSIS, stimuli aimed at enhancing collaboration always came from inside the group. Tutors were integral parts of groups and, despite the new arrangement of groups that took place in the middle of the course, tutors often made friends with students. Furthermore, while the external action provided by the EU consultants in Master F@rum for fostering collaboration (i.e. the simulation

Teaching Dimension in Web-Based Learning Communities

Figure 3. The two different approaches to the teaching dimension

activities) was structured in activities and spread throughout the course, the stimuli provided by TD-SSIS tutors were unstructured and, with the exception of the initial socialization activity, they largely depended on the single tutor’s attitudes and initiatives. This latter element seems to indicate that while the Master F@rum approach could be adopted even in contexts where there are novice tutors (because tutors’ actions are in a sense limited and strictly guided), the TD-SSIS approach should be taken by professionals, whose competences and sensibility toward students allow them to appropriately decide whether, to what extent, and how to manage situations. It is also worthwhile noting that the workload for tutors turned out to be very different in the two experiences: While tutors of Master F@ rum could dedicate a few hours per week to the course, a daily presence was required of tutors in TD-SSIS, often with a nontrivial amount of hours per day. This suggests that while the latter approach is adoptable mainly in research contexts, where it is possible to dedicate full-time tutors to the activity, the former may turn out to be more transferable even to nonacademic contexts. Another interesting factor emerging from the comparison of the experiences is the difference in effort for design and coordination. In Master

F@rum, teachers were considered responsible for designing their own modules, so managers of Master F@rum were in charge of the overall planning and coordinating of all the actors involved in the teaching dimension (teachers, tutors, EU consultants) during the whole duration of the course; on the contrary, the TD-SSIS staff devoted considerable time and work to the initial design phase, and once the course had started up, they left tutors quite free to manage things autonomously. As a last remark, it is important to say that, despite differences, both the courses reported good results in terms of participant assessment (marks were quite high), dropouts (which were very few in both cases), and students’ overall satisfaction.

CONCLUSION The present article contains the description of two examples of Web-based learning communities based on a socioconstructivist theoretical framework. Despite the theoretical similarities, the two experiences present differences in the strategies adopted as far as the teaching dimension is concerned. This has lead to reflections

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and considerations concerning the applicability of these models even in contexts different from the original ones. The research study is in its embryonic stage. Further investigations are to be carried out on the two experiences in order to systematically analyse and evaluate the teaching dimension. To this aim, an evaluation model recently elaborated (Pozzi, Manca, Persico, & Sarti, 2007) is being used for capturing the existing relationships among the participative, social, cognitive, and teaching dimensions. These dimensions will also be compared to responses obtained from students and data from other sources (e.g., data on dropouts and data from the students’ final questionnaires). Preliminary results concerning Master F@rum have already been published (Lupi, Pozzi, & Torsani, 2008). Further results may inform and improve existing approaches concerning the teaching dimension.

REFERENCES Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social presence in asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14(2). Berge, Z. L. (1995). Facilitating computer conferencing: Recommendations from the field. Educational Technology, 35(1), 22-30. Bricco, E., & Rossi, M. (2004). La simulation globale à l’épreuve de la formation à distance: Un fil d’Ariane nécessaire. Information, Savoirs, Décisions & Médiations: Information Sciences for Decision Making, 18. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from http://isdm.univ-tln.fr/PDF/isdm18/53rossi-bricco.pdf Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1991). Some thoughts about constructivism and instructional design. Educational Technology, 31(10), 16-18.

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Davie, L. E. (1989). Facilitation techniques for the on-line tutor. In R. Mason & A. R. Kaye (Eds.), Mindweave: Communication, computers and distance education. Oxford, United Kingdom: Pergamon Press. Delfino, M., & Persico, D. (in press). Online or face-to-face? Experimenting with different techniques in teacher training. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. Dillenbourg, P. (Ed.). (1999). Collaborative learning: Cognitive and computational approaches. Pergamon. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Kanuka, H., & Anderson, T. (1999). Using constructivism in technology-mediated learning: Constructing order out of the chaos in the literature. Radical Pedagogy, 1(2). Lund, K. (2004). Human support in CSCL: What, for whom, and by whom? In J.-W. Strijbos, P. Kirschner, & R. Martens (Eds.), What we know about CSCL and implementing it in higher education (pp. 167-198). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lupi, V., Pozzi, F., & Torsani, S. (2008). La dimension sociale dans un master à distance, postuniversitaire et de traduction juridique. Apprentissage des Langues et Systèmes d’Information et de Communication (ALSIC), 11. Mason, R. (1991). Moderating educational computer conferencing. DEOSNEWS, 1(19). Retrieved January 14, 2008, from http://pchfstud1.hsh.no/ hfag/litteratur/jenssen/deosnews/mason.htm Paulsen, M. P. (1995). Moderating educational computer conferences. In Z. L. Berge & M. P. Collins (Eds.), Computer-mediated communication and the on-line classroom in distance education. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

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Pozzi, F., Manca, S., Persico, D., & Sarti, L. (2007). A general framework for tracking and analysing learning processes in CSCL environments. Innovations in Education & Teaching International (IETI) Journal, 44(2), 169-179. Pozzi, F., & Persico, D. (2006, June 14-17). Evaluation in CSCL: Tracking and analysing the learning community. In A. Szücs & I. Bø (Eds.), E-Competences for Life, Employment and Innovation: Proceedings of the EDEN 2006 Annual Conference, Vienna (pp. 502-507). Renner, P. (1997). The art of teaching adults: How to become an exceptional instructor and facilitator. Vancouver, Canada: The Training Associates. Rossi, M., & Sarti, L. (2004). Playing touch and tender: Tutoring strategies in a university master. Information, Savoirs, Décisions & Médiations: Information Sciences for Decision Making, 18. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from http://isdm. univ-tln.fr/PDF/isdm18/56-sarti-rossi.pdf

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-283. Shaffer, C., & Anundsen, K. (1993). Creating community anywhere. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Perigee Books. Stacey, E. (2002). Social presence online: Networking learners at a distance. Education and Information Technologies, 7(4), 287-294. Tu, C.-H. (2002). The measurement of social presence in an online learning environment. International Journal on E-Learning, 1(2), 34-45. Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384399.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 3, Issue 3, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 34-43, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.7

Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning Bolanle A. Olaniran Texas Tech University, USA

ABSTRACT This chapter explores computer-mediated communication (CMC) and information communication technology (ICT) use in language learning. More specifically, the chapter addresses the impact or implications of CMC tools for computer enhanced language learning. The chapter attempts to present a review of key literature in adaptation of communication technologies to teaching or learning language in general and specifically second language acquisition. The chapter stresses the need to understand culture and contextual appropriateness of language, thus, it argues for communication technology to be used as a secondary resource rather than a primary tool for language learners. The discussion addresses the dimensions of cultural variability with respect to language learning. At the same time, features of synchronous and asynchronous CMC were ana-

lyzed in the context of language learning. Finally, the chapter addresses implications for language learning in computer mediated communication or computer assisted environments.

INTRODUCTION The increased use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology has brought a lot of evolutionary shift in learning and academic settings in terms of the type of courses that can be thought. One of the appealing aspects of communication technologies in learning is the ability to use CMC to offer courses in both asynchronous and synchronous environments. Specifically, CMC is considered an important tool for learning because it facilitates interaction and active learning (Driscoll, 2000; Kanuka & Garrison, 2004; Olaniran, 2004).

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Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning

In this chapter the author attempts to present a review of key literature in adaptation of communication technologies to teaching and language learning in general with specific emphasis on second language (L2) acquisition. The chapter addresses the need to understand culture and contextual appropriateness of language. It also argues for communication technology to be used as a complementary secondary resource rather than a primary tool for language learners. The discussion then focuses on the dimensions of cultural variability with respect to language learning. The features of synchronous and asynchronous CMC were analyzed in the context of language learning. Finally, the chapter ends with implications for language learning in computer mediated communication or computer assisted environments. Therefore, this chapter attempts to evaluate available literature in other to identify the benefits and challenges of computer enhanced language learning from a cultural level and then offer some suggestions for implementing effective language learning via communication technologies.

BACkGROUND Deep learningwhich involves the use of class projects with the aid of technology and inquiry to engage students in with practical issues they can relate, in comparison to active learning – that puts responsibility of learning on learners has been offered by the constructivists as a good approach to foster learning environment that allows students to take control of how they learn with a key emphasis on social interaction (Driscoll, 2000; Gunawardena, Low, & Anderson, 1997). However, there is controversy about the degree to which synchronous CMC (e.g., Chat) offers a greater level of interactivity than asynchronous CMC in terms of immediate feedback that can enrich cognitive learning in online courses (Herring & Nix, 1997; Ko, 1996; Wang & Newlin, 2001). The main question to be addressed is whether

language, especially new language learning, can be enhanced by CMC when taking culture into account. After all, it is not sufficient to learn just the rudiments of a language, but rather the contextual appropriateness of a language is what determines the competency at which a second language (L2) learner will be judged and evaluated. Furthermore, the contextual appropriateness of 2L points to the importance of culture in language learning.

Main Focus The challenge of culture in e-learning environments has been identified (Olaniran, 2007a). Furthermore, students participating in computermediated or online courses where foreign language is the mode of interaction are at a disadvantage when the courses involve collaboration and discussion (Bates, 1999; Olaniran, 2007a; Osman & Herring, 2007). The reason is that absence of visual cues and nonverbal cues affects mastery of language accuracy and fluency, which affects effectiveness of communication interaction as a whole. Culture introduces certain complexity to learning as a whole and specifically to second language (2L) comprehension with CMC and accompanying communication technologies. To this end, a number of scholars have called for the importance of considering culture and language when designing curriculum for international students in computer environments (Morse, 2003, Olaniran, 2007a, 2007b; Osman & Herring, 2007; Patsula, 2002; St Amant, 2005; Usun, 2004). First, however, it is necessary to introduce the dimension of cultural variability as an overarching point of departure in the role of culture learning and specifically in e-learning. The dimension of cultural variability is important to draw implication for computer enhanced language learning.

Dimension of Cultural Variability There are four dimensions of cultural variability consisting: power distance, uncertainty avoidance,

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individualism-collectivism, and masculinityfemininity (Hofstede, 1980, 2001; see also Dunn & Marinetti, 2002 overview of cultural value orientations and cultural dimensions). These four categories result from data collected from fifty countries and three world regions (Hofstede, 1980). Past research used these four dimensions to operationalize cultural differences and their effects on uncertainty reduction in intercultural communication encounters (Gudykunst, Chua & Gray, 1987, Olaniran, 1994, 2004; Olaniran & Roach, 1996, Roach & Olaniran, 2001; see also www.worldvaluessurveys.org). A brief description of the four dimensions follows. Power distance, is explained as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984, p. 418). Uncertainty avoidance describes “the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984, p. 419). Individualism-collectivism acknowledges the fact that in individualistic cultures, “people are supposed to look after themselves and their family only,” while in collectivistic cultures, “people belong to in-groups or collectivities which are supposed to look after them in exchange for loyalty” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984, p. 419). Masculinity refers to cultures “in which dominant values in society are success, money and things,” while femininity refers to cultures “in which dominant values are caring for others and quality of life” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984, p. 419-420). One of the challenges to dimensions of cultural variability is that comparisons are relative and restricted to two objects (e.g., cultures, regions, countries etc.). Notwithstanding, these dimensions can serve as a starting point for providers of education in global e-learning contexts. It is noted that cultural variability among people plays a significant role while representing the foundation on which global e-learning must be based (Henning, 2003; Van Dam & Rogers, 2002).

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Looking at the dimensions of cultural variability, Olaniran (2007a) addressed extensively, the implication of different cultures for e-learning. However, specific implications for second language learning or language learning in general over information communication technology (ICT) deserve more attention. For instance, differences in culture influence expectations that students and teachers hold about learning. One feature that differs in a power distant culture, for example, is that students look up to instructors as the primary source of knowledge. Therefore, an attempt to bring about constructivist types of learning which involves putting students in a participative control of their learning is bound to be met with some resistance. Other scholars address this problem when they conclude that students hesitate to challenge or question teachers in cultures where teachers are the main source of knowledge (Bates, 1999; Bodycott & Walker, 2000, Usun, 2004). Collectivist cultures on the other hand, tend to accept traditional roles – where adults are reluctant in accepting subordinate or students roles; specifically students usually speak in classroom only when instructors called on them (Olaniran, 2007a; Osman & Herring, 2007). In a study of Azerbaijan adult learners and U.S. facilitators, using synchronous chat, it was found that the constructivist ideas and increased interaction patterns were not present, to which the authors attribute cultural differences among learners, designers, and facilitators (Osman & Herring, 2007). The authors conclude that because the education system in Azerbaijan is a teacher-centered system (i.e., power distant), the learners expect to be listening rather than actively contributing to the discussion. At the same time, the study brought the issue of learners’ language competence into the forefront given that the learners have limited English knowledge, thus, contribution to the synchronous chat was limited at best. The question remains how does culture influence second language acquisition where individual participation is more critical than group interactions for

Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning

the most part? To answer the question one needs to explore the characteristics of second language or language learning which is addressed in the next section. The collectivistic dimension of culture was also specific in how people apply ICTs. For instance, a study of minority ethnic groups in the Netherlands found that individuals with closer ties in their home countries tend to sympathize with people in the home countries more and have greater contact via ICTs with people in their primary cultures. Specifically, Moroccans young girls used Internet for maintaining and widening social contacts more than their counterparts from the host culture (D’Haenens, Koeman, & Saeys, 2007; Linders & Goosens, 2004). In essence, ICT use represents a way for ethnic minority youths to navigate and establish their cultural identity between two cultures.

Characteristics of Language Learning Language learning, especially second language mastery, is characterized by students or individuals’ motivation to learn a language or through academic, job, and career choice obligations. For the most part global and multinational corporations (MNCs) operate using English or in some cases home language of the parent organization. However, with English referred to as the Internet or commerce language (Kayman, 2004), it is gaining more wide appeal and thus, increased numbers of individuals are increasingly learning English in addition to their indigenous language. The majority of the learning is taken place via WorldWide Web and the Internet along with structured information communication technology dedicated toward such language learning. The need to learn additional language is also increasing due to migration that accompanies globalization. As people migrate from one society to another, there is an increasing need to learn the language and the culture of the host societies,

which is also a pre-requisite for adaptation and social capital building along with wider socio cultural participation – the need to look beyond one’s own group or culture (D’Haenens, et al., 2007; Putnam, 2000). Notwithstanding the increased availability of computer enhanced or enabled language learning, there exist some challenges with language learning and ICTs. One impediment in particular is the ability to offer a certain group from the home country information in the dominant language to assist members in establishing and maintaining relations. For example, D’Haenens et al. (2007) offer the example of how Turkish and Moroccan websites allow the ethnic groups in Netherlands to attend to their religion and with anonymity offer a forum to discuss social issues freely. More importantly, the authors argued that culture specific issues of language, religion and an ethno-cultural position are interconnected. Specifically, culture influences religious practices in a way that parents encourage their children to strive for linguistic mastery such that children will be able to read, speak, and write Arabic in an attempt to read the Koran for Moroccan youths (D’Haenens, et al., 2007). Similarly, parents of ethnic minority groups tend to attribute greater importance to use of ICTs in an attempt to help their children adjust to the new culture and economic demand for future careers. Language difficulty, however, was attributed to the low participation by the Japanese in elearning and online education (Kawachi, 1999). Specifically, the Japanese language is believed to be targeted at the right brain learning modality of visualization and memorization compared to left brain (i.e., analytic and argumentation skills) required by online content (Kawachi, 1999). The limited English proficiency in Japan is also attributed to how the Japanese use Internet predominantly for information and reading; they also use the Internet for offline translation, and for games and other entertainment (Kawachi, 1999). Similarly in Europe, the language barrier is also seen as a hindrance to the rapid adoption

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of e-learning and information communication technologies. Therefore, the language barrier has resulted in an increased call for native-language content development for local companies who are not willing to adopt English (Barron, 2000). More importantly, language barriers lead to other issues such as national and cultural pride that affect other communication interactions in the online collaborative environment. Furthermore, language differences, in general create misunderstandings in virtual teams based on different assumptions, sometimes fueling ongoing conflicts among people. For instance, Roebuck and Britt (2002) offer an instance of email confusion in which a participant from Mexico remarked that a meeting with a client will be “superclassico,” which a colleague from the home office in Toronto interpreted as “pleasant,” however the intended meaning was competitive. Another account of language difficulty is poor participation in online interaction and collaboration. An illustration depicts U.S. corporations in charge of implementing an automated accounting system with its two Latin American subsidiaries for a multinational airline company. The company experienced major setbacks because of a lack of participation from the subsidiaries due to language barriers. Specifically, there was a lack of Spanish language training manuals along with other cultural problems regarding managerial power and role requirements (Chang, 2004; Munkvold, 2005). The language difficulties identified above indicate that lack of proficiencies in language creates major problems in organizations and in the global world at large. At the same time, the difficulty points to culture as a key factor in language acquisition and proficiency. The fact that one or more team members must speak in a foreign or second language has the tendency to impede interaction and overall team performance. Communication barriers become even more severe in an electronic context with ICTs (Olaniran, 2007a). For example, it is difficult to fully participate in

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a teleconference when one does not speak the language fluently. As a result, a team may lose vital ideas and information or take a wrong direction (Dube & Pare, 2001). Language, in essence, often creates unintended consequences in ICT environments (Olaniran, 2007a). Similarly, it has been shown that different language backgrounds create different degrees of difficulty for learners. Brown and Iwashita (1996) found in their study of student performance from different language background that students who were native speakers of English and Chinese languages experience different levels of difficulty in computer adaptive Japanese grammar tests. To such an end, it is offered that students learning a language would find the target language easier provided that the target language is similar to the primary or first language. Otherwise learners are bound to experience difficulties when both languages are different from one another. There are three factors to be considered from the findings. First, is the degree of congruence between the original language and the target language. Second, is the zero contrast that affects acquisition of articles and inflection morphology (tone) in target language learning. For example, Japanese speakers who have no articles in their language were found to take longer in learning definiteness and indefiniteness in English language when compared to Germans whose language consist of articles (Zobl, 1980, 1982, 1983). Third, is the constraint in linguistic markedness, which consists of the complexity or infrequent use of certain features of a language (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). That is when a certain feature is more pronounced in the target language than the primary language, learners would experience increased difficulty. For instance, Chinese speakers who do not distinguish between plural and singular will take longer to learn English where such a distinguishing feature is present (Brown & Iwashita, 1996). These are a few examples in which culture affects language learning, given that a key component of language is culturally rooted.

Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning

Perhaps, the greatest challenge to language learning via ICTs and other computer environments is the cultural appropriateness. That is, it is not suffice to learn phrases and words in a particular language; rather, it is critical in order to be effective to understand the contextual use of the language phrases and terminologies to facilitate cross-cultural communication appropriateness. For instance, it has been noted even within the same language that there are slight variations depending on nations and cultural context. For instance, Mexico uses different phrases than those in Spain. The same is true among British and American English speakers. The general differences can be found in the idiomatic expressions and other sayings that differentiate nations and cultures. Furthermore, students taking online courses are said to be at a major disadvantage when the courses involve online discussion and collaboration in the absence of visual cues, gestures, mastery of the of language (Bates, 1999). At the same time, students’ primary or native language influence how students or learners judge appropriate communication (Varner & Beamer, 2001) which may not necessarily align with the language of instruction (i.e., 2L, foreign language) per se; hence, influencing appropriateness.

ICTs and Language Learning Different CMC modality can be applied differently to language learning. There are two major categories of technological structure, asynchronous and synchronous. There is a clear distinction between synchronous and asynchronous CMC and consequently implications for classrooms and subsequent learning. Asynchronous CMC structure includes mediated interactions where participants are not constrained by time. On the other hand, the synchronous CMC structure, as indicated above, provides a mediated environment that requires simultaneous interactions among participants and users, and is constrained by time. Synchronous CMC consists of the real

time or simultaneous use of electronic-mediated communication technologies (e.g. chat, computer conferencing) to facilitate interactions. In other words, a key requirement of synchronous CMC is the need for all participants or users to be present during interaction regardless of physical location. Interactivity through immediacy in the synchronous CMC environment focuses on the users’ ability to engage in a learning process at the same time regardless of the geographical constraint. Thus, within a synchronous CMC environment, participants or learners are able to input comments, ask questions of other users, or interacts with instructors at the same time (Olaniran, 2006). The interactivity allows instructor to manipulate how students learn and how they take responsibility for their learning (McAlister, Ravenscroft, & Scanlon, 2004; Olaniran, 2004; 2006). While synchronous CMC has the advantage of speedy feedback that accompanies immediacy, which is essential in negotiation of meaning and synthesizing ideas (Chou, 2001; Lobel, Neubauer, & Swedburg, 2005), it is not without its drawbacks. One of the drawbacks includes the fact that interactions can be overwhelming and difficult to manage especially with chat session, such that communication has the tendency to be chaotic (Olaniran, Stalcup, & Jenson, 2000, see also Table 1 in Olaniran, 2006 for comparison of synchronous and asynchronous CMC advantages and disadvantages). Aside from the chaotic interaction, chat makes it difficult to see the relationship between different messages, which become more pronounced when multiple conversations are going on (Bober & Dennen, 2001; Teng & Taveras, 2004-2005). When applied to language learning, synchronous CMC challenges can impede language learning. First, participation can be drastically hindered due to lack of proficiency in the language for beginners and intermediate learners. In cross cultural interaction, the limited language proficiency will also impede over all communication or lack of (Harrison & Toyoda, 2002). Consequently,

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synchronous CMC applications would not be appropriate for beginners in language or second language learning as they would not have the sufficient mastery of words and phrases to carry on conversations. Hence, synchronous CMC would be more suitable to advanced learners who need practice to polish their understandings of language and for question and answer session from native speakers of the language regarding appropriate use of certain phrases and words (i.e., developing greater competency with the language). For example, a study found that beginning second language learners of Spanish did better in oral face-to-face group than those in synchronous chat in terms of mastery of the vocabulary and general appropriate use of the target language (De la Fuente, 2003; Zapata & Sagarra, 2007). Chat or synchronous CMC use, however, can be useful in vocabulary acquisition and grammar negotiation in second language learning. As for asynchronous CMC applications in language learning, the lack of instant feedback would appear to render it useful as a secondary source where beginners can post messages or questions and answers in order to get additional help in learning basic concepts in a language. An asynchronous environment may also be suitable for composition of messages in the primary language while using software applications (e.g., Google) to translate the message to the intended or targeted language. Of course such translations are not always accurate, because the software are still in the infancy stage and often do not always account for cultural and contextual appropriateness of messages. Notwithstanding, the fact that learners do not have to be simultaneously present makes asynchronous CMC appealing to language learners, however, as a secondary or supplemental source. This allows individuals to post their questions and answers at their own convenience. It may also help overcome the pressure or feeling of embarrassment that may accompany participation in synchronous CMC environment.

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Due to the phonetic and contextual use of language, it appears that ICTs are best used in language learning as an additional or supplemental tool for teachers and students respectively. Thus, language learning may be best in a face to face environment. However, this is not to say that CMC can not play an important role in language learning environments. For instance, synchronous CMC can offer an additional dimension to the learning taken place in the face to face setting. The added dimension includes the ability to facilitate interactive and active learning environment where students allowed the opportunity to think about how they learn, gather information, compose arguments, and learn about the contextual implications of language phrases (Davie and Wells, 1991; Olaniran, 2006; Walker, 2004). The findings from Zapata and Sagarra (2007) illustrate this argument, where Spanish language learners overwhelmingly conclude that in-class face-to-face activities lead to their use of online workbook (i.e., ICT) which they found useful in their listening, reading, and pronunciation. More importantly, the students suggest that ICTs provide them with redundancy that was helpful in their second language lexical knowledge. Furthermore, both synchronous and asynchronous CMC offers students the opportunity to seek help from noninstructors and peers in language and culture learning, which is central to the principles of deep learning and transformation learning – which provides active and reflective thinking to learners while increasing their cognitive skills (Clawson and Choate, 1999; Olaniran, 2006; Olaniran, Savage, & Sorenson, 1996; Osman & Herring, 2007). Specifically, the choice provided and the availability of different communication options enhances students' innovations, critical thinking, and choices available to learners as a whole (Olaniran et al. 1996; Olaniran, 2006). While synchronous CMC requires critical thinking during interactions, it considerably alters the amount of time a participant has in deliberation before offering a response; a major problem

Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning

that is overcome in asynchronous setting. As a result, combinations of both synchronous and asynchronous CMC can go a long way in supplementing language and culture learning especially when used to accompany traditional face to face teacher-students interaction. A case in point is the Schmid (2007) assessment of the interactive whiteboard ACTIvote – wireless response system (i.e., synchronous CMC) for supporting language learning. In the study, the teachers used the ACTIvote system as multimedia platform for including varieties of multimedia tools such as CDs, digital videos and audio files, power points, websites to teach different language units. The study found that the ACTIvote system allows for prompt feedback and privacy to and for students; such that the voting systems give learners the opportunity to check out their understanding and compare their performances to the group in a way that preserves individual privacy, while students can tell whether they gave the right or wrong answer (Schmid, 2007). Furthermore, the tendency to compare one’s performance to other classmates is believed to help students evaluate performance in the context of how other peers performed. For example students can feel better when knowing that they are not the only one that missed certain questions – a self esteem impact. On the other hand, students are able to do a self reflection and evaluation that motivates stronger performance when their performance is not on par with those of peers (Schmid, 2007). In sum, the study found that ACTIvote system impacts not only cognitive knowledge in language learning but also socio-affective dimensions of the learning process. The students were also able to engage in interactions with other students in a way that would not have been possible without the technology. The supplemental role of ICTs in language learning is reinforced in the fact that their benefits of second language lexical knowledge are usually delayed. For example, Zapata and Sagarra (2007) found that an online workbook effect on second

language lexical knowledge was measurable only after six to eight month of exposure. The supplemental role of CMC and other ICT tools in language learning is also echoed in Reinders and Lazaro’s (2007) study, which evaluates self-access technology centers and their use for language learning. They found that all the centers investigated provided very limited support materials for language learning. Specifically, the authors found that rarely were synchronous chat and asynchronous discussion boards used. Instead, less interactive technologies such as language learning software, e-mail, and internet resources were used by the centers and sometimes for administrative purposes such as advising, direct access to resources, and evaluation processes. When learning support services are offered, they focused on language learning materials, advice, needs analysis, process monitoring, planning the learning process, and assessment. Thus, self-access centers by their nature tend to be more conducive to autonomous training rather than group or curriculum training geared toward learners’ primary language needs. Furthermore, it is difficult to match learners’ use of resources at the self-access centers directly to performance, and training materials (Lazaro & Reinders, 2006; Reinders & Lazaro, 2007). It is also worth mentioning that the use of ICTs has some drawbacks that are not necessarily exclusive to language learning but can hinder them as tools for facilitating learning. Teng & Taveras (2004-2005) identify internet disconnections and system overload that can result in disappearance of messages. Also, many students lack the skills to keep up with typing necessary in synchronous interactions, which consequently affect participation (Brannon & Essex, 2001; Olaniran, 1994; Osman & Herring, 2007; Teng & Taveras, 2004-2005). There is also the issue of lack of access to internet or ICT tools because of disparities or digital divide around the globe (Olaniran, 2007a).

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IMPLICATIONS Certainly, ICTs have a lot to offer teachers and specifically learners of language. ICTs can provide innovative applications of technologies to the language learning curriculum. For instance, the applications of ICTs (synchronous or asynchronous) can add increased flexibility to teachers and language learners in how the course is taught while helping to adapt students to innovative way of learning language. For instance, with the aid of ICTs, students can become the focus of attention in learning. Language teachers can bring into the courses ICTs and accompanying resources to help student grasp the course contents while allowing students to access the resources at their own pace and adapt the technologies in ways that accommodate different learning needs and styles (i.e., autonomy). The use of new technologies, in essence, can hold the promise of flexibility and give greater accessibility to secondary resources for students (Olaniran, 2004; Reinders & Lazaro, 2007b; Zapata & Sagarra, 2007). More importantly, accessibility to asynchronous CMC tools like bulletin board and discussion lists can create a sense of continuity in course and bring students together. Reinders and Lazaro (2007) suggested that self-access centers or asynchronous ICTs are useful in fostering the principles of flexible learning. However, in order to realize the promise of ICTs in language learning, it is imperative that some degree of structure and guidance needs to be in place for learners (e.g., Salmon, 2004). First of all, it is apparent that basic or first time language learners needs not be left alone to fend for themselves in language learning. Thus, a webassisted course structure in which there are skilled instructors that understand how to adapt ICTs into traditional course content delivery is needed to make this happen. From within the classroom, instructors can then apply ICTs the like of interactive web board, ACTIVote, videoconferencing, and others to create interactive environment that

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facilitates student-to-students as well as studentto-teacher interaction in a learning environment. This approach would allow students to not only understand language phrases, but also, to practice cultural appropriateness of those phrases with their classmates and others (i.e., language native speakers) on and offline. As a matter of fact, instructors can use the ICTs to point students in the direction of other resources (e.g., chat sites, discussion board, and specific language communities and forums) available online that students can access for practice at their convenience for deep learning to take place. A major advantage to this approach lies in the fact that it allows teachers to use students’ work to collaboratively work with the entire class and have discussion with students while working rather than through mere lecturing or providing direct instruction to students (Deaney & Hennessy, 2007). Steps must be taken to make sure that learners have access to the appropriate ICTs. Recognition that not all students may have access to computers or Internet is important especially when dealing with students outside the USA and Scandinavian countries. More importantly, it has been suggested that even in technologically well-equipped countries and schools, teachers are sometimes more reluctant to use certain ICTs either because of lack of training in the ICTs or because of the hassle involved (Deaney & Hennessy, 2007). For example time needed to check out the equipment, login protocols for students, and the sharing of equipment needs to be performed as trouble free as possible. In order to aid the ICT adoption process for teachers, there is a need for college or department to have in place ICT technicians and policy to train teachers and to help trouble-shoot most problems for teachers and students. Lack of confidence in classroom use of technology is a major inhibitor in adopting technology in course development (Deaney & Henessy, 2007). Specifically, Deaney and Hennessy (2007) conclude that “it comes down to people actually using the technology, building their own confidence” (p. 81).

Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning

The interplay of desire to harness the power of ICTs to support language curricular goals, access to reliable technologies, and supportive organizational culture can go a long way in successful deployment of ICTs for language learning. However, considerable thoughts for the needs of learners should be the primary concern of teachers in using technologies to enhance language and culture learning. At the same time, students and learners must pay attention to their own needs and motivation for language learning. For example, the motivation to learn a language should determine how individuals or learners go about learning the language and the degree to which emphasis is put on learning the culture accompanying the language. For instance, while language learning software can allow learners to master language phrases and grammar for beginners, chatting online with native speakers of a particular language will give learners the opportunity to advance in the target language and offer window to greater mastery of the language and the accompanying culture of the language (communication competence). One should also understand that positive effects from ICTs in language learning may take a while to materialize. Thus, time is a factor when considering application of ICTs in language learning. For instance, Zapata and Sagarra (2007) reported that third semester learners performed better than beginning learners when working with ICTs because it takes time for learners to adjust to the ICTs. At the same time, the nature of language learning is that its novelty requires time and significant commitment even in face to face learning environment, which is bound to take longer in ICT environment.

FUTURE TRENDS Language learning and second language acquisition cannot be complete without close attention to how ICTs are used to foster knowledge. Studies of

language learning and ICTs are either quantitative or qualitative in nature (D’Haenens et al., 2007). Quantitative studies primarily focus on analyzing the effects of demographic variables on language learning as well as types of ICTs and communication media accessibility. Qualitative studies, on the other hand, look at culturally specific features like identity, and cultural participation that rarely examine the use of media itself. There is a need to blend both of these methodologies to get a better understanding of ICTs in language learning. The evaluation mechanisms for language learning needs to move away from mere lexical test or word association, synonyms, and antonyms (e.g., Zapata & Sagarra, 2007) where emphasis is on vocabulary instead of spoken competence. It is essential to understand the implications of digital divide in language learning. The author of this chapter believes that studies in computerenhanced language learning needs to understand the conditions that enhance ICTs suitability and those that impede them in language learning environment. Furthermore, this tendency requires researchers and scholars alike to understand the difference between technology “have nots” and technology “want nots” (in the context of language learning and e-learning in general). Along this line, certain questions are worthy of investigations. For example, “To what extent is the increased ICTs influencing language learning? To what extent is the lack of affordable technology in certain regions of the world isolating pupils from those parts of the world and further putting them behind?” Answers to these questions would assist in separating learners who fall behind based on environmental factors from those who willingly chose to participate in technology use while also understanding that ownership of ICT tools does not transfer to actual usage (see D’Haenens, et al., 2007). There is an increasing need to pay specific attention to social networking as a way to evaluate ICTs or at the least explore it for language learning. The popularity of “Facebook” and “MySpace” social

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networking forum among students for social interconnectivity makes it a rich environment to be mined for e-learning and language learning research especially in the age of globalization and the need to be global citizen. The author of this chapter anticipates the trend in the future for e-learning and specifically language learning to be moving in the direction of social networking given the increased interest among students to have fun while they learn especially in the western culture that stresses constructivist ideals of putting students in the control of their learning. Also, increase in bandwidth may foster applications of computer accessible video-conferencing, which can be explored as additional avenues for enhancing synchronous ICT language learning. Another area for future development in language learning is the need to incorporate artificial intelligence into ICTs or websites, to the extent that learners can use them as a personal coach. Of course, the strength of such agents will be significantly determined by the complexity of programming to incorporate robust scenarios that will facilitate contextual and cultural appropriateness of lexical knowledge. It is important for future studies to explore the specific role of teachers in language learning especially those planning on telecollaborative language teaching where multiple cultures are involved. O’Dowd (2007) stresses the importance of the need for teachers to be trained in online intercultural interaction before engaging learners; the need for teachers to be aware of different types of intercultural misunderstandings that may occur; emphasis on appropriate selection of ICT tools for a course or different aspects of a course is also important. Attending to these protocols would allow learners and teachers to develop language skills but more importantly, intercultural communication competence that is essential to application of the language knowledge.

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CONCLUSION This chapter explores the use of ICTs in language learning, while stressing the importance of culture and the need to address cultural impacts on language acquisition through ICTs. The chapter presents the dimensions of cultural variability to address implications for language acquisition while exploring synchronous and asynchronous ICTs along with their positions in language learning. It is argued that ICTs, at least for the time being, are best relegated to a supplemental role to the traditional face to face environment in order to help students develop contextual appropriateness in language acquisition and use. The chapter also provides ideas for future directions and research in language learning.

ACkNOWLEDGMENT The author wish to acknowledge Dr. Mary Frances Agnello (Texas Tech University) for her help with the manuscript.

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Olaniran, B. A., Savage, G. T., & Sorenson, R. L. (1996). Experiential and experimental approaches to face-to-face and computer mediated communication in group discussion. Communication Education, 45, 244-259. Olaniran, B. A., Stalcup, K., & Jensen, K. (2000). Incorporating Computer-mediated technology to strategically serve pedagogy. Communication Teacher, 15, 1-4. Osman, G., & Herring, S. (2007). Interaction, facilitation, and deep learning in cross-cultural chat: A case study. The Internet and Higher Education, 10(2), 125-141. Patsula, P. J. (2002). Practical guidelines for selecting media: An international perspective. Usableword Monitor (February 1). Available at: http:/uweb.txstate.edu/~-db15/edtc5335/docs/ mediaselection_criteria.htm Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone, the collapse of and revival of civic America. NY: Simon & Schuster. Reinders, H., & Lazaro, N. (2007, April). Innovation in language support: The provision of technology in self access. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(2), 117-130. Roach, K. D., & Olaniran, B. A. (2001). Intercultural willingness to communicate and communication anxiety in International Teaching Assistants. Communication Research Reports, 18, 26-35. Roebuck, D. B., & Britt, A. C. (2002). Virtual teaming has come to stay: Guidelines and strategies for success. Southern Business Review, 28, 29-39.

Salmon, G. (2004). E-tivities. Der Schlussel zu aktivizen online-lernen. Zurich: Orell Fussili Verlag AG. Schmid, E. C. (2007). Enhancing performance knowledge and self-esteem in classroom language learning: The potential of ACTIVote component of interactive whiteboard technology. System, 35, 119-133. Teng, T. L., & Taveras, M. (2004-2005). Combining live video and audio broadcasting, synchronous chat, and asynchronous open forum discussions in distance education. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 33(2), 121-129. Usun, S. (2004). FactoIS affecting the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in distance education. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 5(1). Available at: http://tojde.arladolu.edu.tr/tojde13/articles/ us\m.html Van Dam, N., & Rogers, F. (2002, May). ELearning cultures around the world: Make your globalized strategy transparent. Elearning (www. elearningmag.com) (pp. 28-33). Walker, S. A. (2004). Socratic strategies and devil’s advocacy in synchronous CMC debate. Journal of Computer Learning, 20, 172-182. Wang, A. Y., & Newlin, M.H. (2001). Online lectures: Benefits for the virtual classroom. T.H.E. Journal, 29(1), 17-24. Zapata, G., & Sagarra, N. (2007). CALL on hold: The delayed benefits of an online workbook on L2 vocabulary learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(2), 153-171.

St. Amant, K. (2005). Distance education in a global age: A perspective for internationalizing online learning communities. ACM Siggroup Bulletin, 25, 12-19.

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Culture and Language Learning in Computer-Enhanced or Assisted Language Learning

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC): Computer-mediated communication involves communication interactions that exist over computer networks. Culture: Culture consists of different value preferences that influence communication interaction and how people create meaning. Global Virtual Team: Global virtual team involves groups consisting of international or multicultural parties who are collaborating on a project using electronic-mediated communication technology.

Language: Language involves speech codes that enable communication interaction between and among people. Learning: Learning involves the process whereby a person acquires specific set of knowledge and skills. Online Education: Online education involves learning where most or all of the content delivery occurs over communication technology networks and interface. Virtual Collaboration: Virtual collaboration consists of communication interaction taking place in a virtual space with the aid of communication and information technologies.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, Vol. 1, Issue 3, pp. 49-67, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.8

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability: An Empirical Investigation Panagiotis Zaharias University of the Aegean, Greece

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

E-learning is gaining momentum in corporate settings as an alternative and supplementary solution to learning and performance problems. Users of e-learning applications and courses differ across regional, linguistic, and country boundaries and user requirements are strongly influenced by their local cultural perspective. Thus e-learning design needs to be sensitive to cultural parameters. Yet, there are very few empirical studies that investigate e-learning design and usability issues from a cultural perspective. This study: (a) discusses the cultural considerations in human computer interaction and information systems research and the specificities of usability in e-learning context, (b) focuses on the usability evaluation of e-learning courses within an international e-learning pilot initiative. Employees from four user organizations representing four countries in South Eastern Europe participated as users of the e-learning courses and evaluated their usability.

E-learning is a means for addressing learning and performance problems and has become an increasingly critical issue. The impact of e-learning has received extensive attention from practitioners and information system (IS) researchers. Nevertheless research in e-learning design for cross-cultural users remains minimal. New challenges in human computer interaction (HCI) are characterized by the increased focus on users, their idiosyncratic characteristics and reactions, and their changing needs (Hudlicka, 2003). This is also valid in elearning developments; the problem is that people differ across regional, linguistic, and country boundaries and user requirements are strongly influenced by their local cultural perspective. The increasing use of e-learning systems in different cultural contexts and observations that different people think in different ways put forth the issue of the degree to which the use of such systems is really a matter of culture. Catering for cultural diversity seems imperative for the design of e-

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

learning courses or corporate technologies for international use. It has been claimed that Web site and e-commerce designs are western-culture and male biased. This is because the majority of the Web sites and e-commerce applications has been developed in western countries and has been used mainly by male users (Simon, 2001). The same can be asserted for e-learning designs. Gender and national cultures constitute a set of parameters that can influence in a great extent e-learning design and usability. This is the main aim of this study, which investigates the effects of gender and national cultures on e-learning usability perceptions.

BACkGROUND Specifying Usability in E-Learning Context In the e-learning context, the concept of usability in “traditional” terms is not enough (Notess, 2001; Silius, Tervakari, & Pohjolainen, 2003; Smulders, 2002; Tselios, Avouris, Dimitracopoulou, & Daskalaki, 2001; Zaharias, 2004). This is because usability of an e-learning environment is directly related to its pedagogical value. A creative integration of usability and instructional design is needed but the whole issue of integrating usability and learning is still in its infancy. E-learning usability can be seen as the dominant factor of an e-learning artefact’s ability to satisfy the needs and specification of the learners. Silius et al. (2003) use the term “pedagogical usability” to describe whether the content, interface, and tasks of an e-learning course support learners to learn, which is the main goal when using an e-learning course or technology. In order to delineate e-learning usability, it is critical that parameters for the context of use are carefully identified. Such an effort requires the identification of the users of e-learning by acknowledging the double persona of the user-

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learner and the clear definition of the learners’ main task (Zaharias, 2004). It is critical to look into special characteristics that differentiate users of e-learning from other Web users. Smulders (2002) points out clearly the issue of designing for learners by recognizing the “double persona” of the learner-user. He asserts that most of the problems in e-learning design that relate to poor usability come from the fact that most of the e-learning designers do not recognize the distinction between the roles of user and learner in the e-learning environment. Many e-learning courses are designed for learners without any thought to users while at the same time other e-learning courses just do the opposite. In other words the difference between users and learners can be boiled down to the issue of form (user interface) versus content (learning material). The user part of persona is concerned mainly with the form and the learner part is interested mainly in the (learning) content. Therefore the emphasis while designing must be put on the creation of interfaces that support “learning while doing tasks” rather than those interfaces that support “doing tasks” (Hsi & Soloway, 1998). According to the previous analysis the tasks that an e-learner can perform can be seen along the two dimensions: a.

b.

The user persona of an e-learner interacts with the form of the e-learning course (i.e., interface, navigation, information architecture, visual design). The learner persona of an e-learner interacts with the content, communicates with their peers, instructors etc. Content is very important in this context. Learning is about making connections with real-life situations and problems, past experiences etc. Instructional designers are responsible for this to happen by selecting appropriate resources and activities that will engage learners and encourage them to make these connections.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Additionally the design of an e-learning course is also associated with functional connections: Questions like “where to go,” “what to do,” “how to do it,” “how to get back,” etc. resonate the functional dimension of an e-learning course. Web pages need to make sense structurally and directions and navigation must be easily recognizable. Thus for the user point of view the designer’s task is to make the e-learning course environment easy. In accordance with the previous, this study approaches e-learning usability as the effective integration of “traditional” usability and instructional design--an integration that caters for the double persona of the e-learners. Along this perspective, a body of properties that can adequately delineate e-learning usability is composed of the following usability attributes (Zaharias, 2004, 2006): Navigation, learnability, accessibility, consistency, visual design, interactivity & engagement, content & resources, media use, learning strategies design, feedback, instructional assessment, learner guidance & support, and motivational usability. The next section discusses the concept of culture and the way this concept and its dimensions have been treated in several studies.

Cultural Considerations in IS and HCI Literature Culture is the “collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (as stated in Hofstede, 1997). Culture functions as the basis of people’s behaviors, thoughts, and feelings (Komin, 1991). Although the concept of culture is quite complicated, there are a number of theories that focus on some aspects or dimensions of culture (e.g., Hofstede’s theory). These cultural dimensions include values, cognitive structures, and behaviours at the individual level, structures, and rituals at the organizational level, and artifacts and attributes at the societal or national level. Hofstede (1991) identified five cultural dimensions along which counties differ: individualism, power

distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and Confucian dynamism (long term or short term orientation). These cultural dimensions are based on value orientations and shared across cultures. Hofstede’s work has been widely used and validated by empirical studies in IS although it has also attracted criticism (Huo & Randall, 1991). Many HCI researchers are focusing on culture as a potentially important factor that can affect user performance and satisfaction toward an interface. In addition numerous studies on cross-cultural differences can be found in information systems and HCI literature. Schneiderman (1992) was one of the pioneers who raised the issue of cultural diversity when designing interface of information systems. AlHunaiyyan, Hewitt, Jones, and Messer (1999) argued that culture is a discernible variable in interface acceptance. Other studies examined culture and its effects on e-commerce buying behaviour (Pereira, 1998), cultural differences in the amount of information provided by management accounting information systems (Choe, 2004), cultural differences on perception and satisfaction levels on Web sites (Simon, 2001). Most of these works have employed Hofstede’s framework and cultural dimensions. In addition Marcus and Gould (2000) investigated a number of Web sites where Hofstede’s cultural dimensions could be applied and suggested that interface designers should consider the cultural differences in relation to factors such as power and gender. Nevertheless as already noted Hofstede’s influential work has received much criticism. For instance, Maier (2003) asserted that Hofstede’s concept of culture has limited explanatory value in certain contexts such as the design of knowledge management and e-learning systems and further suggested that other methodological models and tools can be used. In her study proposes Activity Theory as a conceptual approach that provides a broad framework for describing the structure, development and context of computer-supported activities and furnish methodological tools and models for the identification of the impact of the cultural factors.

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Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Although the importance of culture has been recognized, research, which focuses on usability perceptions and cultural parameters, is in its infancy. Barber and Badre (1998) introduced the term “culturability” and argued that issues of culture and usability can no longer remain separate in design for the World Wide Web. Two research streams are prevalent in the literature: one focuses on culture effects on Information Technology design (Web design, cell phones design etc.) while the other investigates how culture affects the perception and application of several usability evaluation methods. Badre (2001) identified “cultural markers,” which can be defined as design elements that are prevalent with a particular cultural group. Such cultural markers can signify cultural affiliation through the analysis of national symbols, colour, and spatial organization. Burgmann, Ktchen and Williams (2006) investigated culture impacts on Web design among Germany, Great Britain, and Greece. It is found that the mean number of hypertext links on German sites is greatest while that of Greece is lowest. In addition many German higher education sites were scored as symmetric while the British sites are scored as customer focused. Noiwan and Norcio (2006) investigated the effects of animated graphic colors on attention and perceived usability of users from two cultural groups, American and Thai. The influence of culture on overall self-reports on usability was evident regardless of differences in banner color combinations. Additionally cultural differences of attention drawing were found in most banner color usages. Vöhringer-Kuhnt (2004) developed a research model according to Hofstede’s cultural specific variables and the ISO 9241-11 definition of usability. The model developed for this study has been tested in two empirical online surveys. The overall results indicate differences in the attitude towards usability across members of different national groups. The cultural dimension of individualism/collectivism was found as significantly connected to the attitude

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towards satisfaction and the attitude towards product usability. Lee, Tran, and Lee (2007) presented a case study in which a laboratory-based usability test was conducted with four cultural groups (West African, East European, South American, and North American) to collect multi-cultural usability information in the iterative development process of a cell phone navigation system. A plethora of cross-cultural information was obtained, along certain dimensions such as navigation, mental models, metaphors, and visual design. As far as concerns the other research stream, Yeo (1998) conducted a study to identify which cultural factors may affect results of usability evaluation methods. Vatrapu and Perez-Quinones (2003) investigated the effects of culture on the effectiveness of structured interviews in usability testing. Clemmensen and Plocher (2007) investigate key dimensions of culture that affect usability testing situations, including language, power distance, and cognitive style results. Special attention is being focused on subject-evaluator communication and cultural bias in the test design and structure of the user interface being tested. Yammiyavar, Clemmensen, and Goyal (2005) conducted a study in India and Denmark where thinking aloud usability method was under investigation. In these experiments some of the test users realized that some test evaluators did not belong to the user’s own social group, and acted accordingly by explaining to the foreign evaluator aspects of the test application that would seem to be obvious and not require explanation to an evaluator from the same group. Accordingly some relevant usability problems were not identified due to cross- cultural issues. Clemmensen et al. (2007) proposed practical guidelines for a usability test that relies on thinking aloud protocol in order to be more sensitive towards cultural usability. Think aloud method serves as the basis for another study (Kumar at al., 2007) that criticizes the cultural sensitivity of this method and propose an alternative method called “mind tape,” which is found to be more suitable for tracing deeper level cognitive processes of users without interfer-

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

ing with the task fulfillment and thus more cultural sensitive and effective. Qu, Sun, Nawaz, Plocher, and Clemmensen (2007) in a card sorting experiment verify how Eastern and Western cultures differ quite systematically in how they group objects, functions and concepts into categories. Furthermore, during the recent years e-learning researchers have started to employ cultural parameters in their investigations. Brown (2000) has called for a broader understanding in e-learning design issues for international users where special attention must be paid on more inclusive pedagogical issues. Graff, Davies, and McNorton (2003) investigated cross-cultural differences in computer use, computer attitudes, and cognitive style between UK and Chinese students. Findings suggest that individual differences are evident in terms of attitudes to computer-based learning and internet use and that these differences exist on two levels, nationality, and cognitive learning styles. Downey, Wentling, Wentling, and Wadsworth (2005) measure the relationship between national culture and the usability of an e-Learning system by using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Nielson’s usability attributes. The study revealed that high uncertainty avoidance cultures found the system more frustrating to use. The study also revealed that individuals from cultures with low power distance indicators (e.g., people more accepting of uneven power distribution) rated the system’s usability higher than individuals from high power distance cultures. Slotte and Tynjala (2003) focused their research efforts on a cross-cultural university course to investigate the cultural differences in corporate communication and collaborative learning. Blanchard, Razaki, and Frasson (2005) present a methodology to adapt e-learning content that will be displayed to the learners according to their cultural profiles. Mushtaha and De Troyer (2007) conducted a comparative study in understanding content and interface in the context of e-learning systems by using anthropologists’ and designers’ cultural dimensions. Chen, Hsu, and Caropreso (2006) investigated cultural influences

on students’ online social and learning behaviors and students’ opinions as well as attitudes toward cross-cultural collaborative e-learning. The outcome of this work is an instructional model for cross-cultural e-learning. Moore, Shattuck, and Al-Harthi (2006) investigated the complex relationship of e-teaching, e-learning, and culture in global online environments. Banks, Lally, Liu, and McConnell (2006) describes experiences from a project, which aims at developing inter-cultural e-learning through a collaborative team process that is itself inter-cultural. A main finding of this work argues that inter-cultural collaboration requires an understanding of policy, institutional, subject and role cultures, as well as pedagogic beliefs. Aoki and Bray (2006) present the current state of e-learning in Japan and then attempt an analysis of e-learners in Japan according to the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Despite the increasing interest on culture and usability interplay, more empirical studies are needed to further explain the implications for e-learning design. Additionally most of the studies employ convenience samples (i.e., students) while empirical studies in business/organizational settings where the e-learners are employees/ professionals are quite sparse. This study aims at investigating whether cultural factors such as gender and national culture affect the perception of e-learning usability. More specifically this study aims at exploring whether (a) there is a difference between gender and the perception of e-learning usability and (b) there are differences between different national cultures and the perception of e-learning usability. The following section describes the methodology (context of the study, the design approach of e-learning materials, the measures as well as the selection of the subjects and procedures) and then the findings of the empirical corporate e-learning study are presented and discussed.

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Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

METHODOLOGY Context of the Study An international e-learning project provided the context of this study. This project was carried out within the “enhancing Information and communication technologies’ skills (ICT) in South-Eastern (SE) European countries” EU-funded programme. The strategic goal for e-learning in this project was to set up a service to provide e-learning (Web-based) courses for the development of ICT skills and competences. More specifically this concerned corporate training of ICT specialists in four user-organizations representing four different countries in the region (Greece, Romania, Bulgaria) plus Turkey. Two Web-based courses have been set up: one aimed at the development of “IT business consultancy” skills and the other at the development of “software and applications development” skills in line with the specifications of the corresponding job profiles of the Career Space consortium (2001). In this sense the content of the training was fairly “uniform.” The training model selected was asynchronous self-paced training and the trainees were given a four-month period to “complete” the study of the two topics. A facilitator for this training intervention was provided in each training site (country). The four corporations participating in this study were all very large corporations in their respective national settings, all in the utilities and services sector (two in energy, one telecommunications and one IT services). At the end of the training period all trainees participated in an assessment exercise and almost 70% of them were successful.

Design of E-Learning Courses The design and development of these two elearning courses followed a user-centred design process. Such approach imposes an iterative design process, which was followed during the design of the two e-learning courses. While cap-

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turing e-learning design requirements, learners’ prior knowledge of the topics as well as personal learning styles and preferred learning strategies were assessed. The design process was facilitated through careful examination of learning theories and instructional design guidelines and models. Theoretical assumptions and guidelines were carefully selected according to the learners’ learning profile. An emphasis was given on Keller’s (1983) theory and guidelines for motivational design. In addition, an evaluation walkthrough, content quality control and a heuristic evaluation were performed as formative types of evaluation and provided significant input to the design process (Zaharias & Poulymenakou, 2006).

Measures Questionnaires have been extensively applied in usability evaluation experiments. In this research an online questionnaire was developed, which is particularly useful in Web usability evaluation when the users are distant (Tselios et al., 2001). The aim of this questionnaire was to assess trainees’ perceptions of the usability of the e-learning courses developed in the project and it was released after the end of the training period. The usability questionnaire was developed according to the methodology suggested by Kirakowski and Corbett (1990), a widely known methodology in HCI literature for usability questionnaires’ development. The questionnaire was based upon the effective integration of usability and instructional design field; the constructs were included in the questionnaire so as to cover the aforementioned

Table 1. Gender Gender

Frequency

Percent

Male

63

55.75%

Female

50

44.25%

Total

113

100.00%

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Table 2. Job position Job position

Frequency

Percent

Software Engineer

37

32.74%

System Administrator

10

8.85%

Manager

15

13.27%

Other IT personnel

19

16.81%

Other

21

18.58%

Missing

11

9.73%

Total

113

100.00%

e-learning usability attributes. The selection of the e-learning usability attributes was based on wide review and synthesis of several previous relevant studies. Five usability attributes were retrieved from Web design literature representing more “typical” usability parameters while seven were derived from instructional design literature. The last one was about motivational design of e-learning using Keller’s theory of motivational design (Keller, 1983). Sources such as heuristics, guidelines, checklists and other questionnaires were used as an initial pool of items for possible inclusion in the questionnaire. The questionnaire development started with an initial item pool of over 90 items. The items were examined for consistency of perceived meaning by getting 3 subject matter experts to allocate each item to content areas. Some items were eliminated when they produced inconsistent allocations. In addition a mini pilot test was undertaken to ensure that items were adapted and included appropriately in the questionnaire. An online version of the questionnaire was administered to 15 users in academic settings (2 of them were usability experts) that had some prior experience with e-leaning courses. Data obtained was analyzed mainly for response completeness; some adjustments were made and subsequently some items were reworded. The whole procedure led to the first version of questionnaire, which consisted of 64 items: 54 items measuring Web and instructional design usability and 10 items

measuring motivation to learn. There was also space for free-form comments. Items were used in the form of statements that should be evaluated by the trainees with the scale 1=Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3= Neutral, 4= Agree, and 5= Strongly Agree. An additional option “not applicable” was also used. More detailed information about the development of this instrument as well as its reliability and validity can be found in Zaharias (2006). An excerpt of the questionnaire is presented in the appendix.

Subjects and Procedure The trainees (employees of user organizations who were trained on the ICT topics) that participated in the project interacted with the e-learning service and the e-learning courses during a period of four months and then they were asked to participate in the usability evaluation study. A basic prerequisite for participating in the evaluation study was that all trainees should have an advanced knowledge of English language since the e-learning courses have been developed and offered in English. The respondents self-administered the questionnaire. For each question, respondents were asked to circle the response which best described their level of agreement with the statements. Of the 180 participants in the study, 113 useful responses were returned and thus the response rate was 62.77%. Prior to this evaluation, an environmental audit was conducted,

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Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Table 3. E-learning usability dimensions New Factors

Example Criteria

Interactive Content

IC1: The courses engage learners in tasks that are closely aligned with the

∝ = 0.901

learning goals and objectives. IC2: Media are used appropriately so as to assist in highlighting and learning critical concepts rather than merely entertaining or possibly distracting learners

Instructional Feed-

IFA1: Feedback given (by exercises or simulations etc.) at any specific time

back & Assess-

is tailored to the content being studied, problem being solved, or task being

ment

completed by the learner

∝ = 0.852

IFA2: Embedded exercises and other types of assessment (simulations etc.) prepare learners to apply new knowledge and skills in their everyday job conditions

Navigation

N1: Learners can choose (easily) what parts of the course to access, the order

∝ = 0.801

and pace of studying N2: Learners always know where they are in the course

Visual Design

VD1: The most important information on the screen is placed in areas most

∝ = 0.793

likely to attract the learner’s attention

Learner Guidance

LG1: The courses offer tools (taking notes, job-aids, recourses, glossary etc.)

and Support,

that support learning

∝ =0.805 Learning Strategies

LSD1: The courses provide opportunities and support for learning through

Design

interaction with others (discussion or other collaborative activities).

∝ =0.821 Accessibility

A2: The Web course is easy to install, uninstall and launch

∝ = 0.718 Learnability

L1: The course layout is sufficiently apparent so that learning can develop

∝ = 0.707

without extensive consultation of online help

which intended to describe the context in which the e-learning services were placed and deployed. The main tool of this audit was a structured interview with the heads of human resource departments, training managers, or experts within the user organizations. The main aim of these interviews was the identification of factors such as socio-economic factors, learning culture, organizational infrastructure, and structure etc.

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DATA ANALYSES AND RESULTS Respondents’ Profile As already mentioned, 113 trainees provided valid responses, among them 63 male and 50 female. As far as the current position of respondents is concerned, 36.27% is involved in Software Engineering, 9.80% is involved in system administration, whereas 18.63% is involved in other ICT related activities. In total 64.18% of respondents

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Table 4. Differences by gender on usability questionnaire items Us a b i l i t y

Items

Gender

N

Mean

T

at t r ibutes

S

i

g

(2-tailed).

(factors) Content is organized in an appropriate sequence

Male

57

3.86

Female

44

4.16

Male

57

3.67

examples) appropriate to the learning context

Female

43

3.95

Vocabulary and terminology used are appropriate

Male

56

3.59

for the learners.

Female

44

4.05

Abstract concepts (principles, formulas, rules, etc.)

Male

57

3.67

are illustrated with concrete, specific examples.

Female

45

3.96

-2.126

.036

-2.021

.046

-3.066

.003

-2.220

.029

and in small modules for flexible learning. The courses provide access to a range of resources (Web links, case studies, simulations, problems, Interactive Content

are related to technical tasks and responsibilities, while 14.71% are involved in managerial tasks. No significant statistical differences were found among the job positions on perceptions of e-learning usability.

E-Learning Usability Dimensions A factor analysis was conducted in order to identify the underlying dimensions of usability attributes of e-learning courses, as perceived by trainees. The Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was .846, which is comfortably higher than the recommended level of .6. A principal components extraction with Varimax rotation was used. Using a criterion of eigenvalues greater than one an 8-factor solution was extracted explaining 65,865% of the variance. In order to assess the internal consistency of the factors scales, Cronbach’s Alpha was utilized. The final factors, some criteria-items and alpha for the factors are given in Table 3. It can be seen that the

level of internal consistency of the factors identified was high (ranges from 0.707 to 0.901).

Gender and Perceptions of E-Learning Usability The first research question concerning the gender and perception of e-learning usability was answered by using the technique of t-test. Independent samples t-test for differences between the mean ratings of male and female respondents was performed. This statistical test revealed significant differences for one usability attribute, which is “interactive content” and particularly for the items in Table 4. As Table 4 exhibits, female respondents rated significantly higher the content organization and structure, the appropriateness and variety of resources, the appropriateness of vocabulary and terminology and concrete illustration of abstract concepts.

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Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Table 5. ANOVA results for instructional feedback and assessment ANOVA FACTOR2

Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum of Squares 4,022 21,958 25,980

df

3 83 86

Mean Square 1,341 ,265

F

Mean Square 2,913 ,293

F 9,939

Sig. ,000

Mean Square 1,227 ,197

F 6,220

Sig. ,001

Mean Square 1,101 ,257

F 4,275

Sig. ,007

Mean Square ,909 ,304

F 2,988

Sig. ,035

5,068

Sig.

,003

Table 6. ANOVA results for navigation ANOVA FACTOR3

Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum of Squares 8,738 28,427 37,165

df

3 97 100

Table 7. ANOVA results for visual design ANOVA FACTOR4

Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum of Squares 3,682 16,376 20,058

df

3 83 86

Table 8. ANOVA results for learner guidance and support ANOVA FACTOR5

Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum of Squares 3,302 23,168 26,470

df

3 90 93

Table 9. ANOVA results for learning strategies design ANOVA FACTOR6

Between Groups Within Groups Total

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Sum of Squares 2,726 27,363 30,088

df

3 90 93

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Table 10. ANOVA results for accessibility ANOVA FACTOR7 Sum of Squares 7,922 51,055 58,977

Between Groups Within Groups Total

df

3 89 92

Mean Square 2,641 ,574

F

4,603

Sig.

,005

Table 11. ANOVA results for learnability ANOVA FACTOR8

Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum of Squares 5,787 30,512 36,299

df

3 95 98

Mean Square 1,929 ,321

F

6,006

Sig.

,001

Table 12. ANOVA results for motivation to learn ANOVA MOL

Between Groups Within Groups Total

Sum of Squares 4,270 31,928 36,198

df

National Culture and Perceptions of E-learning Usability As noted in above, trainees from four user organizations participated in the study. Trainees represented four different nationalities: Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Turkish. In order to investigate the second research question (i.e., to explore the effects of national culture on perceptions of e-learning usability) a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was performed. One-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among two or more independent groups. Typically, however, the One-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among three or more groups, with the two-group case relegated to the t-test (as was the case for the investigation of gender perceptions presented in

3 92 95

Mean Square 1,423 ,347

F

4,102

Sig.

,009

the previous section), which is a special case of the ANOVA. Accordingly an ANOVA test was performed for each e-learning usability dimension (as emerged from factor analysis) with usability ratings as dependent variable and nationalities as independent variable. The ANOVA analysis indicates that there is a difference between two or more group means; however, it does not reveals what means there is a significant difference between groups. The Tukey’s HSD post-hoc analysis is a test designed to perform a pair-wise comparison of the means to see where the significant difference is. Therefore each ANOVA analysis was followed by Tukey tests. The next section presents the analyses for the usability attributes for which statistical significant differences have been found. Instructional Feedback & Assessment: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 83) = 5.068, p =

1507

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

0.003). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed that the Bulgarian group significantly rated lower the attribute “instructional feedback and assessment” than the Romanian group. Navigation: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 97) = 2.913, p = 0.000). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed the following: the Greek, the Bulgarian and the Turkish group significantly rated lower the attribute “navigation” than the Romanian group. Visual Design: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 83) = 6.220, p = 0.001). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed that the Bulgarian and Turkish group significantly rated lower the attribute “visual design” than the Romanian group. Learner Guidance & Support: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 90) = 4.275, p = 0.007). The Tukey’s HSD pairwise post-hoc analyses revealed that the Bulgarian group significantly rated lower the attribute “learner guidance and support” than the Romanian group. Learning Strategies Design: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 90) = 2.988, p = 0.035). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed that the Bulgarian group significantly rated lower the attribute “learning strategies design” than the Romanian group. Accessibility: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 89) = 4.603, p = 0.005). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed that the Bulgarian group significantly rated lower the attribute “accessibility” than the Romanian group. Learnability: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 95) = 6.006, p = 0.001). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed that the

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Turkish group significantly rated lower the attribute “learnability” than the Romanian group. Motivation to learn: The results indicate that there is significant difference among the group means ( F(3, 92) = 4.102, p = 0.009). The Tukey’s HSD pair-wise post-hoc analyses revealed that the Bulgarian group significantly rated lower the attribute1 “motivation to learn” than the Romanian group.

DISCUSSION General Remarks about the National Context and Corporate Training Policies Before discussing the main findings of the data analyses, it is important to present some information regarding the national context of the countries that participated in this international e-learning initiative. Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey are characterized by a large degree of diversification in their economic, societal, and political courses. Greece is a European Union (EU) member state, in a process of convergence with the central European socio-economic standards. The high rate of growth and the improvement of the national economic indicators have opened up new opportunities for business; the traditional state-owned and controlled sector has currently been in a process of deregulation and partial privatisation. Bulgaria and Romania have shifted from a centrally controlled economy to the market economy towards their integration in the EU. The accession phase was characterised by structural changes and transformations at the institutional, regulation and organisational level in the majority of the companies. The former public sector is in a process of privatisation and deregulation. Turkey has suffered serious socio-economic problems the last years; however certain sectors of the economy (e.g., the ICT sector) have shown considerable potential. Turkey has been also seeking to be integrated in the EU the future years.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Table 13. Effects of cultural determinants (gender and national culture) on e-learning usability attributes Cultural

E-Learning Usability Attributes

Determinants Gender Nat ional cul-

I n t e r a c t ive

It is about content-related interactions and tasks that support meaningful

Content

learning (Hiltz & Turoff, 2002; Laurillard, 1995; Stoney & Wild, 1998).

Navigation

Supports the way learners move through the instruction and how the instruction is designed to facilitate understanding of organization and structure of

ture

content (Lynch & Horton, 1999; Nielsen, 2000; Powell, 2000). Nat ional cul-

Learnability

ture

Related to the ease with which new or occasional learners may accomplish some learning task using the interface (Guillemette, 1995; Lingaard, 1994; Quinn, Boesen, Kedziar, Kelmenson, & Moser, 1993).

Nat ional cul-

Accessibility

ture

Related to loading time, browser compatibility, visual preferences etc. (IBM, 2000; Lynch & Horton, 1999; Weston, Gandell, McApline, & Filkenstein, 1999)

Nat ional cul-

Visual De -

It is about the design features’ placement in order to minimize cognitive

ture

sign

overload, attract learner’s attention etc (Morkes & Nielsen, 1998; Stoney et al., 1998).

Nat ional cul-

Learning

It is mainly about interactions in that have been designed in accord with

ture

Strategies

sound principles of learning theory (Clark & Mayer, 2003; Jonassen, 1994;

Design

Squires & Preece, 1999)

Nat ional cul-

Instructional

It is about the design of assessment opportunities that are aligned with

ture

Feedback &

the learning objectives and content and feedback that is contextual and

Assessment

relevant to the problem or task in which the learner is engaged (Driscoll, 2002; Govindasamy, 2002; Johnson & Aragon, 2002; Laurillard, 1995; Spitzer, 1996).

Nat ional cul-

Lear ner

It is about the design of online help, documentation, and other tools that

ture

Guidance &

support and may guide the learner (Clark et al., 2003; Driscoll, 2002;

Support

Govindasamy, 2002)

Nat ional cul-

Motivation to

It is proposed as a new e-learning usability attribute (Zaharias, 2004) and

ture

learn

refers to doing an activity (i.e., to interact with an e-learning course) for the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself.

According to the environmental audit that was conducted, the national context of the participating countries is positive to innovations, among them ICT related services and applications. The lack of basic information technology (IT) skills and the relatively low rate of Internet penetration have inhibited wider use of e-services. The participating companies are active in primary sectors of the national economies: petroleum industry,

telecommunications sector, energy production, dissemination sector, IT sector, all of them at the leading edge of economy. As far as concerns the corporate policies for training and development issues, it is obvious that they are quite analogue with the general sociopolitical situation.

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Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

•

•

•

•

1510

The Romanian company is one of the biggest public companies in the country, which is currently in a process of internal transformation to become a private one. They provide courses for employees implemented either in-house or in collaboration with third parties. However, their efficiency is doubtful, as “…it is time consuming and interferes with everyday work duties.” There is no training department to serve its specific needs (software applications development) and they are very positive to new models such as e-learning, as they expect more “flexibility in learning.” The introduction of new technologies in all sectors and activities of the company is considered a decisive factor to foster and accelerate the transformation process. This company was amongst the first Romanian companies to use a learning system via Web technologies and the employees were highly interested in this training method. The Bulgarian company has applied distance-learning courses using the company’s Intranet and corporate site, however they aim at “…better quality and wider range of courses on various subjects.” According to the head manager it is of strategic importance to meet the needs for modern curricula so as to cover the demand for new skills and competencies in the telecom sector. The Greek company has a large training department, which has shifted its orientation in the recent years to bring their training programmes closer to the actual demands of the company. Introduction of innovative learning methods (e-learning) are seriously considered, although online courses are not meant to substitute face-to-face learning. The company aims to better quality through “blended learning” programmes. The Turkish company has experienced training in traditional forms, mainly in technical subjects that has proved to be quite satisfac-

tory, although not in large scale. Lack of resources has prevented “mass training.” According to the head manager of human resources e-learning is expected to improve effectiveness as it enables interactivity and flexibility; e-learning could also enable group activities (collaborative learning) and possibly provide better learning outcomes. Nevertheless the existing learning culture (learning “by-heart,” not studying by searching and exploring) could seriously prevent innovative methodologies.

Main Findings According to the data analysis and the environmental audit, homogeneity is evident amongst the participants of the study in terms of profession (most of them are software engineers and system administrators), years of working experience (the majority of the trainees were relatively new in their job duties (i.e., 30.97% of them have had 4-9 years of experience in current job position while 44.25% have had 0-3 years)), attitudes towards new technologies and training techniques (environmental audit shows that great majority is open to new training methods and techniques, familiar with new technologies due to the subject of their work and willing to experiment innovations). Nevertheless analyses revealed that participants rated statistically differently several e-learning usability attributes. That practically means that attributes such as navigation, learnability, accessibility, visual design, learning strategies design, instructional feedback and assessment, and learner guidance and support have been perceived and evaluated in a much different way between the trainees from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Table 13 exhibits the e-learning usability attributes for which cross-cultural differences (gender and national culture) have been found. According to the data analyses, there was no significant main effect of nationality on the perception of “interactive content” usability attribute. For this

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

no cultural difference a possible explanation can be found in the homogeneity of the participants in terms of their professional and knowledge background and their learning and cognitive styles and preferences. On the contrary it seems that there is a gender effect on the perception of “content and resources.” As already noted female respondents rated significantly higher the content organization and structure, the appropriateness and variety of resources, the appropriateness of vocabulary and terminology and concrete illustration of abstract concepts. Such findings are in line with other studies that have identified significant gender differences across a variety of tasks or traits. According to the literature females have a more comprehensive information processing strategy (Simon, 2001); they tend to prefer concrete illustration of abstract concepts and they usually do better than males on verbal or linguistic tasks. On the other hand they have historically more negative perceptions and higher levels of anxiety relating to technology (Simon, 2001). As far as concerns the perception of the other e-learning usability attributes, results revealed that the Romanian group rated significantly higher in comparison with some of the other groups. According to the findings of the environmental audit “e-learning isat least for the moment--the Romanian IT community’s most favourite subject” and most of the Romanian trainees and their supervisors had expressed much enthusiasm about the e-learning project. This may explain their behaviour during the usability evaluation and the fact that they rated e-learning usability significantly higher than the other national groups along several dimensions: motivation to learn, learner guidance & support, learning strategies design, accessibility, navigation, instructional feedback & assessment, visual design, and learnability. In addition, data analysis reveals that the Turkish group rated significantly lower usability attributes such as navigation, visual design, and learnability. According to Hofstede’s dimensions of culture Turkey is characterized by high values in power-distance index and uncertainty-

avoidance index. According to Marcus et al. (2000) this practically means that they would prefer e-learning courses characterized with simplicity, clear metaphors, limited choices, and restricted amounts of data, control of navigation, redundant cues (color, typography, sound, etc.) to reduce ambiguity. On the contrary some of the basic design assumptions for the two e-learning courses that have been set up for this project were as follows: •

•

•

Use of color, typography, and graphics so as to maximize information (multiple links without redundant cueing). Less control of navigation; for example, many links open new windows leading away from the original location. Mental models and help systems focused on understanding underlying concepts rather than narrow tasks.

The previous design decisions are supposed to be well accepted by nationalities with lower values in dimensions like power-distance and uncertainty-avoidance. Accordingly, this may explains the usability perceptions of the Turkish group.

Limitations and Future Research The sample was limited to trainees of four user organizations that represented the four countries located in South Eastern part of Europe. That was a pilot e-learning initiative and the sample size was relatively small. Future research can be conducted in a larger scale thus exploring e-learning design and usability considerations in larger samples across a wider set of user organizations and nationalities. Moreover, e-learning courses employed in the study were developed in English, which is not the mother language of the trainees that participated in the study.

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Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

Another factor that may influence the results of this study is the training topic. As already noted the e-learning courses were developed so as to cover IT issues only. It is expected that the shift in the elearning market from IT skills training toward the non-IT or business skills segment will open up new markets for e-learning. Accordingly, future studies should be conducted along a wider spectrum of training topics thus providing new insights towards the investigation of e-learning usability and culture. Furthermore in order to better understand the diverse user populations and their preferences that might be affected by cultural characteristics, emotional responses should be taken into account. A lot of recent research emphasizes the interplay of emotions and learning (O’Regan, 2003; Picard, Kort, & Reily, 2001). Emotions and affect have been shown to be significant in relation to attention, memory, and decision making, all of which are of critical importance in the learning process (Worthman, 1999). Therefore it is critical that e-learning systems designers assess the range of possible affective states that users may experience while interacting with the e-learning courses and then explore their possible relationships with cultural dimensions. Dunn and Marinetti (2004) propose that there is a need for cultural adaptation in the level of learning design methodologies. Most of the current methodologies still largely assume that all learners learn in roughly the same way. According to the previous, it is evident that future work must focus on how to accommodate cultural difference. This demands learning strategies that consider cultural difference as a key influence on decisions at every stage, from business case, through analysis and design, all the way to implementation. Currently there are no specific methodologies for e-learning design that address those issues. As Dunn et al. (2004) argue, there is much focus on learning and cognitive styles but basic assumptions about such issues as the role of authority, sequence, risk avoidance, communication style, truth and identity are largely ignored by current methodologies.

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The road towards e-learning cultural adaptation will inevitably come across with the learning objects territory. Object-based e-learning design offer great possibilities for e-learning designers: learning objects can be designed and selected so to tailor the experience to the cultural expectations of the e-learner. The basis for such research efforts is the deep understanding that users do not learn the same way and their specificities and characteristics must be thoroughly analyzed in cognitive, affective and cultural level. In conclusion more empirical usability studies are needed across several different cultures in order to gain practical knowledge on how to design meaningful and effective e-learning experiences.

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Yeo, W. A. (1998). Cultural effects in usability assessment. Proceedings of the Conference on CHI 98 Summary: Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 74-75). Zaharias, P. (2006). A usability evaluation method for e-learning: Focus on motivation to learn. Extended Abstracts of CHI 2006--Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Zaharias, P. (2004). A usability evaluation method for e-learning courses. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Management Science & Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business.

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Zaharias, P., & Poulymenakou, A. (2006). Implementing learner-centered design: The interplay between usability and instructional design practices. Journal of Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 3(2), 87-100.

ENDNOTE For the purposes of the analysis the composite variable “Motivation to Learn” was used. 1

Cross-Cultural Differences in Perceptions of E-Learning Usability

APPENDIX: AN EXCERPT OF THE USABILITY qUESTIONNAIRE Criteria

1 Strongly Disagree

2 Disagree

3 Neutral

4 Agree

5 Strongly Agree

NA

Content Vocabulary and terminology used are appropriate for the learners. Abstract concepts (principles, formulas, rules, etc.) are illustrated with concrete, specific examples. Learning & Support The courses offer tools (taking notes, job-aids, recourses, glossary etc.) that support learning The courses include activities that are both individualbased and group-based. Visual Design Fonts (style, color, saturation) are easy to read in both onscreen and in printed versions Navigation Learners always know where they are in the course. The courses allow the learner to leave whenever desired, but easily return to the closest logical point in the course. Accessibility The course is free from technical problems (hyperlink errors, programming errors etc.) Interactivity The courses use games, simulations, role-playing activities, and case studies to gain the attention, and maintain motivation of learners. Self-Assessment & Learnability Learners can start the course (locate it, install plug-ins, register, access starting page) using only online assistance Motivation to learn The course incorporates novel characteristics The course stimulates further inquiry The course is enjoyable and interesting The course provides learner with frequent and varied learning activities that increase learning success

This work was previously published in International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, Vol. 4, Issue 3, pp. 1-26, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.9

Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning Giuseppe Chiazzese Italian National Research Council, Italy Antonella Chifari Italian National Research Council, Italy Gianluca Merlo Italian National Research Council, Italy Simona Ottaviano Italian National Research Council, Italy Luciano Seta Italian National Research Council, Italy

INSIDE CHAPTER The existing research in the field of traditional didactics shows that students who have good metacognitive skills often achieve better scholastic results. Therefore, it seems that students who are aware of their cognitive processes and are able to self-monitor their learning activities tackle didactic tasks with greater success. The chapter presents an analysis of studies regarding applications of metacognition within technological learning environments which have been implemented in the last few years, and this is followed by a description of the features of the Gym2learn system. This system aims to reveal DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-600-6.ch006

self-regulating processes and guide the student in acquiring all the steps of the executive control of some important comprehension strategies for understanding hypertexts.

INTRODUCTION The concept of metacognition has its origin in the field of cognitive science and is an open and multifaceted concept within which many different types of research problems are investigated, giving rise to the definition of a “fuzzy concept” (Flavell, 1981; Wellman, 1985). Originally, metacognition represented an important regulatory strategy regarding awareness of

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Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning

the organization and functioning of our thought processes. Early studies of metacognition were of historical importance since they emphasized the active involvement of the student in the learning process; this involvement was achieved by informing the student about the advantages of using selfregulating cognitive strategies and allowing the student to apply them to different tasks (Brown & Palincsar, 1982). The cognitive sciences have identified two main aspects of metacognition, namely metacognitive knowledge, possessed or to learn, and metacognitive skills related to the control and the monitoring of mental activity. For a more detailed analysis, it may be useful to mention the principal theoretical models which have contributed to clarifying the more controversial aspects of this field of studies. Following the theories of Flavell (1976), who was the first person to use the term metacognition in his “model of cognitive monitoring” (Flavell, 1981), it is possible to recognize four classes of phenomena which interact among themselves: 1.

2.

3.

Metacognitive knowledge is a stable set of knowledge about cognitive processes and consists of two main features: ◦ The sensitivity which a subject shows in applying an appropriate strategy to resolve a particular cognitive problem; ◦ The variables, declarative knowledge (what I know) and procedural knowledge (I know how to do it) which the subject has about himself, a task to solve and the strategies to use. Goals (or tasks) or, rather, the aims the subject intends to achieve which are of many kinds. Metacognitive experiences allow the subject to organize his actions according to his aims, increasing the probability of success.

4.

Actions (or strategies) refer to the cognitions or other behaviours employed to achieve the set goals and vary according to the desired outcome.

Following this model metacognitive knowledge is therefore capable of influencing goals, actions, and experiences. For a further explanation of the metacognition concept, we consider Brown, Brandsford, Ferrara, and Campione’s model (1983) where it is possible to identify four kinds of metacognitive processes: •

•

•

•

Predicting, which consists of the ability to hypothesise cognitive acts which may be used later; Planning, which consists of the ability to identify and plan a sequence of actions to reach a goal; Monitoring, which consists of the ability to control and progressively supervise ongoing cognitive operations; Evaluating, which consists of the ability to finally control the overall strategy and, if necessary, to modify it.

According to the author, metacognition is involved in all the phases of the study activities, and, in particular: • •

•

Recognizing the need for a strategic behaviour; Evaluating the features of the task and searching for the most appropriate strategies from one’s repertoire; Applying the strategy and checking its effectiveness (Campione & Brown, 1978).

Consequently, Brown states that metacognition does not consist only in an awareness of how cognitive processes function (that is the comprehension of information processing involved in complex skills), but also in the ability to plan, control,

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ask oneself questions and regulate oneself in the cognitive processes. In synthesis, monitoring of the cognitive components and executive control are the two main metacognitive constructs that emerge from the cited models. The former, which is identified in Flavell’s model, implies a knowledge of one’s own learning modalities, of the kinds of task to carry out and of the strategies to apply during the different study activities. The latter results from the set of actions to carry out during the learning process and which Brown identifies in predicting, planning, monitoring, and evaluating. Jacobs and Paris (1987) in their “multicomponential model” regarding metacognition emphasize how, on their own, declarative and procedural knowledge do not guarantee the correct performance of learning tasks, where the student is required to be aware not only of what and how, but also of when and why to adopt particular strategies. The authors therefore introduce a third kind of knowledge, defined as “conditional knowledge”; in particular, this can indicate the conditions in which learning is facilitated, when to use a certain strategy, and the cases in which it is most effective. In this sense, the most useful and innovative implication in the metacognitive didactic approach consists of leading the student towards self-regulation, that is, to recognizing the skills needed for carrying out learning tasks and choosing with more awareness the most productive strategies to reach goals which bring scholastic success. More in detail, among the range of explicit actions to be implemented in didactic activity we can mention: showing how a strategy is applied, introducing the practice of self-regulation,promoting the anticipated planning of procedures, reflecting on predictable obstacles, sustaining individual monitoring during the execution of tasks, discussing the relationship between actions and purpose, generalizing to other contexts, and maintaining the acquisitions over time. 1520

These theoretical assumptions had and continue to have meaningful spin-off on didactics, so that today working on metacognitive learning aspects satisfies the most pressing needs within the school of transmitting not only concepts but also tools that allow students to learn to learn. This means, in particular, developing in the student an awareness of what he is doing, why he is doing it, when and in which conditions it is appropriate to do it, as well as stimulating the skills for managing his own cognitive processes, which he can actively direct with practical evaluations and indications. As described above, the possession of metacognitive skills draws on cognition, and to achieve this aim for some time we have seen an abundance of training programs to teach students both learning strategies, appropriate to different didactic settings, and the ability to apply techniques for their self-regulation. Schneider and Pressley (1989) have referred to a list of items to take into consideration for teaching a strategy. This list is reproduced here: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Provide a detailed strategy Teach it using a model to copy (modeling) Repeat the first two phases well Obtain observations and comments from the students 5. Emphasize how having a strategy makes it possible to control the learning processes 6. Reinforce the subject when he has shown he can use the strategy appropriately 7. Invite the subject to monitor himself, that is, to observe himself while he is learning to use the strategies and when he meets contexts in which it is appropriate to use them 8. Compare the results obtained using the strategy with those achieved in a traditional way 9. Encourage the student to generalize the strategy to different contexts 10. Teach the use of the strategy in different subjects and contexts and with different materials

Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning

These programs, although based on different theories, often have a series of implicit rules in common which are essential requirements for effective training: •

•

•

•

Explicit instruction for using strategies with feedback during training has proved more efficient than asking the students to infer or abstract characteristics of the strategies without further help (Eliot-Faust, Pressley, & Dalecki, 1986; Gelzheiser, Sheperd, & Wozniak, 1986); The interactive activities permit learners to carry on a constructive dialog on thought and learning processes (Duffy & Roehler, 1989); The effect of self-monitoring can be observed only if students are free to use this information to regulate their studies (Thiede & Anderson, 2003); The students who are aware of the importance of a strategic approach to studying learn more and become able to generalize better compared to those who simply use the strategy (Ianes, 1991).

The training methods described are a valid tool with meaningful spin-off in scholastic settings, but they are rarely used in traditional didactic contexts. There are various reasons for this, such as the large number of hours required to carry out metacognitive training programs and the difficulty for teachers to effectively monitor the training path of each student. Moreover, as Duffy (1990) reveals, teachers tend to confuse content and processes and they often find it difficult to present the strategies to the students as sets of mental operations which can be modified to suit different situations. The next section presents an analysis of studies regarding applications of metacognition within technological learning environments which have been implemented in the last few years, and this is followed by a description of the features of the

Gym2learn system. This system aims to reveal self-regulating processes and guide the student in acquiring all the steps of the executive control of some important comprehension strategies for understanding hypertexts.

METACOGNITION AND TECHNOLOGY BASED LEARNING A feature of the last few years has been the increased integration of the different learning theories and practices and ICT. This has resulted in innovative educational technologies which, however, require teachers and researchers to reflect on the way in which students study and learn with the new media. These reflections must take account not only of traditional aspects of learning models and instructional design, but also of the results of the cognitive sciences. One of the concepts of cognitive science which has had the most influence on learning has undoubtedly been metacognition. It is therefore easy to predict that the next few years will see heightened interest in technological learning environments which take into account cognitive variables including metacognition. A brief description will be given below of some of the research already carried out in this sector and the technological systems which are based on them. It proves difficult, however, to compare the various studies because they are often based on different theoretical assumptions. To tackle this problem we present a map (see Figure 1) which allows us to find our way through territory which is only now being explored. The purpose of this diagram is to illustrate how the application of metacognition in learning environments using ICT is based on theoretical assumptions and practical results from very different sectors of research. The bottom level of the diagram shows the three main areas of research: ICT, Learning theories, and

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Figure 1. Metacognition for enhancing online learning map

Cognitive sciences. The first area has produced a lot of tools and technological systems; the second has given rise to a large number of models and practices; and the last sector has suggested mechanisms to describe the working of the human brain. These fields of research are largely autonomous but, recently, new results have been obtained by combining them in various ways. This has typically come about in the sector of educational technologies, where ICT and learning theories have both contributed to producing different educational tools, some of which are indicated in the diagram. A similar trend can be observed in studies of metacognition, where cognitive sciences and learning theories have highlighted different aspects of metacognition, also indicated in the diagram. Finally, human-computer interaction studies have been influenced by both ICT and cognitive sciences. All these studies have contributed to the definition of the topic under consideration, that is, the use of metacognition to enhance learning in educational environments based on technology. This topic can be studied from many different points of view and the results of the research are often difficult to compare.

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To give an example of this, we can consider metacognition either as a framework to improve the comprehension of a topic when the student uses the computer for studying, or as an aid to improve the use of technological tools for learning. Our diagram makes it easier to understand some of the interesting links between research studies of very different types which apparently have little in common, but it can also be used to plan interesting new research in fields which have not yet been thoroughly explored. If we restrict our analysis to the current situation of the studies on this topic, we can identify the following lines of research: •

•

Studies which aim to integrate cognitive strategies into educational environments based on technology (Romero, 2004; Zachary & Le Mentec, 2000). The studies consider that these environments are especially appropriate for supporting the metacognitive approach. The research is oriented towards the development of specific tools which permit metacognitive monitoring and control. Studies of new cognitive strategies adapted to the new media used during the learning

Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning

•

activities, such as hypertexts, multimedia, and the Web (Azevedo, 2001; Després & Leroux, 2003; Marais & Bharat, 1997; Moore, Hobbs, Mullier, & Bell, 1997; Protopsaltis & Bouki, 2004; Puntambekar & Stylianou, 2003). In this respect, metacognition is considered as a specific framework which can improve the performance of the students working with these technological systems. Studies which aim to use the new technologies as a support for teachers and students while they are engaged in learning activities based on metacognition (Kramarski & Ritkof, 2002; Moreno & Saldana, 2004; Teong, 2003). Experiences have shown that the employment of metacognition in educational settings requires a considerable effort to plan and carry out. Technologies can provide new tools to help teachers and to involve students during these activities.

In the following section, we will indicate some specific examples for each of the study types described above and we will illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches considering the following four variables: •

•

•

•

Theoretical background, that is the explicit ideas underlying the systems designed. The theoretical background can include general theories about cognitive processes, learning and instruction, interaction between people, and technological systems; Metacognitive aspects, that is, the way in which metacognition is considered in the systems and the specific tools developed to sustain metacognitive processes; The student’s role, which may be active, for example, when the student decides how and when to use the functionalities, or passive if the student is subject to the organization of the system; The field of application, that is, the type of learning activities where the system can be

employed successfully. For example, some tools may be designed exclusively for using on the Web, while the student is interacting with a CD-ROM or while engaged in other technology based educational settings.

Integrating Cognitive Strategies into Technology Based Educational Environments Cognitive Tutor Geometry Cognitive Tutor Geometry is a computer-based learning environment that supports students through guided and active learning. The assumption is that by using the strategy of self-explanation, metacognition, in its theoretical framework, can improve a student’s ability to learn and solve a geometrical problem. In particular, the study of geometry is supported by tools that promote learning by doing and explaining. The student is faced with a problem and, by interacting with a menu, has to explain every step of his process of problem-solving. Moreover, Cognitive Tutor Geometry also includes advice and feedback to the student about the work he has done in order to avoid interruptions in the study activity and to promote self-explanation.

gStudy gStudy is a Web browser that allows students to use numerous tools (e.g., annotation tools, a highlighter, etc.) to manipulate hypertextual contents called Learning Kit. When the student is working on hypertextual content, the system provides cognitive scaffolding procedures to promote knowledge and management of study strategies that are usually applied in traditional settings. Metacognition is involved when the student uses the functionalities and has to control and monitor his cognitive processes.

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Figure 2. Some systems using metacognition

The RiverWeb Water Quality Simulator The RiverWeb Water Quality Simulator is a hypertextual enviroment designed to evaluate experimentally the influence of different goal settings on a student’s ability to comprehend and control his learning process. The system is based on self-regulated learning theory: the best performing students are the ones who are able to manage their learning autonomously. In particular, The RiverWeb Water Quality Simulator enables students to evaluate the impact of certain variables on water quality through the observation and modification of a series of indicators. The student

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receives information by interpreting graphs that he can generate, answers some general questions and constructs a conceptual map.

Adapting Cognitive Strategies to the New Media I-Search I-Search is a meta-tool that supports a novice Web user during the process of online research. The system encourages awareness both of the variables involved during the search activity and useful strategies for tackling each step. It presents the

Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning

student with a graphical overview of the various search phases, accompanied by textual prompts for the correct execution of every phase. I-Search thus uses metacognition as a tool to stimulate higher order skills and improve the results of Web searching. The system was one of the first to alert the scientific community to the need to support Web users with media specific procedures.

Metacognitive Maps Metacognitive Maps is a tool for drawing conceptual maps in a Web-based environment. In this system, the metacognition is activated when students control and regulate the cognitive processes involved in Web surfing in order to improve learning and decrease the risk of getting lost in hyperspace. Students can use a global map to understand the structure of the whole hypertext; a local tracking map to monitor what they have done and decide what they have to do; a planning space, where they have to define their learning aims. The student himself establishes his learning aims, strategies to use, and the time necessary to carry out a task.

Nestor Nestor is a software that implements “constructivist surfing” of the Web and considers online study as a process that can be active, self-organized, and collaborative if the student can use tools to comprehend his navigation and the structure of the contents he studies. While the student is surfing, the system draws a map which represents the Web space visited, allows the construction of personal Web pages, and enables the personalization (through notes, keywords, etc.) of the pages studied. A student using Nestor plays an active role and manages his cognitive processes metacognitively when he uses the system’s functionalities.

Did@browser Did@browser is an educational tool for secondary schools which poses metacognitive questions to students, enabling them to monitor their learning processes during Web surfing. According to the theoretical framework, the use of metacognitive questions is a support for activating and engaging learners’ awareness and it facilitates their learning and improves the outcomes of a task. Students receive prompts to reflect on during their Web surfing, answer questions and then manage their surfing freely.

Supporting Metacognition with New Technologies iSTART iSTART is a Web-based application that provides high-level reading strategies to young adolescents. The theoretical background is the Self-Explanation Reading Training (SERT), that is, a model in which self-explanation improves students’ comprehension and learning. In iSTART, students read/listen to the explanations of a virtual trainer and then use the strategies they have learned in a guided context. The system implements traditional metacognitive training in a tech-based environment: the student learns both cognitive strategies and how to control them metacognitively.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION ON GyM2LEARN SySTEM The above analysis of the metacognitive environments reveals differences between the systems which, despite involving all the metacognitive skills, vary with respect to their theoretical, methodological, and technological aspects. However, the categories identified for comparison are to be considered only for speculative purposes and in

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some cases may be reductive if used to describe functions which are common to more than one category. The review of this set of metacognitive environments has led to a series of reflections regarding margins for their improvement, on the basis of the theoretical aspects described in the introduction. They have also been fundamental in the design of Gym2Learn, a metacognitive environment for the comprehension of online texts which will be presented below. First of all, it appears to us that the majority of existing systems assume that the student is already familiar with the cognitive strategies activated by the functionalities as well as with the metacognitive skills of executive control. The most immediate effect of this observation is that less able students are impeded, rather than supported, by the use of functionalities which are not self-explanatory. Moreover, in our opinion, without explicit teaching of the strategies, the executive control, and the effects of their application, there is a risk of the user becoming an executor who is unaware of the cognitive strategies he is using. These considerations have led us to propose integrating specific training into the systems; this training would include both the learning strategies and how to control them autonomously and with awareness. Secondly, the metacognitive systems sometimes do not provide support for the supervision of a task during its execution. In our opinion, it is instead important to allow the students to observe their learning processes constantly so it is easy for them to monitor their work and, consequently, modify/improve it before they finish. It would therefore be useful to integrate monitoring areas into the systems where the students can observe the work in progress while using the functionalities. Finally, no attention is paid to the possibility of generalizing the metacognitive experience which the tools stimulate in the student to other contexts.

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For this to take place, the student needs to recognize the importance of a strategic approach which can be applied to different types of contents. One possible solution to the problem is to make the student aware that the procedures he has learned can be applied to the contents of everyday life as well as to traditional topics of study. These considerations lead us to conclude that good practices for designing metacognitive environments would be to: • •

•

• •

Support teachers in structuring metacognitive didactic activities simply and quickly; Teach (explicitly) students how it is possible to use new study strategies and how to control them effectively and autonomously; Exploit the autonomy and interactivity of media implementing functionalities to make students active participants in their own learning processes; Enable students to self-monitor their activities; Help students to generalize, that is, to become aware of how strategies they have learned can be applied in different contexts from those in which they studied.

TECHNOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION ON GyM2LEARN SySTEM The methodological aspects described so far have encouraged us to develop the GymToLearn system to support online text comprehension. In particular, the system provides specific tools for training and controlling some of the mental strategies employed during Web study at a metacognitive level. The student is engaged within the system in two distinct phases: a training phase in which he learns some strategies for text comprehension and an executive phase in which he can use functionalities to support the application of learned strategies. These functionalities are available as an add-on of the Firefox browser.

Metacognition for Enhancing Online Learning

Training Phase The training phase consists of a series of practical exercises to perform on hypertext pages, whereby students begin to familiarize with the use and control of some cognitive strategies for understanding hypertexts (recalling previous knowledge; constructing hypotheses and verifying them in the text; asking and answering questions to check their comprehension; identifying the most important parts of texts; understanding and interpreting figures, graphics, and pictures in the texts). The training phase, based on the vademecum proposed by Schneider, is articulated around some strategies (Brown, Armbuster, & Baker, 1986) which can improve text comprehension. In particular:

Scrolling Down the Text to Recall Previous knowledge If we accept the supposition that comprehension improves when the reader already knows something about the topic considered in the text, it is a useful strategy to glance rapidly through the text in order to recall previous knowledge and thus associate it more easily with the new information.

himself questions, the student plays an active role in checking and self-evaluating his comprehension of the text.

Identifying Important Parts of the Text During the reading of the text, a valid strategy for reducing the cognitive overload is to separate the main concept from the secondary ones, bearing in mind the purpose of the reading activity. The training for each of the above mentioned strategies is structured in the following way: • • • •

Each exercise aims to promote the activation of metacognitive processes proposed by Brown’s model and consists of the following items: •

Formulating Hypotheses and Verify Them During Surfing

•

As in a problem solving process, this strategy requires the reader to formulate hypotheses based on the information given at the beginning of the text and to verify them as they read on.

• •

Answering and Asking Oneself Questions to Verify Comprehension Different studies (Pressley, Tannenbaum, McDaniel, & Wood, 1990) have shown that during the reading of a text, answering questions has positive effects on learning. Besides, by asking

A description of the cognitive strategy; A series of exercises for training in the use of the strategy; An exercise in the generalization of the learned strategy; A self evaluation page where the student assesses his application of the learned strategy.

•

A task that describes the learning activity to be carried out; A plan of action that represents the sequence of steps to perform in order to use the cognitive strategy correctly; A training text; An assessment area that proposes a set of questions for stimulating the monitoring of the operation performed; A monitoring area that allows the student to self-evaluate his use of the learned strategy.

Executive Phase The executive phase allows students to put into practice on the Web all the knowledge acquired

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during the training phase. The student can surf freely through Web sites proposed by teachers or selected independently and use the system support to apply the cognitive strategies and thus facilitate the learning of the Web content. The Web surfing in G2L is free while in the other solutions described above the student surfs only learning content developed by the teacher. Moreover, in G2L the student has an active role because he can decide when and which functionality he wants to use to support his learning activities. Each functionality stimulates the cognitive strategy associated with it through a semantic annotation mechanism on the Web page. This mechanism saves the following information loaded by the user in a note: the time and the text selected by the user. The note is saved on the annotation server and an icon appears next to the selected text. In this way, during surfing, the student can review the comprehension strategy he used before. By clicking on an icon it is possible to view and edit a note. For example, if the student intends to use the strategy “formulate hypothesis,” he will select the relevant portion of the text and will activate the corresponding functionality for formulating a hypothesis and saving it. The advantage of using an annotation mechanism like this is that it is possible to track all the student’s notes related to each strategy and thus to monitor how he has employed them during surfing. It is possible to argue that the student’s annotations created during surfing could provide us with information about his content comprehension process. The information is saved by an RDF file that tracks the student’s use of the four strategies of text comprehension. In conclusion, our semantic annotation mechanism enables the system to: • •

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Classify the student’s annotations in relation to the strategies he has used; Monitor the student’s activities both at diachronic level by a temporal reconstruction of the strategy employed and at synchronic

•

level by analyzing the set of strategies employed during the comprehension of the individual content; Display the annotations to the student through specific icons placed in the hypertext.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have considered two parallel phenomena: the introduction of the Web as a didactic resource and the interest in metacognition as a valid support during online learning processes. However, with respect to the latter phenomenon, we have to underline that the theoretical framework does not appear sufficiently clear and the experimental studies are limited and not exhaustive. Our rationale is that metacognition can be useful in improving the student’s performance in learning online only if it is introduced by adapting practices and technological tools to the media used. Besides, this work aims to promote the idea that the active involvement of students in learning activities is an essential step towards acquiring autonomy during study, and it provides tools and strategies which can be used in all fields of education and can be generalized to other situations in everyday life. It is therefore important that research in this area continues to investigate effective ways of including metacognitive support in the design of user friendly, computer-based learning environments.

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Lloyd, A. (2001a). A software tool for supporting the acquisition of metacognitive skills for WebSearching. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 19-23). Lloyd, A. (2001b). I-Search: A meta-tool for novice Web searchers. Retrieved January 6, 2008, from http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/560801.html MacAllister, K., Winne, P. H., Nesbit, J., JamiesonNoel, D., Zhou, M., & Bennet, N. (2005). Tools for investigating self-regulated learning: An overview. In D. Jamieson-Noel (Organizer), New tools, approaches and issues in researching self-regulated learning in authentic settings. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Marais, H., & Bharat, K. (1997). Supporting cooperative and personal surfing with a desktop assistant. In Proceedings of ACM UIST’97, Canada (pp. 129-138). McNamara, D. S., Levinstein, I. B., & Boonthum, C. (2004). Istart: Interactive strategy training for active reading and thinking. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36(2), 222–233. Moore, D., Hobbs, D., Mullier, D., & Bell, C. (1997). Interaction paradigms with educational hypermedia. In Euromicro 97 (pp. 65-71), Budapest. Protopsaltis, A., & Bouki, V. (2004). Cognitive model for Web based hypertext comprehension. In Web-Based Education (pp. 604-606), Austria. Puntambekar, S., & Stylianou, A. (2003). Designing metacognitive support for learning from hypertext: What factors come into play? In U. Hoppe, F. Verdejo & J. Kay (Eds.), Artificial intelligence in education: Shaping the future of learning through intelligent technologies. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

Romero, M. (2004). Metacognition dans les EIAH. Retrieved January 6, 2008, from http:// margarida-romero.com/cursus/dea_chm_ie/content/romero_transversal.pdf Schneider, W., & Pressley, M. (1989). Memory development between 2 and 20. NY: SpringerVerlag. Teong, S. K. (2003). The effect of metacognitive training on mathematical word-problem solving. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 19(1), 46–55. doi:10.1046/j.0266-4909.2003.00005.x Thiede, K. W., & Anderson, M. C. M. (2003). Summarizing can improve metacomprehension accuracy. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28, 129–160. doi:10.1016/S0361-476X(02)00011-5 Wellman, H. M. (1985). The origins of metacognition. In D. L. Forrest-Pressley, G. E. MacKinnon & T. G. Waller (Eds.), Metacognition, cognition, and human performance. NY: Academic Press. Winne, P. H., Nesbit, J. C., Kumar, V., & Hadwin, A. F. (2006). Supporting self-regulated learning with gStudy software: The learning kit project. Technology, Instruction . Cognition and Learning, 3, 105–113. Zachary, W., & Le Mentec, J. C. (2000). Incorporating metacognitive capabilities in synthetic cognition. In Proceedings of The Ninth Conference on Computer Generated Forces (pp. 513-521), Orlando. Zeiliger, R., Belisle, C., & Cerratto, T. (1999). Implementing a constructivist approach to Web navigation support. In Proceedings of the EDMEDIA’99 Conference (pp. 403-408).

This work was previously published in Technology Enhanced Learning: Best Practices, and M. Lytras, D. Gasevic, P de Pablos, and W. Huang, pp. 135-153, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.10

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments: An Empirical Analysis Anshu Saxena Arora Savannah State University-Savannah, USA Mahesh S. Raisinghani TWU School of Management, USA

ABSTRACT The article highlights a research study on consumer navigation behavior through the Web users’optimal Flow experiences in the online environments. The research study establishes the empirical groundwork for measuring Web users’ Flow experiences in the Web environment. The article proposes a comprehensive definition of Flow on the basis of Comprehensive Process (Flow) Model of Network Navigation, considering that the Flow concept is a multidimensional concept in the “multi-activity” medium of the Web. Flow has been defined as a multi-dimensional and context-specific concept. Furthermore, the research article proposes that there are 10 Flow constructs (also called “the antecedents of Flow”) along with the three states of Flow, namely, Perfect Flow, Imperfect-Intensive

Flow, and Imperfect Flow. Consumer Behavior on the Web is studied using the Flow concept for three categories of Flow users, namely, Perfect and Imperfect-Intensive Flow (PIIF) users, Imperfect Flow (IF) users, and Non-Flow (NF) users. These users achieve Flow depending on 10 Flow-constructs and three Flow states. Empirical results suggest a direct relationship between the Flow states and the Flow user categories and between expected Web user in the future (EXPUSE) and the Flow user categories. This research study provides a basis for future researchers to study consumer navigation behavior on the Web using the Flow concept for three categories of Flow users through 10 Flow constructs and three Flow states. The research has significant implications for theory and practice.

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

THE FLOW CONCEPT IN THE “MULTIACTIVITY” MEDIUM OF THE WEB The idea of Flow was conceptualized by Csikszentmihalyi (1977, p. 36), who defined “Flow” as “the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement.” Researchers have suggested that Flow can be used to study consumer behavior on the Web, especially the way consumer perceives the Web environment and engages himself/herself in the process of network navigation, and that the Web is an activity that can facilitate the occurrence of Flow (Chen, Wigand, & Nilan, 1998; Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Novak, Hoffman, & Yung, 1998). By definition, Flow is a psychological state in which an individual feels cognitively efficient, motivated, and happy (Moneta & Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 277). When in the Flow state, people become absorbed in their activities, while irrelevant thoughts and perceptions are screened out. If Flow were absent in humans’ experience, “there would be little purpose in living” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1982, p. 13). Saxena, Kothari, Jain, and Khurana (2003) demonstrated Flow as a combination of hypertext, telepresence, machine interactivity and time distortion. In terms of consumer navigation behavior or analyzing the buying patterns of consumers on the Web, the principle of “duplication” results in repeat visits to the Web environment and hence, repeat consumption behavior (RCB). This has a direct impact on expected Web use in the future (EXPUSE). This research study aims to analyze “Flow” in the online environments and presents “Flow” as a context-specific concept with multiple Flow states (and not a single Flow state, as described by previous researchers) within the multi-activity medium of communication of the Web. The objective of redefining Flow is two-fold: 1) to establish and develop a conceptual framework (Comprehensive Process Model of Network Navigation) for the understanding of Consumer Navigation Behavior (CNB) in online environments, and 2) to measure Flow on the basis of the Flow constructs and Web use variables derived from the Compre1532

hensive Flow Model of Network Navigation for investigating CNB in online environments. Flow should be considered as a complex multidimensional context-specific concept, characterized by relationships among a large set of unidimensional constructs of Flow. Also, the Flow constructs can be neatly categorized into sets of antecedents and consequences of Flow.

OPTIMAL FLOW EXPERIENCE Flow is defined as the congruence of high skills and high challenges of the users above a critical threshold level (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988), and the rationality behind the concept of “multi-activity” applies to the dynamic perceptions of challenges perceived in a given situation and the skills a person brings to it. Web as a multi-activity medium of communication was established by Chen et al. (1998). In addition to the concept of “multi-activity” for Flow concept, there is a need to address the problem of conflict between generic and context specific Web Flow. All the researches in the area of Web Flow demonstrates Flow as a concept occurring during network navigation where the person is engrossed in the process of navigating the Web or the mediated perception of the environment called “telepresence” (Steuer, 1992) rather than being present in his / her physical world of tensions, anxieties and frustrations. Hence, network navigation becomes an intrinsically enjoyable and self-reinforcing source of mental relaxation accompanied by the loss of self-consciousness and characterized by a seamless sequence of responses facilitated by machine interactivity (Hoffman & Novak, 1996). Thus, previous research has defined Flow as a generic concept rather than a context specific one. There is no clarity whether e-mail, Internet chat sessions, or Web conferencing are the Flow activities or whether using Web for a specific purpose of searching information for business or educational purposes are the activities that result in Flow. This problem or dispute area of the conflict between generic and context specific Flow is addressed in this empirical study and the

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Flow activities are categorized as high-Flow and low-Flow activities resulting in a context specific nature of Flow rather than a generic one as described in the previous research. Next we define the Flow states Perfect Flow, Imperfect-Intensive Flow, and Imperfect Flow and discuss the comprehensive process model of network navigation.

COMPREHENSIVE PROCESS MODEL OF NETWORk NAVIGATION Hoffman and Novak (1996) proposed that creating a commercially compelling Web site depends on facilitating a state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1977) for its consumers, and suggest that an important objective for online marketers is to provide for these “flow opportunities” (Hoffman & Novak, 1996, p. 66). Previous researchers (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Ghani, Supnick, & Rooney, 1991; Trevino & Webster, 1992; Webster, Trevino, & Ryan, 1993) had noted that flow is a useful construct for describing more general human-computer interactions. Hoffman and Novak (1996) provided, but did not empirically test, a conceptual model of flow that detailed its antecedents and consequences.Ageneral conceptual model of flow in interactive computer-mediated environments (CME) is described in detail in Hoffman and Novak (1996). Their model contained skill, challenge, arousal, control, focused attention, interactive speed, importance, telepresence, and time distortion as Flow-antecedents; and Positive affect and exploratory behavior as Flow-consequences. A later empirical study by Novak, Hoffman, and Yung (2000) added a few Flow constructs—Web navigational importance, enduring involvement and optimum stimulation level (OSL), and Web use variables. Also, the study emphasized on “Playfulness” as an indicator of Flow. However, all these researches described Flow as a singular mental or cognitive state happening due to the Flow-antecedents or Flowconstructs. In our comprehensive model, we will define Flow not as a singular state but as multiple states, depending on human behavior. Furthermore, we will explore the consequences of Flow as both positive (increased learning, expected Web use)

and negative consequences (physical and cognitive fatigue, health of the user, and negligence of alternative work). Past researchers have not focused on the negative consequences of Flow. Considering the shortcomings of the Flow theories, Figure 1 illustrates the comprehensive process model of network navigation that overcomes the limitations of the past work where Flow is considered to be unidirectional. Flow is defined to be a multi-dimensional state in a multi-activity medium of the Web characterized by 10 Flow-constructs, three Web use variables, and 10 Flow states. There are various states of Web Flow, that is, Perfect and Imperfect Flow states. Perfect Flow is defined as a state occurring during network navigation which is characterized by a seamless sequence of responses facilitated by machine interactivity, loss of self-consciousness, which is self-reinforcing and carries on forever with no time dimension, as defined by Hoffman and Novak (1996). Such a state where “nothing else seems to matter,” is called Perfect State of Flow. Perfect Flow is thus described as a process of optimal experience that is practically impossible to attain, unachievable due to psychological reasons inherent to an individual’s psyche wherein external, uncontrollable environmental factors play a distinct role in destroying the occurrence of Perfect Flow. From a pragmatic perspective, the Imperfect Flow is an achievable and practical state of Flow that is: a) intrinsically enjoyable; b) self-reinforcing; c) facilitated by machine interactivity; d) a state where “nothing else seems to matter”; and e) has time dimension limits and carries on for a specified time interval known to an individual. Consumer Segments - Adventurers and Wanderers (Kothari, Jain, Khurana, & Saxena, 2001) experience Perfect Flow for Experiential Web activities while Expert and Investigators (Kothari et al., 2001) experience Imperfect Flow for GoalDirected or task oriented Web activities. Hoffman and Novak (1996) describe the difference between experiential and goal-directed activities in detail. On the basis of consumer segments, one can also distinguish between high-Flow and low-Flow segments or activities. 1533

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Figure 1. Comprehensive process model of network navigation

The interesting discovery is that both perfect and imperfect Flow states result in EXPUSE, which means, the expected Web use in the future. Both of them result in repeat visits to the Web, also known as Repeat Consumption Behavior (RCB), though the procedures and motives are entirely different in both cases. Therefore, this would lead to the following research proposition and hypothesis: Consumers attaining Perfect and Imperfect Flow will have repeat consumption behavior (RCB) and expected Web use in future (EXPUSE) while those consumers who do not attain flow will not experience RCB / EXPUSE. The above research proposition is on the basis of differential Flow states. Consumers moving from Imperfect Flow to Perfect Flow will experience an intermediary state of Flow called “ImperfectIntensive Flow,” which is defined as “the process of optimal experience, which is achievable with time limits.” This state occurs when an individual moves from Imperfect to Perfect Flow State.

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For instance, John, a working executive in a multinational company knows that he has just one hour of lunch time where he can use the Internet for fun activities on the Web and engages himself on a virtual joy-ride of a car company’s Website dealing with different models of cars. While he is enjoying his Flow state, he is also keeping a tab on time by using a watch buzzer that buzzes exactly after an hour. While he is in the process of losing selfconsciousness and forgetting his mental tensions, frustrations and worries, he rejoins the real world after an hour with the sound of buzzer. This means that for an hour, he was in a Perfect Flow state but returns to Imperfect Flow state after an hour with the sound of buzzer (external stimulus). Similarly, there can be various examples illustrating these Flow states. Whether an individual achieves Perfect Flow state first or Imperfect Flow state first, or he moves from Perfect to Imperfect Flow as follows: Perfect Flow → Imperfect-Intensive Flow → Imperfect Flow

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

or vice versa as: Imperfect Flow → Imperfect-Intensive Flow → Perfect Flow This varies from individual to individual, as human behaviors are basically unpredictable. This is one area that needs to be further explored and researched. Figure 1 illustrates Comprehensive Process Model of Network Navigation along with Flow-constructs and Flow-states.

THE FLOW CONCEPT: FLOW CONSTRUCTS AND FLOW STATES According to our Comprehensive Model of Network Navigation, Flow is defined as a multidimensional, context-specific state of mind that consists of directed relationships among a set of 10 uni-dimensional constructs and three key Web use variables (see Figure 1) and has both positive consequences (e.g., increased learning, exploratory behavior, perceived behavioral control, and positive subjective experience) and negative consequences (e.g., physical and cognitive fatigue, time distortion, and negligence of alternative work). In Figure 1, Flow has further been defined in terms of an indicator called “Playfulness.” Playfulness refers to the level of imagination, invention, experimentation, originality, discovery, creativity, spontaneity, and flexibility (leading to playfulness of user’s attitude) of the user during the Web navigation. All these attributes contribute to Flow. Past researches have not defined the Flow-constructs and Web use variables. We will define them for simplicity and ease of use. The definitions of Flow constructs and Web use variables shown in Figure 1 are as follows: 1. Skills: “Skills” is defined as the level of knowledge and understanding on the part of the user. It broadly refers to the area of user’s skills and ability to comprehend the information available on the Web.

2. Challenges: “Challenges” refers to the information provided by Web use. During Web navigation, the user comes across various challenges in the form of information available to him or her through the Web sites. 3. Interactive Speed: This refers to the level of interaction of the Web sites and the speed of downloads during the Web navigation. 4. Enduring Involvement: This refers to level of involvement of the user with the Web. It also shows the level of importance of the Web to the user. “Enduring” refers to degree of usefulness, importance, and strength (longevity) of the Web use. 5. Control: “Control” refers to the extent by which the Web controls the user actions. Even the vice-versa is also true. It also refers to the extent by which the user controls the Web. This depends on the user’s skills and the challenges provided by the Web environment. 6. Arousal: “Arousal” refers to the degree and extent of user’s excitement leading to the stimulation of user’s emotions while using the Web. 7. Telepresence: This refers to the strength of the Web environment, often referred to as “COMPUTER WORLD” whereby user forgets about his/her own physical environment and surroundings during the Web navigation. 8. Focussed Attention: This refers to the user’s level of attention to the Web contents of the Web sites during the Web navigation. 9. Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL): This refers to the optimum/threshold level of stimulation and excitement that is “just right” to attract the user’s attention during Web navigation. 10. Web Navigational Importance: This refers to the importance of the Web and its activities to the user during network navigation.

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Figure 2. Decision tree representing flow achievement by different user categories

DEFINITION OF WEB USE VARIABLES 1. Log-in duration: This refers to the total time duration of the network navigation, from the time the user logs on to the Web until the time he or she exits the Web navigation experience completely. 2. PC Vintage: PC Vintage means that the recent or new Personal Computers have better speeds and precision than the initial ones. Pentium IV is faster than Pentium III, Pentium III is faster than Pentium II, and Pentium II is faster than Pentium I and so on. This means that the speed of downloads depend on the PC Vintage and Consumer Navigation Behavior (CNB) depends on the speed of downloads. Hence, CNB depends on the PC Vintage. The more the speed, 1536

the more will be the CNB and the better will be the process of optimal experience or Flow. 3. EXPUSE: This refers to the expected Web use in the future on the basis of users’ experience, understanding, use, and utilization of the Web navigation. We believe that the three states of Flow—Perfect Flow, Imperfect Flow and Imperfect Intensive Flow—have a direct relationship with EXPUSE and repeat consumption behavior (RCB). This means that the respondents who experience Perfect Flow will exhibit different behavior for expected Web use in the future and repeat visits to the Web (EXPUSE and RCB) from the respondents who experience Imperfect-Intensive Flow and Imperfect Flow exhibit EXPUSE and RCB. This needs to be further established during empirical investigation on Flow.

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Table 1. Data distribution details using @Risk for 10 antecedents of Flow Antecedents of Flow

Values*

Data Distribution Assessment using @Risk software

Skill

3.99

Uniform Distribution with minimum of 0.87755, maximum of 7.1224, Mean = 3.999, Std Deviation = 1.8027, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 96.1%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-96.1 = 3.9%

Challenge

1.45

Beta General Distribution with minimum of 1.0000, maximum of 2.0000, Mean = 1.4488, Std Deviation = 0.45181, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 90%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-90 = 10%

Focussed Attention

5.03

External Value Distribution with minimum of -Infinity, maximum of +Infinity, Mean = 5.0277, Std Deviation = 1.6245, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 88.6%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-88.6 = 11.4%

Enduring Involvement

4.04

Beta General Distribution with minimum of 2.0000, maximum of 7.0000, Mean = 4.0401, Std Deviation = 1.9556, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 90%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-90 = 10%

Interactive Speed

3.99

Uniform Distribution with minimum of 0.87755, maximum of 7.1224, Mean = 3.999, Std Deviation = 1.8027, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 96.1%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-96.1 = 3.9%

Control

6.5

Beta General Distribution with minimum of 6.0000, maximum of 7.0000, Mean = 6.5000, Std Deviation = 0.45496, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 90%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-90 = 10%

Telepresence

3.99

Uniform Distribution with minimum of 0.87755, maximum of 7.1224, Mean = 3.999, Std Deviation = 1.8027, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 96.1%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-96.1 = 3.9%

Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL)

3.39

Beta General Distribution with minimum of 3.0000, maximum of 4.0000, Mean = 3.3941, Std Deviation = 0.44138, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 90%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-90 = 10%

Arousal

4.47

Beta General Distribution with minimum of 4.0000, maximum of 5.0000, Mean = 4.4797, Std Deviation = 0.45447, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 90%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-90 = 10%

Web Navigational Importance

3.99

Uniform Distribution with minimum of 0.87755, maximum of 7.1224, Mean = 3.999, Std Deviation = 1.8027, total values lying between 1.0000 to 7.0000 = 96.1%, Outliers outside the range of 1 to 7 are 100-96.1 = 3.9%

* from 50 respondents on a likert scale of 1 to 7 using @Risk output of @Risk software

FLOW STATES AND USER CATEGORIES: RESEARCH ON FLOW Flow has been defined as a multi-dimensional, context specific concept with three Flow states— Perfect Flow, Imperfect Flow, and ImperfectIntensive Flow. On the basis of the Comprehensive Process Model of Network Navigation, illustrated in Figure 1, a Flow questionnaire (Appendix A) is developed. The questions are referenced for 10 antecedents of Flow shown in Figure 1, namely, Skill, Challenge, Focussed Attention, Enduring Involvement, Interactive Speed, Control, Telepresence, Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL), Arousal, Web Navigational Importance. Appendix A shows 63 Flow questions of the questionnaire representing 10 antecedents or constructs of Flow. A likert scale of 1 to 7 has been used where 1 indicates “Strongly Disagree” and 7 represents “Strongly Agree.” A sample of 50 respondents was taken randomly and they were administered the questionnaire. The research study is confined to the regular Internet users primarily located in the national

capital territory (NCT) of Delhi, India. According to a research study by the Gartner Group, a regular Internet user is one who accesses the Internet for 5 hours per week. The Web site awareness, perceptions, and preferences of the regular Internet users are considered, as they are generally aware of more Websites. The sample consists of healthy mix of regular Indian Internet users comprising 19 Masters of Business Administration graduates (MBAs), 10 doctorates (PhDs), 10 academicians, and 11 managers working in the private sector firms in the automobiles, airlines, and information technology fields. Flow concept was explained to these fifty valid respondents in a classroom environment without any bias to the questions given in the questionnaire. This was important so that they can relate to the Web world in a better way and may give a correct perception of their feelings during network navigation in the online environments. The questionnaire would help in interpretation of Flow Achievement in terms of “Expected

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Web use in the future” (EXPUSE) and “Repeat Consumption Behavior” (RCB) by three user categories of Flow—Perfect to Imperfect-Intensive Flow (PIIF) user, Imperfect Flow (IF) user, and Non Flow (NF) user. The user categories are required for exploration of three Flow states proposed by authors. These three user categories of Flow exist on the basis of three Flow states already discussed in previous sections as Perfect Flow, Imperfect Flow and Imperfect-Intensive Flow. The user category of Perfect to Imperfect-Intensive Flow represents a mix of two states, that is, Perfect and ImperfectIntensive Flow (PIIF), that are combined to show that the PIIF user achieves highest degree of Flow with relatively less time distortion and maximum playfulness, and hence, maximum loss of self consciousness during Web navigation. On the other hand, Flow achievement level is relatively less for Imperfect Flow (IF) user as this user is quite conscious of his environment, his alternate work and visits Web for fun, enjoyment, learning or other goal-directed activities and leave Web after a stipulated pre-determined time period with time distortion related to an individual’s demands and needs. For the last category of Non-Flow (NF) user, the time distortion is maximum as he or she is unable to enjoy the Web navigation or engross himself/herself in the

Web navigational process, even though the user may be surfing the Web for some period. PIIF and IF users experience Playfulness during Web navigation, whereas NF users do not experience any fun or play during Web navigation. The above mentioned categories of Flow achieve Flow as “Playfulness” where Play is an indicator of the individual’s 10 antecedents of Flow, namely, Skill, Challenge, Focussed Attention, Enduring Involvement, Interactive Speed, Control, Telepresence, Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL), Arousal, and Web Navigational Importance. Hence for any user—PIIF, IF, or NF—the 10 antecedents of Flow will exist. The decision tree illustrated in Figure 2 shows the final result/outcome. The values and probabilities in Figure 2 are derived from respondents’ responses to the 63 questions which have been tabulated as a likert scale indicator ranging from 1 to 7 where 1 means “Strongly Disagree” with the question and 7 means “Strongly Agree” to the question. The Palisade Decision Tools software suite was used for decision and sensitivity analyses of the responses since we can explicitly include the uncertainty present in our estimates to generate results that show all possible outcomes using both Monte Carlo and Latin Hypercube simulation sampling

Table 2. Percentage time for flow achievement for different user categories Antecedents of Flow

PIIF Users

IF Users

NF Users

Skill

4.76

11.3

10.7

Challenge

0.0

0

19.9

Interactive Speed

4.76

11.3

10.7

Enduring Involvement

4.76

6.1

11.2

Web Navigational Importance

4.76

11.3

10.7

Control

71.44

0

0

Arousal

0.0

31.6

0

Telepresence

4.76

11.3

10.7

Focussed Attention

4.76

17.1

6.2

Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL) 0.0 0 19.9 Note: Total % time for each category would come out to be 100%. PIIF users have marked 6 – 7 on the likert scale; IF users’ responses lie between 4–6 (including 4 and excluding 6) on the likert scale; while NF users have marked 1–3 on the likert scale of the questionnaire comprising of 63 questions as 63 statements on Flow antecedents resulting into three Flow states—Perfect Flow, Imperfect-Intensive Flow, and Imperfect Flow

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Table 3. Time spent for flow antecedents by different user categories

Antecedents of Flow Skill

Percentage

Time spent with Flow constructs

overlapping

% Time spent for each Flow antecedent by regular Web users (50 respondents)

PIIF Users

IF Users

NF Users

48

14.4

9.6

4.8

Challenge

90

27

18

9

Interactive Speed

48.8

14.4

9.6

4.8

Enduring Involvement

50.7

15.21

10.14

5.07

Web Navigational Importance

48

14.4

9.6

4.8

Control

90

27

18

9

Arousal

48

27

18

9

Telepresence

90

14.4

9.6

4.8

Focussed Attention

90

14.64

9.76

4.88

Optimum Stimulation 48 27 18 9 Level (OSL) Note: The table above shows overlaps of percentage of time spent by users under 10 Flow constructs. For example, a user may experience focused attention, OSL, enduring involvement and challenge at the same time while performing some activity of e-mail, chatting, and so forth on the Web.

techniques. This tool allowed us to combine all the uncertainties identified in our model and include all we know about the variable, including its full range of possible values and some measure of the likelihood of occurrence for each possible value, to analyze every possible outcome. Using @Risk software from Palisade DecisionTools Suite, the data distribution details have been obtained for 10 antecedents of Flow and illustrated in Table 1. From the questionnaire (see Appendix A), it was found that on an average basis, PIIF user navigates the Web for approximately 30 hours per week while IF user uses Web for 20 hours per week and NF user navigates Web for 10 hours per week. Table 1 shows the distribution details of 10 Flow antecedents/constructs on the basis of the responses obtained from 50 respondents on 63 questions of the questionnaire in Appendix A. These 63 Flow questions reflect the 10 Flow constructs/antecedents and clearly outline a respondent’s indulgence in these 10 Flow-constructs respectively. Also, a lecture model session on the Flow concept was arranged and imparted to the 50 respondents before filling the questionnaire. Hence, it was easier for

them to categorize themselves as PIIF, IF, and NF users, respectively. For the purpose of data analyses of 50 respondents’ questionnaires, it was found that PIIF user’s response on a positive statement (all 63 questions of the questionnaire of Appendix A are “statements”) of the questionnaire lies anywhere between 6 and 7 (including both 6 and 7) of the likert scale, indicating the highest agreement with the positive statement and hence, highest Flow achievement. Also, it was further assumed that a NF user’s response for any positive statement lies between 1 and 3 (including both 1 and 3) of the likert scale, indicating the lowest possible agreement with the positive statement and hence, lowest (or nil) Flow achievement. Intermediate vales of 4 to 6 (including 4 and excluding 6) of the likert scale shows Imperfect Flow achievement for IF users. Appendix B illustrates the validity of the data based on the Chi-Squared, Anderson Darling, and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics. On the basis of data obtained from the sample through the questionnaire, it was found that Flow is achieved differently for different user categories.

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Figure 3. Sensitivity (Spider) graphs highlighting dependence Perfect & Imperfect-Intensive Flow (PIIF) users, Imperfect Flow (IF) users and Non Flow (NF) users vis-à-vis Expected Web usage in future (EXPUSE)

Table 2 depicts the percentage of the time, Flow is achieved for PIIF, IF and NF users respectively vis-à-vis the 10 antecedents/constructs of Flow. As mentioned earlier, on an average basis, PIIF users log-in to the Web for about 30 hours per week, IF users navigate for 20 hours per week, and NF users use the Web for 10 hours per week. On the basis of this assumption, Table 3 indicates the time spent by three user categories for different Flow antecedents. There will be overlaps in the achievement of Flow constructs by users as we are indulging into fuzzy consumer navigation behavior on the Web. A respondent may experience a combination of skill, enduring involvement, control, arousal, and focused attention during Web navigation. The combinations

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of the 10 Flow constructs achievement by different respondents will be different from one and another. This is evident in Table 3. Using the Tables 2 and 3, the values are used as inputs into the decision tree structure to find out the favourable outcomes and also the EXPUSE and RCB in the future. Figure 2 shows the decision tree output using the PrecisionTree software. From Figure 2, it is found that EXPUSE for PIIF is 23.43 hours, EXPUSE for IF user is 12.32 hours, and EXPUSE for NF user is the minimum at 6.51 hours. When computing the maximum Flow achieved by PIIF category of user, the dependence of Flow on time spent during Web navigation was evaluated and a sensitivity analysis was performed.

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

The same analyses were performed for IF and NF users as well. Figure 3 shows various graphs of sensitivity analyses of Flow by different user categories. Login Perfect User represents the log-in time by Perfect & Imperfect-Intensive Flow (PIIF) users as 30 hours per week. Login Imperfect User represents the log-in time by an Imperfect Flow (IF) users as 20 hours per week. Login Non Flow User represents the log-in time by the users who do not achieve Flow during Web navigation or Non-Flow (NF) users, as 10 hours per week. The results, which are an output of the decision tree using PrecisionTree software and the output from @Risk software using @Riskoutput function, show that given the similar conditions and constraints of Web navigation, PIIF users would be using the Web for 23.43 hours (78% of the present Web use) per week, IF user would navigate for 12.32 hours (62% of the current Web use) per week and NF user would navigate for 6.51 hours (6.5% of the current Web use) per week vis-à-vis the 10 antecedents of Flow. This shows that Flow would be achieved by all categories of users. The conditions and constraints of Web navigation process represents Web use variables like log-in, and PC vintage (indicating that the user would be using the same PC with the same configuration in the future). Also, we had found out from our survey that PIIF users normally use the Web for 30 hours per week, IF users navigate for 20 hours per week, and NF users navigate for 10 hours per week. Contradictory to the popular proposition that EXPUSE and RCB would be constant or even more for PIIF and IF users, it has turned out to be much less than the present use. Hence, the hypothesis is rejected. Also, the hypothesis that NF users would not be using the Web for EXPUSE and RCB has also been rejected as the results show an increase in Web use by NF users by 6.5%. The only hypothesis that is accepted is that the PIIF category of users would attain more EXPUSE and RCB than IF users. This clearly illustrates that the users who do not achieve Flow today or at present, will achieve Flow in the future showing the dynamic qualities of Flow represented

through 10 Flow constructs. Hence, the user category shifts from NF users to IF users or even PIIF users are both quite evident and inadvertent because even a user will constantly learn and improve his Web knowledge and skills, highlighting the ever-changing dynamic consumer navigation behvaiour leading to a change in his or her set of 10 Flow constructs: skills, challenges, control, arousal, telepresence, focussed attention, interactive speed, enduring involvement, Web navigational importance, and optimum stimulation level. Flow, thus, can be seen as a technological instrument of Web navigation and Web measurement of EXPUSE and RCB. Many researchers (e.g., Choi, Jeoungkun, & Soung, 2007; Hsu & Lu, 2003; Sicilia, Ruiz, & Munuera, 2005; Novak, Hoffman, & Yung, 2000; Novak, Hoffman, & Duhachek, 2003) working in Flow theory view flow as a unidimensional construct with a set of ancillary constructs that serve as antecedents and consequences of flow. Other authors have incorporated some of the antecedents and consequences of flow directly into the flow construct, and have developed and utilized multidimensional definitions of flow. Pace (2003) views flow as a multi-dimensional construct comprised of the joy of discovery, reduced awareness of surroundings, time distortion, merging of action and awareness, a sense of control, mental alertness, and telepresence. Some of these constructs are considered by Hoffman and Novak (1996) to be antecedents of flow (i.e., control, telepresence, and time distortion), whereas others are considered to be consequences (i.e., joy of discovery). Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) conceptualized Flow as cognitive absorption leading to greater usefulness and perceived ease of use, which leads to behavioral intention to use. Their model incorporates the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), widely used to predict technology adoption. Cognitive absorption provides the user with a sense of being in command. Our research has highlighted the fact that Flow enhances learning, willingness to learn and increase cognitive abilities. This is proven in the

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

accepted hypothesis, whereby a person who is not experiencing Flow currently (Non-Flow user) is likely to experience Flow and perform more Web use (EXPUSE) in the future due to his own increase in online cognitive behavior. Flow is related to key marketing variables, including online browsing behavior, purchase, and repeat purchase (Dailey, 2004; Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Smith & Sivakumar, 2004). A significant finding in our article is that people experiencing considerable amount of Flow currently may not experience the same amount of Flow in the future. This means Web site Marketing, and more importantly Web sites, must focus on the Flow concept regularly and dynamically. They must track consumer behavior from time to time in order to change their content periodically as per the needs, wants, and aspiration of their target market. This will help them retain their customers and inculcate repeat visits to their Web sites leading to RCB and EXPUSE. Future research may focus on the area of marketing for Web sites leading to a relationship between Flow and key marketing variables leading to an increase in online shopping behavior.

CONCLUSION This research article has developed a comprehensive process model of network navigation and conducted an empirical study in which constructs are developed and validated that correspond to the underlying structure of Flow. The Flow concept integrates skills, challenges, control, arousal, telepresence, focussed attention, interactive speed, enduring involvement, Web navigational importance, and optimum stimulation level as 10 antecedents of Flow, also called Flow constructs, and three Flow states—Perfect Flow, Imperfect-Intensive Flow, and Imperfect Flow—for three categories of users—PIIF, IF, and NF users. The present research has not delved in the area of Web site designing that facilitate the consumer experience of Flow and the variations of Flow across the wide range of commercial sites found on the Web today. It is our hope that this research 1542

will result in a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the Flow experience than has been provided by previous research and provide a basis for future research on user navigation behavior in online shopping environments.

REFERENCES Agarwal, R., & Karahanna, E. (2000). Time flies when you’re having fun: Cognitive absorption and beliefs about information technology usage. MIS Quarterly, 24, 665–694. doi:10.2307/3250951 Chen, H., Wigand, R. T., & Nilan, M. (1998, May 17-19). Optimal flow experience in Web navigation. In Effective utilization and management of emerging information technologies: Proceedings of the 9th Information Resources Management Association International Conference, Boston (pp. 633-636). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Choi, D. H., Jeoungkun, K., & Soung, H. K. (2007). ERP training with a Web-based electronic learning system: The flow theory perspective. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65, 223–243. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.10.002 Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1977). Beyond boredom and anxiety (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1982). Towards a psychology of optimal experience. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Annual review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 13-36). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row. Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, I. (Eds.). (1988). Optimal experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

Dailey, L. (2004). Navigational Web atmospherics: Explaining the influence of restrictive navigation cues. Journal of Business Research, 57, 795–803. doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(02)00364-8 Ghani, J. A., Supnick, R., & Rooney, P. (1991, December 16-18). The experience of flow in computer-mediated and in face-to-face groups. In J. I. DeGross, I. Benbasat, G. DeSanctis, & C. M. Beath (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Information Systems, New York (pp. 229-237). ACM Publishing. Hoffman, D. L., & Novak, T. P. (1996). Marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments: Conceptual foundations. Journal of Marketing, 60, 50–68. doi:10.2307/1251841 Hsu, C.-L., & Lu, H.-P. (2003). Why do people play on-line games? An extended TAM with social influences and flow experience. Information & Management, 41, 853–868. doi:10.1016/j. im.2003.08.014 Kothari, D. P., Jain, S. K., Khurana, A., & Saxena, A. (2001). Developing a Marketing Strategy for Global Online Customers . International Journal of E-Business Strategy Management, 2(4), 301–305. Moneta, G. B., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The effect of perceived challenges and skills on the quality of subjective experience. Journal of Personality, 64(2), 275–310. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996. tb00512.x Novak, T. P., Hoffman, D. L., & Duhachek, A. (2003). The influence of goal-directed and experiential activities on online flow experiences. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13(1,2), 3-16. Novak, T. P., Hoffman, D. L., & Yung, Y. F. (1998). Modeling the structure of the flow experience. Paper presented at the INFORMS Marketing Science and the Internet Mini-Conference, Boston, MA.

Novak, T. P., Hoffman, D. L., & Yung, Y. F. (2000). Measuring the customer experience in online environments: A structural modeling approach. Marketing Science, 19(1), 22–44. doi:10.1287/ mksc.19.1.22.15184 Pace, S. (2003). A grounded theory of the flow experiences of Web users. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60, 327–363. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2003.08.005 Saxena, A., Kothari, D. P., Jain, S. K., & Khurana, A. (2003). Development of a “flow process scale” to measure flow among Web users. Journal of Internet Commerce, 2(4), 55–86. doi:10.1300/ J179v02n04_04 Sicilia, M., Ruiz, S., & Munuera, J. L. (2005). Effects of interactivity in a Web Site. Journal of Advertising, 34, 31–45. Smith, D. N., & Sivakumar, K. (2004). Flow and Internet shopping behavior: A conceptual model and research propositions. Journal of Business Research, 57, 1199–1208. doi:10.1016/S01482963(02)00330-2 Steuer, J. (1992). Defining virtual reality: Dimensions determining telepresence. The Journal of Communication, 42, 73–93. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1992. tb00812.x Trevino, L. K., & Webster, J. (1992). Flow in computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 19(5), 539–573. doi:10.1177/009365092019005001 Webster, J., Trevino, L. K., & Ryan, L. (1993). The dimensionality and correlates of flow in human computer interactions. Computers in Human Behavior, 9(4), 411–426. doi:10.1016/07475632(93)90032-N.

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APPENDIX A qUESTIONNAIRE Please indicate your response by a tickmark (√) wherever applicable 1. How long have you been using the Internet / World Wide Web (WWW)? Less than 1 year 1 – 2 years 2 – 5 years More than 5 years 2. On an average, what is the duration and frequency of your Internet usage? Duration: …………. Hours per day week month Frequency: ………… Times per day week month 3. Please indicate your degree of agreement with the following statements: In this Questionnaire, “Web” implies Usage of the Web (www/internet). S.No

Flow Constructs and Activities

Strongly Disagree 1

1)

I consider myself knowledgeable about internet utilities and web usage.

2)

It is possible to cross-verify the information on one website with other similar websites.

3)

It is easy to use the web with available search techniques.

4)

Intimate Web knowledge encourages cyber crimes.

5)

Fabricating the information by using the web to develop a new write-up, is challenging.

6)

Web poses a good challenge to my web skills and web knowledge.

7)

Web usage challenges my performance.

8)

Searching specific information on the web is challenging.

9)

Increase in speed of downloads enhances my web usage.

10)

Web navigation is a tedious process.

11)

Web navigation is a slow process.

12)

I feel extremely bored if the waiting time between my actions and the computer’s response is high.

13)

While using the web, the speed of downloads helps in improving the web interaction experience.

14)

While using the web, I am totally involved and absorbed in what I am doing.

15)

Web is a nuisance.

16)

My involvement with web is mostly not useful to me.

17)

Web navigation is the most useful activity for me.

18)

Web plays a very important role in my life.

19)

I cannot imagine my life without web.

20)

I am not an “Internet addict”.

21)

I cannot help myself being glued to the web.

22)

I am obsessed with the web.

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Strongly Agree 2

3

4

5

6

7

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

S.No

Flow Constructs and Activities

Strongly Disagree 1

23)

Web controls my actions.

24)

I feel relaxed while using the web.

25)

Web excites me.

26)

There is too much information available on the web to digest.

27)

Web attracts me a lot.

28)

Web provides me a lot of entertainment.

29)

I feel lonely and sad while using the web.

30)

The web arouses me to know more than what I really know.

31)

I forget myself and the physical environment surrounding me, while using the web.

32)

I feel, the “Web environment/COMPUTER WORLD” makes me idle.

33)

While using the web, I am taken over by the “COMPUTER WORLD”.

34)

While using the web, the “REAL WORLD” becomes irrelevant to me.

35)

While using the web, I feel, I am in a different world altogether.

36)

While using the web, I cannot concentrate on each and everything available on the web.

37)

Whenever web searching/browsing becomes time consuming, I tend to loose attention.

38)

I pay attention to only those web contents, which are required by me.

39)

It is not possible to have focused attention on the web.

40)

Web does not give me any value addition.

41)

Web does not stimulate me too much.

42)

The stimulation level that I derive from the web is “just right” for me.

43)

I discover new things while using the web.

44)

I like to discover useful things through the web.

45)

Web does not offer anything new to me.

46)

Web makes me creative.

47)

Web makes me imaginative.

48)

Web provides a refreshing change.

49)

I love to make friends on the web.

50)

I like to click on a new link because it makes me feel happy.

51)

Web usage provides me a lot of experimentation.

52)

I feel totally immersed and engrossed in some web activities and lose track of time.

53)

Time seems to go by quickly and swiftly while using the web.

54)

I feel engrossed in some web activities and still keep track of time.

Strongly Agree 2

3

4

5

6

7

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Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

S.No

Flow Constructs and Activities

Strongly Disagree 1

55)

While using the web, I am aware of what I am doing.

56)

Web usage increases my learning.

57)

Web usage enhances my exploring abilities.

58)

Web usage leads to negligence of other important tasks.

59)

I feel, web usage adversely affects my health.

60)

I cannot keep a check on time while using the web.

61)

Unless and until I am stopped from using the web, I can navigate the web for hours together.

62)

I use the web for a fixed period of time.

63)

Excess of web usage can lead to a lot of pending work.

Strongly Agree 2

3

4

5

6

7

APPENDIX B

P.S. The distributions listed in the columns illustrate the samples within a given range of values for the respective distribution based on the traditional arguments used by the distribution. Three different fit statistics, i.e., chi-squared, Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S), and Anderson-Darling (A-D), are reported since they measure how well the distribution fits the input data and how confident we can be that the data was produced by the distribution function. The chi-squared statistic is the best known goodness-of-fit statistic. P-value/”observed significance level” of the test are reported . As the P-value decreases to zero, we are less and less confident that the fitted distribution could possibly have generated our original data set. Conversely, as the P-value approaches one, we have no basis to reject the hypothesis that the fitted distribution actually generated our data set. The K-S statistic does not require binning, which makes it less arbitrary than the chi-squared statistic. A weakness of the K-S statistic is that it does not detect tail discrepancies very well. Like the K-S statistic, the A-D statistic does not require binning. But unlike the K-S statistic, which focuses in the middle of the distribution, the A-D statistic highlights differences between the tails of the fitted distribution and input data.

1546

N/A

P-Value

Chi-Sq Statistic

46

BetaGeneral

< 0.01

P-Value

Enduring Involvement

< 0.01

0.1706

K-S Statistic

1.9699

P-Value

0.0001

A-D Statistic

30

P-Value

Chi-Sq Statistic

ExtValue

0.6

K-S Statistic

Focused Attention

N/A

P-Value

+Infinity

0.0001

P-Value

A-D Statistic

21.6

BetaGeneral

N/A

Chi-Sq Statistic

Challenge

P-Value

0.3603

< 0.01

N/A

KolmogorovSmirnov (K-S) Statistic

P-Value

3.8923

9.6198

Anderson Darling (A-D) Statistic

46

Pareto

< 0.01

0.1607

< 0.005

1.7091

0.0001

30

Logistic

< 0.01

0.5512

< 0.01

11.7891

0.0001

21.6

Expon

< 0.01

0.2461

0

0.0001

P-Value

38

ExtValue

31.28

Uniform

Chi-Sq Statistic

Skill

46

Uniform

< 0.01

0.158

< 0.005

1.7438

0.0001

30

Normal

< 0.01

0.3982

< 0.01

4.1232

0.0001

21.6

ExtValue

< 0.01

0.2269

< 0.005

2.874

0

38

Logistic

54

Expon

N/A

0.2059

N/A

+Infinity

0.0001

30

Triang

< 0.01

0.3588

< 0.005

3.4065

0.0001

21.6

Logistic

< 0.01

0.2589

< 0.005

3.1539

0

38

Normal

54

ExtValue

N/A

0.1804

N/A

4.9006

0.0001

30

Uniform

N/A

0.392

N/A

3.7615

0.0001

21.6

LogNormal

N/A

0.285

N/A

+Infinity

0

38

Triang

54

InvGauss

< 0.01

0.2394

< 0.01

4.7494

0

62

Expon

< 0.01

0.3869

< 0.005

3.6255

0.0001

21.6

Normal

N/A

0.2203

N/A

+Infinity

0

41.84

BetaGeneral

54

Logistic

N/A

0.2076

N/A

+Infinity

0

66

BetaGeneral

N/A

0.6

N/A

+Infinity

0.0001

21.6

Pareto

< 0.01

0.3179

< 0.01

6.941

0

63.92

Expon

54

LogLogistic

N/A

0.2645

N/A

+Infinity

0

66

Pareto

N/A

0.6

N/A

+Infinity

0.0001

21.6

Triang

N/A

0.3659

N/A

+Infinity

0

179.76

Pareto

54

LogNormal

N/A

0.4427

N/A

9.8648

0

126

Pearson5

N/A

0.5524

N/A

13.1072

0.0001

21.6

Uniform

N/A

0.4647

N/A

13.1123

0

215.28

Pearson5

54

Normal

54

Triang

126

Pearson5

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

APPENDIX B: CONTINUED

1547

1548

0

N/A

BetaGeneral

P-Value

Control

0

P-Value

A-D Statistic

N/A

6.5556

P-Value

P-Value

22.32

0.0022

Chi-Sq Statistic

Uniform

0.5

N/A

K-S Statistic

Telepresence

N/A

+Infinity

P-Value

A-D Statistic

P-Value

100

0.2

K-S Statistic

Chi-Sq Statistic

N/A

1.8949

A-D Statistic

P-Value

0.0512

14

Uniform

N/A

0.2572

N/A

+Infinity

P-Value

Chi-Sq Statistic

Interactive Speed

P-Value

K-S Statistic

P-Value

A-D Statistic

P-Value

0

< 0.01

3.0827

0

33.52

ExtValue

N/A

0.5

N/A

+Infinity

0

100

Pareto

< 0.01

0.2327

< 0.01

2.8664

0.0025

22

Expon

N/A

0.3123

N/A

+Infinity

0

0

< 0.005

2.1927

0

33.52

Logistic

< 0.01

0.4802

< 0.01

30.362

0

150

< 0.005

2.3522

0

33.52

Normal

< 0.01

0.3467

< 0.01

9.132

0

150

ExtValue

N/A

Expon

0.1263

0.1281

N/A

0.01 <= p <= 0.025

0.025 <= p <= 0.05

0.9446

0.0025

22

InvGauss

< 0.01

0.2376

< 0.01

3.893

0.9559

0.0025

22

ExtValue

N/A

0.3961

N/A

8.7743

0

N/A

+Infinity

0

33.52

Triang

< 0.01

0.324

< 0.005

7.9486

0

150

Logistic

< 0.01

0.139

< 0.005

1.1193

0.0025

22

Logistic

< 0.01

0.1674

< 0.01

2.03

0

N/A

+Infinity

0

38.32

BetaGeneral

< 0.01

0.3389

< 0.005

8.8181

0

150

Normal

N/A

0.1342

N/A

0.9764

0.0025

22

LogLogistic

N/A

0.1879

N/A

2.0993

0

< 0.01

5.655

0

64.56

Expon

N/A

0.5

N/A

+Infinity

0

150

Triang

N/A

0.1284

N/A

0.9459

0.0025

22

LogNormal

< 0.01

0.1906

< 0.005

2.5041

0

N/A

+Infinity

0

86.64

Pareto

N/A

0.4804

N/A

49.7808

0

150

Uniform

< 0.01

0.1505

0.005 <= p <= 0.01

1.1318

0.0025

22

Normal

N/A

0.2573

N/A

4.5897

0

N/A

0.1679

N/A

+Infinity

0.0025

22

Triang

N/A

0.1816

N/A

2.0626

0

N/A

0.12

N/A

1.0066

0.0025

22

Weibull

< 0.01

0.2487

< 0.005

2.8257

0

N/A

0.2282

N/A

+Infinity

0.0001

30

BetaGeneral

N/A

0.2351

N/A

+Infinity

0

N/A

0.3469

N/A

+Infinity

0

38

Pareto

N/A

0.4572

N/A

9.5925

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

APPENDIX B: CONTINUED

Pareto

P-Value

K-S Statistic

P-Value

A-D Statistic

P-Value

Chi-Sq Statistic

< 0.01

N/A

< 0.01

0.2398

N/A

0.4003

3.5451

0

36.08

ExtValue

N/A

0.54

15.7384

0

33.2

Uniform

N/A

P-Value

Web Navigational Imp

N/A 0.54

P-Value

N/A

0 +Infinity

0

88.64

+Infinity

K-S Statistic

A-D Statistic

P-Value

88.64

BetaGeneral

Chi-Sq Statistic

Arousal

N/A

N/A

P-Value

0.7

0.7

K-S Statistic

N/A

N/A

+Infinity

0

56

Pareto

< 0.01

0.2627

P-Value

+Infinity

0

P-Value

A-D Statistic

56

BetaGeneral

N/A

0.3201

Chi-Sq Statistic

OSL

P-Value

K-S Statistic

N/A

0.303

N/A

+Infinity

0

36.08

Triang

N/A

0.54

N/A

+Infinity

0

88.64

Triang

N/A

0.7

N/A

+Infinity

0

56

Triang

< 0.01

0.1899

0.227

< 0.01

0.2156

< 0.005

2.3636

0

41.84

Logistic

< 0.01

0.5202

< 0.01

35.3694

0

151.28

Expon

< 0.01

0.6802

< 0.01

62.9968

0

182

Expon

< 0.01

0.2

< 0.01

0.25

< 0.005

2.6489

0

41.84

Normal

< 0.01

0.3633

< 0.01

9.4702

0

151.28

ExtValue

< 0.01

0.4559

< 0.01

12.6131

0

182

ExtValue

N/A

< 0.01

0.3402

< 0.01

8.2988

0

44.72

Expon

< 0.01

0.338

< 0.005

8.0386

0

151.28

Logistic

< 0.01

0.3921

< 0.005

10.2867

0

182

Logistic

N/A

0.2271

N/A

0.28

N/A

+Infinity

0

67.76

BetaGeneral

N/A

0.362

N/A

9.059

0

151.28

Lognorm

< 0.01

0.4415

< 0.005

10.758

0

182

Normal

< 0.01

0.3314

N/A

0.4113

N/A

+Infinity

0

161.84

Pareto

< 0.01

0.3596

< 0.005

8.8952

0

151.28

Normal

N/A

0.6804

N/A

65.4289

0

182

Uniform

N/A

0.3501

N/A

0.5204

N/A

50.4068

0

151.28

Uniform

Redefining Web Users’ Optimal Flow Experiences in Online Environments

APPENDIX B: CONTINUED

This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 3, pp. 1-21, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.11

“Virtual Inquiry” in the Science Classroom: What is the Role of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge? Eva Erdosne Toth West Virginia University, USA

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

The article examines prior research on students’ difficulties with inquiry learning and outlines research-based decisions for the consideration of software-based scaffolds for inquiry teaching and learning. The objective is to detail research findings in a way that assists teachers in their development of pedagogical content knowledge as relevant to the selection and use of technological tools for classroom inquiry in the high school biology or college introductory biology classrooms. Employing a worked-out-example in the popular domain of DNA science, the article illustrates the research-based integration of instructional design decisions coordinated with the features of selected software tools. The coordination of software-design with instructional design has the potential of significantly enhancing students’ learning while also supporting the development of teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge.

National calls to enhance students’ understanding of the real-life, complex processes via scientific inquiry (NRC, 2000) draw attention to examining the opportunities technological tools offer for authentic learning. Of specific promise are virtual laboratories (VRLs) that allow the user to conduct the same scientific inquiry afforded by hands-on apparatus albeit at reduced expense, increased safety and at a fraction of the time. In trained hands, these tools support students in learning the skills necessary for real-life decisions related to medical treatment choices, ethical considerations of modern research and understanding everyday news related to modern science. However, the instructional application of VRLs is often based on trial and error rather than cognitively-based methodologies. Using the research-based pedagogy of providing worked-out examples for learning (Renkl, 1997; Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989), this article takes the approach of

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

“Virtual Inquiry” in the Science Classroom

illustrating key instructional design decisions for the use of a virtual laboratory tool. The practical implementation thus developed, has the potential to fuel further research and support the development of practitioners’ pedagogical expertise.

THEORETICAL GROUNDING The theoretical grounding for this article is provided by prior research in three areas of study: (1) students’ difficulties of learning authentic science via complex inquiry, (2) software design principles to support inquiry-learning and (2) prior theories about how teachers’ organize their knowledge for teaching. Research from these areas is examined below in order to set the stage for the analysis of instructional design decisions illustrated by a worked-out-example focusing on gel-electrophoresis and the use of a virtual laboratory. What Does Research Tell Us About Scaffolding Inquiry-Learning? Inquiry learning is defined as the coordination of asking questions, designing experiments, using evidence to respond to questions, formulating explanations based on evidence, connecting explanations to prior knowledge and communicating explanations and justifications for domain understanding (NRC, 2000). In a classical study on problem solving Fay and Klahr (1996) refer to these phases of searching the experimental space, evaluating data and mapping the results to prior knowledge to make inferences. Accordingly, this article uses the phases of search, evaluation and reasoning to categorize the conceptual activities involved in scientific inquiry. It is well documented by the literature that students are often unsuccessful in learning science via inquiry. They do not scientifically control experiments (Chen & Klahr, 1999; Toth, Klahr, & Chen, 2000), misrepresent empirical results based on prior belief (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002) and are not successful in formulating inferences to explain

the results of their inquiry (Fay & Klahr, 1996; Schauble, 1996, Kozlowski, 1996). As a result of these research studies, a variety of views exist on how to best structure these complex inquiryexperiences for improved learning. One perspective is to present students with the full complexity of inquiry learning in an authentic manner that keeps students’ attention and motivation high, focuses students’ interest on real-life examples and thus prepares students for their future work experiences (Roth, 1995 Chinn & Malhotra, 2002). Another perspective for inquiry teaching is to gradually build students’ expertise of independent inquiry by constraining students’ activity to only a few steps of inquiry at time (Rezba, Auldridge, & Rhea 1999; Bell, Smetana, & Binns, 2005). For example, in the case of confirmatory inquiry students’ activity is constrained to the pre-determined steps of searching the task environment, evaluating data results and reasoning to explain the outcome. During structured inquiry students may receive a pre-determined research question to focus their search, as well as the methods by which they should evaluate data results. At the same time, however, students can independently develop inferences about the task domain based on these results and data evaluations. In a less structured inquiry setting, also called guided inquiry students may only receive guidance about the method of searching the task environment, for example in the form of a pre-determined research question. Students then independently develop their own data evaluation methodology and the inferences that explain data results. At the final end of the continuum of structuring inquiry, open inquiry refers to activities where all phases of inquiry (search, data evaluation and reasoning) are determined independently by students. This article integrates key ideas from both research perspectives above by way of engaging students in authentic inquiry, but scaffolding their inquiry in each phase so as to gradually build expertise. To illustrate the possible contribution of software

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tools to classroom learning, the next section of the article examines prior research on software-based scaffolds for inquiry learning as relevant to the three key phases of inquiry: search, evaluation and reasoning (Fay & Klahr, 1996). What Software Characteristics are Deemed Effective by Research to Scaffold Inquiry? Recently, several studies focused on the characteristics of educational software tools that effectively support learning (Azevedo & Jacobson 2008; Pea, 2004). For example, Quintana, Reiser, Davis, Krajcik, Fretz, & Golan-Duncan (2004) developed the following seven software design

principles: (1) use representations and language to bridge understanding, (2) organize tools and artifacts around the semantics of the discipline, (3) use representations to inspect different properties of underlying data, (4) provide structure for complex tasks, (5) embed expert guidance, (6) automate routine tasks, and (7) facilitate ongoing articulation and reflection. Despite these design principles, there continues to be a need to document means by which these supports elicit effective knowledge construction. While studies on the explanatory power of various software-design features exist (Ainsworth, 2008) these research results have not been fully integrated to inform instructional practice. According to Ainsworth

Table 1. A practical frame for the evaluation of software tool design based on explanatory supports for the processes of search, evaluation and reasoning during scientific inquiry Phases of Problem-Solving Inquiry

Software Features that Scaffold Learning (Quintana et al., 2004)

Explanatory Functions of Software Design Elements. (Ainsworth, in 2008)

SEARCH Explore the task environment via processes of scientific inquiry

Scaffolding the process of inquiry by - structuring complex tasks

Design may help express parts of knowledge by sequencing / processing learning task

- embedding expert advice

Designs matched to expert domain knowledge elicit correct learning strategies

- automate routine tasks

Interface design features may constrain activity, reduce cognitive load Affective design elements contribute to satisfaction, motivation

EVALUATE Construct conceptual knowledge from data results.

Scaffold sense-making by - using representational tools, language, expert advice.

Design elements may support or inhibit the perceptual processing of information

- organizing tools /artifacts by the logic of the discipline

Designs matched to expert domain knowledge elicit correct learning strategies

- supporting many ways to inspect properties of data REASON Articulate overall themes in inquiry results with focus on explanatory mechanisms

Scaffolding articulation of results by - facilitate planning monitoring & expressing practice

Expressiveness of design contributes to forming inferences / reasoning Interface design may support or inhibit metacognition Rhetorical function of design elements may support/ inhibit social learning

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(2008), software tools may (1) assist with the expression of content, (b) support the cognitive, motor and perceptual processes of learning, (c) provide affective and motivation-based support, (d), aid student-strategies for domain explanations, (e) support metacognition and (f) provide rhetorical supports for learning. In order to assist practitioners with the selection and integration of research results for softwarebased scaffolds during inquiry learning, the article attempts to synthesize the above research. Table 1 presents a simple frame to illustrate this coordination by considering the phases of inquiry learning (Fay & Klahr, 1996) coordinated with software tool characteristics that are deemed effective to support these phases (Quintana et al., 2004) in light of the explanatory mechanisms by which these software supports may lead to knowledge construction (Ainsworth, 2008). For example, an effective software-scaffold for the process of search may reduce the cognitive demand on the learner by automating routine tasks. Similarly, structuring the complex task of experimental design based on expert strategies eases students’ development of their own problem-solving methods. In addition, design elements that elicit attention and motivation have been documented by research to aid learning by contributing to the affective elements of learning (Table 1). The use of this table during instructional design for inquiry with a specific virtual laboratory tool will be further detailed in the practical application section of this article. Before that, however, the examination of teacher’s expertise in environments for developing inquiry-learning with technological supports is due. How Does Practitioners’ knowledge Influence Inquiry Teaching with Technology Tools? Teachers face a difficult and intricate set of decisions when attempting to integrate technology tools for inquiry learning. These decisions are influenced by national standards for student

achievement (NRC, 2000) and by the ways teachers organize their own knowledge. The research literature refers to this knowledge organization by teachers as “Pedagogical Content Knowledge” or PCK (Shulman, 1987; Shulman & Grossman, 1988, Abell, Magnusson, Schmidt, & Smith, 1996). According to these studies, in everyday practice, PCK is actively constructed by teachers during instructional design while (a) determining instructional goals for students’ learning, (b) developing effective classroom activities and (c) designing assessment methods to document students’ attainment of learning goals. When using technological tools, these activities require the reformulation of content expertise, in terms of the ways technological tools make content knowledge and inquiry processes visually salient for students. That is, the application of technological tools for teaching adds another dimension to PCK by extending the original construct to Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge or tPCK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, Koehler, Mishra, & Yahya 2007). Accordingly, if the goal of instruction is learning by inquiry, teachers may employ their technology specific tPCK to determine whether and how a specific technological tool supports the phases of search, evaluation of data, and reasoning (Table 1). Expert practitioners use their construct of tPCK when making decisions about the specific instructional strategies by which technology tools will be used during classroom learning. That is, they integrate the features of the technological tool with the specific, standard-driven learning goals, students’ prior knowledge and the characteristics of the learning environment. However, this complementary instructional design task is the one that most teachers fail to consider, leading to a tension between software support capabilities and learning goals (Reiser, 2004). The next section of the article serves as a worked-out-example to illustrate key decisions during the development of an instructional unit using a VRL for inquiry

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learning. This section aims to assist teachers in their development of tPCK by providing an example for the research-based coordination of software-design decisions with instructional design choices.

DESIGNING INqUIRY LEARNING WITH A VIRTUAL LABORATORY Instructional design requires practitioners to coordinate three processes: the goal of instruction, the activities and strategies by which these goals are achieved during learning and the methods by which the learning results are assessed (Ormrod, 2008). The goal of instruction in this particular unit for students was to develop inquiry skills by searching the task environment, evaluating empirical data and making inferences to reason about mechanisms that elicited the outcome within the domain of DNA science. These goals

are appropriate for both high school students, particularly in an AP biology course as well as the beginning, freshmen college student audience. Thus, the description in this article considers both audiences. The learning activity by which the instructional goal was to be achieved included the use of a virtual laboratory developed by the “Molecules in Motion Project” at the University of Massachusetts (Figure 1). With this tool the methods of searching the inquiry task environment was provided to students, however, additional instructional strategies were employed to enhance students learning experiences in this initial, structured inquiry setting. Let’s examine the capabilities of this software tool for inquiry support as per prior research on effective software scaffolds summarized by Table 1.

Figure 1. The virtual laboratory software tool, DNA fragment analysis module is available at (http:// www.bio.umass.edu/biochem/mydna/discovery.html). Note: This virtual laboratory module was created by “Molecules in Motion”. Permission to use for education and research publication is granted by the project development team to the author. The MyDNA project is sponsored by a grant from the Camille Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.

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Software Supports for the Process of Search During Inquiry As illustrated in Table 1, this VRL structures the inquiry task by visually focusing attention on the roles of concentration and voltage. Three possible values of concentration and nine values of voltage can be selected to search the task environment. Each of these variable settings results in different characteristics on the movement of DNA fragments towards the positive pole. By constraining students to the variables of concentration and voltage, this virtual laboratory focuses students’ inquiry as compared to the multitude of variables they would have to pay attention to during hands-on inquiry. This constitutes an expert advice embedded in the software tool (Quintana et al., 2004). In addition this VRL automates the routine task of creating solutions and preparing laboratory equipment and thus supports the exploration of the task environment by allowing students to perform repeated tests with ease (Figure 1). However, depending on the student audience, the opportunity for scientific investigation alone may not result in detailed search and effective learning. Additional instructional supports – external representations for knowledge construction – may be necessary to complement students’ attempts to create effective experimental designs (Toth, Suthers, & Lesgold, 2002). Furthermore, a real-life example to give purpose to the investigation as relevant to the specific students’ backgrounds may also be necessary. Example instructional-design considerations along these research-based ideas are detailed below. Instructional Supports for Searching the Task Environment One instructional-design decision was to enhance the affective elements of the inquiry learning by incorporating a problem solving scenario that motivates students with a real-life inquiry-setting. The method of DNA gel electrophoresis is com-

monly employed in medical and personal decision making as well as law-enforcement such as DNA finger printing, paternity testing, and documenting the presence of a genetic disease. Accordingly, the topic has an affective value that can influence students’ interest. After a relevant introduction of the generic use of DNA gel-electrophoresis listed above, the problem solving scenario called for experimental design to determine the effect of gel concentration and voltage on the distance DNA fragments travel. It read: You just finished your final year at GU (Genetics University) and you are very excited about your new job at Genes-R-Us Laboratories. One day, Dr. Gene Hunter, frantically comes barging through the lab doors. With his lab coat flying, he exclaims that there is trouble at GRU. The employee you replaced, has conducted many gel electrophoreses with different concentrations and voltage values but did not record the experimental settings. Your task is to determine how the concentration and the amount of voltage affect the distance DNA fragments travel. Dr. Hunter is counting on you so don’t let him down!

Since the particular task of the students was to conduct structured inquiry (Rezba et al., 1999; Bell, et. al 2005) it is apparent that the current implementation of this VRL provides no specific guidance for designing scientifically correct experiments. Depending on students’ prior knowledge in the high school or college classroom, this may be a disadvantage that practitioners have to bridge with instructional design. For example, prior research by the author in a high school honors course found that a design matrix (a table with the variables of the experiment in the columns and with possible experimental tests represented as the rows of the table) effectively assisted students in searching the task environment (Toth, et. al. 2006). Since the effective coordination of software features with instructional design decisions depends on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and specifically their tPCK these examples are provided to assist the development of such expertise.

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The next discussion is related to supports for the evaluation phase of inquiry-learning.

Software Supports for Developing Inferences and Reasoning

Software Support for Data Evaluation During Inquiry

The third row of Table 1 summarizes design principles that provide support for reasoning about the results of inquiry. Prior research shows that effective software tools “scaffold the articulation of results” (Quintana et al., 2004, p. 345) by facilitating reflection via planning, monitoring and verbalizing results of scientific practice. However, in the lack of appropriate knowledge representation tools, students’ learning and metacognition may be inhibited (Ainsworth, 2008). This particular virtual laboratory – used alone without supporting explanation – does not provide tools for the development of inferences and reasoning about the logical connections between DNA fragments size and distance traveled. Neither does it have a rhetorical support feature to aid the communication of results. Accordingly, this article recommends two methods to complement software design choices.

The software tool makes the separation of different sized DNA fragments salient with the longer fragments staying closer to the starting position (Figure 1).With this method it supports sensemaking and the visual evaluation of data results. Properly evaluating and explaining this outcome is important for a through understanding of DNA gel electrophoresis. However, this software tool does not provide ample methods for the measurement, evaluation and representation of outcome data. Accordingly, students may need additional instructional scaffolds to arrive at the correct strategy of data evaluation. Instructional Supports for Data Evaluation To assist students in correct data evaluation with expert strategies, additional tools to measure and represent data results are suggested. For example, in a previous study conducted with high school students, the author employed a ruler to measure the different distances large, medium and small DNA fragments traveled under different concentration settings. However, even a simple estimate of distance traveled from the start to the end of the run can be an effective additional intervention. Furthermore, employing a data table can draw students’ attention to the quantitative differences in the travel of different-sized DNA fragments and can provide the multiple representation of data that research calls for (Quintana et al., 2004). Having evaluated software and instructional design decisions for the inquiry processes of search and evaluation above, the crucial process of learning via inferences from empirical data and reasoning for mechanisms should be examined.

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Instructional Supports for Developing Inferences and Reasoning One possible pedagogical decision is to employ a concept map for knowledge integration and reasoning. It is well documented by the literature that concept maps support the formulation of inferences and reasoning (Vandersee, 1990, Novak and Gowin, 1984; Suthers, 2001). For example in previous research, the author employed a concept map that provided students with different graphical shapes as a visual representation to account for data and explanations for data (or hypotheses) during inquiry. Furthermore, students were able to connect data and hypotheses to indicate the relationships (supporting or refuting) between these knowledge elements (Toth, et al., 2002). That prior study documented that students in the concept mapping group did not simply develop a better representation of the inter-connectedness of domain concepts but were also less prone to engage in biased reasoning to explain their findings.

“Virtual Inquiry” in the Science Classroom

Additional instructional scaffolds can enhance the rhetorical components of inquiry and support reasoning. For example, the application of collaborative learning or peer review of individual work has been reported as an effective method to support learning (Jeong & Chi, 2007). Similarly, prior studies indicate the effects of collaborative learning on reasoning through the processes of revising, elaborating and reorganizing publicly accumulated knowledge (Scardamalia, 2002; 2004). However, prior results on collaborative learning also indicate contradictory findings on effectiveness. For example, Barron (2003) concluded that the way participants manage both the social- and cognitive factors of collaborative knowledge construction is critical for learning. Accordingly, the author has been engaged in studies to support inquiry learning by providing social, collaborative supports in coordination cognitive supports for learning (Toth, et al., 2002; Toth, et al., 2007). These cognitive supports include external representations such as tables, images and pictures (Toth, 2000b, 2008) and the social supports are collaborative discussion and peer review of inquiry results. The coordination of pedagogical supports with software-provided scaffolds is a topic of further empirical investigation.

Educational Significance The power of technological tools to raise students’ thinking to complex levels has been well documented. This article contributes to the effective application of educational technology for teaching by specifically illustrating how software tool affordances can be coordinated with instructional design choices for inquiry learning. The educational significance of the manuscript is that it provides a practical model for teachers and professors for the evaluation and classroom integration of technological tools. Using the popular domain of DNA science the article integrates prior research on software-based scaffolds for inquiry (Quintana, et al., 2004) and the specific

learning-explanations these design-decisions elicit (Ainsworth, 2008) with example instructional design decisions relevant to one particular VRL. The article provides support for teachers’ tPCK development by illustrating the above decisions with a worked-out-example (Renkl, 1997; Chi, et al., 1989). The resulting pedagogy can be employed in courses using face-to-face, on-line or hybrid delivery methodologies.

CONCLUSION All software tools are not created equal when it comes to supporting inquiry learning thus research studies report contradictory findings of effectiveness. Accordingly, even tools designed by experts, may require practitioners to use their tPCK supported by research-studies while making instructional design-decisions to complement software design features. This article provides a research-based frame for the examination of software scaffolds in the context of inquiry learning. The manuscript illustrates these decisions with a worked-out-example in the domain of DNA science so as to ease practitioners’ classroom implementation of virtual laboratory tools. The a approach documented in this article is a candidate for further research and refinement so as to support both students’ inquiry learning as well as practitioners’ development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The work reported in this article was partially supported by a faculty development grant from Duquesne University. Initial funds for a related project were provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0219196. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Special thanks to Lyndsie Schantz for her project data

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management and editing assistance and to three anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Chinn, C., & Malhotra, B. (2002). Epistemologically authentic inquiry in schools: A theoretical framework for evaluating inquiry tasks. Science Education, 86(2), 175–218. doi:10.1002/ sce.10001

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Pea, R. (2004). The social and technological dimensions of scaffolding and related theoretical concepts for learning, education, and human activity. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 423–451. doi:10.1207/s15327809jls1303_6 Quintana, C., Reiser, B. J., Davis, E. A., Krajcik, J., Fretz, E., Golan-Duncan, R., et al. (2004). A Scaffolding Design Framework for Software to Support Science Inquiry. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 337–386. doi:10.1207/ s15327809jls1303_4 Reiser, B. J. (2004). Scaffolding Complex Learning: The Mechanisms of Structuring and Problematizing Student Work. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 273–304. doi:10.1207/ s15327809jls1303_2 Renkl, A. (1997). Learning from worked-out examples: A study on individual differences. Cognitive Science, 21(1), 1–29. Rezba, R. J., Auldridge, T., & Rhea, L. (1999). Teaching and learning basic science skills. Retrieved January 2, 2008, from www.doe.virginia. gov/VDOE/Instruction/TLBSSGuide.doc Roth, W. M. (1995). Authentic School Science: Knowing and Learning in Open-Inquiry Science Laboratories. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Scardamalia, M. (2002). Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. In B. Smith (Ed.), Liberal education in a knowledge society (pp. 76-95). London: John Wiley & Sons. Scardamalia, M. (2004). CSILE/Knowledge Forum. Education and Technology: An encyclopeida (pp. 183-192). Santa Barbara:ABC-CLIO.

Shulman, L. S., & Grossman, P. (1988). The Intern Teacher Casebook. San Francisco, CA: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development. Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge of teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22. Suthers, D. D. (2001). Towards a Systematic Study of Representational Guidance for Collaborative Learning Discourse. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 7(3), 2001. Toth, E. E. (2000). Representational scaffolding during scientific Inquiry: Interpretive and expressive use of inscriptions in classroom learning. Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society, Philadelphia, PA. Toth, E. E. (2008, March). Representational Tools for Teaching Science: Designing a ResearchBased Approach. Proceedings of the 2008 National Association of Research on Science Teaching Annual Convention, Baltimore, MD. Toth, E. E., Cianciarulo, F. L., Post, J. C., & Ehrlich, G. D. (2007, April). Supporting Conceptual Change Via Collaborative Inquiry Using Virtual Laboratories in an Introductory College Classroom. Proceedings of the 2007 National Association of Research on Science Teaching Annual Convention, New Orleans. Toth, E. E., Klahr, D., & Chen, Z. (2000). Bridging research and practice: A cognitively-based classroom intervention for teaching experimentation skills to elementary school children. Cognition and Instruction, 18(4), 423–459. doi:10.1207/ S1532690XCI1804_1

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Toth, E. E., Post, J. C., & Ehrlich, G. D. (2006, March). Supporting Inquiry with Representational Tools: How inner city students learn to design scientific experiments to isolate DNA. Proceedings of the 2006 National Association of Research on Science Teaching Annual Convention, San Francisco.

Toth, E. E., Suthers, D. D., & Lesgold, A. (2002). Mapping to know: The effects of representational guidance and reflective assessment on scientific inquiry skills. Science Education, 86(2), 264–286. doi:10.1002/sce.10004 Vandersee, H. J. (1990). Concept mapping and the cartography of cognition. (10), 923–936.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 4, edited by L. A. Tomei, pp. 78-87, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Blogging Minds on WebBased Educational Projects Harrison Hao Yang State University of New York at Oswego, USA

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

Weblogs are radically redefining the way people obtain information and the way they teach and learn. This chapter examines issues and problems of typical Web-based educational projects as gleaned from the literature. It then reveals the potentials and advantages of the Weblog for enhancing those existing Web-based educational projects. It also proposes a new framework which integrates the Weblog as a means for Web-based educational project design, development, and implementation. Finally, it presents a case study which incorporated Weblogs in a specific Web-based educational project - the development of a professional portfolio.

Online information and communication is changing the way people interact and learn. Today, the Web is no longer just an information repository or a place to search for resources. Traditional Web applications typically consist of browsing and searching on the Internet and are essentially a reading operation. In contrast, the new Web (Web 2.0 or Read/Write Web) is a place to find other users, to exchange ideas and thoughts, to demonstrate creativity, and to create new knowledge. Web 2.0 applications, such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, and podcasts, have emerged in a rich, interactive, user-friendly application platform that allow users to read and also to write to the Web. Among these Web 2.0 applications, “Weblogs were already so popular by the end of 2004 that the

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch012

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Blogging Minds on Web-Based Educational Projects

Merriam-Webster dictionary chose it as it ‘Word of the year for 2004,’ and the bloggers were ABC News’ ‘People of the Year’” (Richardson, 2006, p. 2). As Downes (2004) pointed out, “a February 2004 report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project noted that at least 3 million Americans have created blogs, with similar numbers being seen worldwide. And schools have not been immune from this trend. While nobody can say for sure just how many students are blogging, inside the classroom or out, it seems clear that their numbers are equally impressive” (p. 16). In fact the recent Pew Internet & American Life Project, Teens and Social Media (Lenhart, Madden, Macgill, &Smith, 2007), offered this description of this movement: The number of teen bloggers nearly doubled from 2004 to 2006. About 19% of online teens blogged at the end of 2004, and 28% of online teens were bloggers at the end of 2006… Some 55% of online teens have profiles on a social network site (SNS) such as Facebook or MySpace and those who have such profiles are much more likely to be bloggers than those who do not have social network profiles. Two in five (42%) teens who use social networking sites also say they blog. And, in keeping with the conversational nature of social media, social networking teens are also interacting with others’ blogs. Seven in ten (70%) social networking teens report reading the blogs of others, and three in four social networking teens (76%) have posted comments to a friend’s blog on a social networking site (p. 3). Although there is no official definition of a Weblog (also known as a “blog”), “in its most general sense, a Weblog is an easily created, easily updatable Web site that allows an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection” (Richardson, 2006, p. 17). Winer (2002) defined Weblogs as “often-updated sites that point to articles elsewhere on the web, often with comments, and to on-site articles. A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide whom you get to know” (¶ 2).

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Despite of their huge popularity within our society, Weblogs are not widely and deeply explored in education. In fact, research suggests that blogs have not impressed educators. They doubt that Weblogs can promote thoughtful and measured response. Their view is that “blogging honors the impulsive, the careless, the superficial – anything goes: what matters is that you get a place to say whatever you like in public” (Ganley, 2004). As Downes (2004) indicated, “one of the criticisms of blogs, and especially student blogs, is that the students write about nothing but trivia” (p. 16). Hence, if the educational community is to accept blogs, it seems crucial to provide and share more constructive ideas on how the adaptation and implementation of Weblogs can impact real-world teaching and learning. For instance, it is necessary to question the effectiveness of using a Weblog as a vehicle for supporting Web-based project design, development, and implementation. This chapter examines issues and problems on some of the most existing Web-based educational projects as gleaned from the literature. It then reveals the potentials and advantages of the Weblog for enhancing such projects. It also proposes a new framework which integrates the Weblog as a mean for the Web-based educational project design, development, and implementation. Finally, it presents a case study which incorporated Weblogs in the professional portfolio development.

ISSUES, TYPES, AND PROBLEMS OF EXISTING WEB-BASED EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS Throughout the history of technology integration, Web-based educational projects have played a central role in major educational innovations, including information literacy, inquiry-based learning, and performance-based assessment.

Blogging Minds on Web-Based Educational Projects

Information Literacy via Webliographics Educators have long been concerned with increasing information literacy. The term information literacy was first introduced by Paul Zurkowski in 1974, which had been described as “people trained in the application of information resources to their work can be called information literates. They have learned techniques and skills for utilizing the wide range of information tools as well as primary sources in molding information-solutions to their problems” (cited by Behrens, 1994). In 1989 the American Library Association (ALA) Presidential Committee on Information Literacy called attention to information literacy at a time when many other learning deficiencies were being expressed by educators, business leaders, and parents, and issued a Final Report (1989) for meeting information literacy needs. Particularly, as the Final Report noted, information literate individuals should be able to: • • • • •

know when they have a need for information identify information needed to address a given problem or issue find needed information and evaluating the information organize the information use the information effectively to address the problem or issue at hand

In an attempt to increase information literacy on Web-based resources, many educators have been either creating their own Webliographies for further study/reference, or requiring students to develop Webliographies as a part of learning process. Webliography is a short form of “Web bibliography”. Typically, a Webliography is a list of resources which can be accessed on the World Wide Web, relating to a particular topic or can be referred to in a scholarly work. One of the main purposes of the Webliography in education

is that it allows educators and students to select and list Internet sources relevant to the topic or theme which can be used for the future references or projects. To fulfill this purpose, many educators suggest that a Webliography should be an annotated bibliography. Yang (2008a) suggested that like a typical annotated bibliography, a well developed Webliography should include completed bibliographic information about a source followed by a brief annotation of what the source contains. Bibliographic information includes author, title, URL address, publisher, and date of each item/source. The list of sources is usually arranged alphabetically or chronically followed American Psychological Association (APA) or Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style. The annotation itself includes a brief description to summarize the central theme and scope of the source, and a concise evaluative comment on: the authority or background of the author, the intended audience, relevance and usefulness of the source, and strength and weakness of the source, etc. Understanding and developing a Webliography can greatly improve individual’s information literacy. As Engle, Blumenthal, and Cosgrave (2007) noted, the process of creating an annotated bibliography alone required the application of a variety of intellectual skills: concise exposition, succinct analysis, and informed library research.

Inquiry-Based Learning via Internet Field Trips and WebQuests The inquiry-based learning approach has received the increased attention of many educators. Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered, active learning approach focusing on questioning, critical thinking, and problem-solving. According to Wells (2000), “[Inquiry] is an approach to the chosen themes and topics in which the posing of real questions is positively encouraged whenever they occur and by whoever they are asked. Equally important as the hallmark of an inquiry approach

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is that all tentative answers are taken seriously and are investigated as rigorously as the circumstances permit”. There are a variety of advantages to the inquiry-based learning approach. It is grounded in constructivist theory that builds on what students already know to form new understandings of the world which includes active engagement, building on prior knowledge, developing higherorder thinking, supporting developmental stages and different ways of learning, and considering social interaction as an instrument of construction (Kuhlthau, 2001). Not only does the inquirybased learning approach provide students with opportunities to learn with more freedom while reinforcing and imparting basic skills, but it also provides educators an effective way to coach, guide, and facilitate their students on “real-world” learning activities (Audet, 2005; Lamb, 2004; YouthLearn, 2003). Internet field trips and WebQuests are two commonly used Web-based activities for the inquiry-based and active learning which provide the unique way to motivate learners by engaging them in their own learning. Both of them provide enormous opportunities for learners to pursue their own interests and questions and make decisions about how they will find answers and solve problems. An Internet field trip, also known as a virtual field trip, is a journey taken via the Internet site without making a trip to the actual site. Foley (2003) defined an Internet field trip as a guided exploration through the Internet that organized a collection of pre-screened, thematically based Web pages into a structured online learning experience. Although Internet field trips cannot completely replace the sensory experience of actual field trips, they may sensitize a student’s sense of touch, smell and sight to the plethora of the stimuli to the encountered at the actual site (Bellan & Scheurman, 1998). Related studies have found that Internet field trips could provide a variety of advantages on teaching and learning. They can be accessed and repeated from place to

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place and time to time; can allow the teacher to focus on one specific aspect of the trip at a time; can give students great flexibility to learn at their own pace and explore things in as much depth as they wish; can take students to sites and subjects to which they would not otherwise go; can have an easier management and lower cost of production; can be safe and free of hazards; cannot be lost; can increase students’ information literacy; can improve technology integration; can provide integration of the multiple aspects of the field trip into a number of different curricular area and tap into more expert resources on a single topic; can allow for commonality of experiences by all participants; etc. (Hosticka, Schriver, Bedell, & Clark, 2002; Stainfield, Fisher, Ford, & Solem, 2000; Tramline, nd; Yang, 2008b). WebQuests are probably the most talked-about and widely used Web-based activities in today’s classrooms (Starr, 2003). According to Dodge (1997), the founder of WebQuest, “a WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners’ time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners’ thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation”. A WebQuest usually includes six essential components: introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion, and teacher page. In this way, WebQuests allow the educators to make an easier transition into using Internet technology with minimal stress (Watson, 1999), and allow students to experience learning as they form their perceptions, beliefs, and values out of their experiences (Beane, 1997). For the last decade, teachers and students from K-12 schools have been creating and exploring their own WebQuests, and instructors at colleges have been teaching WebQuests in their courses (Peterson and Koect, 2001; Stinson, 2003; Waston, 1999; Yang, 2001; Yoder, 1999).

Blogging Minds on Web-Based Educational Projects

Performance-Based Assessment via Portfolios Developing a performance-based portfolio has increasingly become popular in the field of education due to its numerous benefits: fostering self-assessment and reflection, providing personal satisfaction and renewal, providing tools for empowerment, promoting collaboration, and providing holistic approach to assessment (Costantino & De Lorenzo, 2002). The traditional portfolio is defined as a portable case for carrying loose papers or prints. Port means to carry and folio relates to pages or sheets of paper (Olson, 1991). For some time, pre-service and in-service teachers have attempted to accompany this definition of portfolio. Their portfolios were developed as paper-based folders. However, the approach of traditional paper-based portfolios has been challenged to capture the dynamic and complex process of teaching and learning (Aschemann, 1999). Related studies indicated that the traditional paper-based portfolio approach might increase the danger of paying too much attention on the final product rather than the process (Avraamidou & Zembal-Saul, 2006); difficulty in upgrading (Montgomery & Wiley, 2004); substantial photocopying and reproduction costs; Dollase, 1996); and storage and retrieval problems (Aschemann, 1999; Montgomery & Wiley, 2004). As a result, more recent studies have reported the uses of electronic portfolios also known as e-portfolios or digital portfolios in teacher education. An electronic portfolio is defined as a portfolio that uses electronic technologies, allowing the portfolio developer to collect and organize portfolio evidence/artifacts in many media types, such as audio, video, graphics, text, etc. (Barrett, 2001). One commonly applied type of e-portfolios is the Web-based portfolio, which is specifically created for and placed on the Web (Watkins, 1996). Comparing to the traditional paper-based portfolios, Yang (2008c) indicated that Web-based electronic portfolios have some notable unique

advantages, such as: providing a means of storing multiple iterations over time and a mechanism for ease of editing and revisions; providing instant access to various audience from anywhere at any time; providing a structured presentation in which a viewer can choose to move contents from one section to another based on his or her need or preference; etc. A variety of studies indicated that the flexibility and convenience of Web-based portfolio supported pre-service and in-service teachers to reorganize, reevaluate, reflect, and result in new insights (Avraamidou & ZembalSaul, 2006; Milman, 1999; Morris & Buckland, 2000; Pierson & Kumari, 2000; Watkins, 1996; Yates, Newsom, & Creighton, 1999).

Limitations of Existing WebBased Educational Projects In spite of significant benefits, the various potentials of Web-based projects on teaching and learning are yet to be completely realized. Web resources are extremely abundant and dynamic. What is true today is often outdated tomorrow. Therefore, it is crucial for educators and students to periodically update their Webliographies in order to delete outdated or unavailable sources and to add new relevant sources. The updating process serves two purposes: first, it provides an opportunity for educators and students to reinforce the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information; second, it keeps a Webliography alive which can be used for the future references or projects. However, many Webliographies on the Web are on the reverse side - they appear inactive and abandoned (Yang, 2008a). Related studies suggest that a valuable Internet field trip and/or WebQuest project should not simply be a fun game or a change-of-pace event for learners who have been pushed through homework assignments, lectures, and tests. It is imperative that this type of project is accountable and it incorporates high standards, rigorous chal-

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lenges, and valid assessment methods (Yang and Pun, 2007). As Maddux and Cummings (2006) indicated, “simply because a lesson is cast in a WebQuest format is no guarantee that the lesson makes use of cooperative learning, advanced organizers, scaffolding, or problem-based learning, nor does it guarantee that these concepts and techniques are effectively, or even merely competently, applied in a way that consistent with the ‘huge literature based’ underlying each of them” (p. 121). In order to ensure the content of each Internet field trip and/or WebQuest consistent with the students’ characteristics and to avoid giving the students’ a hit-or-miss experience, educators need to help students develop the right mindset, engage students with the problem, divide activities into manageable tasks, and direct students’ attention to essential aspects of the learning goals (Ngeow & Kong, 2001). However, as March (2007) found, “scaffolding that attempts to foster an organic love of learning is frequently reduced to a series of hoops for student to jump through, losing the intended spirit of creative problem-solving” (p. 8). Specifically, for the existing WebQuests, “the dimension of age appropriateness appears to be the most neglected, resulting in WebQuest that look identical for use across a broad range of ages, grades, and individual differences” (Maddux and Cummings, 2006, p. 125). March (2007) urged that, “…scaffolding for the WebQuest must shift from discreet stages like Introduction and Task to more comprehensive approach that places the learner in charge of the learning. To this end, a new personal learning scaffold integrates self-directed learning to promote increases in student wellbeing and advanced cognition” (p. 8). While electronic portfolios are expanding in teacher education programs, and the participants are mounting, the question “electronic portfolios for whom?” has also been raised. As Ayala (2006) argued, “the knowledge promoted under the guise of electronic portfolios is hardly student-centered. Very little research exists integrating student voices into the dialogue of electronic portfolios.

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The voices that are integrated are primarily those of administrators and some faculty” (p. 12). To sum up, the literature suggests a reconsideration of Web-based educational project design, development, and implementation. There are some limitations of existing Web-based projects. On one hand, developing and publishing such a project on the Internet still requires educators and students to have the skills and knowledge of tools such as Web editing software and FTP clients, which can be daunting to them; on the other hand, the published Web-based project can only be read by other viewers and are incapable for them to leave reviews and feedback, thus, they are limited for Web-based interaction, communication, and collaboration. As a result, a typical Web-based educational project is seen as an end in itself when it is published on the Web (see Figure 1).

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Weblogs are considered to be the means which could reduce the technical barriers to effective Web publishing significantly (Martindale & Wiley, 2005). Martindale and Wiley (2005) summarized some distinctive features of a Weblog such as: automatic formatting of content in the form of “headlines”, followed by “entries”, or “stories”; time- and date-stamp of entries; archiving of past entries; a search function to search through all entries; a “blogroll” - a list of other blogs read by the author(s) of the current blog; a section associated with each entry where readers can post comments on the entry; simple syndication of the site content via RSS (Really Simple Syndication); etc. These features make Weblogs very effective and attractive to users in two ways. First, a Weblog developer can edit or update a new entry without much knowledge of programming, formatting, and FTP. Second, a Weblog is constantly comprised of reflections and conversations from developer and viewers. It stimulates interaction (Downes, 2004;

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Figure 1. Projects on the read-only Web site

Martindale & Wiley, 2005; Richardson, 2006). As Ganley (2004) noted, “Weblogs, because of their flexibility, their public nature and their rich linking structure, can be a powerful tool in our pursuit of such a classroom. They allow us to visualize learning, contextualize course content, encourage meta-reflective practices, and practice collaboration.” Fiedler (2003) examined Weblogs as reflective conversational tools, and found Weblogs supporting aspects of: • • •

Recording and representing one’s personal patterns of meaning or actions Reflecting upon the representations Reiterating the process of explication and reflection

• •

•

Shifting from a task-focused level to a learning-focused level of awareness Supporting the construction of a personal mini-language to converse about the process of learning Supporting a gradual internalization of the tool

Eide and Eide (2005) investigated Weblogs on brain structures and functions, and found that Weblogs could: • • •

Promote critical and analytical thinking Be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking Promote analogical thinking 1567

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• •

Be a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction

Apparently, there are differences on presentation and communication between Weblogs and traditional read-only Web sites. These differences include the following: a Read-only Web site stops, Weblogging continues; a Read-only Web site is inside, Weblogging is outside; a Read-only Web site is a monologue, Weblogging is conversation; a Read-only Web site is thesis, Weblogging is synthesis… (Richardson, 2006). Weblogs, therefore, have shown a great deal of potential impact on Web-based project design, development, and implementation. Accordingly, this chapter proposes a framework which incorporates advantages of both Weblogs and Web-based projects for teaching and learning (see Figure 2). This framework illuminates several of notable implications in Web-based project design, development, and implementation. First, thoughtful and purposeful use of Weblogs is likely to minimize its “nothing but trivia” information overloading. In return, Weblogs can be the means to enhance and increase the quality of education. It appears that using a Weblog as a vehicle for supporting Web-based project design, development, and implementation, is effective and promising. Due to the high degree of stimulation, continuity, and interaction of Weblogs, students’ critical thinking, self-assessment, collaboration, and communication skills are constantly challenged and improved. Students must articulate their ideas and reflections for a relatively large group. Second, when read-only Web-based projects turn to read-write interrelated projects, the existing limitations of ready-only Web-based projects can be greatly reduced. The principles for good practice on teaching and learning can be effectively embraced. Chickering and Gamson (1991)

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suggested that good practice is that which: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

encourages contact between students and faculty; develops reciprocity and cooperation among students; encourages active learning; gives prompt feedback; emphasizes time on task; communicates high expectations; respects diverse talents and ways of learning (p. 63).

CASE STUDY: BLOGFOLIOS ON THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY In order to enhance a sense of community and promote student-centered collaboration, assessment, and reflection, the author of this chapter incorporated the Weblog in an educational portfolio development course. To distinguish it from typical Web-based portfolios, a Weblog-based portfolio is usually called a “blogfolio” (Yang, 2008c).

Participants and the Course The participants of this study came from a section of students (n = 14) who were enrolled in the course entitled Portfolio Development and Professional Synthesis, offered at a university in the northeastern region of the United States during the Spring semester in 2008. Most of the participants were part-time pre-service and inservice teachers located in the same geographical area, who were pursuing graduate level education programs in the content areas of literacy, biology, chemistry, earth science, mathematics, social studies, technology, etc. The course provides an introduction for preservice and/or in-service teachers to issues related to professional development especially in terms of personal portfolio development and other professional activities in an attempt to support them

Blogging Minds on Web-Based Educational Projects

Figure 2. Projects on the Read-Write Weblog

and contribute to the betterment of the filed field of education. In this process, portfolio development serves as the main measure of preparedness and readiness with class activities to support this process. Equal attention is given to professional development topics to be determined by student interest and need. Additionally, the course content gives attention to the department’s continuing commitment to social justice, mentoring, and building collaborative relationships.

Method and Procedure A structure with four consecutive segments incorporating both portfolio development and

Weblogging was designed and then implemented in the course. In the first segment, the concept and foundations for portfolio development were introduced. In the second segment, the features, components, applications, and resources of educational Weblogs were demonstrated. In the third segment, guidelines, standards, requirements, and samples of developing a teaching blogfolio were discussed. In the last segment, students’ professional blogfolios were developed and accessible to their peers, where students engaged in continuous, thoughtful analysis of their learning on this course with reflection, evidence/assignments, and collaboration. During the class, each student was required to conduct two work-in-progress evalua-

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tions on other classmates’ blogfolios. By the final week of the semester, each student was required to complete a self-evaluation on his or her own final blogfolio and learning experience.

Data Collection and Instrumentation To assess the effectiveness of the blogfolio approach on the sense of community for students’ collaborative learning and self-reflection, all 14 students from the course received Rovai’s (2002) Classroom Community Scale (CCS) survey at the end of the Spring semester in 2008. The CCS, which was used to measure the sense of community for students of this study, included 20 items based on two factors: connectedness and learning. Among the returned surveys, 13 out of 14 students’ responses (93%) were completed and usable. In addition, students’ working-in-progress evaluations on other classmates’ blogfolios and final self-evaluations on their own blogfolios and learning experiences were collected and examined.

Findings It should be noted that the participants were selected by using convenience sampling because the researcher for this study was also the instructor of the course. The sample size was relatively small. Therefore, instead of any strict inferential attempts, the descriptive research design was utilized in this study.

Connectedness Most of the participants indicated that the blogfolio approach had very positive impacts on their cohesion, community spirit, trust, and interdependence. On the connectedness subscale of the CCS, respondents overwhelmingly agreed and/or strongly agreed on items such as: “I feel that students in this course care about each other” (100%); “I feel connected to others in this course” (100%); “I trust others in this course” (92%); “I feel that I can 1570

reply on others in this course” (85%); and “I feel confident that others will support me” (100%). In addition, more than half of the respondents indicated that they agreed/strongly agreed on items: “I feel that this course is like a family” and “I feel that members of this course depend on me.” On the other hand, respondents overwhelming disagreed/strongly disagreed on items: “I do not feel a spirit of community” (100%); “I feel isolated in this course” (100%); and “I feel uncertain about others in this course” (85%). Perhaps the accessibility of online portfolios and the feedback from peers were two main factors which influenced participants’ perceptions on the connectedness. In their final self-evaluations, most participants pointed out that blogfolios were credible vehicles of reflection, self-assessment, and communication for classmates which provided opportunities for reviewing peers’ works and revising their own projects. The following comments from the work-in-progress evaluation, which included classmates exchanging their ideas and feedback with Alexa (the name is a pseudonym) regarding her blogfolio, were typical examples during the process of the portfolio development: [Comment 1] I like the format you used – it’s easy to read and to move to other standards. Nice use of photo too. Your use of artifacts is good – very relevant. My only suggestion is that you might want to expand to why you choose that artifacts in your narrative. [Comment 2] I really thought your personal reflections on working with an autistic child added to the strength of your evidence. [Comment 3] Good incorporation of inquiry based learning. The pictures look nice. I really like how you embedded the artifacts in the text instead of listing at the end. I’m going to steal this idea! Good use of artifacts – you used several in each standard. Nice job! [Comment 4] You have included a lot of good information. My only suggestion is include a little more of an explanation of why you chose the artifacts you did, for a couple of your strategies.

Blogging Minds on Web-Based Educational Projects

Learning Most of the participants indicated their positive and favorable feelings of community members regarding the degree to which they shared educational goals and experienced educational benefits by interacting with other members of the course. On the learning subscale of the CCS, respondents fully agreed/strongly agreed on items: “I feel that I am encouraged to ask questions” (100%); “I feel that I receive timely feedback” (100%); and “I feel that I am given ample opportunities to learn” (100%). On the other hand, respondents overwhelmingly disagreed and/or strongly disagreed on items: “I feel that it is hard to get help when I have a question” (92%); “I feel uneasy exposing gaps in my understanding” (85%); “I feel reluctant to speak openly” (92%); “I feel that this course results in only modest learning” (92%); “I feel that other students do not help me learn” (100%); “I feel that my educational needs are not being met” (100%); and “I feel that this course does not promote a desire to learn” (100%). Self-evaluations from participants revealed that not only did the blogfolio approach increase social navigation and reflection, decrease social distance, and improve meaningful learning; but it also strengthened their confidences on the final learning outcomes. As was evident in the following Alexa’s comments: [Regarding the self-introduction] I feel I have done a really good job on reflecting who I am and what my teaching philosophy is throughout my entire portfolio. My introduction goes very personal into who I am and what my ideas of education are. [Regarding the documentation] All of my documents are significant to their standards and provide a lot of evidence and substance to my philosophy and educational experience. [Regarding the introduction and explanations accompanying artifacts] Narratives are very informational and make clear connections to each of their standard and teaching philosophy. [Regarding the reflective entries] Narratives I put are very clear and

significant, demonstrating critical thinking and commitment to growth and learning. [Regarding the organization and appearance of portfolio] My goal in making my professional portfolio is to be able to actually use it when placed in the workforce. For this reason I want mine to be professional. [Regarding the overall learning Experience] Overall I really enjoy this learning experience. My portfolio which developed through this course gives me the great flexibility to create, revise and reflect any components using the Weblog. The way in which our portfolios set up makes learning interesting, interactive and inviting. The issues and comments that my classmates raised force me to think critically. I did feel a great sense of accomplishment when the portfolio was completed. I have learned a lot and I feel my portfolio will be very helpful in the future…

CONCLUSION Web 2.0 has transformed the Web into a global network community where every user is invited to create content. The Web is shifting from being a medium, in which information is transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content is created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and exchanged. The unique feature of many Web 2.0 applications is that it harnesses the collective intelligence of users. Learners become part of a global human network in which they can harness the collective intelligence of people in the world that could have never been possible previously. Learners can interact with other learners, gain from their experiences, and then construct their own knowledge. The advent of Web 2.0 technologies allows teachers and trainers to empower learners and create exciting new learning opportunities. As one of most widespread Web 2.0 applications, Weblogs have the capacity for educational institutions and corporations involved in training to extend the possibilities of learning. Weblogs provide new channels through which news and

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information are disseminated outside the conventional mechanisms of traditional new media (Kajder & Bull, 2004). As one of the Web 2.0 applications in education, the Weblog is still evolving. This chapter yields findings of previous research related to educational projects in the typical read-only World Wide Web environment and/ or format, and indicates Weblogs with a variety of potentials and advantages should be considered and implemented for better user-oriented and interactive Web-based educational projects. It should be noted that much work remains to capture the dynamics that happen within Weblogs and related educational projects. Although the effectiveness of the blogfolio approach on student-centered collaboration, assessment, reflection, and their sense of community in one course, has been examined and confirmed in this chapter’s case study, caution in generalizing to other populations is also called for, as this study involves only a group of student in one course.

FUTURE TRENDS Educators have long concerned with technology integration toward project-based learning. Why the interest in project-based learning? Research shows that project-based learning can capture the complexities of real life situations. Not only does it provide an effective way for students understanding the connection of knowledge to the contexts of its application, but it also provides students with opportunities for self-reflection and a sense of agency. Essentially, project-based learning is based on tasks, groups, and sharing (Yang, 2001). It provides a practical method of combining many of the elements of authentic activities and collaborative learning (Wheatley, 1991; Grabe & Grabe, 1998). Rapid development and implementation of technologies often bring both opportunities and challenges to project-based learning. Obviously, the various potentials of Weblogs on student-centered teaching and learning are yet to

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be determined and fulfilled. Additional research should be undertaken to examine the long-term and board effects of Weblogs on related educational projects, especially in regard to Webliographics, Internet field trips, and Web-based portfolios on six aspects of the newly released National Educational Technology Standards for Students: (1) creativity and innovation; (2) communication and collaboration; (3) research and information fluency; (4) critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making; (5) digital citizenship; and (6) technology operations and concepts (ISTE NETS.S, 2007).

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Bellan, J. M., & Scheurman, G. (1998). Actual and virtual reality: Making the most of field trip. Social Education, 62(1), 35–40.

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Costantino, P. M., & De Lorenzo, M. N. (2002). Developing a professional teaching portfolio: A guide for success. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Dodge, B. (1997). Some thoughts about WebQuests. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http:// webquest.sdsu.edu/about_Webquests.html Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 14–26. Eide, F., & Eide, B. (2005). Brain of the blogger. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http:// eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/ brain-of-blogger.html Engle, M., Blumenthal, A., & Cosgrave, T. (2007). How to prepare an annotated bibliography. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://www.library. cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill28.htm Fiedler, S. (2003). Personal webpublishing as a reflective conversational tool for self-organized learning. In T. Burg (Ed.), BlogTalks (pp. 190216). Vienna, Austria. Foley, K. (2003). The big pocket guide to using & creating virtual field trips (3rd ed.). Tramline. Ganley, B. (2004). Blogging as a dynamic, transformative medium in an American liberal arts classroom. Retrieved April 26, 2007, from http:// mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/ganley/bgblogging/Blogging%20as%20a%20Dynamic.doc

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March, T. (2007). Revisiting WebQuest in a Web 2 world: How developments in technology and pedagogy combine to scaffold personal learning. Interactive Educational Multimedia, 15, 1-17. Retrieved August 7, 2008, from http://www.ub.es/ multimedia/iem Martindale, T., & Wiley, D. A. (2005). Using Weblogs in scholarship and teaching. TechTrends, 49(2), 55–61. doi:10.1007/BF02773972 Milman, N. (1999, March). Web-based electronic teaching portfolios for preservice teachers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, San Antonio, TX. Morris, J., & Buckland, H. (2000, March). Electronic portfolios for learning and assessment. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, San Diego, CA. Ngeow, K., & Kong, Y. (2001). Learning to learn: Preparing teachers and students for problembased learning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 457 524). Peterson, C. L., & Koeck, D. C. (2001). When students create their own WebQuests. Learning & Leading with Technology, 29(1), 10–15. Pierson, M. E., & Kumari, S. (2000, March). Web-based student portfolios in a graduate instructional technology program. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, San Diego, CA. Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Rovai, A. P. (2002). Development of an instrument to measure classroom community. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(3), 197–211. doi:10.1016/ S1096-7516(02)00102-1

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Stainfield, J., Fisher, P., Ford, B., & Solem, M. (2000). International virtual field trips: A new direction? Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 24(2), 255–262. doi:10.1080/713677387 Starr, L. (2003). Creating a WebQuest: It’s easier than you think! Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/ tech011.shtml Stinson, A. D. (2003). Encouraging the use of technology in the classroom: The WebQuest connection. Reading Online, 6(7). Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://www.readingonline.org/ articles/art_index.asp?HREF=stinson/ Tramline (nd). About virtual field trips. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://www.field-guides. com/about.htm Watkins, S. (1996). World Wide Web authoring in the portfolio-assessed, (inter)networked composition course. Computers and Composition, 13(2), 219–230. doi:10.1016/S8755-4615(96)90011-0 Watson, K. L. (1999). WebQuests in the middle school curriculum: Promoting technological literacy in the classroom. Meridian: A Middle School Computer Technologies Journal, 2(2). Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://www.ncsu.edu/ meridian/jul99/webquest/index.html Wells, G. (2000). Dialogic inquiry in education: Building on the legacy of Vygotsky. In C Lee & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives on literary research: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry (pp. 51-85). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/ Files/Papers_Folder/Building%20on%20Vygotsky.pdf Wheatley, G. (1991). Constructivist perspectives on science and mathematics learning. Science Education, 75, 9–21. doi:10.1002/sce.3730750103

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Winer, D. (2002). The history of Weblogs. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://oldWeblogscomblog.scripting.com/historyOfWeblogs Yang, H. (2001). Mission possible: project-based learning preparing graduate students for technology. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2001 (pp. 2855-2857). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Yang, H. (2008a). Webliography: Conception and development. In L. A. Tomei (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration (pp. 957-962). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Yang, H. (2008b). Internet field trips: Conception and development. In L. A. Tomei (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration (pp. 483-486). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Yang, H. (2008c). Blogfolios for student-centered reflection and communication. In M. Iskander (Ed.). Innovative Techniques in Instruction Technology, E-Learning, E-Assessment and Education (pp. 179-182). Springer. Yang, H., & Pun, S. W. (2007). Beliefs and concept mapping on WebQuest development. In T. Kidd & H. Song (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Instructional System & Technology (pp. 272-286). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Yates, B., Newsome, J., & Creighton, T. (1999, March). Standards based technology competencies: Electronic portfolios in preservice education. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, San Antonio, TX. Yoder, M. B. (1999). The student WebQuest. Learning & Leading with Technology, 26(7), 6–9, 52–53.

YouthLearn. (2003). An introduction to inquirybased learning. Retrieved August 10, 2008, from http://www.youthlearn.org/learning/approach/ inquiry.asp

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Blogfolio: To distinguish it from typical Webbased portfolios, a Weblog-based portfolio is usually called a “blogfolio”, which incorporates advantages of both Weblogs and portfolios. Internet Field Trip: Unlike a typical field trip which is a group excursion to a place away from their normal environment for performing firsthand research on a topic, an Internet field trip, also known as a virtual field trip, is a journey taken via the Internet site without making a trip to the actual site. Project-Based Learning: Project-based learning refers to a comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in investigation of authentic problems or projects. There are two essential components of projects: they require a driving question or problem that serves to organize and drive activities; and these activities result in a series of artifacts, or products, that culminate in a final product that address the driving question. Web-Based Portfolio: Web-base portfolio refers to the portfolio which allows the portfolio developer to collect and organize portfolio evidence/artifacts in many media types, such as audio, video, graphics, text, etc. and is specifically created for and placed on the Web. Webliography: The term Webliography is commonly used when discussing online resources. It is referred to as “Web bibliography”. Accordingly, a Webliography is a list of resources relating to a particular topic that can be accessed on the World Wide Web, and can be referred to in a scholarly work.

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Weblog: Weblog is refered as “Web log” or “blog”. A Weblog usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. In addition, the information of a Weblog can be gleaned from other Web sites or other sources, or contributed by users. WebQuest: The WebQuest refers to an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of

the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. There are two types of WebQuest: shortterm, which is completed in one to three class periods, and long-term, which is typically taken between one week and a month in a classroom setting. A WebQuest usually includes six essential components: introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion, and teacher page.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, and H. Song and T. Kidd, pp. 195-209, copyright 2010 by IGI Publishing, formerly known as Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.13

The Perfect Blend?

Online Blended Learning from a Linguistic Perspective Roberto Di Scala University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

This chapter tackles the implementation of the way online courses of English language are structured within the on-line degree courses of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy. Moving from a double theoretical framework grounded on the links between e-learning and communication and between e-learning and multimedia learning, The author will outline the basic features of the course the author is currently teaching. Besides the standard tools provided by the university platform (the course portal and forum and the course content slides), he has added some ‘external’ tools to offer students further possibilities to interact and take an active role in the learning environment which thus becomes actually ‘blended.’ By making practice of the language through posting comments on a dedicated blog and by exchanging impressions and making queries at a number of Skype-mediated meetings, instructor and students can further interact and create a stronger ‘studying community.’

This case deals with the online degree courses of the Faculty of Communication Sciences and Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia where I am currently working as a contracted professor in charge of two courses in English Language. A few years ago, the notion of “online universities” (in Italian, università telematiche) began to take shape and today there exist a number of such institutions. Their main characteristic is the fact that the courses are exclusively taught on line, while exams are taken in the venue of the university. These universities are extremely new and lack the history of more ancient, traditional universities. Nevertheless, they are official institutions providing higher education. The same could be said for the so-called “traditional” universities which, due to a reformation of the Italian university system of about a dozen years ago, are now in the need of attracting students as though they were private institutions rather than state-owned places of culture.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-880-2.ch008

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Perfect Blend?

Leaving aside any political and educational comment on this aspect, it is now a fact that most universities in Italy (not to say all of them) are offering their students some form of online learning. In most cases, it is not a whole substitution of traditional, in praesentia courses for e-learning programmes, as traditional teaching is still practiced (and so far it is the dominant method of teaching at universities). The novelty is that many information and parts of the programmes are published on the university’s platforms for elearning. The downside of this aspect is, though, that often it is just a sort of “cut-and-paste” procedure which leads to the sharing of very simple files to the community of students who can access online material. This technological, advanced form of “note taking” cannot be considered as “real” e-learning. Nonetheless, a growing number of faculties are offering their students actual online courses whose contents are devised for distance teaching/learning.

BACkGROUND The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia was one of the first to opt for this kind of distance learning courses which it has been offering his students through dedicated, Moodle-based platform and portals (see http://www.laureaonline.unimore.it) since 2002. Since then, it has been the policy of the University to offer blended e-learning courses for its distance learning programmes. The reason behind this choice is the belief in the need to provide actual, physical links between teachers and students so as to prevent the creation of learning environments lacking the ‘human touch.’ The standard structure of online courses at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia consist of (1) opening meeting where teachers explain details of the programmes to the students (before the academic year officially begins); (2) first meeting between the teachers of each course

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and their students (namely, the first lesson); (3) a set of ten video-lessons (once a week, usually from 7pm to 8pm); (4) closing meeting between teacher and students; and (5) examinations. Events (1), (2), (4), and (5) take place in the rooms of the faculty in Reggio Emilia. All the meetings, though, are broadcast live via the Web and the corresponding files are published to the portals so that students may download them for their convenience. In order to fully understand and appreciate the importance attached to its e-learning programme by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, readers should be made aware of the existence of a department dedicated to online teaching which was set up thanks to the joint efforts of the existing structures (i.e. the departments and the faculties involved in the project). Their common goal was to create a structure which could be made responsible for everything concerning and related to e-learning with a reference person (in this case, the head of the department) and a dedicated team of technicians and staff of secretary to cope with the more and more demanding tasks of the whole e-learning system of this university. The department is called Centro e-Learning di Ateneo (CEA) (the University’s e-learning centre) whose Web site can be reached at the following address: www.cea.unimore.it. The aim of the work done every day by the people involved in this and in similar projects at universities scattered throughout Italy (and not only Italy, of course) is to make clear that the lack of classroom interaction in online education is basically a way of enriching and enhancing learning, rather than being considered a limit to that. Technology must be matched by the quality of the information provided, the skill of teachers and/or tutors in involving their students in the teaching process, as well as by the creation of the awareness of belonging to a reference structure among the students. Universities providing online education must never cease being communities which are able to

The Perfect Blend?

offer their members (in particular, students) both solutions to problems and the instruments through which students can form their critical conscience by learning how to learn in an autonomous, active, and proactive way, where by ‘autonomous’ it is meant learning through one’s personal initiative, and through co-operation and confrontation with the other students. In such context, teachers must be able to: (1) do team work along with tutors and the technical staff; (2) offer their teaching in a non-traditional, transmissive way; (3) manage multimedia contents; and (4) manage the times and modes of the teaching process (course planning, class teaching). Therefore, teachers and researchers who wish to contribute to the development of this kind of teaching as well as to give added value to their university’s educational offer in e-learning should possess a fairly wide knowledge of state-of-theart technologies and theoretical references in the field. Also, if they are used to more traditional ways of teaching, they must be willing to question such methods and to adapt their teaching framework to the evolving teaching and learning environments.

Blended Learning in English Courses From a more particular point of view, I will now touch upon the course which serves as the practical case for the following analysis, namely the course of English which I teach. I started working as a contracted professor of English at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2003, and have been in charge of two of the three on-line English courses of the Faculty of Communication Sciences and Economics. The structure of on-line programs has undergone some minor restructuring due to some changes at national level in the offering of Italian universities, and as I will focus on my present-day courses (which are somehow new in their structure and names), I feel necessary to offer the reader a brief

but exhaustive overview of the contents and of the structure of the courses of the previous years. When I first started teaching on-line courses, I chose to focus on grammar. The whole structure of the course was centred on the rules of English grammar, providing a traditional syllabus ranging from present simple to the passive in order to offer students the chance to reach a B2 level of knowledge of the language. The course material comprised descriptions of the main tenses and grammar functions, and it was in no way different from a traditional course which might be taught at traditional university courses. The only difference was the medium employed the channel through which the information was conveyed: namely, the blended learning environment, which was in its second year of existence at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. For the following year, I chose not to change anything in the course content and material, but I started to feel that something should be done in order to implement the course itself and to meet the students’ real needs in learning a foreign language in a semester. Even though it is extremely hard to find out what the ‘real needs’ of the students may be, I tried to restrict myself to dealing with a limited set of issues. So, for my third year, I taught a course on how to write a resume in English together with the corresponding covering letter. The grammar rules (i.e., the content of the previous years’ courses) were turned into a rather huge file of information which students could find on the course portal. To such material I added a number of files containing the basic information on how to write a standard business letter in English as well as some useful terms and expressions of business English. For the following year’s course I decided I would change the contents once again, and I approached the world of e-mail English. In doing so, I tackled for the first time the issue of non-native speakers and their role within the communicative exchange in English. Again, the tools I relied upon were the traditional instruments available for online teachers: the portal of the course (comprising

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a forum between the teacher and the students), the platform for virtual classes, and the occasional exchange of e-mail messages with the students. In 2007, I eventually proposed a course which had nothing to do with learning a particular aspect of the language. I decided it was time I offered something different, both in terms of course contents and in the way I delivered them. The course for the 2007-2008 academic year was therefore centred upon the use of English as a ‘social language,’ something which draws upon the concept of English as a lingua franca and which tries to provide a set of practical suggestions for non-native speakers who are absolute or false beginners in dealing with English.

SETTING THE STAGE The main feature of the ‘new’ course was the use of two different sets of interactive tools which I will term ‘internal’ and ‘external.’ ‘Internal’ tools are the course portal and the slides, which are the standard tools provided by the university. Though slides are not a proper interactive tool in themselves, it is their use and the context in which they are used which make them interactive. The portal, on the other hand, offers a place for interaction between teacher and students and among students, i.e. the forum. There, teachers can post information about the course and reply to their students’ queries and students can make enquiries, make suggestions and post comments on course material/topics. The ‘external’ tools I decided to add are a dedicated blog and a further meeting with the students via Skype. Skype is a free program that everyone can download and use to speak with other Skype users through a computer and a Web cam. The blog, which can be reached at unimorenglish.splinder.com, is called UnimorEnglish (from the acronym Unimore, which stands for University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, plus English). It is a place where students can practice the use of

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written English in dealing with issues related to the course. Generally, I post a brief text on the current week’s topic of the virtual class, and I invite students to post comments on the issue. I encourage them to take an active part in the discussion without worrying too much about the mistakes they can possibly make (especially if they are beginners). I wish them to practice the language and to be part of the studying community without feeling compelled to pay too much attention to the grammar. On a second moment, I will correct their mistakes so that they may learn from them and try not to make them a second time. From last year’s experience, it emerged that not all the students enrolled on the course were active users of the blog, but those who were produced very interesting discussions and also proposed issues and produced relevant documents for the course. Even though there are no official figures about the evaluation on this part of the course by the students yet, I feel the students appreciated this implementation. Some of them, after taking their exam, wrote me to say they found the possibility of practicing the language very useful. Though the blog does not provide an answer to those students requesting oral interaction and practice, I believe it is a first step towards offering a more complete approach to language teaching and transmission so much that for the current year I have decided not to change the general structure of the course and to re-open the blog to the students who will be able to exchange opinions with a mother-tongue supporting teacher as well. The other ‘external’ tool was (and will be also for this year) a weekly meeting with the students made via my Skype account. Every week at a given time, I opened my Skype account to the students for about one hour during which time they could pose me questions, made suggestions, ask for further explanations on the course contents and/ or structure, or simply chat or talk in English to practice the language. Compared to the blog, the weekly Skype meetings were less popular among the students.

The Perfect Blend?

Sometimes no-one called, or maybe I had one or two persons on line. This was probably due to the time I chose to hold the meeting, which were sometimes from 6.30pm to 7.30pm and sometimes from 7pm to 8pm. At that time, students were probably engaged with other virtual classes, or were busy with family life (8pm is or is nearly dinner time in Italy). But, as many students are workers, I envisaged that time might be the best time for them to devote some extra time to the subject. This is the major downside of the Skype side of the course, but nonetheless I will keep the meetings going on for this current year. Due to their being ‘external’ tools, both the blog and the Skype meetings need no technical assistance from the staff working on the on-line programs of the university, and therefore they do not constitute a ‘burden’ for the organization. They are something shared by the teacher and the students alike, the occasion on which both the instructor and the learners can actually ‘blend’ and interact, thus adding further meaning to blended e-learning.

CASE DESCRIPTION Online Degree Courses Before moving to the detailed description of the case, I need to point out some major characteristics of the course as they arise out of the abovementioned operational indications.

Course Contents The course is part of the educational offer concerning the university degrees in ‘Marketing and Business Organization’ and in ‘Communication Sciences’. As I have already made clear, I chose to focus the attention on the practical uses of the language rather than let’s say on grammar or syntax exclusively. The course, therefore, may be said to be somehow more pragmatics-oriented. It

aims at providing the students with basic elements on the use of the language in order to have them communicate by using English as a lingua franca (or ‘social language’, see Di Scala, 2008).

Reference Target The course is designed for beginner students who are non-native English speakers. Online students are basically working adults who study in their spare time in order to obtain either a better position/ job or to complete their studies, and are therefore motivated and eager to learn.

Course Main Features Characteristics Interactivity. Classes are given through interactive channels, and are devised so that students can interact with the teacher and with other students. Besides the ‘traditional’ video-classes, the course features in fact a blog where students can practice English writing and exchange ideas and impressions on course topics. Skype is also used as a further means of communication between the teacher and the students (besides more ‘traditional’ email exchanges). Dynamism. Class material can be easily upgraded by the teacher (and made available to the students), and added to by the students in the form of further files/documents on course topics. Modularity. Class material is divided up in learning modules which, in their turn, comprise different learning units (which somehow may be regarded as Learning Objects). The content of each ‘object’ is designed to meet the needs of the typical student the course was devised for.

Learning Methods Self-learning. Students download each lesson and revise the teaching materials wherever and whenever they feel like to.

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Synchronous learning. Students participate in live, real-time classes. Collaborative learning. Students may cooperate through the Web even though they live in distant places. Multimedia learning. The whole idea of elearning is based on multimedia learning, and the English course is no difference.

Aspects Comprised Learning how to use technologies and technology mediated learning. Technology is obviously the core feature of e-learning, and students should be computer literate at least the very basic level before starting the course (and most of them are indeed computer skilled).

Net-Based The Internet. The Internet is the means e-learning mostly lives on. The Net is the physical channel through which e-learning is provided. Course material can be derived from Net searching. Also, blogs and Skype-mediated contacts between the teacher and the class are made possible only through the Net. Exchange of information. The students attending the course end up by creating a networked community based on the exchange of information as well as of experiences.

A Means of Social Cohesion Even though online classes are actual moments of social sharing, blended learning allows for further social sharing when the students and the teacher physically meet at the beginning and at the end of the course, as well as during examinations. All this can be better understood in the light of the theoretical issues I have drawn upon in structuring the course.

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The Theoretical Framework: E-Learning and Communication In a previous paper (Di Scala, 2007), I wondered whether it was possible to think of a non-traditional way to devise e-learning programmes which could then be used for teaching different subjects. Starting from linguistic considerations, I tried to give a first, tentative answer to the question. In particular, I focused my attention on text linguistics which, in my opinion, might serve as the starting point from which to build a theoretical layout in such direction. In so doing, I investigated the way the theories of text linguistics could be applied to e-learning programme structuring, and I ended up with providing a sketchy frame of reference for analysing e-learning from the linguist’s perspective. On the grounds of those assumptions (and especially from a semiotic perspective), I regarded e-learning as a “text” within the broader sign code of educational systems and outlined its following characteristics pertaining to communication: e-learning as a “text” (1) is a communicative occurrence, (2) has a communicative function, (3) has a communicative goal, and (4) is a communicative exchange between the producer and the receiver of the “text” (broadly speaking, between the teacher and the student). It is important to underline how many critics point out that e-learning must be thought of as closely linked to the communicative context and that is can hardly be separated from the communicative exchange (e.g., Ardizzone & Rivoltella, 2003; Baracco, 2002; Calvani, 2001; Eletti, 2004; Fata, 2004; Felix, 2004; La Noce, 2002; Mammarella, Comoldi & Pazzaglia, 2005; Porcelli & Dolci, 1999). As Thompson (1995) has it, communicating is a social activity comprising the production, transmission, and reception of symbolic forms. Therefore, communication possesses two dimensions, one which is symbolic (i.e. the production of material bearing some meaning), and another

The Perfect Blend?

which is social (i.e. the production and circulation of said material by human beings). The Internet can be viewed as an immense symbolic arena where meanings are produced, circulated, and negotiated by the subjects involved (Rivoltella, 2003). The basic feature characterising these phenomena is interaction. On the Internet, interaction is ‘strong’ as there exists a relationship between active entities. This means that the symbolic and the social dimensions overlap. This makes sociality the message itself. In this view, Slevin (2000) proposes a model of interaction where people are involved as both producers and receivers of the message, and are part of a rather complex production activity as the Internet is and where anybody can publish contributions or create Web sites. The Internet, therefore, must be considered from a pragmatic point of view, i.e. as a system of actions where the transmission of meanings is devised more as an activity rather than as just a transfer. As a consequence, the Net is more than just a physical place, and it emerges as a social place where people can interact (Meyerowitz, 1985).

The Theoretical Framework: Multimedia Learning Within the distance education programmes of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, online material is prepared by each teacher to fit the structure of their course. There is a standard template (.ppt format) for the slides, which can be any number for each subject taught. Slides are projected during online classes as well as in praesentia lessons to support the explanation by the teacher. In devising the slides and their content, the so-called ‘dual coding theory’ (Paivio, 1991) should be taken as the basis for constructing materials. According to said theory, there exist two different coding systems used to process information. The human verbal system processes verbal and linguistic information, whereas our non-

verbal system processes both visual information and verbal images. In the process, verbal and/or linguistic inputs are compared to logogens, i.e. basic representation units making up the representation of a word in a man’s long-term memory. As for non-verbal inputs, the representation units for images are called imagens. This leads to a first, well-established truth about multimedia presentations of course material, namely that they are more easily remembered than unimodal presentations (e.g., verbal presentations) (see also Mammarella et al., 2005). On the grounds of all this, Mayer (2000) formulated his theory of multimedia learning which is based on three basic principles: 1.

2.

3.

Dual coding (Paivio, 1991): visual and auditory information is processed through two different channels; Cognitive load (Chandler & Sweller, 1991): the quantity of information which can be processed through each channel is limited (therefore, excessive loads result in defective processing); ‘Active’ processing: the students take active part in the learning process.

Afterwards, Mayer’s further investigations in the field led to his cognitive model for multimedia learning (Mayer, 2001), as seen in Figure 1. Note: (1) words and images are kept as faithful visual and auditory images in the corresponding sensory systems for about one second; (2) it actively regulates the temporary storage of short-term information and its processing; and (3) it organises and integrates previously obtained information. Mayer’s model entails six standards of multimedia learning: 1.

Multimedia: learning is enhanced when the presentation of material associates words and images thus favouring an integrated mental model;

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Figure 1. Diagram for Multimedia Learning (Source: Adapted from Mayer, 2001)

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Spatial and temporal closeness: learning is favoured when words and the corresponding images are disposed orderly and close to one another on the screen; Relevance and cohesion of material: learning is best performed when no irrelevant and not cohesive words/chunks of information are present; Different modes: learning is at its best when images are accompanied by oral explanations as this contributes to engaging both the auditory and the visual channels; Redundancy: learning is affected when the information is presented in too many formats at the same time (e.g. figures, written text and oral explanations); Customization: learning is favoured by a non-formal style of the presentation which is likely to meet the learners’ needs and expectations.

Lucchini (2005) offers further insights into the way online course material should be written. First and foremost, he thinks the contents and the format of any online programmes must be of high quality. He then moves on to recommend the use of short, to-the-point, simple texts written using a language which is both active and interactive, and designed bearing in mind the actual receivers

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of the text. He also claims particular attention for beginners: the person(s) preparing the material for a course should never take for granted that anything they are assembling/writing is clear for everybody.

Presentation of Course Material On the basis of the theoretical implications described so far, I have tried to present the content of each slide accordingly. Figure 2 shows the number of slides from the course of English Language for the academic year 2007-2008. A brief commentary on the slides presented here is necessary. The first slide has been created on the basis of the standard template provided by the e-learning staff of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Students will see more than just this portion of the presentation. As can be seen in Figure 3, there is further information available in the form of notes. The standard template, in fact, comprises also additional text which serves as explanation to the information contained in the slide. This adds to the oral explanation by the teacher, and is a reminder to the students of what has been said during the virtual class. (Also, it serves as a kind of textbook

The Perfect Blend?

Figure 2. Slide 2

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Figure 3.

for those students who cannot listen to/view the recording of on-line meetings.) (For clarity’s sake, I will provide non-Italian readers with the translation of the sole content of slide 1): ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE • • •

English as the global language of the 21st century English as a global language: creation of communities Social networking)

While slide 1 is consistent with the standard, basic template common to all on-line courses at the Faculty of Communication Sciences and Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, the last two have been devised without taking into account such layout. As a matter of fact, they reflect more directly the informal spirit which permeates the way the contents of the course are offered to the students.

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Slides 2 and 3 do not have notes. Therefore, the only additional explanation provided is the oral presentation by the teacher. Furthermore, the very aspect of the slides, the way the information provided is presented and distributed on the screen is aimed at making the students feel at ease and somewhat relaxed. The (hopefully) balanced mix between text and images, the short and strictlyto-the-point quantity of information contained by each slide, and the use of unusual images (at least, unusual for an academic, standard course in English) add to the meaning conveyed and will (hopefully, again) linger in the students’ minds longer than more greyish, ‘standard’ information which can be found in traditional textbooks. The lack of notes and detailed explanation, though making the slides ‘slimmer’ and ‘easier to use,’ has a downside as well. In fact, students cannot print them out in the hope of finding more details than the bare text in the slide. Therefore, if they do not have the possibility of listening to the recordings of the video lessons, their study might be affected. This fault, though, ceases be-

The Perfect Blend?

ing a problem if one considers that, in this way, students are ‘obliged’ to strengthen up the relations with the other participants in the course, thus reinforcing the very idea of networked community and adding to the social aspects and functions of on-line courses. Again, for clarity’s sake, I feel now obliged to provide the English translation of slides 2 and 3 as well. Slide 2 reads as follows: ENGLISH 2.0 The Web as a ‘social place’ English as the language of the Web English as a ‘social language’? While slide 3 reads as follows: English = Latin? The bitten slipper makes reference to the practical uses and misuses of English by people across the world: the language, in this way, ends up by being chewed up as an old slipper in the mouth of a playing beagle. The non-formal character of the slides is matched by a non-formal approach to both the subject and course contents. The adoption of ‘colloquial style’ in presenting the topics as well as problem-solving methodologies are intended to favour empathy in distance education (Holmberg, 2003) along with multimedia interaction (e.g., forums, blogs) characterized by informal, non-bureaucratic exchanges between teacher and students and among the students.

Concluding Remarks on the Case There is a final point which needs to be taken into consideration as well, and which plays an important role in deciding whether the structuring of the course has been successful, namely, the students’ feedback. As far as my course is concerned, students’ outcomes at exams have been more than satisfactory, with a fairly large percentage of people getting from high to very high marks. (Readers are

informed that, in Italy’s universities, a student has passed her or his exam if she or he has obtained a mark from 18 to 30, the top mark being 30 e lode [i.e. 30 cum laude]. Marks lower than 18 mean that a student has failed her or his exam and can take the same exam again at a later time.) From this point of view, then, the feedback can be said to be extremely positive. From the point of view of the students’ satisfaction with the course, it must be noted that not every student is willing to provide a comment on the subjects taught and the way the course has been devised. Those who do, though, express their appreciation and/or discontent both during the period classes are being given and after they have taken their exam. In most cases, they provide the teacher with their opinion on the experience as well as with suggestions on how the course might be improved in the future. They are likely to underline both the things they have liked more and the things they would have liked to find in the course. Also, they express their opinion on how they would have liked the course to be taught, and many times this has proven to be an extremely helpful piece of advice on the students’ part. In fact, each year I try to implement my course contents and teaching methodologies by taking into account suggestions and indications by students of the previous year. Unfortunately, figures and facts on the course evaluation on the part of the students for the academic year 2007-2008 are not available yet; therefore, any comment on the effectiveness of my course is grounded on purely empiric estimates based on the students’ unofficial feedbacks. It is true that the changes in the basic organization of the English language course seem to have been appreciated. While, according to the figure for the academic year 2002-2003, the English language course scored 46% in terms of students’ overall positive evaluation, as of the academic year 20032004 (when I started working at the university) the same course ranked among the most popular with overall positive evaluation of 85% and

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81% in 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 respectively (figures and data for the following years are not available yet). Lastly, it must be stressed that informal and non conventional presentation of course material and contents is made possible mainly by virtue of the familiar atmosphere which the persons working at the CEA have been able to create. In this way, teaching expertise, research, and innovation are matched by a warm, welcoming atmosphere so that the university can offer effective and rigorous teaching to distant-learning students without lacking the ‘human factor’. And, according to figures, students seem to enjoy and appreciate it all, as their perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of virtual classes of the entire on-line courses is very high: 50% of the students say that virtual classes are an ‘extremely effective’ teaching tool (while 46% say it is ‘rather effective’, 3% say it is ‘little effective’ and 1% say it is ‘ineffective’).

CURRENT CHALLENGES FACING THE ORGANIZATION In closing this chapter, I feel like mentioning some of the challenges that the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, along with the rest of Italian universities, is about to face in the near future. Thanks to the know-how and state-of-the-art technologies of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (which is in part funded by the higher fees students pay for this kind of education), besides getting value for money, students can profit from an extremely advanced, hi-tech environment. Nonetheless, problems may be posed by outer factors such as obsolete phone-line connections the students may have at home which sometimes affect the quality of data transmission during live broadcasting. Also, the entire educational system in Italy is about to undergo further reformation, and this holds true for universities in particular. Therefore, at the time of writing, it is not possible to predict

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what the future will hold for the whole university system in Italy. A reduction in the number of degree courses seems most likely, which in part is meant to avoid spending public money on courses where only a few students are enrolled. This should not be the case for online courses at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, which are constantly attracting people from all the country. Again, though, at present no one can predict what the figures will be for the next academic year.

CONCLUSION Nonetheless, even though the problem just hinted at is actual and dramatically important, the tendency at the CEA – and therefore at the whole of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia – is not to give in to pessimistic views and to continue to promote e-learning as one of the innovative teaching solutions which are likely to get over any present difficulties. The case I have just described is not an isolated experiment which can be considered as concluded and completed. It is part of a larger system of online, blended learning in higher education which needs to continue and to live on dedicated research and experimentation.

REFERENCES Ardizzone, P., & Rivoltella, P. C. (2003). Didattiche per l’e-learning. Metodi e strumenti per l’innovazione dell’insegnamento universitario. Roma: Carocci. Baracco, A. (2002). La comunicazione mediata dal computer. In C. Bazzanella (Ed.), Sul dialogo: Contesti e forme di interazione verbale (pp. 253267). Milano: Guerini Associati Calvani, A. (2001). Educazione, comunicazione e nuovi media. Sfide pedagogiche e cyberspazio. Torino: UTET Libreria.

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Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (1991). Cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 8, 293–332. doi:10.1207/ s1532690xci0804_2

Mammarella, N., Cornoldi, C., & Pazzaglia, F. (2005). Psicologia dell’apprendimento multimediale. E-learning e nuove tecnologie. Bologna: il Mulino.

Di Scala, R. (2007). Where linguistics meets e-learning: Towards a linguistic approach to eLearning. In A. Colorni, M. Pegoraro, & P. G. Rossi (Eds.), eLearning tra formale e informale, Atti del IV congresso della Società Italiana di e-Learning (pp. 168-169). Macerata: EUM – Edizioni Università di Macerata.

Mayer, R. (2000). Intelligence and education. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence (pp. 519-533). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Di Scala, R. (2008, October). E-nglish 2.0. L’inglese come ‘lingua sociale.’ Paper presented at the 5th congress of the Italian e-Learning Society, Trento, Italy. Eletti, V. (Ed.). (2004). Che cos’è l’e-learning. Roma: Carocci. Fata, A. (2004). Gli aspetti psicologici della formazione a distanza. Milano: Franco Angeli. Felix, U. (2004). Orchestrated vision. Language Magazine, 4(2), 24–29. Holmberg, B. (2003). A theory of distance education based on empathy. In M. G. Moore & W. G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of Distance Education (pp. 79-86). Mahwah, NJ: Erlabum. La Noce, F. (2002). E-learning, La nuova frontiera della formazione. Milano: Franco Angeli. Lucchini, A. (2005). Efficacia e calore nei contenuti scritti per l’e-learning. In S. Panini, & R. Padroni (Eds.), E-learning nella scuola, nell’università, nel lavoro (pp. 132-148). Milano: Franco Angeli.

Mayer, R. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Meyerowitz, J. (1985). No sense of place. The impact of electronic media on social behaviour. New York: Oxford University Press. Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory: Retrospect and current studies. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 45, 255–287. doi:10.1037/h0084295 Porcelli, G., & Dolci, R. (1999). Multimedialità e insegnamenti linguistici. Modelli informatici per la scuola. Torino: UTET. Rivoltella, P. C. (2003). Costruttivismo e pragmatica della comunicazione on line: Socialità e- didattica in Internet. Trento: Erickson. Slevin, J. (2000). The Internet and society. New York: Routledge. Thompson, J. B. (1995). The media and modernity: A social theory of the media. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

This work was previously published in Cases on Online and Blended Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices, edited by Y. Inoue, pp. 132-144, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.14

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses? Lawrence A. Tomei Robert Morris University, USA Holly Hagle Robert Morris University, USA Ashley Rineer Robert Morris University, USA Lisa A. Mastandrea Robert Morris University, USA Jennifer Scollon Regis University, USA

ABSTRACT OCICU is the Online Consortium of Independent Colleges and Universities and consists of five provider institutions which are located throughout the United States and Ireland. This consortium is the first of its kind to exist in distance education. The researchers wanted to understand the importance

of orientation materials to successfully completing an online course taken from another institution. The review of the literature revealed several factors of teaching online that supported the position that pro-active development of orientation materials is essential to the growth and development of online learning and results in additional revenue to participating institutions.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

INTRODUCTION

LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS

The researchers of the Online Consortium of Independent Colleges and Universities (OCICU) are devoted to advancing the opportunities for its members by sharing academic online courses among and between its members. The OCICU is made up of two groups, member institutions and provider institutions. The providers are institutions that offer online courses in which any member institution can access. At last count there are between 50-60 member institutions that are part of the OCICU, and there are 6 institutions that are OCICU providers. The researchers sought to determine whether orientation materials of a member institution helped students to successfully complete online courses. Currently, the OCICU provides schedules, classes, and course syllabi. The researchers examined the types of course materials, timing, and topics of these materials given to the students by the member institution and how these factors impacted online course completion. Through this study the researchers hope to make correlations between these factors and successful online course completion.

The research limitations encountered include: limiting courses and orientations to those completed in the Fall 2006, Spring 2007, and Fall 2007; excluding the Summer 2007 courses in this study; level of difficulty of the online course, (e.g. an advanced accounting course); considering the success of the orientation of students who completed their online course; considering the success of the orientation for those students who dropped the online course. The delimitations to the study included: knowledge and previous experience of the online course instructors; level of instruction readiness of the student; follow-up of member institutions with students to ensure completion of the orientation; the motivation of the student to complete the orientation; the interest of the student in completing the orientation; the time of day the student accessed the online course and that factors impact on their success; the technological capacity of the student to access and complete an online orientation; the varying lengths of the courses offered by the providers of the consortium; whether the member institutions provided face to face orientation in addition to the online orientation; the number of individual who attended any face to face orientation group; and the length of online orientation sessions.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The member and provider institutions of the Online Consortium of Independent College and Universities (OCICU) sought to determine whether there is a connection between a member institution’s orientation materials and successful student course completion. The research team attempted to connect topics, timing, and other variables that emerged from a survey of students who have completed online courses through the OCICU. The member and provider institutions determined common variables that can be replicated for successful student completion of any online course.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY It is important for the OCICU to ensure students’ satisfaction with courses taken as part of the consortium offerings in order to encourage and retain enrollments. If this study shows a positive relationship between orientation materials and retention, it would support the proactive development of orientation materials by member schools as essential to the growth and development of the OCICU and thus will result in additional revenue to member institutions.

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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE While conducting a review of expert literature concerning the correlation of member institutions orientation materials to successful course completion the following corroboration was found. In an editorial written by Anne Gaskell (2006, p.96) in the journal Open Learning, “early formative assessment, has been identified as making an important contribution to student learning and success. More generally, early interventions by an institution have been shown to improve student retention (Yorke, 2004), particularly in Open and Distance Learning (ODL),where withdrawal tends to take place very early.” According to Gaskell’s editorial “orientation programs have been found to improve student retention in both conventional and distance education programs. A team from New Zealand conducted a wide-ranging synthesis of research, and concluded that student retention is likely to be increased by a range of factors including the provision of orientation and induction programs to facilitate academic and social integration (Rivers, 2005). Kanuka and Jugdev here examine how far an online orientation course helps students adjust to new learning environments and achieve greater program completion within an online MBA at Athabasca University” (Gaskell, 2006, p. 96-97). Drawing on Holmberg’s theory of teaching– learning conversations and the importance of empathy, the study examines the impact of the orientation course through pre-course and postcourse questionnaires. The resultant findings indicate that an intervention before course start in this way can increase confidence, academic skills development, time management and ICT (information, and communications technology) skills. The authors conclude that this kind of program can provide the kind of empathic social and academic exchanges that also reduce anxiety and tension. (Gaskell, 2006, p. 97)

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A study, by R.D Nash in 2005, “examined why students at Coastline Community College in Fountain Valley, California, dropped or failed their distance learning courses and methods that might improve their success and retention. Findings revealed… 46 percent thought orientations would be beneficial.” According to Robinson, Burns, and Graw, in 1996, “considering the increase in the number of remote learners, universities offering distance learning programs must now design orientation programs suited for the students who will take courses at a distance. Orientation for online courses serve the same objectives as orientation for college, in that it can facilitate academic and social interactions, increase students involvement, enhance the sense of belonging to a virtual learning community, and help retention”. Carnevale (2000) felt that “some online programs have tried to make this startup (orientation) easy to avoid delays or frustrations that may be caused by inexperience with the new media used for instruction.” He further states, “orientation or tutorials that will put all students on a common ground before the program starts have been offered face-to-face and at a distance. In some institutions this orientation is called “boot camp”. IHEP, (Institute for Higher Education Policy) 2000, reports that practice sessions prior to the beginning of the course are among the “Benchmarks that are essential for quality Internet-based education” (p. 25). When programs are new to a college, or when a program has not been previously taught in a face-to-face format, students will generally require additional orientation information.” Norma Scagnoli, from the University of Illinois, offered the following as assistance in designing orientations for online students. At the University of Illinois Online, printed information is mailed to students enrolled in both master’s programs in education. Curriculum, Technology, and Educational Reform (CTER) and Human Resources Education (HRE) Online. This printed material is also found online, in the

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

Web sites for the programs HRE Online (www. hre.uiuc.edu/online), online master’s in library and information sciences (http://alexia.lis.uiuc. edu/gslis/degree.s/leep.html), and CTER (www. ed.uiuc.edu/cter). Students interested in finding out about these programs have access to e-mail addresses of program coordinators and staff. A toll-free number is also available for support. This information is provided to help reduce orientation stress and uncertainty” (Scagnoli, 2001). Scagnoli further purports:

An effective design of this orientation in the uses of applications would be crucial to the success of the virtual learning experience because this will set up the basis for the student’s confidence in the use of the internet for learning and instructions or helping tutorials that add confusion to the process will certainly not help. Having online training tutorials, or face-to-face workshops on the use of course applications, helps increase the student’s self-confidence regarding the tools to be used in the course. (Scagnoli, 2001)

it is important that during the orientation, all students become familiar with the instructional media used in the courses. This is key to ensuring a smooth start. Specifically, methods and communication tools used to deliver the courses must be introduced during an orientation. Students worried about communicating with an instructor or worried about downloading appropriate materials will experience frustration and ultimately drop from the course.

“An ideal orientation would be one that brings together the coordinator of the online course, the program instructors, especially those teaching the initial courses, and the technical support team. This kind of collaborative effort would be a good demonstration of campus cooperation and commitment to student learning and professional development projects. Even in the case of remote orientation, the participation of faculty in the orientation is a demonstration of involvement in the program that can be certainly appreciated by students. (Breivik, 1998). Orientation is a good learning opportunity for these instructors. It can provide them with an opportunity to introduce their courses and the technological applications they will be using in their classes. Because of the new technology age, it appears we are expected to simply know and be successful with the surrounding technology; however since the up rise of such book serious as The Missing Manuel published by Pogue Press, it appears the need for better direction and orientation is still in the forefront. Essentially, companies like Apple except you to get your new technology devise or program working right out box with a simple instruction manual, usually a few pages long. Because of this inept expectation the book called Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual has hit number thirty-nine on the Amazon.com sales rank as of January 15, 2008. Orientation for online courses should not stop at how to use the technology of the course,

According to Scagnoli: both CTER and HRE Online offer a set of online tutorials that help in the installation and usage of the technological applications that will be necessary in the development of the courses. Before classes begin, students enrolled in these programs receive a CD-ROM containing the applications and the tutorials for installation and use of the applications they will be using in the course. This ensures that all students will have the same versions of applications needed for the course at the time they start, avoiding delays in the download of the application via modem, or different versions of the software. Students will also be able to install and use them. If they encounter some difficulty in this process, a tech support group will be there to walk students through these steps as part of the orientation.

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yet continue to include student and facilitator exceptions. The article called Lessons in Cyber Space Classroom by Rene M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, says that student orientations for online classroom environment should not only include how to use the online program, but the expectations of the student participation and expectation of how the instructor is going to facilitate (p 3). Otherwise without setting up these expectation it would be assumed the students simply knows how to learn online. The Southwest Wisconsin Technical College (SWTC) found that as an institution that offers a considerable amount of online distance education for students, supporting students with online orientation and ongoing technical assistance is important for student success. Program administrators found that: distance education must consider providing online student orientation programs—including an assessment of students’technical skills with software, hardware, Internet navigation, e-mail functions, and word processing. And they need to offer remediation if necessary. (Gaide, 2005 p. 4) SWTC also found that in particular online students should “understand the navigational structure and functionality of the online learning interface” (Gaide, 2005, p. 4). Finally, SWTC supports the notion that learning institutions should offer a technical support system and ideally one that had live personal contact and interaction with students. Zhang, (2005) investigated distance learning variables and their possible contributions to successful distance learning receptivity. Zhang found that technology orientation is a necessity in increasing students’ distance learning receptivity (p. 45). Vafa, (2002) suggested (as cited by Zhang 2005) that there is a need for educational researchers to better understand the student population who are taking distance education courses.

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Zhang, also cites Joy & Garcia (2003) in listing the importance of educational research in the comparison of variables that impact student success in distance education. They list variables, such as, prior knowledge, ability, learning style, media familiarity of the participants, teacher effects, time of task, and instructional methods (Zhang, 2005, p. 45).

Summary The literature review exposed several factors of teaching online courses that affected by an institution’s orientation materials. First, orientation packages are an expectation of students whether they are taking courses online or in a traditional face-to-face classroom. And, there are specific materials anticipated in such packages. Specifically, students are looking for information regarding the course itself (i.e., course syllabi, expectations, and rigor and time commitments. They expect to see contact information for the book store, instructor, and in the case of online courses, help desk and technical contact information. Online courses have a few unique orientation demands over and above those already discussed. For example, student technology competencies (i.e., skills needed to function well in the online environment) are anticipated. Username and password guidelines are probable items of orientation as well as a familiarization with the learning platform that will be used. Online learners expect the orientation materials to be accurate (does it agree with the course syllabus), reflecting the reality of the course once it starts. Ease of understanding, timeliness, and usefulness describe the best orientation materials. It appears from the literature that the media of the materials (hard copy sent as an email attachment, phone call, snail mail, etc.) is unimportant. Each of these factors gleaned from the literature will be addressed in the questions of the surveyed provided to the provider and member

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schools and a sample of students who completed OCICU courses.

Table 1. List of factors examined Bookstore Link Term calendar

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

Course Syllabus

Survey Instrument

Information on the platform used (e.g. Blackboard)

Members of the research team compiled a list of factors that were to be evaluated using surveys. Three members of the team each selected a specific target group for evaluation: member schools, provider schools, and students who completed an OCICU-sponsored course. Using many, if not all, of the factors presented in the review of the literature (See Table 1), the team members composed their surveys, refined the items, and presented a draft of the surveys to other members of the team for refinements. Survey instruments are available in Appendices A – C.

Help Desk/ Technical contact information

Expectations for course rigor and/or time commitment Username and password to log into the course Student technical competencies needed Student content information Delivery mode of the orientation information Help Desk Vendor technical support Uniqueness of the orientation package Registration or enrollment policies Qualifiers for taking an OCICU course Ease and relevance of the orientation package Instructional CD/DVD delivery

Investigation Conduct

Results from Provider Survey

OCICU provided participant email addresses for the three surveys. Each team member was permitted to use whatever survey platform was most familiar (most chose Survey Monkey). An email request for participation was prepared by the principal investigator and the links to the respective surveys sent on January 2008.

With only half the number of provider schools responding, the results of the survey must be couched in terms of trends and possibilities rather than hard recommendations. Still, some interesting notes are derived from this first effort.

FINDINGS AND RESULTS OF THE STUDY Participation from provider schools was 50 percent (3 of 6 responded); member schools had a response rate of only 13 of 64 institutions responding (20%). The student response rate was estimated at 7.2% (40 of 550 email invitations). Participation for this first round of investigative research was acceptable but needs emphasis to ensure that the results are generalizable throughout the OCICU community.

Question 2 Not every provider school had an orientation package. Of the schools responding, two offered a package; one did not. This data was updated at the 2008 OCICU Annual Provider Conference. It was further determined that four of the six provider schools did offer an orientation package; two did not.

Question 3 Those schools that do provide an orientation package are triggered by registration and sent either upon registration or shortly thereafter. At

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the 2008 OCICU Annual Provider Conference, it was further determined that the four provider schools that offered an orientation package did so upon registration.

Question 4 Orientation information is delivered by email. One school provides a website link for their information. At the 2008 OCICU Annual Provider Conference, it was further determined that three of the provider schools that offered an orientation package delivered the package via email; the other was delivered via regular mail.

Question 5 Some of the most common elements of orientation packages include: bookstore links, course expectations, platform information, username and password, and help desk/ contact numbers. At the 2008 OCICU Annual Provider Conference, it was further determined that the four provider schools that offered an orientation package contained information consistent with the elements identified.

Question 6 All provider schools were diligent in updating their orientation package at least every six months. Again, it was further determined at the conference that all provider schools updated their orientation packages at least annually.

Summary Of the provider schools who responded (as well as those added later in a personal interview during the 2008 OCICU Annual Provider Conference), orientation materials seem fairly consistent. Most providers send a package to students at the time of registration either as an email attachment, a link to their web site, or by snail mail. The respond-

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ing schools included in their packages information about their bookstore, course expectations, course platform, username and password, and help desk contact information. Schools update their packages often.

Results from Member Surveys The member schools response rate of 20 percent greatly diminished the ability of this investigation to generalize to this population of 64 institutions. Still, the results are valuable new information seen from the perspective of the “middle man” customers. And, since these institutions are the gobetween matching provider schools with students, care will be taken during the review of the results to identify valid findings versus suppositions and non-validated conclusions.

Question 1 Certainly, the expectations from students mandate that member institutions provide them with orientation packages; all but one responding member school sent an orientation package.

Question 2 Of the 12 institutions that provided packages, two had unique packages targeting their institutions, leaving the other provider schools represented by a single common package of materials. Since the two institutions account for the majority of student registration, this was found to be an important consideration for other provider schools.

Question 3 From the results, it appears that email is the media of choice for all member schools in the distribution of orientation materials. Web links and personal contacts are also used with phone calls and snail mail as well.

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

Question 6

Question 2

A number of significant qualifiers were included in member school orientation materials. In addition to minimum class status, institutions also added the following to their packages: matriculation and welcoming information; student status (e.g, accelerated, graduate, etc.); technical competency; advisor notification; campus services; and, personal welcome by department chair/general education director.

Students consistently agreed with the media engaged to distribute the orientation information. Most (68.4%) received their materials via email; 23.7% via regular mail. A few students were contacted by phone or one-on-one. Another 21.1% of the students received their orientation via “other” means that included course website or a link to the bookstore or demo course.

Question 7 In addition, orientation materials from member schools included course platform information and bookstore links as well as other less frequent contents such as term calendars, help desk contact information, and username and login information. Finally, some member schools included course syllabi, course content information, course expectations and time commitments, and deadline information.

Question 3 Parallel with the other two surveys, students were asked to identify critical elements of the orientation package. Of all the elements listed in the survey instrument, username and password and help desk information topped the list and technical competencies, course content, and syllabus at the bottom.

Question 4

Forty students completed the survey for a 7.2 percent response rate. Again, it is obvious that a better response would produce more generalizable findings. For this paper, the following results were identified.

From the results of the student survey, most students found the orientation materials to be consistent with the course. Some 86.1% of the respondents gave this question an affirmative response. Of those that responded negatively, the reasons included no course information provided, few specifics, and objectives and grade evaluations were not clearly written.

Question 1

Question 5

Although a majority of the member schools claimed to have an orientation package for their OCICU students, only half (50%) of the student respondents claimed to have received one of these packages. Additional research is necessary to determine the disconnect between these two statistics.

Some 78.4% of the replies to this question confirmed that the orientation materials matched the course syllabus. Of the 21.6% negative responses, the chief reasons offered were that the orientation materials were limited to using the online links within the course to upload assignments, email, and other technical matters; materials did not include syllabus; and, only specifics provided were the start day and login information.

Results from Student Survey

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Question 6 Orientation materials received positive ratings from a majority of respondents in the areas of understanding, timeliness, and usefulness. No seriously negative ratings (i.e., 1 out of 5) were received. Understanding (75.0%) and Timeliness (75.0%) were rated highest with Usefulness (72.2%) close behind.

Question 7 Most of the comments were negative but not hostile. A few of the students identified parts of the orientation process that were particularly well done.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RESULTS OF THE STUDY After reviewing the surveys completed by past and present OCICU students, results showed that only about 50% of the students received an orientation package at all. Through reflection on the provider institutions survey, it was noticed that these schools are claiming that 92% are sending out orientation materials to students. There is a conflict here in regards to what the students are saying about receipt of orientation materials versus what the schools are saying about sending this information out to students. Regardless of the situation, it is pertinent that 100% of these schools need to be sending out orientation materials. The results from both groups, students and provider schools, show that this is not happening. In addition, of the students that did receive an orientation package, it was not immediately upon registration but usually shortly before the course begins.   Through the responses on the provider institution surveys it was found that 3/4 of the institutions do not send their orientation materials until shortly before the course starts.  But 1/4 send the materials out immediately upon registration,

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which most appropriate, giving students time to familiarize themselves with the materials. An additional finding that was discovered through the member institution surveys is that these institutions are updating their orientation materials frequently.  100% said they updated the materials within the last 6 months.  As a result of the frequent changes in technology, it is a great positive that these schools are constantly updating their orientation materials. This way the students are getting the most accurate information possible each semester. Also, throughout the survey results from the students, provider institutions, and member institutions, there are a high percentage of respondents that said the institutions did not provide information about the time and rigor commitment of the courses.  This is an extremely important for the student’s to be aware of in order to be successful. Prior to beginning a course, students need to decide whether they are able to commit to this type of course and the time and workload required to ensure success.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND PROPOSED FOLLOW-UP INVESTIGATIONS

Recommendations. Based on the findings and analysis of the provider and member schools and the students participating in this study, the following recommendations pertaining specifically to orientation materials are offered for consideration: 1.

2.

Orientation materials should be delivered to students via email at a minimum. It is also recommended that provider and member schools consider establishing a web site specifically to orient prospective students to their available courses. The course syllabus should be included in every orientation package that contains

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

3.

4.

5.

specific course content information such as grading policies, course rigor (work and time commitments expected), information on the platform to be used, and instructor contact information. Each provider school is encouraged to compose its own orientation package and provide that package to member school for distribution either with their own materials or as stand-alone packages to prospective students. Each orientation package should be reviewed at least every six months for ease of understanding, timeliness and currency of the information, and usefulness of the information – especially prior to the start of the course. All orientation materials should include, at a minimum, the following information: Bookstore Link Course Syllabus Username and password to log into the course Technical contact information Student technical competencies needed

Proposed Follow-Up Investigations From the survey results, additional research questions have been formulated and are offered for further consideration: 1.

2.

3. 4.

What is the extent of help desk support (hours of operation, toll-free access, web access, number of technicians, etc.) provided to online students? With respect to the delivery modes for orientation materials, who makes the phone calls, sends the emails, or manages the web pages? What programs of study represent the majority of students enrolled in our courses? Why was there such a disparity between provider and member schools who said

they distributed orientation packages and students who said they did/ did not receive them?

REFERENCES Breivik, P. (9). Students learning in the Information Age. Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Education/Oryx Press. Carnevale, D. (2000, January 20). A “boot camp” proves helpful to new online students [Online document]. Chronicle of Higher Education. Available: www.chronicle.com/2000/01 /200001200lu.html. Gaide, S. (2005, August, 15). Seven steps to meeting the technical needs of online students. Tech Support Distance Education Report, pp. 4-5. Gaskell, A. (2006).Open Learning Vol. 21, No. 2, June 2006, pp. 95–98 EDITORIAL Rethinking access, success and student retention in Open and Distance Learning ISSN 0268– 0513 (print)/ISSN 1469–9958 (online)/06/020095–04 © 2006 The Open University DOI: 10.1080/02680510600712997 Nash, R. D. Course Completion Rates Among Distance Learners: Identifying Possible Methods to Improve Retention [computer file]. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration v. 8 no. 4 (Winter 2005). http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb. com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b17 90e0ff269aeaf54d049915a565d66d7fc81fd374e2 89a1c56ec40fd819b04451440&fmt=C Palloff, Ph.D., Rena and Pratt, Ph.D. Keith  (2001) Lessons in Cyber Space Classroom. Retrieved January 15, 2008, from The University of Wisconsin-Extension, website: \www.uwex.edu/disted/ conference/Resource_library/proceedings/01_20. pdf:  The Board of Regents of the University or Wisconsin System.

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Rivers, J. (Ed.) (2005) Supporting students in tertiary study: a summary of a synthesis of research on the impact of student support services on student outcomes in undergraduate tertiary education, New Zealand, Ministry of Education. Available online at: http://www.minedu.govt. nz/goto/UgradStudOutcomesRpt (accessed 24 February 2006). Robinson, D., Burns, C, & Gaw, K. (1996). Orientation programs: A foundation for student learning and success. New Directions for Student Services, 75, 55-68. (ERIC No. EJ 546 999)

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Scagnoli, N. I. (2001). Student Orientations for Online Programs. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Fall2001, Vol. 34 Issue 1, p19-27, 9p; (AN 16810680) Yorke, M. (2004) Retention, persistence and success in on-campus higher education, and their enhancement in open and distance learning, Open Learning, 19(1), 19–32. Zhang, Y. ( 2005). Distance learning receptivity are they ready yet? The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6(1), 45-53.

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

APPENDIX A: PROVIDER SCHOOL SURVEY Q1. Please complete the demographic data below Name Company Address Address 2 City/Town State Zip code Country Email address Phone number Q2. Do you have an orientation package that you require students to complete prior to taking an online course through the OCICU? Yes

2

66.7%

No

1

33.3%

Immediately upon registration

1

33.3%

Shortly before the course starts

0

Other a. No orientation package

2

66.7%

email

3

100%

website link

1

33.3%

1

33.3%

Bookstore Link

3

100%

Term calendar

1

33.3%

Course Syllabus

0

Expectations for course rigor and/or time commitment

1

33.3%

Information on the platform used (e.g. Blackboard)

2

66.7%

Username and password to log into the course

2

66.7%

Help Desk/ Technical contact information

2

66.7%

Student technical competencies needed

1

33.3%

Student content information

1

33.3%

Q3. When do you send the orientation material?

b. After each registration Q4. How do you deliver the orientation information? (Please check all that apply) one-on-one phone call

mail Other a. No orientation package Q5. Does your orientation package contain the following? (Please check all that apply)

continued on following page

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Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

Q6. When was the online orientation materials that you provide students last updated? 3

100%

Yes school help desk

3

100%

Yes use the platform vendors technical support

1

33.3%

1

33.3%

Via an email to a help desk attendant

2

100%

Via phone number to a help desk attendant

2

100%

Other

1

33.3%

Blackboard

2

66.7%

eCollege

0

WebCT

1

0-6 months 6-12 months 12+ months Q7. Do you have an ongoing mechanism to answer student questions about taking an online course, such as, a help desk?

No Other

a. Students are provided help desk information as well as my contact information.

Q8. If you offer an ongoing mechanism to answer student questions, how is it offered?

a. Students are provided help desk information as well as my contact information.

Q9. What platform does your school use for online course offerings? (Please check all that apply)

Q10. Please add any additional information that you think is relevant to this research survey. No additional comments provided

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33.3%

Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

APPENDIX B: MEMBER SCHOOL SURVEY 1. As a member institution do you have an orientation package for students who take OCICU online courses? Yes

12

92.3%

No

1

7.7%

Orientation package is not unique

8

61.5%

Regis University

4

30.8%

St. Leo

3

23.1%

Phone call

5

38.5%

One on one

6

46.2%

Mail

3

23.1%

Email

11

84.6%

Web link

6

46.2%

Yes

7

53.8%

No

2

46.2%

Yes

10

76.9%

No

3

23.1%

1

7.7%

1

7.7%

2. If you do have a student orientation package; is it unique to any of the following provider schools? (Check as many as apply)

Robert Morris University Seton Hill University Southern New Hampshire University University of Saint Francis University of the Incarnate Word 3. How do you deliver the OCICU orientation materials to the students? (Check as many as apply)

4. Does the orientation package match the OCICU courses with your program of study?

5. Does the orientation material include registration or enrollment policies and procedures?

6. Does the orientation material include qualifiers for taking an OCICU course? Please clarify what standards your school requires. None Minimum Class Status Minimum Credit Hours GPA requirements

continued on following page

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Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

11

84.6%

Term Calendar

9

69.2%

Course Syllabi

1

7.7%

Platform Information

10

76.9%

Help Desk/ Tech Contact Information

9

69.2%

Student technical competencies

10

76.9%

Student content information

4

30.8%

Instructional CD/DVD

0

0

Bookstore link

10

76.9%

User name & password login

8

61.5%

Expectations of course rigor & time commitments

5

38.5%

Other (please specify)

1

7.7%

Other a. Matriculation into a specific program (e.g., evening or fine arts program) b. Must be an adult student, accelerated student, graduate student c. Technical competency d. Advisor notification/ approval e. Limited to 18 credits f. No available on-campus options g. Maximum enrollment of 3 students h. Approved by department chair and/ or general education director

7. What are the contents of your orientation package? Please check as many as apply:

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Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

APPENDIX C: STUDENT SURVEY 1. Did you receive an orientation package from your home institution about your online courses? Yes

20

50.0%

No

20

50.0%

Phone Call

2

5.3%

One-on-one

1

2.6%

Mail

9

23.7%

Email

26

68.4%

Other (please specify)

8

21.1%

Bookstore link

33

86.8%

Term calendar

22

57.9%

Course syllabus

15

39.5%

Information on the platform used (e.g., Blackboard, eCollege, etc.)

24

63.2%

Expectations for course rigor and/or time commitment

19

50.0%

Username and password to log into the course

28

73.7%

Help Desk/Technical contact information

24

63.2%

Student technical competencies needed

15

39.5%

Student content information

17

44.7%

Other (please specify)

6

15.8%

Yes

31

86.1%

No (please specify)

5

13.9%

Yes

29

78.4%

No (please specify)

8

21.6%

Understanding (Rec’d 5 or 4 ratings)

27

75.0%

Timeliness (Rec’d 5 or 4 ratings)

27

75.0%

Usefulness (Rec’d 5 or 4 ratings)

26

72.2%

2. How did you receive the orientation information? (select all that apply)

3. Did your orientation materials include the following? (Select all that apply)

4. Did the orientation materials agree with the reality of the course once it started?

5. Did the orientation materials match with the online course syllabus?

6. Rate the material received for ease and relevance. (5-most positive experience, 1 -least positive experience)

continued on following page

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Do Orientation Materials Help Students Successfully Complete Online Courses?

7. Please add any additional comments about the orientation of your OCICU online course you feel would be helpful. a.

There were some problems with the correlation of course numbers that caused some minor confusion.

b.

The day my class was supposed to start, I had to email/call around to find out how to get in the course--never received that info. I am now on my second class, and I did receive the info, but it was wrong (if you took a class previously, you use the same user id/password for subsequent classes--but the instructions gave my original password).

c.

I did have difficulty at the beginning getting onto the web site, but once I did, I had no problems, as I had had an on-line class from another institute. I would take another on-line class again, if needed. I would, however, like to see the instructor, after each week, evaluate the work completed - this would help students to see if their work is sufficient.

d.

The course taken was very well done

e.

did have to be extremely diligent to receive the information in a timely manner. With the registrars help, I had all the information in time to practice on the tutorial (Orientation site). The process was very useful.

f.

It was very helpful getting my user name and password and help desk info, but it had no class info, but orientation does not need that, it should be general and apply to all classes.

g.

The only (minor) complaint I had was that they didn’t release the syllabus until a few days before the class started. Had to hurry to order the book online. Otherwise, everything was laid out clearly and I thought the “pre-course” in how to use the interface, etc. was extremely helpful.

h.

Not having received an “orientation packet” I was a little freaked out at the idea of doing an online course. Once I received my username and password, I knew I had to go to the website and orient myself or I would be setting myself up for failure. I printed out the material from the site and followed the instructions.

i.

I don’t remember receiving any orientation things for my online classes. I did take the orientation ‘class’ and ‘overview’ for it, which really helped though.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, Vol. 5, Issue 2, edited by L. Tomei, pp. 73-89, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.15

Did We Become a Community? Multiple Methods for Identifying Community and Its Constituent Elements in Formal Online Learning Environments Richard A. Schwier University of Saskatchewan, Canada Ben K. Daniel University of Saskatchewan, Canada

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

To understand the nature of formal virtual learning communities in higher education, we are employing a variety of user-centered evaluation approaches to examine methods for determining whether a community exists, and if it does, to isolate and understand interactions among its constituent elements, and ultimately to build a model of formal virtual learning communities. This chapter presents the methods we are employing to answer these seemingly simple questions, including user perceptions of community (Sense of Community Index, Classroom Community Scale), interaction analysis (density, reciprocity), content analysis (transcript analysis, interviews, focus groups), paired-comparison analysis (Thurstone scaling), and community modeling techniques (Bayesian Belief Network analysis).

This chapter grew out of a growing concern we had about whether “community” was a useful metaphor for understanding online learning environments, and whether there was any precision in the application of the metaphor. It seems as though the label of learning community is used widely and indiscriminately to describe a variety of online learning environments, from rigid prescribed online classrooms to completely voluntary chatrooms. In addition, while there have been a number of solid and valuable contributions to methods for evaluating online learning environments, they necessarily focus very sharply on specific perspectives of community such as overall user perceptions of community (e.g., Chavis & Wandersman, 1990; Rovai & Jordan, 2004), content analysis of transcripts (e.g., Jeong, 2004;

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Did We Become a Community?

Figure 1. Model of virtual learning community from Schwier (2001)

Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 2001), measures of interaction (Fahy, Crawford, & Ally, 2001; Prammanee, Chapter XIV, this volume), or reports of experiences and difficulties by participants and instructors (e.g., Dykes & Schwier, 2003; Murphy & Coleman, 2004). While each of these approaches provides a useful lens into the operation of an online learning environment, none provides a complete picture of how online learning communities operate. We sensed that these approaches could be used in concert with others to address the questions of whether online communities exist, what their constituent parts are, and how these elements interact. Ultimately, we hope to create a method of modeling formal online learning communities that is drawn from experience, and robust enough to be adapted to a range of online learning communities. The notion of using community as a framework for understanding group learning is largely drawn from social learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978; Wenger, 1998). Learning is proposed to be occurring in all kinds of communities, formal or informal, physical or virtual (Wenger, 1998; Schwier, 2001). Currently, virtual learning communities are gaining wider recognition among researchers as vehicles for knowledge creation and transformation (Daniel, Schwier, & McCalla, 2003; Daniel, Schwier & Ross, 2005; Paloff & Pratt, 1999; Preece, 2000; 2002). Despite

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this growing interest, there are limited theories informing our understanding of what comprises community. In addition, the over-reliance by researchers on transcript analysis to the exclusion of other methods of evaluation results in a limited lens through which to view community. We contend that community can be best understood through the members of the community, and more specifically through a combined analysis of their perceptions, interactions, and artifacts, and by using models to interpret the interactions among emergent community variables. Our analysis was initially informed by a model of virtual learning communities (VLCs) proposed by Schwier (2001) that includes catalysts, elements, and emphases of VLCs (see Figure 1). The purpose was not to validate the model, but to use the elements proposed in it as a starting point for understanding the nature of community that developed in the formal learning environments we observed. Ultimately, our goal is to build a new model of formal VLCs that grows out of practice and the comprehensive observation and analysis of online learning environments. In this chapter, we will use preliminary data to illustrate the procedures we are using, but it is premature to draw firm conclusions from the data at this point; analysis is at an early stage, and we are using the data to make sense of the methods we are employing.

Did We Become a Community?

Table 1. Questions and associated methods of analysis for examining elements of community in online learning environments Intention of Analysis Identifying a sense of community: Did participants develop a sense of community? Did the group patterns of interaction suggest that a community might exist? Isolating characteristics of community: What characteristics of the online learning communities were manifest in the groups? Comparing characteristics of community: What was the relative importance of each community characteristic? Modeling community: How can the observed community characteristics be used to model the relationships among and influence of significant elements on community?

So this chapter proposes and describes a set of approaches that can be used to measure and understand the characteristics of community. The categories of analysis include identifying a sense of community, isolating characteristics of community, comparing characteristics of community, and modeling community. There is an intentional “flow” to the analysis and the combination of methods described here, and we have attempted to map the methods of analysis we employed onto the categories of analysis we intended to conduct (see Table 1). First, we wanted to employ a measure of the perceived existence of community by participants in the community. Our contention is that summative judgments by participants, however flawed and limited, provided an important initial perspective on the question. Then, we turn our attention to isolating characteristics of community, and once characteristics are identified, we use paired comparison techniques to determine the relative importance of the various characteristics. Finally, we attempt to build a model from the data—one that not only represents the interrelationships among variables, but that can also be used to project the effect on

Method of Analysis -Sense of community indices -Density and intensity of peripheral participation -Transcript analysis of online discussions, chat sessions, and e-mail -Frequency count of characteristics -Interviews with participants -Thurstone paired comparison analysis

-Bayesian belief network

the community when the constituent elements are changed. Examples of these analyses draw from three years of online communication among cohorts of graduate students in educational communications and technology as they participated in seminars on the foundations of educational technology and instructional design. Each course spanned an entire semester or academic year. The courses were small graduate seminars with enrollments from six to thirteen students, and each class met primarily online, but with monthly group meetings. While most students were able to attend the group meetings regularly, every cohort had members who participated exclusively or mostly from a distance. Given the blended nature of all of the courses, we confine our conclusions to similar environments, and acknowledge that these results cannot be generalized to environments that are entirely online or entirely face-to-face. In the remainder of this chapter, we elaborate on the approaches we used to address each of the four categories and questions. Each approach includes a discussion of the procedure, an example of its application from our data, and a description of its strengths and weaknesses.

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Did We Become a Community?

Table 2. T-test of “Sense of Community Index” scores at the beginning and end of the course T-Test: Two-Samples Assuming Equal Variances Mean 41.70 48.40 Variance 31.12 22.04 Observations 10.00 10.00 Pooled Variance 26.58 df 18.00 t Stat -2.91 P(T<=t) one-tail 0.005

Sense of Community Indices The first challenge we faced was to obtain some indication that the groups we were observing could be characterized as communities. Did participants consider their groups “communities,” and did the groups exhibit patterns of communication that suggested a community might exist?

Sense of Community Index As a rough measure of sense of community, we employed the “Sense of Community Index” (Chavis, n.d.), a classic instrument employed broadly in the field of community psychology (Chavis & Wandersman, 1990; Chipuer & Pretty, 1999; Obst & White, 2004) and revised to examine online learning communities (Brook & Oliver, Chapter XV, this volume). The Sense of Community Index (SCI) measures an individual’s psychological sense of community. The survey is comprised of 12 true/false items that measure four dimensions of the overall construct: membership, influence, reinforcement of needs, and shared emotional connection. Some attention has been given to revising the dimensions of the construct (Chipuer & Pretty, 2004), but normative data were not available beyond reliability estimates (Chronbach’s alpha = .72 and .78) provided in two investigations (Pretty, 1990). We used the index for the first time in the most recent group studied, so parallel data are

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not available for groups from previous years. We administered the SCI at the beginning and end of a year-long course, and ran a simple t-test on the data to see if there was any change in measures of the group’s sense of community by the end of the course (see Table 2). The results of the t-test indicated that there was significant positive growth in the SCI scores from the beginning to the end of the course (p< .01). Given the questionable reliability of the SCI, despite its long use, we are have begun using the Classroom Community Scale (CCS) proposed by Rovai and Jordan (2004) as a second measure. The CCS is similar in format and intent to the Sense of Community Index, but it boasts a higher reliability estimate for the full scale (Chronbach’s alpha = .93) and the subscales (connectedness = .92; learning = .87).

Patterns of Prescribed and Peripheral Interaction Fahy et al. (2001) proposed several useful measures of describing interaction that they called collectively the Transcript Analysis Tool (TAT). The TAT includes methods of measuring density, intensity, and persistence of interactions in transcripts of online discussions. We drew on their recommendations and extended some of them to analyze interactions in our data, particularly transcripts of asynchronous discussions.

Did We Become a Community?

Density Fahy et al.’s (2001) definition of density was “the ratio of the actual number of connections observed, to the total potential number of possible connections.” It is calculated by using the following formula: Density = 2a/N(N-1), where “a” is the number of observed interactions between participants, and “N” is the total number of participants. Density is a measure of how connected individuals are to others in a group, and the idea is that a higher degree of connection is a positive indicator of community. Fahy et al. (2001) caution that the measure of density is sensitive to the size of the network, so larger groups will likely exhibit lower density ratios than will smaller groups. For our own calculations, we included only peripheral (voluntary or additional) communications between people by eliminating all instances of required postings and responses. We felt that peripheral interaction would provide a stronger measure of community, given that required communications among students might inflate the actual density value. In the case of one of our groups, we discovered a density ratio of .78, suggesting that 78% of the possible connections were made. Density = 2(122)/13(12) = .782 Although there are no baseline data to make judgments about the existence of community, this level of density did seem to suggest a strong level of connection among participants.

Intensity Fahy et al. (2001) also recommend using measures of intensity to determine whether participants are authentically engaged with each other, not merely carrying out their responsibilities in a course. They argue that it is a useful measure of involvement because it involves measures of

persistence and dedication to being connected to others in the group. One measure of intensity is “levels of participation,” or the degree to which the number of postings observed in a group exceeds the number of required postings. In this case, students were required to make 490 postings as part of the course requirements, and they actually made 858 postings, yielding a level of participation ratio of 1.75. While this is a useful measure, it is inflated by the number of responses that were quick, brief, and relatively thoughtless replies to postings, such as, “Yes, I agree with you. Good point.” It was also not useful for a group we studied that created and maintained its own community without the direction of the instructor. In this case, the course was problem based and the students were engaged, as a team, in solving an authentic problem with an actual client. They posted more than 800 messages, often with thread lengths exceeding 20 and without the direct intervention of the instructor. There is little doubt that an “intense” community was at play, but “levels of participation” was not a useful measure of that intensity. Another measure of intensity employed by Fahy et al. (2001) is persistence, or the level to which participants pursue topics. Persistence is operationalized by measuring the number of levels of communication in a particular discussion thread from the first posting to the last. We chose not to employ a measure of persistence at this stage of analysis, as we felt it was a stronger measure of engagement of participants with topics than necessarily engagement with each other. We may revisit this decision in subsequent analyses.

Reciprocity A particularly important TAT measure for the purpose of understanding community was “S-R ratio,” a formula to measure the parity of communication among participants. We referred to this as a measure of “reciprocity,” and we felt that truly engaged groups who form communities

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Did We Become a Community?

Table 3. Table of messages sent and received within a group, and resultant reciprocity ratios

will exhibit high degrees of reciprocity. Given its importance to our investigation, we will describe our analysis in somewhat more detail, and also describe a few approaches we used to augment the strategy. Once again, we employed only peripheral communication to obtain a measure of the reciprocity of communication among the group. By peripheral interaction, we mean those interactions that took place outside of the required communications that were a part of the course. For this analysis we only included interactions that were not directed to the group. Any topics of messages were included, but in each case, the communication was directed to a particular person, instead of to the group or to nobody in particular. Peripheral interaction is one measure of voluntary interpersonal communication within the group, and we contend that it is a stronger indication of community than is required interaction. In one class, for example, the total number of postings was 858, but the number of peripheral messages was 368. Our assumption is that peripheral participation gives a more legitimate measure of social engagement and community involvement than does required participation. As an initial step in the analysis, we charted the number of peripheral messages sent and received among participants in the class (see Table

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3). The S/R ratio (sent to received messages) is an indication of the reciprocity of messaging within the group. Ratios approaching 1.0 indicate a high degree of reciprocity. Ratios considerably higher or lower than 1.0 indicate disparity in the communication. High numbers indicate that the individual was communicating to others, but not receiving as many communications in return. A low number indicates that a higher number of messages were received than were sent in response. It is our supposition that a healthy community exhibits a high amount of reciprocity among members of the group. As a second step in the reciprocity analysis, we illustrated the messages sent and received by drawing line graphs and sociograms of the interactions with each participant as the focal point of communication. For example, from the reciprocity data in Table 3, we concentrated on the interactions between the instructor and the students in one course, and generated a line graph and sociogram that illustrate the pattern of engagement with the students individually and collectively (see Figure 2). These two approaches to illustrating the same data offer unique perspectives. The sociogram is drawn by drawing a circle on a large piece of paper. Plotting the data starts at the outside and works toward the inside of the circle, starting with the student who received the fewest

Did We Become a Community?

Figure 2. Sociogram and line graph illustrations of patterns of peripheral interactions between the instructor and students

messages at the outside. Subsequent participants are located proportionally closer to the center of the circle, with the person receiving the most messages in the center. This procedure roughly represents the relative number of interactions among students as the distance between them. In the example illustrated in Figure 2, we have used line density to represent the relative density of interaction between two people, so as people interact more often, the lines become increasingly dense. As an alternative, and to increase precision, the total number of messages sent and received can be included next to the initials of each participant.

For Figure 2, we graphed the number of messages sent from the instructor to each student on the Y axis, and the messages sent to the instructor from each student on the X axis of the graph. The vector dividing the graph is the reciprocity line— the locations where messages to and from the instructor and students would be equal in number. For the group, as the distribution of points coagulates around the median, it suggests reciprocity of communication. Distribution of points above the median, such as we see here, indicates that the instructor sent more messages to students than he received from students. Is this an indication of voice, authority, favoritism, or disengagement?

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Did We Become a Community?

Were students reluctant to engage the instructor in conversation, or was the instructor trying to drive discussion? The illustrations are mute on these important points. It is necessary to read these messages in context to understand how they represent the relationships between the students and the instructor, so in order to understand the meaning of the pattern, we needed to review the patterns within the context of the conversations. But it is interesting to examine the pattern that emerges from the data, and as we examine the patterns of reciprocity in the group, we can use the analysis as an indication of how strong the mutual engagement was among participants in the community by taking each participant in turn and examining the reciprocity of that person’s engagement with other members of the group. For the purpose of analysis, we found that these two approaches, when used in concert, provided a useful way to think about the data we observed. First, the sociogram provided a graphic sense of distance among students in relation to the person who was the focal point (in this example, the instructor). It visually reinforced the apparent isolation of two members of the group (TC and DM had no peripheral interaction with the instructor), and it also underscored the dominant outflow of messages in this example. The line graph, on the other hand, provides a visual snapshot of reciprocity from the way messages cluster around the reciprocity vector. It also gives a sense of the distribution of the amount of communication across the group from the scatter of points across the area of the graph. If the points clustered somewhere close to the line and huddled together more closely, it suggests that peripheral communication within the group is balanced. While these are useful tools, they should not be used in isolation of the actual communications, and it is possible, even likely, to misinterpret the data if they are considered out of context. For example, a bullying instructor might browbeat students into responding to challenges, and while such a graph might indicate a high degree of reciprocity, there

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is the likelihood that this type of reciprocity would damage the sense of community shared by the group. Another caution is that these tools are not as precise as they might appear. While they are useful for conveying trends, there are no post-hoc methods for isolating significant differences.

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMUNITY Once we were satisfied that users felt a sense of community, and we examined patterns of their interactions to reinforce and qualify their perceptions, we wanted to investigate what the key features of that community might be. Beyond users’ sense of community, we wanted to know if there was any evidence of community manifest in the artifacts of interaction in the community, and then to confirm our observations with participants through follow-up interviews and focus group sessions. In order to get a sense of what were the manifest characteristics of online learning communities, we turned our attention to transcript analysis, a compelling source of data because we had a relatively complete and comprehensive verbatim record of interactions among the students and the instructor.

Content Analysis Transcripts of all asynchronous and synchronous events, as well as transcripts of interviews and focus group sessions, were analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1997) and Atlas ti™ software, with the purpose of extending, refining, and/or altering our understanding of the role played by online discussion in the development of virtual communities. One researcher coded transcripts, and a second researcher reviewed the coding scheme as it emerged. Inter-coder reliability estimates were not calculated; however codes were subjected to negotiation between researchers. The unit of

Did We Become a Community?

analysis employed was “unit of meaning,” which seemed reasonable initially, but was later subject to criticisms of its reliability and labor intensiveness by other researchers. In retrospect, we would have used sentences or messages as the units of analysis, but given our intention to surface elements of community, the meaning unit of analysis was acceptable, albeit very time consuming to perform. While an “emergent fit” strategy was used in this study, our model of community (see Figure 1) constituted a starting place. Therefore, as data were coded, the emerging themes were compared and contrasted with the model using constant comparative analysis, and caution was taken to ensure that theoretical views were not imposed on the data. Ultimately, a preliminary level of analysis was used to select characteristics we would investigate further—frequency counts of characteristics within transcripts. The data were rich, but in order to focus the remainder of our analysis, we needed to isolate those characteristics that were more prevalent than others, and simple frequencies afforded one convenient measure. Sources of data included transcripts of asynchronous discussions, transcripts of synchronous chat sessions, and e-mail correspondence that was copied to the instructor (private e-mail was excluded).

Interviews and Focus Groups These characteristics, and their relative frequencies, became one focus of interviews and focus groups so we could attempt to identify which were significant characteristics and which were trivial or insignificant by comparing them to characteristics that emerged from conversations we held with participants. Primary data from interviews and focus groups were gathered though semi-structured interviews, each of which lasted approximately one hour, and which were initially structured to address the sense of community, relationships within the community, and learning.

Participants were sent interview questions ahead of time, but they were not required to confine themselves to these questions, nor were they required to address all of them. Participants were encouraged to digress and to ignore questions that were not important to their experiences. The goal was to provide structure to verify and elaborate on known variables associated with online learning communities, but still promote each participant’s control over her/his own story. Interviews were conducted conversationally, and the intention was to explore the questions that had the most meaning to the participants, and that they were able to comment on with the most authority. In other words, we were more interested in the directions that the participants steered the conversations than we were in a prescribed set of questions. The interviews were very useful for refining and elaborating our understanding of characteristics we discovered in the transcript analyses. In fact, four additional key characteristics—trust, intensity, awareness, and reflection—were drawn primarily from the interviews and focus groups that were not immediately apparent in the transcripts of online conversations. The participants also identified how these characteristics, particularly awareness and trust, introduced a temporal and developmental theme that we feel is critical to understanding how communities form. From a methodological perspective, we found that these types of observations were often embedded in the stories of the participants about their experiences, and a narrative approach added a very rich layer of understanding to our other observations.

Comparison of Characteristics At this stage of the analysis, we had identified 15 characteristics of community that grew out of the theoretical model, from the analysis of interactions among participants, from a content analysis of transcripts of communication among

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Table 4. Characteristics of formal virtual learning communities and operational definitions drawn from models, interaction analysis, content analysis, and interviews Characteristic

Operational Definition

Awareness

Knowledge of people, tasks, environment—or some combination of these.

Social Protocols

Rules of engagement, acceptable and unacceptable ways of behaving in a community.

Historicity

Communities develop their own history and culture.

Identity

The boundaries of the community—its identity or recognized focus.

Mutuality Plurality Autonomy

Interdependence and reciprocity. Participants construct purposes, intentions, and the types of interaction. “Intermediate associations” such as families, churches, and other peripheral groups—other communities that individuals use to enrich the new community. Individuals have the capacity and authority to conduct discourse freely, or withdraw from discourse without penalty.

Participation

Social participation in the community, especially participation that sustains the community.

Trust

The level of certainty or confidence that one community member uses to assess the action of another member of the community.

Future

The sense that the community is moving in a direction, typically toward the future.

Technology

The role played by technology to facilitate or inhibit the growth of community.

Learning

Formal or informal, yet purposeful, learning in the community.

Reflection Intensity

Situating previous experiences or postings in current discussions, or grounding current discussions in previous events. Active engagement, open discourse, and a sense of importance or urgency in discussion, critique, and argumentation.

community participants, and from interviews and focus groups. We were also able to generate operational definitions of each of these characteristics (see Table 4). While the process to this point was disciplined at each step, the intention was to draw out characteristics that might be important in formal virtual learning communities; the purpose was not to validate or compare the relative significance of any of the characteristics. The next step in the process was to try to determine the relative importance of the characteristics that were drawn from these various sources. We had a good sense of what many of the characteristics were that comprised the communities we observed, but we did not have any reliable information about which characteristics were important, which were trivial, and which might be more important than others. To address this question, we developed a paired-comparison treatment that asked participants to compare each characteristic of a VLC to

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every other characteristic and choose the characteristic they believed was more important to the community (see Figure 3). Twenty-three students who had completed their coursework volunteered to participate in the study. The 14 characteristics were compared against each other, resulting in 91 paired-comparisons in the treatment. Authorware Professional™ was used to develop the treatment, and the treatment was administered on Windowsbased PC workstations. In the design of the treatment, care was taken to avoid response bias and contamination from fatigue by presenting each pair in random order and by alternating the upperlower orientation of each characteristic in relation to the characteristic against which it was being compared. After completing the comparisons, participants were asked to describe how they made their decisions generally, and if there were factors that influenced their decisions. The raw data collected were used to construct a Thurstone Scale (see Table 5 and Figure 4).

Did We Become a Community?

Figure 3. Example of screen from paired-comparison treatment

Table 5. Thurstone Scale rankings and scale points for each of the 14 VLC characteristics Characteristic Trust Learning Participation Mutuality Intensity Social Protocols Reflection Autonomy Awareness Identity Future Technology Historicity Plurality

Thurstone Scale Ranking 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Thurstone Scale Point 0.7341 0.5806 0.3182 0.2671 0.2425 0.1852 0.1523 0.0155 -0.0785 -0.1939 -0.2474 -0.5033 -0.7309 -0.7701

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Figure 4. Graphic interval representation of the Thurstone Scale points for the 14 VLC characteristics

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The Thurstone Scale is a common example of a differential scale, using paired comparisons to derive relative preferences among a set of items. Thurstone (1927) postulated that for each of the items being compared and among all subjects, a preference will exist, and that for each item the preference will be distributed normally around that item’s most frequent or modal response. A person’s preference for each item vs. every other item is obtained, and the more people that select one item of a pair over the other item, the greater the preference for, or perceived importance of, that item, and thus the greater its scale weight. Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment circumvents potential ceiling effect problems by forcing individuals to rank items two at a time rather than all at once (Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, 2005). Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment is able to transform rank order comparative judgments by individuals in a group to a single-groupcomposite interval scale. Binary or ordinal scale data can be turned into interval scale data, which can illustrate the relative distances between the objects that have been judged by participants. There are important practical reasons to employ the method. For one thing, the Thurstone scaling method does not assume that each stimulus always evokes the same discrimination for different individuals or even for the same individual at different times. Also, when comparing lists of complex characteristics, it is comparatively more accurate to ask individuals to rank order items than to ask for interval or ratio measures. In many cases, such as our study, the judgment we wish to solicit from an individual is a ranking (i.e., ordinal scale measurement) of individual items. A person can decide that one particular characteristic is more important than another one; however, it is much more difficult to consistently estimate how much more important a characteristic is from among a group of characteristics. A scaling method such as Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment can transform individual ranking judgments and pro-

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duce an interval scale rather than a rank-ordered scale, which allows the individuals to detect the extent to which certain characteristics are clearly distinct from other characteristics, and which are proximal more reliably. Merely providing an averaging of the ranking scale does not contribute this added insight to the group as a whole (Li, Cheng, Wang, Hiltz, & Turoff, 2001). So, in essence, Thurstone scaling graphically represents groups of comparative judgments linearly. It allows the researcher to convert paired comparisons into a graphical representation of distance between variables under study. In this study, each VLC characteristic was compared with the others in sequence, following procedures outlined by Misanchuk (1988). The data were then converted into a line drawing that depicted differences between elements along a line. Greater differences were shown spatially as larger distances between points on the line. The main advantage of Thurstone scaling is that it provides a method for representing distances meaningfully. Graphically, it is easy to describe the relative positions of the combined choices (Schwier & Misanchuk, 1997). At the same time Thurstone scaling is limited to description, as there are no known methods for testing whether points along the line are significantly different from each other statistically. One can describe points along the line as different from each other descriptively, but when points cluster, it is not reasonable to speak of them as significantly different from each other statistically. As a result of this analysis, we were able to obtain measures that could be used to understand the association and interplay of community characteristics in a VLC, and we could also use the Thurstone Scale points to assign weights to these characteristics when we attempted to construct a dynamic model of virtual learning communities. Reviewing the results, it is apparent that there are at least three clusters of characteristics. Trust and learning were considered by the participants to be the most important characteristics of a VLC.

Did We Become a Community?

A large cluster of characteristics gathered around the mean scale point, and while they differed from each other, we treated them as a group because of their central position relative to the other points. Technology, historicity, and plurality were ascribed much lower status than the other characteristics, and one might argue as a result that they should be eliminated from the model entirely. A review of the comments provided by participants gives a qualified view however. For example, when discussing the relative importance of technology, this was a typical response: “I also always chose Technology as my second choice because all of the other characteristics seemed more important in terms of building community. Yes the technology makes it possible but it is the vehicle...not the destination or goal.” In this case, it appears that technology was viewed primarily as a prerequisite condition for virtual communities to form. After reviewing comments, it was apparent that even those characteristics that were positioned at the low end of the Thurstone Scale still had a role to play in the construction of community, however marginal that influence might be. We were also reluctant to eliminate characteristics at this point in the research because we are still gathering primary data from new groups. Our confidence in the relative positions of these characteristics, and ultimately our judgments about their inclusion in a model of VLC, will grow as our analysis continues. At what point will we be satisfied that we have identified the important characteristics and measured their relative importance? Probably never, given that VLCs are dynamic environments that are also situated in particular learning contexts. But we will continue to gather data to develop and refine models, and our tools and the sophistication of our observations will mature over time too.

MODELING COMMUNITY A Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) is one of several techniques for building models. BBNs are graphs composed of nodes and directional arrows (Pearl, 1988). Nodes in BBNs represent variables, and the directed edges (arrows) between pairs of nodes indicate relationships between the variables. The nodes in a BBN are variables usually drawn as circles or ovals. The arrows between pairs of nodes that indicate relationships between the variables can be assigned different states, such as positive, null, or negative. A BBN is a mathematically rigorous way to model a complex environment, and it is flexible, able to mature as knowledge about the system grows, and computationally efficient (Druzdzel & Gaag, 2000; Rusell & Norvig, 1995). In Bayesian statistics, the expression of prior beliefs about a given situation (before collecting any data) is required. This degree of belief is normally expressed in terms of a probability distribution, and then Baye’s theorem is used to update the beliefs in light of the information provided by the data. BNs enable reasoning when there is uncertainty, and they combine the advantages of an intuitive visual representation with a sound mathematical basis in Bayesian probability. The use of a Bayesian network makes it possible to articulate experts’ beliefs about dependencies between different variables, and naturally and consistently propagate the impact of the evidence on probabilities of uncertain outcomes. The structure of a Bayesian network can also be viewed as a graphical, qualitative illustration of the interactions among a set of variables within a network. The interactions of the variables in a network model can be quantified to predict the consequences of observable behaviors in a model. Research suggests that BBN techniques have significant power to support the use of probabilistic inference to update and revise belief values (Pearl, 1998). They can readily permit qualitative inferences without the computational inefficiencies

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of traditional joint probability determinations (Niedermayer, 1998). The casual information encoded in BBN facilitates the analysis of actions, sequences of events, observations, consequences, and expected utility (Pearl, 1998).

Building the Bayesian Belief Network The first step in creating a BBN is to identify the key variables that represent a domain (Druzdzel & Gaag, 2000; Rusell & Norvig, 1995). The variables used to build the network here are based upon the results of the Thurstone analysis described previously in this chapter. The goal of using the BBN is to obtain measures that can be used to understand the critical casual relationships among the characteristics of a VLC. The variables identified by the participants and their relative locations along the scale were assigned weights based on both the Thurstone value and qualitative reasoning. For instance, observation of the Thurstone Scale suggests that there are at least three clusters of characteristics, where trust and learning were considered by the participants to be the most important characteristics of a VLC (see Table 4 for the variables used to build the BBN). The second step is to map out the variables into some structure based on logical and coherent qualitative reasoning. During the qualitative reasoning, causal relationships among the variables are conjured, resulting in a cyclical graph. For instance, in virtual learning communities, participation and learning are essentially mediated by technology (i.e., it is unimaginable to be able to learn online without any mediation of technology), and therefore, technology is assigned a strong positive (S+) influence on the level of participation. Similarly, participation can influence awareness in a strong and positive manner, which in turn can lead to the development of trusting relationships. Since awareness can contribute to both trust and distrust, the link influence is medium

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(M+). Furthermore, technology can influence awareness in a positive and strong manner (S+). For example, imagine a learning environment in which each individual has a profile (electronic portfolio) and the information is made available to others in the community; this can create sense of awareness about who is who, or who knows what, in that community. Similarly, technology may influence intensity in a weak positive manner (W+), since availability of technology alone does not guarantee that people will be actively engaged in discussions. Extending this type of qualitative reasoning resulted in the BBN shown in Figure 5. In the model, those nodes that contribute to higher nodes align themselves in “child” to “parent” relationships, where parent nodes are super-ordinate to child nodes. For example, trust is the child of mutuality, awareness, and intensity, which are in turn children of participation and technology (see Figure 5). The third step in building the BBN involves assigning initial probabilities to the network. In general, BBN initial probabilities can be obtained from domain experts, secondary statistics, or they can be taken from observations and subjective intuition. It is also possible that initial probabilities can be learned from raw data. In addition to learning prior probabilities, it is sometimes necessary to examine the structure of the network. In our case, the initial probabilities were assigned by examining the distances between the variables of virtual learning communities along the Thurstone Scale. This approach enables us to cluster those variables that were closely aligned on the Thurstone Scale. We have also introduced the degree of influence among the variables to qualitatively describe relationships among the variables.

Generating the Conditional Probability Table The initial conditional probabilities were also generated by examining qualitative descriptions of the influence between two or more variables

Did We Become a Community?

Figure 5. BBN representation of relationships among virtual learning community variables

and the strength of their relationships in the model (Daniel, Zapata-Revera, & McCalla, 2003; Daniel, McCalla, & Schwier, 2005). Each probability describes the strength of relationship. For instance, various degrees of influence among variables are represented by the letters S (strong), M (medium), and W (weak). The signs + and - represent positive and negative relationships. The probability values were obtained by adding weights to the values of the variables depending on the number of parents and the strength of the relationship between particular parents and children. For example, if there are positive relationships between two variables, the weights associated with each degree of influence are determined by establishing a threshold value associated with each degree of influence. The threshold values correspond to the highest probability value that a child could reach under a certain degree of influence from its parents; that is, assuming that participation and technology have positive and strong relationships with Awareness, evidence of good technology and high participation will result in a conditional probability value of 0.98 (i.e., Awareness=Exist). This value is obtained by subtracting a base value (1/number of parents0.5 in this case with two parents) from the threshold value associated to the degree of

influence (i.e., threshold value for strong = 0.98) and dividing the result by the number of parents (i.e., (0.98 - 0.5)/2 = 0.24). Table 6 lists threshold values and weights used in this example. The value α = 0.02 leaves some room for uncertainty when considering evidence coming from positive and strong relationships. This assumes that participation and technology have positive strong relationships with awareness, and there is evidence of positive participation and technology in a particular community. Given these assumptions, weights will be added to the conditional probability table of awareness every time participation = high or technology = good. For example, the conditional probability value associated with awareness given that there is evidence of participation = high, and technology = good is 0.98. This value is obtained by adding to the base value the weights associated with participation and technology (0.24 each). Table 7 shows a complete conditional probability table for this example. The calculation of the various states of the relationships among the three variables (awareness, participation, and technology) and their corresponding values used in Table 7 are given:

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Table 6. Threshold values and weights with two parents Degree of Influence

Thresholds

Weights

Strong

1-α = 1 - 0.02 = 0.98

(0.98-0.5) / 2 = 0.48 / 2 = 0.24

Medium

0.8

(0.8-0.5) / 2 =0.3 / 2 = 0.15

Weak

0.6

(0.6-0.5) / 2 =0.1 / 2 = 0.05

Table 7. Example of a conditional probability table for two parents with strong, positive relationships Participation Technology Awareness Exists Awareness Does Not Exist

High Good 0.98 0.02

P (Awareness= Exist | Participation = High & Technology = Good) = 0.5 + 0.24 + 0.24 = 0.98 P (Awareness= DoesNotExist| Participation = High & Technology = Good) = 1 - 0.98 = 0.02 P (Awareness= DoesNotExist | Participation = High & Technology = Bad) = 1 - 0.74 = 0.26 P (Awareness= Exist| Participation = Low & Technology = Good) = 0.5 + 0.24 = 0.74 P (Awareness= DoesNotExist | Participation = Low & Technology = Good) = 1 - 0.74 =0.26

Querying the Network Querying a BBN refers to the process of updating the conditional probability table and making inferences based on new evidence. One way of updating a BBN is to develop a detailed number of scenarios that can be used to query the model. A scenario refers to a written synopsis of inferences drawn from observed phenomenon or empirical data. Further, updating a BBN is an attempt to understand the statistical significance of various relationships among variables in a network. Based on the results of Thurstone scaling, we have observed a large cluster of variables around the mean scale point. Although they can be treated as a group because of their central position relative to the other points, it is difficult to tell their individual relative importance to others in the same cluster

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Bad 0.74 0.26

Low Good 0.74 0.26

Bad 0.5 0.5

or in other clusters in the VLC model. We build simple scenarios based on the results of Thurstone analysis to infer relative importance of individual variables in the network, and we can refer to the relative distances between variables to provide a quantitative measure of the differences. In one case, for example, we were interested in observing changes in the state of the variable learning as a result of changes in the state of the variable awareness. Since learning is a grandchild of awareness, and awareness is a parent of trust, and trust is a parent of learning, any changes in the value of awareness will naturally propagate to learning. Awareness is given a binary state (“exist” with a value 0.98 or “does not exist” with a value of 0.02). Imagine a scenario in a VLC where students are not aware of each other. This would mean the value of awareness is set at “does not exist” and assigned a probability of 0.02. Say we are interested in determining what effects low probability of awareness can have on learning. Querying the model with this information resulted in a high (learning is high) value of learning dropping to 0.14, and a low value of learning (learning is low) increasing to 0.85. Propagating backwards, it can be observed that the parents of awareness assume certain values. For instance, awareness has three parentsno autonomy, low participation, and bad technology.

Did We Become a Community?

Querying the BBN in this way offers a disciplined method of examining the cumulative effect of making changes anywhere in the network and also for speculating about how any particular change can alter the values of related variables. The BBN is still, at its core, a tool for speculation, but over time and as data are added to inform the variables and their interrelationships, the network can be “tuned” to provide robust and precise ways to make decisions about the design and operation of formal learning communities.

SUMMARY The central point of this chapter is that we need to use a variety of methods to analyze anything as complex as an online learning community. The methods we propose flow from definition to analysis to prediction, so they have some intuitive and practical appeal. But we must recognize that we are at the beginning of learning about how to understand online learning communities as organisms, and so we make no claims that these methods represent a definitive set of tools for that job. But regardless of the specific tools used to determine whether virtual communities exist, our experience has led us to a few key principles or ideas. First, considering the full cycle from definition to modeling is important, much of the research to date looks closely at a few variables in communities and much of the literature is speculative. We think that there is a need to isolate features of communities, try to determine their relative importance, and then build models that can be used to test inferences in new environments and inform design science in distance learning. However, we acknowledge that this type of cyclical investigation is difficult, labor intensive, and time consuming. The strategies we describe in this chapter are drawn from an array of options available to researchers and designers, and we use them more to illustrate the process than to advocate for

any particular tools. We did find that a combination of descriptive, qualitative, experimental, and inferential approaches provided us with the kind of precision and insight we wanted. Along the way, we have developed a hunger for replication and baseline data. We noticed that many very useful approaches, such as the Sense of Community Index and the TAT, would benefit from having many researchers use them to develop a body of comparative data in the literature over time. In addition, the Bayesian Belief Network approach introduced in this chapter can enable researchers to isolate the most important variables of virtual learning communities, given N-Case scenarios. This in turn will enable them to develop robust procedures and tools to enhance our understanding of virtual learning communities and support their development. But perhaps the most important thing we can do at this stage of development is to open a conversation about these important issues, and look for creative and imaginative answers.

ACkNOWLEDGMENTS The authors acknowledge and thank Heather Ross for her transcript analysis and associated contributions to the ideas offered in this chapter. This research is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

REFERENCES Chavis, D.M. (n.d.). The sense of community index. Retrieved August 31, 2005, from http://www. capablecommunity.com/pubs/SCIndex.PDF Chavis, D. M. et al. (1986). Sense of community through Brunswick’s lens: A first look. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 24-40.

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Chavis, D. M., & Wandersman A. (1990). Sense of community in the urban environment. A catalyst for participation and community development. American Journal of Community Psychology, 18, 55-81. Chipuer, H. M., & Pretty, G. M. H. (1999). A review of the sense of community index. Journal of Community Psychology, 27, 246-658. Daniel, B. K., McCalla, G. I., & Schwier, R. A. (2005, July 18-22). Data mining and modeling social capital in virtual learning communities. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 200208), Amsterdam. Daniel, B. K., Schwier, R. A., & McCalla, G. I. (2003). Social capital in virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 29(3), 113-139. Daniel, B. K., Schwier, R. A., & Ross, H. (2005). Intentional and incidental discourse variables in a virtual learning community. Proceedings of E-Learn 2005, Vancouver, British Columbia. Daniel, B. K., Zapata-Rivera, D. J., & McCalla, G. I. (2003). A Bayesian computational model of social capital in virtual communities. In M. Huysman, E. Wenger, & V. Wulf (Eds.), Communities and technologies (pp.287-305). London: Kluwer. Druzdzel, M. J., & Gaag, L. C (2000). Building probabilistic networks: “Where do the numbers come from?” Guest editor’s introduction. Data Engineering, 12(4), 481-486. Dykes, M. E., & Schwier, R. A. (2003). Content and community redux: Instructor and student interpretations of online communication in a graduate seminar. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 29(2), 79-99.

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Fahy, P. J., Crawford, G., & Ally, M. (2001). Patterns of interaction in a computer conference transcript. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved August 28, 2005, from http://www.irrodl.org/ content/v2.1/fahy.html Fahy, P. J., Crawford, G., Ally, M., Cookson, P., Keller, V., & Prosser, F. (2000). The development of testing of a tool for computer-mediated conferencing transcripts. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 46(1), 85-88. Heckerman, D., Geiger, D., & Chickering, D. (1995). Learning Bayesian networks: The combination of knowledge and statistical data. Machine Learning, 20, 197-243. Jeong, A. (2004). Message content on growth patterns of discussion threads in computer-supported collaborative argumentation. Journal of Distance Education, 19(1), 36-53. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University. Li, Z., Cheng, K. E., Wang, Y., Hiltz, S. R., & Turoff, M. (2001). Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment for group support. Proceedings of the 7th Americas Conference on Information Systems. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from http://web.njit. edu/~zxl8078/Publication/BB004.PDF Manitoba Center for Health Policy. (2005). The Thurstone manual. Retrieved August 31, 2005, from http://www.umanitoba.ca/centres/mchp/ concept/thurstone/background.shtml Misanchuk, E. R. (1988). Step-by-step procedure for constructing a Thurstone Scale. Proceedings of the Annual Management Program of the Canadian Association for University Continuing Education, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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Murphy, E., & Coleman, E. (2004). Graduate students’ experiences of challenges in online asynchronous discussions. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 30(2), 29-46. Niedermayer, D. (1998). An introduction to Bayesian Networks and their contemporary applications. Retrieved May 6, 2004, from http://www. niedermayer.ca/papers/bayesian/bayes.html Obst, P. L., & White, K. M. (2004). Revisiting the sense of community index: A confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Community Psychology, 32(6), 691-705. Paloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Pearl, J. (1988). Probabilistic reasoning in intelligent systems: Networks of plausible inference. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. Preece, J. (2000). Online communities: Designing usability and supporting sociability. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Rovai, A. P., & Jordan, H. M. (2004, August). Blended learning and sense of community: A comparative analysis with traditional and fully online graduate courses. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Retrieved April 26, 2005, from http://www.irrodl. org/content/v5.2/rovai-jordan.html Russell, S., & Norvig, P. (1995). Solution manual for artificial intelligence: A modern approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Schwier, R. A. (2001). Catalysts, emphases and elements of virtual learning communities: Implications for research and practice. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 2(1), 5-18. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (Eds.). (1997). Grounded theory in practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Thurstone, L. L. (1927). A law of comparative judgment. Psychological Review, 34, 273-286.

Preece, J. (2002). Supporting community and building social capital. Communications of the ACM, 45(4), 37-39.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pretty, G. H. 1990. Relating psychological sense of community to social climate characteristics. Journal of Community Psychology, 18, 60-65.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Methodological issues in the content analysis of computer conference transcripts. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 12, 8-22. This work was previously published in User-Centered Design of Online Learning Communities, edited by N. Lambropoulos; P. Zaphiris, pp. 29-53, copyright 2007 by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.16

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code Peg Wherry Montana State University, USA Deborah Lundberg Windes University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

BACkGROUND

This case study outlines problems with student conduct in an online undergraduate program and explains how a student code was applied to resolve the issues and institute procedures to reduce future incidents of academic dishonesty and incivility. The study describes several instances of student misconduct and explains how online program administrators responded by improving communication with both students and faculty and by modifying course design and development processes as well as instructional practices. It also reports on how other administrators assisted in handling resolution and discipline. While technology itself may both complicate the maintenance of conduct standards and provide new ways to protect academic integrity, this study demonstrates that the introduction of technology should not change the rules.

Administrators and instructors in distance and online education programs often encounter the assumption that technology changes everything, whether the change is due to the technology itself or due to new or different administrative structures supporting technology. For example, most online learning administrators have received the panicked question from an online instructor: “What do I do if I think a student in my online class is cheating?” The response, as we will discuss, should closely replicate the answer to the question: “What do you do if you suspect cheating in your campus classroom?” The following case study is based on the assumption that the more we hold online students to the same standards required in the classroom, the more students will benefit, and thus the reputation of online education will be enhanced. While technology itself may offer challenges to maintaining academic and conduct standards as well as providing

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-870-3.ch006

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When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

new ways to protect academic integrity, we hope to demonstrate that the introduction of technology should not change the rules. Our purpose in this study by administrators of a distance learning program is to outline problems with academic integrity and student conduct that emerged over a two-year period in an online undergraduate program. This series of incidents made us familiar with “chapter and verse” of our University’s Student Code of conduct (http:// www.admin.uiuc.edu/policy/code/) and helped us see how valuable such a student code can be in addressing conduct issues. We will explain how we applied our Student Code both to resolve the issues and to institute procedures to reduce future incidents. Our case study will present instances of two types of student conduct: academic dishonesty and incivility. We then discuss how the student code is applied and the changes we made to our procedures as a result. Academic integrity in both on-ground and online courses receives a great deal of attention in professional circles; a wide range of sources are available on topics such as preventing cheating, whether and how use of technology encourages or defeats cheating, etc. This chapter will touch on those issues, but we will also discuss “what happens next” when student misconduct occurs, in cases of both civility and integrity. We will discuss the importance of dealing proactively with these issues, both for the sake of our program and to improve the image of academic integrity in online learning. To give some indication of the level of difficulty inspiring us to share our experiences, we will mention one case, not used here, in which we consulted the office of the Dean of Students. She not only recognized the names of the students (on a campus of 42,000) but added that “no matter what you do, it will be a nightmare.” This was not exactly comforting, though she did offer excellent advice. Details of all instances have been modified in the interest of anonymity. Guided Individual Study (GIS) offers continuous enrollment, self-paced undergraduate courses

through the Office of Continuing Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Starting seventy-five years ago as a correspondence program with print-based courses mailed to non-traditional students, it is now a predominantly online program focusing on general education courses in multiple disciplines. Enrollment is open year-round, and a student has six months from the date of enrollment to complete the course. Thus, each student works independently, often—but not always—in isolation from classmates. While students need not be admitted to a degree program at the University of Illinois in order to enroll, 90% of enrollments are from degree-seeking students at one of the three U of I campuses (Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield). Roughly 40 courses are currently offered, with enrollments at around 1,200 per year. GIS courses are designed and taught by instructors appointed by the academic department which “owns” the course; all academic credit is given by the department itself. However, GIS staff provide guidance in course development and instruction, and mediate when student disciplinary problems arise. Instructors are paid per capita based on student enrollment, with payment occurring at three points during the student’s enrollment (in most cases, at the beginning, mid-term and final). All instances we present in this study occurred within the GIS program. In most institutions, distance learning faculty and staff have many resources to draw on when dealing with student conduct issues At Illinois, we encourage our instructors to work with the academic department head, or departmental director of undergraduate studies, and to adhere to departmental policies. At the same time, we offer to have a GIS staff member present at any meetings between the student and instructor. This assures that the two offices are acting in concert, reinforcing the institutional commitment to good conduct, and eliminating the opportunity for a student to play offices against one another. As we articulate advice for faculty who encounter

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academic dishonesty, we also work with the Associate Dean for Student Academic Affairs in the academic college that offers the bulk of our courses. In cases of incivility, we have worked with the Dean of Students Office, especially the Director of the Office for Student Conflict Resolution. As we will discuss in this chapter, a proactive approach to handling student conduct issues may serve to prevent or defuse a problem before there is a need to involve campus administrators.

SETTING THE STAGE: OUR CODE AND ITS CONTEXT Before we proceed, it may be helpful to define what we mean by academic integrity. According to our UIUC Student Code (http://www.admin. uiuc.edu/policy/code/), infractions of academic integrity include the following acts: •

•

•

•

Cheating: “Using or attempting to use in any academic exercise materials, information, study aids, or electronic data that the student knows or should know is unauthorized.” Fabrication: “Unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic endeavor.” Plagiarism: “Representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic endeavor.” This includes failing to attribute any direct quotes as well as paraphrasing another’s material without prompt acknowledgement. Facilitating Infractions of Academic Integrity: “Helping or attempting to help another to commit an infraction of academic integrity…”

It should be noted that in the case of plagiarism, infractions can occur in a casual fashion, where the original source is cited somewhere in the paper, but it is not clear which passages reflect original

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thought, or in a blatant fashion where “part or all of the paper is taken from another source without attribution,” (Braumoeller & Gaines, 2001, p. 837). It is important to make this distinction not because one is acceptable and the other is not, but because they require different prevention efforts and different disciplinary actions when infractions occur. Mary McManus Ramsbottom, Associate Dean of Student Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on the Urbana campus, points out that all students, regardless of how their course is delivered, are members of our academic community. We operate within this community with certain standards and expectations, and we have an obligation to educate students about why these standards are important. She explains that we cannot count on students knowing what plagiarism is prior to their enrollment. Whether a student is in the classroom or online, we have a responsibility to explain what academic integrity is and to uphold the standards we have set for the community. Upholding these standards in online courses requires a proactive approach. It is one thing to respond to incidents; it is another to create an atmosphere that discourages incidents from happening. The decentralized structure of a large university can make this a challenge, heightening the need for continuous communication about the standards of our community. While this may be easier at smaller institutions, we do not recommend taking this sense of community for granted or waiting until a major issue arises before implementing practices to both reduce the number of incidents and facilitate problem solving and conflict resolution when they occur. Brian Farber, Director of the Office for Student Conflict Resolution at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reports a general increase in disturbing or alarming student behaviors, both electronically and in person, explaining that the UIUC Student Code was revised last year to clarify the definition of conduct subject to discipline. It

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

now includes “harassment or behavior which is so persistent, pervasive, or severe as to deny a person’s ability to participate in the University community” (http://www.admin.uiuc.edu/policy/ code/article_1/a1_1-302.html). The previous edition of the code had mentioned only “intimidation, harassment or coercion.” This new, somewhat more legalistic, language provides more guidance in defining harassment, so it is no longer just in the eye of the beholder. Farber also advised us as to which students are covered by the Student Code. It is clear that students do not have to be in residence on campus, nor must they be enrolled for credit. The UIUC Student Code specifies that: “(c) Individuals subject to student discipline include but is not limited to all persons: (1) taking courses at the University; (2) who cancel, withdraw, or graduate after committing behavior which may violate the code; (3) who are not officially enrolled for a particular term but have a continuing relationship with the University; and (4) who have been notified of and accepted their admission.” (http:// www.admin.uiuc.edu/policy/code/article_1/a1_1301.html)

Academic Integrity There is a general assumption, both within higher education and in the public at large, that cheating is easier or more common in online courses than in traditional courses. In a recent study examining perceptions of cheating in online courses (King, Guyette, & Piotrowski 2009), 73.6% of business students queried believed that it is easier to cheat in an online course than in a traditional course. While the truth of this may be debatable, this perception no doubt led to inclusion in the Higher Education Reauthorization Act (HR 4137) approved by Congress in August, 2008 of a provision requiring accrediting agencies to ensure that students who enroll in distance learning courses are in fact the people completing assignments and exams. Fair or not, this perception means that distance learn-

ing administrators and faculty must be vigilant, thorough and fair in pursuing conduct cases; this chapter will explore how to handle them. Assumptions aside, there does not seem to be extensive or conclusive research comparing cheating behavior in online versus classroombased courses. As Lori McNabb of the UT (Texas) Telecampus observed during a Sloan-C listserv discussion of HR 4137, “I believe that we (distance educators) have done ourselves a disservice by not looking at and addressing academic integrity in online learning. There has been very little published research into the cheating behaviors of online students, especially as compared to on campus students. There have been a few small studies published, but I am not aware of any published results of large, diverse research projects.” One of those published articles is a well-designed study of nearly 800 undergraduates which found that the likelihood of cheating in an online course is not statistically different from the likelihood of cheating in the traditional classroom (Grijalva, Nowell, Kerkvliet, 2006). On the other hand, a survey of 1,262 students at a large state university indicated that cheating was much more prevalent in online classes than in traditional lecture courses (Lanier, 2006). Whether or not it is more common in distance education courses than in the classroom, it is a fact of life that academic dishonesty will occur in distance learning programs, just as it does in on-ground programs.

Incivility In this age of social networking, when students communicate incessantly and very informally online, boundaries around appropriate behavior in cyberspace have grown blurry. New technology applications allow one individual to play many different roles, all from the same chair. Students who sit at the same computer to update their Facebook profile, play online games behind the mask of an avatar, download music, exchange videos, and do actual coursework may not remember

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the most effective ways to present themselves in an academic setting. As we all know, without being able to view facial expressions and body language, it is easy to misinterpret the meaning behind words in electronic communications. It is not just online students, moreover, who have a new understanding of faculty-student communication: a colleague with twenty years’ teaching experience tells of a face-to-face conference with a student in which the instructor’s explanation about an assignment grade elicited the response from the student, “that’s not good enough, bud.” In addition, one GIS instructor reported receiving such serious (anonymous) threats from a student in a classroom section that the campus police were asked to investigate. In the online environment, however, there is a special complication. One of us is married to a professor of psychology who reminds us that “frustration leads to aggression.” (Miller, 1941) We need to remember that distance and online students have more opportunities to become frustrated and thus, in some cases, aggressive. Problems with technology itself can make heavy demands on one’s patience, and the distance learning environment can compound problems. For example, students who have questions for a classroom professor know they will see him or her at a specific time and place. An online instructor, on the other hand, is perceived by the student to be somewhere out in the ether, and thus cannot be counted on to respond immediately. Not knowing when the instructor will respond and not knowing how else to reach the instructor can be frustrating. This is significant for both course development and ongoing teaching in the online environment.

CASE DESCRIPTION In the last two years, when both the Program Director and Assistant Head of the division were new to their roles, our office dealt with conduct issues that have prompted us to go back to the

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UIUC Student Code and establish procedures to ensure that all guidelines are followed. These cases, though few in number, represent a variety of outcomes, and all have been instructive. For those involved, any single case of academic misconduct is difficult, so it did not take a large number of cases to prompt our attention and action. We will first discuss incidents in which academic integrity was questioned, how we managed these incidents, and what was learned. Following this, we will discuss instances of student incivility, how they were handled and the lessons learned.

Academic Integrity Incidents A student contacted the GIS office saying he had information that a student in one of our courses was cheating. After some debate (including the caveat that we should be alert to what the accuser’s motives might be), we decided to meet and hear what he had to stay. The instructor then contacted the student charged with cheating to hear her side of the story. While we had no knowledge of the relationship between the accuser and the accused, we did learn from a student affairs administrator that this was not the first case in which the two names were linked. The cheating charge, as it turned out, pulled us into the middle of a very personal conflict. Due diligence required that we investigate the original charges, however, and the instructor ultimately determined that there was no way to prove the charge of plagiarism in this case. In a second case, an instructor noticed that two students turned in remarkably similar work on a couple of assignments. One of the students had been previously suspected of cheating, but factfinding led to no further action in that instance. Upon the second possible occurrence, the instructor was tempted by impatience growing out of the first (unproved) instance to consult his department head and identify a penalty for the new instance. This penalty was immediately communicated to both students, who then noted that they had not

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

Figure 1. UIUC GIS Academic Integrity Flowchart 1

received “written notice of charges” and been given an opportunity to respond to the charges before the penalty was imposed; this is a violation of the process outlined in the UIUC Student Code (Figure 1). The campus administrator to whom this was appealed was forced to conclude that skipping steps in the communication and appeal process meant the charges had to be dropped, despite the fact that the students had clearly colluded (the case did not reach the stage of determining who copied from whom). The students were disenrolled from the course, and the rest of us—GIS staff, instructor, department head—learned an important lesson about following procedures. In yet another case, while grading lessons in an online course, a faculty member noticed suspicious similarities between two students’ papers. While the wording had been changed to a degree, it seemed likely that the lessons were not written independently. In an instance of technology helping to solve these problems, a quick look at those students’ profiles on Facebook showed that they both belonged to some of the same campus organizations. As a first step, the instructor reviewed previous lessons to see if this was a one-time

incident or a recurring problem. After determining that there was only one set of suspicious lessons, the instructor emailed the two students with a note pointing out the similarities between the papers. He did not pronounce guilt; he just asked for an explanation. Within days, he had spoken with both students and received the full story. One student had “borrowed” the other’s paper and admitted he had plagiarized. The plagiarizer fully exonerated the other student, who knew nothing of the incident. The guilty party received a “zero” for the paper and was required to write a paper (with sources) on the Student Code and why plagiarism is a serious issue. What immediate lessons did we learn from these examples? With the first example, we learned the importance of developing and maintaining collegial relationships with administrators who handled conduct issues on campus. They made us aware of key aspects of the story we would otherwise not have known. Given that one situation had involved the law and possible physical danger, we found ourselves in a situation that could have gone very badly had we reacted without all the facts.

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In the second and third instances, we learned that following our Student Code is crucial if we want the situation to be resolved in a satisfactory manner. In the second case, the code was not followed and two students who most likely were in violation got away without a black mark on their records. However, following the code in the other example allowed for a satisfactory outcome that was, we hope, a learning experience for one student.

Response As a result of these cases occurring in rapid succession early in our managerial appointments, we decided to be proactive. We had previously handled such issues on a case-by-case basis, relying on “gut” feeling (with results ranging from satisfactory to disappointing), or by searching through the Student Code in the midst of a crisis. We determined that we needed to establish procedures, based on the Student Code, which would guide us when we faced suspected infractions. We were fortunate that the Student Code in place at our institution was fairly clear and detailed, making our work easier. After developing step-by-step procedures with the cooperation of campus administrators, we proceeded to do more groundwork on two fronts. First, we determined to look at how we communicate the code and academic policies to both faculty and students to see if there were ways to address academic integrity issues before problems arise. Second, we examined course design and development as well as testing procedures to make cheating more difficult and less tempting.

Communication We began by exploring how policies and procedures are communicated to both students and faculty in our program. We found that communication was vague, and made assumptions that students knew what plagiarism was and that faculty knew

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where to go and what to do (and what not to do) if they suspected an infraction. To educate students, we developed an online orientation which students are required to complete--and pass--prior to beginning their course. The orientation takes a comprehensive look at what is involved in taking an online course. A substantial portion educates students on what plagiarism is—both blatant and casual—and why it is important to correctly cite a source. The orientation draws attention to the fact that our online students are subject to our Student Code of the University, even if they are not in residence on campus. Direct links to the UIUC Student Code are provided in the orientation, as well as in the syllabus and course website for every course. While most students know that copying another person’s work without attribution constitutes plagiarism, our experience demonstrates that there is confusion about whether it is plagiarism when a student paraphrases someone else’s work. The GIS orientation not only explains paraphrasing and documentation, but also gives guidelines for students on how to use information from other sources legitimately. This serves to both educate and set the standards students are expected to abide by as they proceed through their academic work. It places instructor and student on the same page so ignorance will not be accepted as an excuse when questions of academic integrity arise. To educate faculty, we developed and added to our faculty website a step-by-step flow chart drawn from our Student Code [Figures 1and 2] for handling integrity issues, accompanied by a more in-depth discussion of the Code. The chart, which translates text from the code into a visual image, makes it clear to our instructors that they must first inform the student in writing of the suspicion of plagiarism, and then allow the student eight days to respond to the charge. As was clear in one of the cases outlined above, determining guilt and punishment prior to this step of allowing the student(s) to respond to the charge prevented us from disciplining students appropriately because

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

Figure 2. UIUC GIS Academic Integrity Flowchart 2

the Student Code was not followed. (We also have recommended to campus administrators that language in the code be clarified on this point the next time the code is revised.) Given the unpleasant task of confronting a student with allegations of inappropriate actions, we found that breaking the process down step by step makes it less daunting. We also repeatedly remind faculty via monthly updates and reminders on the faculty website that if they have any suspicions of academic dishonesty, they should contact our office so we can assist in walking them through the process. We can also assist by providing documentation as necessary and presenting a consistent university position on the issue. Involving a GIS administrator who is detached from the immediate circumstance can also be helpful, particularly when a faculty member might be feeling angry or betrayed, and thus may not be able to judge the situation calmly and objectively.

Course Design and Development It became evident that the way courses are designed and developed has a bearing on the temptation and ability of students to cheat. As a result, we have taken a long hard look at the way we design and teach our courses and made a number of modifications, such as increasing the number of individualized and context-sensitive assignments, and renewing our focus on active learning strategies. One strategy is to encourage our faculty to ask questions that require application to the student’s life. For example, rather than re-stating definitions of conflict resolution strategies in a Management class, students must discover (through assessments and reflection) and discuss their own conflict resolution styles and give examples of leaders they have known who have used each style. They also discuss a conflict they have experienced that ended badly, identify why it went badly, and then revisit the issue using an appropriate conflict resolution style to fit the circumstance. In their responses it is clear whether they know the basic

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concept and how it is applied, and they are given the opportunity to challenge the assumptions of the text. As a check against plagiarism, this kind of narrative also makes it easier for the instructor to remember if that example has been used previously. Another strategy is to create assignments that require the student to look at a recently published journal article or recent event and tie it into course material. For example, a political science course may ask the student to apply a concept to a news event that has happened in the previous month, or a psychology course may ask the student to identify a study that has been published in the previous three months that addresses the topic at hand. This strategy is particularly important for continuous enrollment courses that are difficult to modify each semester. By tying assignments in with recent events or publications, the course stays fresh, and students realize what they are studying has application outside of the course. Cheating can also be discouraged with the use of such technology applications as discussion boards, blogs and wikis, which allow an instructor to have students post their work online for others to critique and build upon. This introduces an element of peer pressure, as many other students will see the product, not just one hard-working professor. With the openness of the internet, students will be less likely to plagiarize, as they do not know who is reading the paper, and who may report them. Scott Warnock discusses a case in which a student plagiarizing on a message board was caught by two other students: “While digital technologies may contribute to a rise in plagiarism among students, these technologies can help teachers develop constructive, rather than punitive, course environments that discourage plagiarism.” (Warnock, 2006, p. 178). The use of blogs, wikis and message boards can foster a sense of community in which students are part of the “check system against plagiarism.” Indeed, Warnock attributes the willingness of students to expose the culprit

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to the sense that the community’s mores had been violated. Not surprisingly, according to our LAS Dean of Student Academic Affairs, students who serve on the appeal committee dealing with Student Code infractions are often more harsh with their peers than are faculty or staff representatives. One final strategy to reduce incidents of cheating involves proctored web-based testing. Distance learning programs that have evolved from older formats, like correspondence study, have long relied on proctored or supervised examinations. This practice does not seem to be universal in newer programs that may rely on timed testing conditions, “open book” kinds of questions and an honor code instead of proctors. While most of our GIS courses are online, tests were still given in a pen and paper format but under proctored conditions. We have now moved to web-based testing, while retaining the proctored environment as an important layer of security and authentication. Photo ID materials are presented to the proctor at test time. The proctor makes the exam available to the student on a computer in a testing room. During the exam, test-takers are visually monitored by the proctor, and students’ screen activity is also closely tracked using RealVNC, a free, open-source application that provides remote desktop access and prevents students from navigating away from the exam. Web-based testing also contributes to academic integrity by making it easy to randomize questions selected from a larger test banks so no two tests are alike and the likelihood of cheating is further reduced. Other very new technologies, such as Kryterion and Securexam Remote Proctor, provide remote electronic proctoring of exams with a camera and microphone. Because this technology requires the student to purchase hardware, it may be viable for online or distance degree programs; however, in a program such as GIS, where a student may only take one course, this solution may be too cumbersome or expensive. Monitoring and record-keeping for systems like this also can be costly to the program.

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

Incivility Incidents In the Fall of 2007, we had our first experience with cases of incivility. Due to the self-paced nature of our program, these cases involved interactions between students and instructors rather than among students. In all instances, student emails to instructors were first impatient, then rude and aggressive, then almost abusive. We provide the following examples to illustrate the point. •

•

•

•

Student emails to instructor used words and phrases like “childish,” “your nasty comments,” “you are a jerk.” Students communicated to faculty in all caps: “NO I DID NOT SUBMIT A BLANK ASSIGNMENT ON PURPOSE. IS THIS A JOKE?” and “THIS LEADS ME TO THINK YOU ARE A VERY SIMPLE PERSON WHO HIDES IN YOUR IVORY TOWER.” One student first reported a number of editorial lapses in course material, then experienced (but did not report) technical difficulties with some links in the course, and finally began SHOUTING (writing in all caps) and accusing the instructor of unfairness and unresponsiveness. In another case, in a course that attracted a number of students from our residential campus, we began to worry for the safety of an instructor receiving comments like those above. Fortunately, the “distance” in distance learning reduced that concern.

Context helps us see how the roots of this kind of aggressive, uncivil behavior lie in frustration. In the third of the above instances, a student who was frustrated by the number of “mistakes” she encountered in course materials was compiling them into a file of “evidence” of the instructor’s shortcomings. In another case, the instructor repeatedly explained the difference between summarizing the assigned text and offering the

student’s own analysis and assigned mostly B+ grades to student work that was primarily summary. The student, however, did not understand this issue and began name-calling and patronizing the professor.

Response As with academic integrity, we found it important to focus on both communication and course development (as well as instruction) to be more proactive in our dealing with uncivil behavior. Our goal was not only to reduce incivility, but also to teach students the importance of conducting themselves professionally in their communication.

Communication and Boundary-Setting Since these cases were our first experience with uncivil behavior, we found no mention in our program materials of expectations of civil discourse or the standards of academic community. For example, we found one instructor (an emeritus professor with more than 20 years’ experience teaching GIS) dealing with an incident above was not aware that our Student Code applied to distance students. The professor was delighted to learn that the Code did apply, since a simple reference to the section on intimidation and harassment almost magically de-escalated the issue and the student apologized. Through these experiences, we worked with our student conflict resolution officer to identify faculty resources for dealing with uncivil behavior. These resources are included on our faculty website. In a recent website posting, we summarized our findings about how to respond to a specific instance of incivility or aggression: 1.

2.

Remind the student of the Student Code, and that his or her behavior may be in violation of the code. Disengage from any personal comments and address only matters of course content

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3.

and the student’s work; tell the student your communication will respond to only those academic issues. In a case of administrative or technical difficulty, a program staff member would only respond to those issues—not to personal comments. Ask the student to terminate the exchange and not make any contact for some set period of time (like 24 or 48 hours). This can be considered a reasonable request from a university official, and student compliance or non-compliance with this request would have bearing on subsequent administrative or disciplinary actions.

The same procedure would be followed if the exchange involved distance learning program staff in an administrative or technical support role. To assist students in this area, the GIS orientation course mentioned earlier addresses civil discourse in online communication. It emphasizes that in a college level course, professional and courteous communication is the standard. First of all, we stress that correct spelling and grammar are always expected, whether in lessons or in email communication with instructors or our office. Abbreviations commonly used in text messaging are not appropriate for professional communication, and messages in ALL CAPS to stress a point can be easily misunderstood as shouting. It is the students’ responsibility to write in a manner that gets the point across professionally. In addition, we discuss “ownership” of problems, avoiding accusations, and inappropriate attribution of motives when communicating a problem with instructors or staff. We make clear, as well, that uncivil communication or harassment will not be tolerated. In short, we stress that in addition to the course curriculum, students will learn how to professionally communicate in an online environment. Of course, instructors and administrative staff should model appropriate conduct themselves. Some of the communication difficulties noted above can be addressed by setting clear boundar-

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ies. In an environment where students are often isolated even from other students and never meet the instructor, the idea of boundary-setting may seem unnecessary. But an isolated student can become frustrated; an isolated student writing in the comfort of her home may forget how to behave in class—may not even feel she is in class. So the first boundary is establishing the course as a form of professional activity, as we have discussed above. Clearly stating expectations for spelling, punctuation and grammar will help, as will defining the course as a pre-professional experience where the level of discourse should be appropriate to a workplace. But here we come to another boundary-setting difficulty. Electronic communication, in addition to removing visual and social cues, blurs the boundary between public and private communication styles. An independent learning mode, where each student communicates directly with the instructor and usually not with other students, is inherently more intimate than that of a paced online course where all students move on the same schedule and interact with each other as well as the instructor. Despite efforts to establish the norm of professionalism in communications, as we noted earlier, a student writing in the same physical space and using the same technologies with which he plays games or sends text messages to friends may forget the demeanor appropriate to academic or professional settings. Similarly, but perhaps less obviously, the instructor writing one-to-one may become more familiar than is appropriate. Many online instructors say they get to know their online students better than those in their physical classrooms, which is usually a positive development. The instructor too, however, may be communicating about course matters with a single student from a home computer surrounded by family matters and kids’ photos, and thus their correspondence may become too familiar. As our Student Conflict Resolution Officer points out, it is an awkward and stubborn reality that so long as the instructor

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

is officially creating a permanent credential for the student, there is a power imbalance between the two (B. Farber, personal communication, October 16, 2008). The respect balance can be tilted by either the student or the instructor; as the party with the upper hand, so to speak, the instructor is obligated to clearly articulate and maintain the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate conduct. Instructors shouldn’t SHOUT or lose their tempers either. Finally, and this is a matter of both ongoing communication and course development, it is crucial for instructors to be clear about the time frame in which they will respond to student work and student inquiries. Whether the time period is 24 hours or three business days is less important than being specific about just what the span will be. Instructors should also indicate when they will be away from email for a period of time. There is no need for detailed explanation--references to caring for an ill family member or going on vacation may provide too much information and invite snide comments like “if your kid’s health is so important, maybe you shouldn’t be teaching this course.” Identifying professional absences for conferences or research, on the other hand, helps reinforce the professional setting. In any case, spelling out these expectations for response time can help reduce frustration, and set a conduct standard for the instructor as well. Many online programs use a paced or calendar-based format that allows—even requires— students to communicate with one another through message boards, discussion groups, and other interactive tools that create opportunities for students to become uncivil or aggressive with one another. In one survey of online instructors on the topic of online bullying, between 30 and 45 percent of respondents reported experience with various forms of uncivil conduct (confrontational, lewd or vulgar, and humiliating postings) among students. Most of the respondents (86%) stated that their institutions do not have policies that define online bullying or outline how to handle

it (Reigle, 2006). It may, in fact, be the case that policies addressing appropriate and inappropriate student conduct do exist at those institutions, as they do at Illinois, but that online instructors are not aware of how to apply existing conduct codes in the online environment. Asking about specific policies regarding online bullying assumes that online delivery requires separate rules of conduct rather than the application of existing codes of behavior. Yet even without explicit policy or administrative guidance, online instructors responding to this survey had developed ways to handle this form of misconduct (Reigle, 2006, especially unpublished raw data). Overall, these results point to the necessity of informing both students and faculty that standards expected of face-to-face interaction apply to all forms of communication. It may not be necessary to develop new policies to prevent or handle bullying online if instructors are aware that existing conduct codes can be explicitly applied in cyberspace.

Course Design and Development Whether we are administrators, instructors, or instructional designers, we must act on the maxim that frustration leads to aggression and do everything we can to prevent such frustration. Course content should be professional in appearance and meet the highest standards of editing. If we expect students to spell and punctuate properly, we need to uphold the same standards. For this reason, we have re-vitalized the proofreading and editing steps in our course development process. This includes not only grammar and spelling, but also making sure that web links are live and up to date. In addition, directions—for everything— should be clear, direct and easy to find. Students should understand exactly how to get technical support, and such help should be reliable. Before and during anticipated down-time and upgrades, we must use email and announcement tools to let students know what is going on (e.g. a system upgrade that will take the course site offline at

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a specific time), what precautions (if any) they should take, how to get the most current information, etc. And we should remind instructors to be alert to signs of frustration, so that the frustration may be addressed before it turns into aggression. An individual email to a single frustrated student may, in a paced course using discussion tools, need to be supplemented by course-wide email to all students to nip a problem in the bud.

Administrative Responses In addition to improving communication and refining our course design and development process, we examined our administrative processes to see how they supported or undermined our attempts to ensure academic integrity and civility. In doing so, we realized that our instructor compensation model did not align with the complexities and unpredictable outcomes of working through student conduct cases. If a student withdraws or is dropped from a class due to either integrity or civility issues, our established compensation model meant that the instructor did not receive as much pay (i.e. the final installment) for dealing with a difficult student as he or she would have received had the student completed the course normally. In fact, instructors dealing with conduct issues probably deserve more compensation rather than less, and the problem is compounded if, as in one of our instances, two students leave the course as the issue is resolved. Thus, in instances of a student dropping the course for conduct reasons, we have adopted the practice of paying instructors the full amount they would have been paid if the student had completed the course. This is a small token of recognition of the extra time and emotional energy spent dealing with unpleasant conduct issues. We are also piloting a model to share revenue with academic departments, in recognition of the work they do to deal with student conduct and to assure that courses are well-developed and maintained.

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Another administrative issue we identified was the need to determine how to handle a student from another institution taking our course. We have not yet threaded through all the complications and interconnections that obtain between sister campuses of the University of Illinois; we may need to consult legal counsel on this. But a couple of points are clear. Every student enrolled in one of our courses is governed by our UIUC Student Code, regardless where else the student may be enrolled. Should someone who is not a degreeseeking Urbana student be involved in a conduct incident, the GIS program would fulfill the role of the student’s academic college in terms of working through the process and retaining records as outlined in our Student Code. As we understand it, we are not obligated to contact another institution where the student may be enrolled, but we are not prevented from doing so. In one case of incivility involving a student at a sister campus, where we had a working relationship with an advising office on that campus, we did consult with that office. We learned that the student’s behavior in our course was not typical, and the adviser there helped in calming things.

How Have These Changes Worked? Communication First of all, our faculty have been grateful for increased guidance and support in these areas. The step-by-step, clear instructions have reduced anxiety when setting out to conduct a task which is awkward at best. In one case, a clearly unpleasant exchange with a student was quickly stopped when it was pointed out that the student was in violation of the Student Code. In a recent case involving suspected cheating on a test, the flow chart allowed us to communicate the required step-by-step process to the faculty member. The immediate panic was alleviated when we explained that initially the instructor only needed to communicate his or her suspicion to the student. When

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

this was done, we moved on to the next step, and so on, until the issue was resolved. Moreover, it is our belief that most students do not set out to plagiarize or to behave in an uncivil manner. Often, their actions are simply the result of laziness, disinterest or time pressures. Or they become frustrated—even due to non-academic issues like technical difficulties or down time–and allow their emotions to over-ride their common sense. Addressing these issues proactively allows everyone to know what the expectations are, will hopefully prevent some students from acting inappropriately, and will allow for common understandings when problems do occur. From an administrative point of view, having standards and methods for dealing with these issues in place prior to their occurrence has led to more consistent application of the Student Code and reduced time and stress in dealing with these problems. No longer do we “reinvent the wheel” when a cheating or civility issue occurs. We look to our policies, and implement them, and work within positive relationships with key campus administrators when problems do arise.

Course Design and Development We have found that the re-design of assignments not only reduces the temptation to copy others’ lessons, it also increases the degree of active learning and higher order thinking in our courses. Students may have to work a little harder, but the end result is a better educated student. Also, from the perspective of faculty, these papers are far more interesting to read than those that only ask students to repeat information. At least one faculty member, who teaches a management course, reports she learns much from her students as they apply theoretical concepts from the class to different situations she has not experienced. Learning from her students how management principles work in different organizations such as the military, a community center, or a Fortune 500 company has broadened her understanding

of organizations, and has enabled her to bring that knowledge back to her own research. The move to web-based testing has been a success by all accounts. Not only does it decrease time delay for feedback and test results, which students appreciate, but it has reduced the worry that students can walk out of the test, write down the questions, and then pass them on to their peers. The long-term impact of these changes in civility cases has yet to be determined. In the short-term, we seem not to have had a recurrence of incivility, but we have not, as of this writing, been through the high-stress end-of-year April through June period since these changes have been implemented.

CURRENT CHALLENGES We are pleased with the improvements we have made in both communication and course design. Our faculty report that they value the information we have provided. Nevertheless, challenges remain. •

Typically, program management staff (including instructional designers) have opportunities to intervene in the course development phase with suggestions that can forestall cheating, frustration, and aggression. In the actual teaching phase of an online course, on the other hand, there are fewer chances for program staff to intervene. While we believe a more engaged approach is essential to good teaching and learning online, and can forestall cheating, we also need to remind our instructors of their role in maintaining a professional and civil atmosphere in the virtual classroom. We can do our best to orient instructors to the complications that can arise, and we must also do our best to prevent frustrations with technology or procedures that can distract both students and instructors

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from pursuing their academic work in the most professional way. A challenge we have faced with web-based testing in our program is the lack of computers with internet access in all proctored locations. Some pen and paper tests are still given in these locations. We anticipate, however, that this problem will diminish with time, especially with the growth of web-based testing for such standardized exams as the GRE and MCAT. Communication is always a challenge. No matter how many times you communicate something, busy faculty and students may forget. Thus as administrators, we must continually reinforce our expectations in terms of both academic integrity and civility. For our faculty, we send a monthly update to remind them of faculty website resources available if they suspect plagiarism or have a problem student. With students, we are upfront with expectations through the Orientation and course website. We provide multiple links to the Student Code, but again, the message needs to be reinforced continually. It may be that only after the line has been crossed will students understand the importance of academic integrity and civility. Many academic units on our campus are making significant inroads into online learning, but the reasons are related more to resources rather than to pedagogical issues. Thus, there might be a temptation among some faculty to treat online course development as a way to stretch resources rather than as an opportunity to address effective teaching practices, whether online or in the classroom. We must be sure to work with all stakeholders from the beginning to ensure that course design encourages academic integrity and that students are aware of their responsibility to work and communicate with respect in the online environment.

Recommendations We have learned many lessons as we have addressed issues of academic integrity and incivility. While different institutional contexts require different solutions to these problems, we make the following recommendations to those facing similar challenges in their distance education programs: •

•

•

We must change the way teachers teach. This applies not just to issues of student conduct, but to the challenges of moving classroom based material online. In a lecture hall setting, much of what is expected of the student is passive absorption of material. The expert speaks, the student listens and learns. Because of sheer numbers of students, assessment is often done in a multiple choice format that can be easily scored electronically. Whether online or in the classroom, this is an invitation to cheat. An emphasis on active learning in which the student must seek out information, apply it and assess it is an important part of our online course development process. This may present a challenge to a faculty member who has grown accustomed to large lecture hall courses, and may involve political battles as well. In addition, while assignments that require active learning and higher order thinking may be more interesting to grade, they are more time-consuming than multiple choice/ TF/ short answer tests. This might require increased compensation or a reduced number of students. These recommendations may hit resistance, but we have found faculty on campus who are eager to approach their instruction in a new fashion. Distance learning practitioners should become deeply familiar with the conduct codes at their institutions and the processes by which those codes are implemented.

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

•

•

There should be consistency between the instructor’s policies and practices and those of the institution (and program). If the policy on academic honesty is not explicit and its enforcement not clearly assigned, distance learning administrators should work for clarification. Many institutions are grappling with the question of how to evaluate the many technologies now available that seek to verify student identity. This is particularly true in light of the demands of HR 4137. While we have been quite successful using proctored web-based testing in our program, other institutions may choose to look at technologies that allow a student to take an exam without having to go to a proctor’s location. For example, Securexam’s remote proctor device uses biometrics (fingerprint and photo ID) to authenticate the identity of a test-taker and audio and video capture that monitors activity in the room to make the instructor aware if there is any potential for cheating. Another product, Acxiom, maintains a database of consumer public records, then asks the student questions based on information in the database that pertains to that student. We encourage further research and discussion on this topic as we grapple with issues such as student expense for technology and privacy issues. Another technology that seeks to ensure academic integrity is plagiarism detection software. These programs compare a student’s work with both published material and with papers previously submitted by other students, looking for commonalities that might indicate plagiarism. To some, the biggest drawback to using this software, besides the cost, involves copyright issues. If the software programs claim copyright to the student’s work once it is submitted, students may rightfully protest

giving ownership of their own intellectual property to an organization that may use it for their own profit. Some faculty find that “Googling” suspicious phrases from student’s work is just as effective. One faculty member told of reading a paper that included words that he doubted a particular student knew. He “Googled” a sentence from the paper and quickly found that sentence in a published article. This, he insisted, was much cheaper and much quicker than any software on the market! Whether we agree with the choice to use plagiarism detection software, one study did find that the very threat of its use was effective in curtailing plagiarism. Braumoeller and Gaines (2001) conducted a study in their Introduction to Political Science course in which they compared the plagiarism rate between classes that were warned orally and in writing not to plagiarize with classes that were told their work would be submitted through a plagiarism-detection application. They found that “warning students not to plagiarize, even in the strongest of terms, appears not to have had any effect whatsoever” on whether or not the students chose to plagiarize. When students knew their work would be examined by the software, however, they found that students were deterred from submitting plagiarized assignments. •

•

We recommend that if institutions have not yet integrated proctored web-based testing into their programs, they pursue it. This well-established practice can go a long way to meet the demands of HR 4137. To get started, a program that does not use proctors at all should consult with those who do. It is not necessary to pay proctors and, once the program is in place, it is an effective way to undergird the integrity of testing in distance learning situation. We also recommend further research into issues of academic integrity and student conduct in online courses, as noted above.

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The effectiveness of web-based testing, plagiarism detection, even the efficacy of traditional proctoring programs all need to be scrutinized. Our case-based approach to civility issues is at best anecdotal; perhaps there are opportunities to partner with campus student judicial officers to investigate civility issues through more structured research. Furthermore, it is worth finding out whether civility issues are more or less common in virtual classrooms, and whether it is in fact online interaction itself that leads to less civil behavior in face-to-face settings. As on-ground courses incorporate webbased technologies, whether in the creation of blended courses and programs or as supplements to traditional instruction, campus administrators will encounter the kinds of issues we in distance learning are already experiencing. It is now past time to review every student code, faculty handbook, and administrative procedures manual for the way words like “campus” and “classroom” are used—does academic freedom exist only in the physical classroom, to name just one obvious instance? Do references to “documents” include electronic formats? Some institutions have already done this kind of review; those who have not should do so as soon as possible. In addition to bringing the text of the code into the twenty-first century, such a review will identify the exact sections of the code that apply to student conduct in cyberspace as well as those that may be problematic. Administrators of distance learning programs that include non-credit activities should determine whether their student conduct policies and procedures apply to non-credit enrollees.

CONCLUSION It has long been the norm in distance education, even before the existence of the internet, for the rigor and academic standards of a distance-delivered course to be equivalent to those of traditional classes. We maintain that those academic standards include the expectations for appropriate conduct outlined in every student code, and that those student codes should be applied to all instances of misconduct in online classes. We strongly encourage all distance learning administrators to work proactively on student conduct issues at their institutions. Learn the policies and procedures before a case occurs; identify and meet relevant campus administrators. It is important to the profession as a whole to improve the image of academic integrity in online learning. On the local level, our work with campus administrators charged with managing conduct issues has improved our relationships with those offices and improved the image of our program. At the academic department level, we have found our working relationships strengthened by not only our support of instructors as they work through conduct issues but also by our willingness to abide by and enforce our campus code of conduct. Finally, much of the discourse about online technologies in education has shifted recently, away from a commitment to access for non-traditional students that underlies distance learning to a focus on using technology to connect with “net gen” students who may be more tech-savvy than faculty and administrators of an earlier generation. As more and more institutions move toward online content delivery for all students, it will become increasingly important for campuses as a whole to address student conduct issues in the context of online learning. In addition, we must design our courses and programs so students understand they are part of an institutional community, and that even as online participants, there are standards of conduct they are required to adhere to. It is our hope that this case study will begin a discus-

When Distance Technologies Meet the Student Code

sion on campuses about the best way to adapt or supplement current codes of conduct to improve the learning experience and enhance the effectiveness and reputation of online learning. For more than a century, a long series of new technologies have been used to expand access to education. As distance education professionals, we should focus on technology for the way it extends access and should not expect technology to rewrite the rules of conduct.

ACkNOWLEDGMENT The authors gratefully recognize the wisdom, patience and generosity of our Illinois colleagues Brian Farber, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Student Conflict Resolution, and Mary MacManus Ramsbottom, Associate Dean of Student Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as they assisted us through the incidents reported here and contributed to our program improvements and the thinking behind this article. We also would like to recognize the several GIS instructors who allowed us to disguise their experiences for presentation in this case study. We would like to, but we cannot, without compromising the identity of others involved. They know who they are, and we want them to know we are grateful for their efforts.

REFERENCES

Grijalva, T. C., Nowell, C., & Kirkvliet, J. (2006). Academic honesty and online courses. College Student Journal, 40(1), 180–185. Higher Education Reauthorization Act. (HR 4137, Title IV, Part H, Sec. 495). (n.d.). Retrieved on November 17, 2008, from http://www.govtrack. us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-4137 King, C. G., Guyette, R. W., & Piotrowski, C. (2009). Online exams and cheating: An empirical analysis of business students’ views. The Journal of Educators Online, 6(1), 1–11. Lanier, M. M. (2006). Academic integrity and distance learning. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 17(2), 244–261. doi:10.1080/10511250600866166 McNabb, L. (2008). Chronicle article focuses on distance-ed academic integrity. Retrieved on October 18, 2008, from Listserv: Sloan-C. Miller, N. E. (1941). The frustration-aggression hypothesis. Psychological Review, 48, 337–342. doi:10.1037/h0055861 Reigle, R. R. (2007). The online bully in higher education. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). Retrieved on April 10, 2009, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebportal/ detail?accno=ED495686 Warnock, S. (2006). Awesome job!–or was it? The ‘many eyes’ of asynchronous writing environments and the implications of plagiarism. Plagiary, 1, 178–190.

Braumoeller, B. F., & Gaines, B. J. (2001). Actions do speak louder than words: Deterring plagiarism with the use of plagiarism-detection software. PS: Political Science and Politics, 34(4), 835–839. doi:10.1017/S1049096501000786 This work was previously published in Cases on Distance Delivery and Learning Outcomes: Emerging Trends and Programs, edited by D. Gearhart, pp. 79-96, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.17

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education Heidi L. Wilkes Northeastern University, USA

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

“Web accessibility” is the ability to access information online. In distance education, most instructional material is located online, and anything that prevents a person from accessing these materials becomes a barrier to distance education. Demand for distance education is growing, and the Web is the most common mechanism for its delivery. Not all Websites are accessible, despite the availability of design guidelines. The purpose of this chapter is to inform Web accessibility policy decisions at U.S. postsecondary institutions by increasing the awareness of Web accessibility issues in distance education, examining societal implications, and discussing methods for improvement. This chapter also reviews the current U.S. legal context and provides alternative cost-justification and cost-benefit frameworks for consideration by policymakers.

Distance education combines technology and pedagogy to break down the barriers of time and place, enabling students to enroll in and complete coursework from any location with a computer and an Internet connection. The flexibility provided by distance education is a substantial benefit to students who cannot, or prefer not to, travel to a physical campus. However, one group of students—those with disabilities—is overlooked when it comes to distance education at many postsecondary institutions in the U.S. “Web accessibility” is the ability to access information on the World Wide Web, or the Internet. In distance education today, most instructional material and related information is located online. Anything that prevents a person from accessing this content becomes a barrier to distance education. It is possible to reduce these barriers, but it is

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch022

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

a challenge to gain attention and support for Web accessibility policy because it involves technology that can be difficult to comprehend, and students with disabilities represent a relatively small portion of the population. Why are Web accessibility measures needed in U.S. postsecondary education, and what are the policy consequences in U.S. postsecondary distance education? Web accessibility measures are needed because they reduce barriers to distance education for students with disabilities. Demand for distance education is growing, and the Web is the most common delivery mechanism for distance education. However, not all Websites are accessible, despite the availability of design guidelines. Web accessibility policy provides increased opportunities for learners and is consistent with the social justice principles of equal access and nondiscrimination. Web accessibility policy can be better understood through models of disability, alternative cost-benefit frameworks, and can be cost-justified using metrics such as social return on investment (social ROI) (Wilson & Rosenbaum, 2005). U.S. postsecondary institutions need to be aware of recent legislative changes, such as the reauthorization in 2008 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which provides the legal basis for a broader interpretation of disability and sets the stage for increased requests for accommodations by students with disabilities. Web accessibility policymakers at U.S. postsecondary institutions face a myriad of challenges, including increased demand for distance education, alternative models of disability, unsympathetic socioeconomic paradigms, competing social theoretical perspectives, lack of technological understanding, and a changing legal environment. This purpose of this chapter is to inform Web accessibility policy decisions at U.S. postsecondary institutions by increasing awareness of Web accessibility issues in distance learning, examining societal implications, and discussing methods to improve Web accessibility. This chapter also reviews the current U.S. legal context and pro-

vides alternative cost-justification and cost-benefit frameworks for consideration by policymakers.

BACkGROUND Growth in Distance Education As demand for distance education grows, Web accessibility policy becomes more important. Online enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment at U.S. postsecondary institutions more than doubled from 2002-2006. In the fall of 2002, enrollment in online distance education courses represented 9.7% of total enrollment. By the fall of 2006, online enrollment had grown to 19.8% of total enrollment (Allen & Seaman, 2007). Increased computer use by students (especially mobile computing) is now supported by new and smaller equipment designs, reduced equipment cost, and greater broadband and WiFi network availability on college campuses, in libraries, and in public meeting places. The annual growth of online enrollment far outpaced the annual growth rate of total enrollment in U.S. degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the same period. Between 2003 and 2006, growth in total enrollment in U.S. postsecondary institutions averaged 1.525% per year, while growth in online enrollment averaged 21.85% per year (Allen & Seaman, 2007). The Internet is the primary means of providing distance education at U.S. postsecondary institutions. Of U.S. postsecondary institutions offering distance education courses in 2000-2001, more than 93% used Websites to deliver those courses (Waits & Lewis, 2003). The trend toward increased use of Web-based instructional content in distance education is likely to continue as the availability of broadband and WiFi access also continues to increase, and the cost of computing continues to decrease. The economies of scale possible in Web-based instructional content distribution, and

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on-demand access to this content, benefit both students and institutions. The Sloan-C Report Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning (Allen & Seaman, 2007) indicates that institutions list access as the number one goal of distance learning. Increasing access is viewed as the socially correct thing to do and aligns with the mission of many postsecondary institutions. Following Web accessibility guidelines is a way to help achieve this goal of increased access and remain true to the mission.

Undergraduate Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Institutions Students with disabilities represent 5.5% of all undergraduate enrollments in U.S. postsecondary institutions. In 1995-1996 U.S. undergraduates reported the following disabilities: visual impairment (16.3%), hearing impairment or deaf (16.3%), speech impairment (3%), orthopedic impairment (22.9%), learning disability (29.2%), other (21.2%). Note: some students reported more than one disability so totals do not add to 100% (Horn, Berktold, & Bobbitt, 1999). Students are not required to report disabilities to their institutions, so the 5.5% number likely under-represents the true number of students with disabilities. If postsecondary institutions continue to offer distance education courses at the same or planned increased rates reported, without improving the extent to which they follow accessibility guidelines, students with disabilities face the possibility of inaccessible distance education courses. This situation limits flexibility for students with disabilities compared to other students. Increased commitment to employ Web accessibility guidelines by U.S. postsecondary institutions will help to decrease barriers to distance education faced by students with disabilities.

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Web Accessibility Guidelines Guidelines and recommendations have been established to help designers of online content understand the need for Web accessibility, and to design and develop accessible materials for users with disabilities. In 1999, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) at the recommendation of the Web Accessibility Initiative Committee (WAI). The WCAG guidelines are considered the de facto technical standard for institutions aiming to meet Web accessibility compliance (Chisholm, Vanderheiden, & Jacobs, 1999). Additional recommendations outlined in the second iteration, known as WCAG 2.0, promote awareness of Web accessibility issues and encourage adoption of updated standards and guidelines to increase the accessibility of online content by people with disabilities (Caldwell, Cooper, Reed, & Vanderheiden, 2008). Following WCAG guidelines generates added benefits because online content that is created according to these guidelines is generally more usable by everyone, not just people with disabilities. Web accessibility has not been not adequately addressed in U.S. postsecondary institutions. During the academic year 2000-2001, less than 50% of all institutions that reported using Websites in distance education rated themselves as following accessibility guidelines to a “moderate” or “major” extent, 3% reported not following accessibility guidelines at all, and 33% did not know if they followed any accessibility guidelines. Private four-year institutions fared the worst in terms of following Web accessibility guidelines. Only 11% reported following the guidelines to a major extent, and 42% reported not knowing whether they followed the guidelines at all (Waits & Lewis, 2003).

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

If postsecondary institutions continue to offer distance education courses without improving the extent to which they follow accessibility guidelines, students with disabilities face a greater likelihood of inaccessible distance education courses. Increased commitment by U.S. postsecondary institutions to the use of Web accessibility guidelines will help reduce barriers to distance education faced by students with disabilities.

Universal Instructional Design The concept of Universal Design considers, at the initial design stage, how people with varying abilities use a product. The approach is “universal” because people of varying abilities are factored into the process from the beginning, and as a result the end product is usable by many more people. “Assistive technology” (AT) refers to devices (software or hardware) that help people with disabilities use computers and information technology. Assistive technology cannot guarantee access to online educational materials and systems because, in many cases, the instructional materials themselves are not designed to be accessible. “Universal Instructional Design” (UID) addresses this problem and can be adopted as a standard for the design and development of new instructional materials that increase accessibility. Redesigning existing material is problematic because it is not often practical or possible. It is often necessary to recreate the same material from scratch using UID principles in order to make the material more accessible. UID does not replace assistive technology, but it helps to ensure that people using assistive technologies can achieve better results with online content. The principles of UID (Scott, McGuire, & Shaw, 2003) address the design of the instructional material itself as well as the physical environment in which the material is accessed and used, the physical effort required of the learner, and the culture and community of learners. The principles of UID extend beyond technical specifications and

take into consideration the process and context of learning. Designing instructional material using UID principles helps to ensure that students with disabilities can perceive the material despite the challenges of a disability. Proactive steps in this direction include creating and presenting material in multiple formats, such as transcripts for audio or video content, and text alternatives. Ensuring good color contrast, color choice, and compatibility with screen reader software also helps increase Web accessibility. UID also provides a learning environment that is open and inclusive, and applies a social constructivist approach by promoting communication and collaboration among all members of the learning community.

WEB ACCESSIBILITY POLICY Web accessibility policy is not an abstract, unattainable goal, nor should it be an undue burden. Levine and Sun (2002) describe it this way: “In essence, higher education institutions must create Web sites that work with students’ adaptive technology or, in some cases, furnish appropriate auxiliary aids and services to ensure equal opportunity” (p. 11). Although it makes sense that larger institutions with more resources are better able to adopt and implement Web accessibility policies, this does not preclude smaller institutions from researching, planning, and taking steps toward universal design of new online material or increasing institutional awareness and building support for this issue. Postsecondary institutions with accessible Web policies include California Community Colleges, MIT, Regis University, San Jose State University, and University of Wisconsin (Schmetzke, 2001). Without institutional preparation for Web accessibility, finding and mobilizing the proper resources is more difficult and costly. If steps are taken in reaction to legislation, then duplicated effort is required to create another version of instructional materials that is accessible, which is not

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an efficient approach. Web accessibility policy is effective for minimizing both risk and cost to an institution, especially if there is some possibility of a future government mandate. What are the reasons behind the uneven response to setting Web accessibility policy and committing to Web accessibility guidelines? Policymakers face competing social perspectives, economic considerations, increasingly complex technologies, and a lack of specific government mandate. Each of these is discussed in the sections below.

SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES Models of Disability There are several models of disability (Seale, 2006), and the application of these models affects how people with disabilities are viewed in society, and the policies that impact them. In order to move beyond the status quo, a new perspective is required, one that focuses on the whole person and seeks to provide the highest quality of life possible for all, equally. The models are described below. • •

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Medical Model: focuses on the impairment itself and requires the individual to adjust to the disabling condition. Charity Model: emphasizes the personal tragedy aspects of disability. It portrays disabled people as sad, helpless, and in need of care and protection. Administrative Model: focuses on a specific area, such as education or employment, and is used to determine eligibility for certain benefits or compensation. Legislation defines the disability and focuses on the impairment, not the physical or social environment. The implication is that specialized services must be provided.

•

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Social Model: focuses on society’s failure to identify ways that the social and physical environment can include disabled people. The implication is that barriers should be removed. Service Provision Model: emphasizes individual and collective responsibility over professional help and medical responsibility.

Disability can be considered in a functional context, meaning the disability is viewed as a mismatch between a person and the environment. A functional framework concludes that the person or the environment can be changed, which increases options and solutions, including application of a universal design approach. Web accessibility ties to universal design because Web-based content that is universally designed can be perceived and used by more people. The concept of universal design is consistent with the Social Model of Disability, which helps to frame Web accessibility as an issue of inclusion and social justice and not simply as an individual’s personal problem. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) takes a human rights approach to disability rights. Using the positivist language of the CRPD helps take this model one step further. As Vaughan (2008) notes: CRPD notions such as respect, dignity, equal worth, the full enjoyment of all rights, equality of opportunity, mandated legislation and governmental activities, the use of special measures as well as other economic and social rights, and duties relating to proactive alteration of the social understanding of disability, lie beyond the currently conceived parameters of United States law. (p. 9) The CRPD language expands the Social Model of Disability perspective by moving the focus toward the well being of the whole person. The language of the CRPD has the potential to further

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

influence public opinion, Congressional action, and judicial interpretation. The U.S. has yet to ratify the CRPD.

THE COMMUNITARIAN PERSPECTIVE In the communitarian perspective, members are embraced and supported, and the various abilities of individuals are seen as complementary and valuable. People of varying abilities contribute to the community in their own way to the greater good of all. The communitarian perspective takes measures that help disadvantaged members of a community improve their lot. Facilitating others also furthers the individual because the ends are shared and held in common. Special support provided to members of the community is not seen as a redistribution of resources but as an investment that benefits the community. Accessibility infrastructure, including Web accessibility, is an example of special measures that foster inclusion for community members with disabilities and help these members thrive and contribute.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES Equity and efficiency are competing concepts when determining resource allocation and fair distributive justice. An economic examination of individual preference curves appears to be at odds with social justice and the communitarian perspective because individuals will seek to maximize their own utility at all times.

Theory of Social Justice John Rawls (1974) developed the Theory of Social Justice to prove how individual preferences can lead to a just social outcome. He examined equity as part of social contract theory. Each person’s

starting point, or “original position” in society, is the same, and under such conditions “the most reasonable principles of justice are defined as those that would be unanimously agreed to in an appropriate initial situation that is fair between individuals conceived as free and equal moral persons” (p. 141). This hypothetical, unanimous agreement is called “original agreement” and is, according to Rawls, a socially just outcome. Rawls’ theory of social justice considers the distribution of “primary goods,” which include liberty, freedom, powers and prerogatives of offices and positions, income, wealth, and the social bases of self-respect. Primary goods are fairly allocated, even if unequally distributed, if the allocation is based on individual choice. Unequal allocation of primary goods is unfair if the distribution results from the privilege or disadvantage of certain individuals caused by arbitrary or undeserved circumstances. All people should have a “fair share of primary goods, and that people’s fate should be determined by their choices and decisions, not by the circumstances which they happen to face” (Chu & Liu, 2001, p. 258).

Maximin Principle of Justice Rawls viewed all people as equal and moral beings. As such, if people are ignorant of their position in a society, then they are behind a “veil of ignorance,” and have a level of risk that is incalculable. Under these conditions people will unanimously agree to create the best possible scenario for the worst position in society. This agreement is what Rawls calls the “Maximin Principle of Justice” (Chu & Liu, 2001, p. 268). This theory attempts to ensure that the outcome affecting the least-advantaged members of society is as good as possible when resources are distributed. Rawls believed that once the least-advantaged groups in society are identified, it is fairly easy to decide which policies are advantageous to these groups. It is not as easy to decide which

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policies maximize the marginal utility of already advantaged groups, and to what degree can this be increased in a just manner; therefore the maximin theory has a practical policy application. Advantaged groups are likely to prefer a utilitarian approach, as this would maximize their utility compared to a maximin, or equal distribution, approach. Equal distribution or treatment is not a socially just option. To this point, Wilson (2004) notes: “There is nothing meritorious per se about similarity of treatment (that is an old mistake): justice demands that different cases be treated differently” (p. 101). An economic efficiency perspective concludes that accessibility infrastructure alterations, such as wheelchair ramps or Web accessibility measures, are not economically efficient because usage is low. The purpose of such infrastructure improvements is improved social mobility for a disadvantaged group in society. Without accessibility infrastructure people with disabilities are “essentially in an absorbing state of a Markov process from which they could never get out” (Chu & Liu, 2001, p. 267). Accessibility measures help to change this absorbing state for people with disabilities, which is consistent with Rawls’ concepts of equality and justice.

Transition in Disadvantaged Context Model Carlo Raffo (2006) compared a standard schoolto-work transition model to a school-to-work transition modeled in a disadvantaged context. He concluded that young people who are disadvantaged have difficulty accessing resources beyond a restricted, localized source. “These young people are then potentially marginalized from the new economies of the city in terms of the informal practical knowledge, understanding and skills needed to potentially access those economies, i.e., the appropriate social, cultural and human capital” (p. 91).

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Raffo examined socioeconomic disadvantage, but his model of transition in a disadvantaged context also applies to people disadvantaged by a disability. He stated: If we are to create more equitable forms of support for disadvantaged young people, then transition policy and practice may need to investigate and then invest in those particular educational, training and transition interventions that create opportunities for enhanced social and cultural capital developments. (p. 91) This model helps to understand accessibility measures as an investment rather than as a cost. Accessibility measures are interventions for people with disabilities that create new opportunities for development and contribute to society.

ALTERNATIVE COST-JUSTIFICATION AND COST-BENEFIT FRAMEWORkS Financial cost-benefit analysis should not be the only consideration in policy decision making. In fact, when policy impact includes non-financial outcomes, financial tools alone are inadequate. In these cases methods designed to calculate social costs and benefits, and return on investment, are more appropriate. Social impact analysis, combined with financial analysis, gives policymakers greater context and more complete information.

Internal and External Social Return on Investment Wilson and Rosenbaum (2005) discussed the concepts of internal and external social return on investment (ROI). Internal social ROI is a measure of the value-added of an activity (Web accessibility in this case) based on the perceptions of internal stakeholders in an institution. Collecting this type of data is obviously difficult, and the data itself is subjective, but it is important to try because these

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

perceptions and attitudes of stakeholders are what lead to support for policy, or not. Satisfaction surveys can be used to measure internal social ROI. Alternative metrics include tracking inquiries, requests for help or accommodations, number of funded positions with the activity in the job description, and number of members involved in the activity included in development or strategic management teams. Outreach and establishing and improving internal relationships and connections improve internal social ROI. External social ROI involves measuring external stakeholders’ perceptions of the activity (Web accessibility), its importance, and impact according to different constituents. Instruments to help measure external social ROI include surveys and ethnographic interviews.

Net Social Benefit Framework It is not possible to attempt WCAG compliance or to advance a Web accessibility policy without adequate resources. Understanding the impor-

tance of Web accessibility, its impact on various constituencies, and true costs and benefits, allows institutions to make better-informed decisions about Web accessibility policy. The actors that have standing concerning Web accessibility are those that “have a right, justification, or duty to be considered within the scope of the analysis” (Steinemann, Apgar, & Brown, 2005, p. 327). Based on the perspective adopted, standing may be determined from the basis of legal rights, by identifying parties impacted by the issue, and may also be extended to include future generations. The key stakeholders for Web accessibility in distance education (the parties with standing) include students with disabilities (and their families), students without disabilities (and their families), faculty, the institution, government, and society. Tables 1 and 2 together provide a sample framework for determining the streams of costs and benefits of Web accessibility. Applying this framework yields total net categorical benefits. This framework does not place actual values on

Table 1. Students with Disabilities (and families)

Students without Disabilities (and families)

Faculty

Institution

Other Members of Society

Total

Benefits Access to more courses of study

+

Additional programs and support services

+

Increased earnings potential (from greater education)

+

Improved instruction

+

+ -

+

0

+

+

+

+

+

PR value

+

+

Demonstrated commitment to mission of increased access

+

+

Attract more students (revenue growth)

+

+

Feelings of pride from communitarian involvement Net +/- Categories

+

+

+

+

+ 7

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Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

Table 2. Students with Disabilities (and families)

Students without Disabilities (and families)

Faculty

Institution

Other Members of Society

Total

Costs Travel time and expense

-

-

Personal equipment (hardware, software, peripherals, assistive technology)

+

+

Personal Utilities (electric, internet access)

+

+

Faculty training time

+

+

Specialized staff needed

+

+

Institutional infra-structure and overhead

-

-

Net +/- Categories

2

Transfers Welfare Provided Reduced Welfare Benefits Received

+

+

Net +/- Transfers

0

Net Benefits – Costs

5

costs and benefits, as these are specific to each institution, but categorizes and tracks the streams of costs and benefits to the parties of standing to determine the net social benefit.

Benefits When all this information has been gathered, it enables an institution to evaluate policy for consistency with its goals and mission, such as equity and inclusion; also its perceived competitive advantages, such as increased enrollment, are identifiable. The immediate benefit to students with disabilities (and their families) includes greater access to courses because they are no longer limited by geography or mobility. Future benefits include improved job prospects resulting from higher levels of education. For these students and their families, costs such as travel time and expense are reduced. Universally designed instructional material immediately benefits all students, not just

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those with disabilities, because various formats accommodate different learning styles. Faculty benefit in the present and in the future because students learn more from the same amount of instruction and material when it is presented in different formats. Universally designed online materials can be used repeatedly to teach future sections of a course. There is a time and economic cost to train faculty and staff to develop accessible instructional materials. Training may have to be outsourced if the expertise is not available in-house. Institutions with Web accessibility policies and initiatives serve distance students more cost effectively compared to campus-based services because both current and future overhead is reduced. Future benefits include growth from broadening market bases globally; avoiding penalties if legislation mandating Web accessibility is enacted in the future; enhanced institutional credibility and standing in the community; and pride from

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion of an underserved population. If institutions comply with Web accessibility standards in advance of a legislative mandate, the government may realize a future benefit due to fewer compliance audits. A transfer is expected via reduced welfare payments to disabled people who are better able to support themselves after receiving more education, but this is offset by the loss of that benefit to the disabled person. Overall economic output occurs because of higher productivity from students who are not employed and the taxes they pay on the expanded output. For those who participate in the program, positive feelings may result from helping disadvantaged members of the community.

Costs For students with disabilities, and their families, the immediate costs of this approach include equipment and utilities to participate in distance education courses (e.g., computer, software, Internet access, electricity, and possibly assistive technology). Students without disabilities may experience loss of funding for extracurricular activities, infrastructure improvements, and financial aid if some of these funds are diverted to Web accessibility compliance. Institutions incur the costs of institutional change, including restructuring student support services, staff development, cultural change, and infrastructure to support Web-accessible distance education. There may be a net loss to society if the net costs of providing Web accessibility are greater than the net benefits, especially if many of the benefits are future benefits that must be discounted.

TECHNOLOGY Unless one is a Web designer, or an information technology professional, it can be difficult to understand everything involved in complying

with Web accessibility guidelines. This makes the concept of Web accessibility somewhat abstract for non-technical policymakers.

High Game, Low Game Issues that have politically and bureaucratically acceptable solutions are the ones that ultimately make it onto the agenda. The “high game”, described by Laurence Lynn (1981), involves agenda setting; the “low game” involves implementation. A solution needs to be predetermined at both the high and low levels or it will not be tackled because it may not get solved. Web accessibility is viewed as a technical issue involving software and technology solutions, and advancing Web accessibility policy is challenging because solutions involve technology that is difficult for many policy makers to understand. This creates a situation where the high game actors cannot comprehend the low game solution, so no agenda is set. Administrators may understand the high game, but the complexity of the low game makes the issue untenable for most operations managers. Web accessibility is avoided because of the perception that it is too difficult to understand and therefore cannot be solved. High game policymakers need to understand the overall concepts of the technology involved and the broader impact of Web accessibility barriers. Two technology issues to consider for their common use in distance education are learning management systems and multimedia.

Learning Management Systems U.S. postsecondary institutions commonly employ learning management systems (LMSs) in distance education. LMSs are password-protected Websites that allow faculty and students to communicate and collaborate, complete coursework, post material online, submit assignments, and post feedback and grades. Therefore LMSs are also susceptible to accessibility challenges like other Websites.

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Multimedia Audio and video media are used regularly in distance education, but these formats constitute potential access barriers for students with disabilities, who may not be able to see or use multimedia content due to sensory, physical, psychological, or multiple disabilities. Of U.S. postsecondary degree-granting institutions offering distance education in 2002 many indicated plans to start or increase the number of courses using multimedia as the primary instructional delivery vehicle. Forty percent planned to start or increase the number of courses using two-way video with two-way audio (video conferencing), 23% planned to start or increase the number of courses using one-way prerecorded video (vodcasts), and 13% planned to start or increase the number of courses using oneway audio (podcasts) (Waits & Lewis, 2003). Multimedia use in online content should continue to increase along with the availability of greater bandwidth, and the emergence of Web 2.0 (and 3.0) technologies, because it is relatively inexpensive to create. Consequently, as multimedia use proliferates in general, and in instruction specifically, UID becomes even more critical to accessibility.

LEGAL CONTEXT The federal government has made it clear that postsecondary institutions in the U.S. must provide “reasonable” accommodations to ensure that otherwise qualified students with disabilities have access to educational opportunities. There is no exact legal definition of “reasonable.” With advancements in technology, state and federal mandates, and improved awareness about disability, students with a wide range of disabilities are now able to participate in every institution of higher learning (Burgstahler, 2004). The case of National Federation for the Blind (NFB) v. Target Corporation (2007) brought a

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claim that Target Corporation violated the ADA (42 U.S.C. § 12182), California Unruh Civil Rights Act (California Civil Code § 51), and California’s Disabled Persons Act (California Civil Code § 54.1) because its Website (Target.com) was not accessible to the blind. Federal District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued two landmark decisions in this case: first, certifying the case as a class action on behalf of all blind Internet users, and second, ordering that Websites such as Target. com must be accessible according to California law. In its decision, the court decided: The Unruh Act and the Disabled Persons Act reached the Website as a kind of business establishment and an accommodation, advantage, facility, and privilege of a place of public accommodation, respectively. No nexus to the physical stores needed to be shown. Because the DPA (Disabled Persons Act) enumerated both physical places and non physical places, the phrase “other places to which the general public is invited” could not be limited solely to physical places. (NFB v. Target Corp, 2007) This interpretation of a “place of public accommodation” to include non-physical spaces is a precedent and is likely to impact future decisions concerning accessibility of Websites owned and operated by private entities. If an institution is subject to physical site compliance under the ADA, according to recent legislative action and intent it should expect to be subject to non-physical site compliance as well. Legislation often lags, but eventually is revamped as needed to redress misinterpretations by the courts or misapplication in society. When Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, the Web as we know it today did not exist. The potential barriers created by poor Web design were certainly beyond the horizon of legislators and federal administrators. Thus, it is no surprise that the ADA, while mandating equal access to an institution’s resources, does

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

not specifically address the design of Web-based information services (Schmetzke, 2001). There are direct and indirect impacts on Web accessibility policy from legislation such as the ADA, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998. Although current federal legislation does not explicitly require postsecondary institutions to comply with specific Web accessibility guidelines, there is the possibility of such a mandate in the future. Section 508 was amended in 1998 to require federal agencies to make electronic information accessible to people with disabilities.

Reauthorization of the ADA The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was signed into law on September 25, 2008. It clarifies and broadens the definition of disability and expands the population eligible for protection under the ADA of 1990. The ADAAA demonstrated inadequacies in the original ADA and showed how advances in our society and our values are reflected in legislative changes. The ADAAA takes effect January 1, 2009. The purpose of the new legislation is to increase enforcement and broaden the definition of eligible complainants under the law. It redresses earlier judicial interpretations of the ADA and resulting decisions that were not favorable to many plaintiffs who were excluded under the then- narrower interpretation of eligibility. As a result, postsecondary institutions should be aware that they may be required to provide additional accommodations unless they can prove that compliance would create an “undue burden.” After this legislation passes, it will be more difficult for an institution to claim “undue burden” when faced with accommodation requests, including Web accessibility.

International Compliance Some nations are more progressive than the U.S. when it comes to Web accessibility. Several have implemented laws and policies designed to guarantee access to digital content for individuals with disabilities. For instance, the United Kingdom has extended the requirement for Web accessibility into the private sector. The UK Parliament enacted the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 1995, which, like the ADA, does not specifically mention Web accessibility. Technically, Web accessibility falls under Section III (the requirement to make “reasonable adjustments” for persons with disabilities). Although the DDA does not specify Web accessibility, the supporting materials (the Code of Practice) specifically mention it. The standards document for this policy was published March 2006. Rowland & Margier (2007) found, “In the wake of their formal report, the DDA issued a warning that organizations will face legal action the possibility of paying out unlimited compensation if they fail to make their Websites accessible for people with disabilities” Several other countries have detailed policies concerning Web accessibility, including Australia’s Disability Discrimination Act (1992), which applies to education, and Canada’s “Common Look and Feel” for Canadian government Websites, which includes accessibility provisions (Barstow, McKelly, Rothberg, & Schmidt, 2002).

RECOMMENDATIONS Web accessibility is not an all-or-nothing proposition, but it can be improved by progressive steps. Institutions without experience, or with limited resources, can start with the basics, or what Tom Brink (2005) calls the “low hanging fruit” level of accessibility. This level can be achieved from

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good, basic Web design that includes descriptive text for images, scalable font sizes, and visual color contrast. As institutions ramp up, they can set policy to advance to the next level of standards and guidelines compliance, then universal accessibility focused on ease of use, and finally to the optimized accessibility level where the Website works very well for most users. It should be noted, however, that with each level comes increased cost, technical complexity, and greater management. U.S. postsecondary institutions are advised to implement Web accessibility policy even in the absence of a legislative mandate to do so. Creating a policy that emphasizes social benefits and is tied to the mission of increased access (if applicable) or to other appropriate social justice values such as equity, inclusion, and nondiscrimination, communicates a positive message to the entire community that the institution is progressive and dedicated to these core values. Web accessibility policy minimizes legal risk, and can reduce costs since it is planned. Institutions can track (among others) time, training, wages, and equipment to determine the true cost of accessibility. However, it is important not to focus solely on financial cost because this leaves out important social benefits that need to be considered. Calculating social ROI and net social benefit is also needed because it captures what financial analysis alone cannot. Selecting and citing guidelines in Web accessibility policy, such as WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 Guidelines for Web Accessibility, sets a clear direction for Web designers and technologists to follow (the “how”). Stating over-arching principles, such as UID, provides the framework and goal for the policy (the “why”). Since Web accessibility offers benefits to all users, not just those with disabilities, there is strong incentive to move in this direction. It may not be possible for all institutions to start from this point, but it is a worthwhile and achievable goal for many.

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FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS Globalization in Higher Education Globalization in higher education results in opportunities for private and public partnerships and collaboration. International students may or may not travel to attend a course or a program, so distance education provides opportunities to serve international students. Standardization is necessary in order to deliver consistent instructional quality, especially across different cultures and languages. UID is one way to standardize distance education materials, which benefits a diverse population that includes international students and students with disabilities. U.S. postsecondary institutions with a global vision can use Web accessibility policy to support multiple student constituencies. Today, postsecondary students and their families are more savvy consumers of education, which means increasing competition for enrollments. Institutions should be concerned with the quality of their educational experience and support the full range of services, which will help create competitive advantages. UID supports academic success for all students and is a quality differentiator when undertaking institutional marketing.

Future Legislation Legislative intent seems clear: the bar is higher. The reauthorization of the ADA, and the NFB v. Target case are signals to private entities that there are stronger expectation that accommodations will be made, including better Web accessibility. In the future it will be more difficult to claim that such accommodations are an undue burden. The message is strong, that society sees equity and inclusion as high priorities. It is doubtful that this direction will reverse, and institutions should plan and prepare for how to meet this expectation and comply with potential legislative mandates.

Web Accessibility Policy for Students with Disabilities in U.S. Postsecondary Distance Education

The implications of the ADAAA, especially its broader definition of disability, are that employers must change their policies to provide reasonable accommodations and prevent discrimination against employees with disabilities. The legal definition of disability has been changed, and the original and fundamental spirit of the ADA has been reinforced. The burden of proof has shifted: it is not just the person with a disability who must prove discrimination, but also the employer who must demonstrate proof of reasonable accommodations and an effort to prevent discrimination. Institutions that institute Web accessibility policy are in the best and strongest position if a legal mandate is enacted. If such a mandate occurs, institutions that have already begun the planning and implementation process will be ahead of the curve and will likely incur lower costs. As Burgstahler (2003) notes: Both internal and external forces can pressure postsecondary institutions to be more inclusive of students with disabilities. External forces of change include a global, technological, and information based economy; legislation; and societal pressure toward a pluralistic society with equity for underrepresented groups. Internal forces include pressure from students with diverse characteristics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, culture, disability, part time status) and faculty who seek a more inclusive environment). (p. 34)

CONCLUSION The nature of education has changed for nontraditional students, but policies and programs have not kept pace with this change. Growth in distance education, as well as technological changes, have created many more possibilities for non-traditional students, including students with disabilities. Institutions offering distance education need to assess their Web accessibility

environment, identify risks, determine the level of institutional commitment, define the importance of this mission, and implement an appropriate allocation of resources. People with disabilities face barriers to distance education. Why should these barriers be removed? Applying a communitarian perspective helps explain why assisting people with disabilities actually helps us all. Rawls’ distributive justice theory, the social model of disability, and similar social, theoretical, and socioeconomic perspectives (e.g., Raffo) are tools that explain why it is important, socially just, and economically rational to implement Web accessibility measures. Competing perspectives, such as economic efficiency, must be addressed and countered. Economic efficiency cannot be the sole basis for making decisions about disability policy because applying this perspective most often results in decisions against accessibility measures based on the relatively small percentage of people who will benefit when this paradigm is applied. In fact, Web accessibility policy can be an effective way to minimize both risk and total cost to an institution. Solutions for eliminating accessibility barriers also need to be identified, explained, and implemented. Universal design is one solution that can be framed differently at the agenda setting and operational levels by applying a macro view (strategic perspective) during the high game, and a micro view (tactical perspective) during the low game. Web accessibility is an extension of the greater mission and commitment to basic human rights, equal access, and nondiscrimination. These principles are widely accepted and consistent with the educational mission of many institutions of higher education. In order for any policy to be adopted, it must reach the agenda and receive high level support. Involving all parties with standing in the decision-making process is important. Burgstahler (2003) sums it up well: “To create a campus environment that provides equal educational op-

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portunities for all students, including those with disabilities, it is important that administrators develop policies and procedures be developed in collaboration with faculty, student service providers, and students with disabilities.” (p. 34)

Caldwell, B., Cooper, M., Reed, L. G., & Vanderheiden, G. (Eds.). (2008). Web content accessibility guidelines 2.0, candidate recommendation. Retrieved June 15, 2008, from http://www.w3.org/ TR/WCAG20/

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Chisholm, W., Vanderheiden, G., & Jacobs, J. (Eds.). (1999). Web content accessibility guidelines 1.0. Retrieved May 26, 2008, from http:// www.w3.org/tr/wai-webcontent

Allen, I., & Seaman, J. (2007). Online nation: Five years of growth in online learning. Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium. Retrieved on February 28, 2008 from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/ freedownloads.asp

Chu, C. Y., & Fang, L. W. (2001). A dynamic characterization of Rawl’s maximin principle: Theory and implications. Constitutional Political Economy, 12, 255–272. doi:10.1023/A:1011612028663

Americans with Disabilities Act Restoration Act of 2007 (2007). U.S. Senate, 110th Congress Sess. Retrieved January 9, 2009, from http://www. opencongress.org/bill/110-s1881/text AND http:// www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s1881/show

Horn, L., Berktold, J., & Bobbitt, L. (1999). Students with disabilities in postsecondary education: A profile of preparation, participation, and outcomes. U.S. Department of Education: Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Barstow, C., McKell, M., Rothberg, M., & Schmidt, C. (2002). IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications, Version 1.0. Retrieved February 28, 2008, from http:// www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/accv1p0/imsacc_guidev1p0.html

Levine, A., & Sun, J. C. (2002). Barriers to distance education: American Council on Education. Center for Policy Analysis.

Brink, T. (2005). Return on goodwill: Return on investment for accessibility. In Bias, R.G., & Mayhew, D. J. (Eds.), Cost-justifying usability: An update for an Internet age (pp. 385-414). Boston: Morgan Kaufman. Burgstahler, S. (2003). Application of Research Findings. Retrieved March 2, 2008, from http:// www.washington.edu/doit/TeamN/application. html Burgstahler, S. (2003). Synthesis of Research. Retrieved March 2, 2008, from http://www.washington.edu/doit/TeamN/Downloads/synthesis.pdf Burgstahler, S. (2004). The Faculty Room: Statistics. Retrieved March 2, 2008, from http://www. washington.edu/doit/Faculty/Rights/Background/ statistics.html

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Lynn, L. E. (1981). Managing the public’s business: The job of the government executive. New York: Basic Books. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved January 10, 2009, from http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/ National Center for Education Statistics. (2009). Integrated postsecondary education data system: Glossary. Retrieved January 11, 2009 from http:// nces.ed.gov/ipeds/glossary/? charindex=P National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation. C 06-1802 MHP (2007). Retrieved January 9, 2009 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/2617203/ National-Federation-of-the-Blind-et-al-v-TargetCorporation-Document-No-144

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Raffo, C. (2006). Disadvantaged young people accessing the new urban economies of the postindustrial city. Journal of Education Policy, 21, 75–94. doi:10.1080/02680930500393377 Rawls, J. (1974). Some reasons for the maximin criterion. The American Economic Review, 64, 141. Rowland, C., & Margier, H. (2007). Web accessibility system change: The myths, realities, and what we can learn from two large scale efforts. Retrieved March 1, 2008, from http://ncdae.org/ policy/systemchange.cfm Schmetzke, A. (2001). Online distance education - “anytime, anywhere” but not for everyone. Retrieved January 9, 2009 from http://people.rit. edu/easi/itd/itdv07n2/axel.htm Scott, S. S., McGuire, J. M., & Shaw, S. F. (2003). Universal design for instruction: A new paradigm for adult instruction in postsecondary education. Remedial and Special Education, 24. Seale, J. K. (2006). E-Learning and Disability in Higher Education. New York: Routledge. Steinemann, A. C., Apgar, W. C., & Brown, H. J. (2005). Microeconomics for public decisions. Mason, OH: Thompson South-Western. Trace Center. (1996). Retrieved January 10, 2009 from http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/whats_ud/ whats_ud.htm Vaughan, J. R. (2008). Finding the Gaps: A Comparative Analysis of Disability Laws in the United States to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Washington, D.C.: National Council on Disability. Waits, T., & Lewis, L. (2003). Distance education at degree-granting postsecondary institutions: 2000-2001. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Wilson, C. E., & Rosenbaum, S. (2005). Categories of return on investment and their practical implications. In R.G. Bias, & D. J. Mayhew (Eds.), Costjustifying usability: An update for an Internet age (pp. 215-263). Boston: Morgan Kaufman. World Wide Web Consortium. (2009). Retrieved January 10, 2009 from http://www.w3c.org/ WAI/ intro/accessibility.php

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Accommodation: Something supplied for convenience or to satisfy a need (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009) ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act. ADAAA: Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008. Assistive Technology: devices (software or hardware) that help people with disabilities use computers and information technology. Also called adaptive technology. Communitarian: Of or relating to social organization in small cooperative partially collectivist communities. communitarian (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009) CRPD: United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. DDA: Disability Discrimination Act, enacted by the U.K. Parliament in 1995 Distance education: Teaching and learning involving accessing information, communicating, collaborating, and completing course work online. Students and instructors are remotely located to each other and may communicate asynchronously, synchronously (in real-time), or by a combination. Also called distance learning Models of Disability: Various models of disability are frameworks applied to understand and help classify disabilities and can also be used to determine service level provisions. These include The Medical Model, The Charity Model, The

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Administrative Model, The Social Model, and the Service Provision Model Postsecondary: The provision of a formal instructional program whose curriculum is designed primarily for students who are beyond the compulsory age for high school. This includes programs whose purpose is academic, vocational, and continuing professional education, and excludes avocational and adult basic education programs. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009) Section 508 Guidelines for Web Accessibility: Section 508 requires that Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. Universal Design: The process of creating products (devices, environments, systems, and processes), which are usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, opera ting within the widest possible range of situations (environments, conditions, and circumstances). Universal design has two major components, first, designing products so they are flexible enough that they can be directly used (without requiring any assistive technologies or modifications) by people with the widest range of abilities and circumstances as is commercially practical given current mate-

rials, technologies, and knowledge and, second, designing products so they are compatible with the assistive technologies that might be used by those who cannot efficiently access and use the products directly (Trace Center, 1996) Universal Instructional Design: A method of designing course materials, content, and instruction to benefit all learning styles. The principles of Universal Instructional Design promote equal access to learning for students from a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and learning styles. Similar to Universal Design and Universal Design of Instruction for Learning (UDI) WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). WCAG 1.0 published in 1999 and WCAG 2.0 published in 2008. Web Accessibility: According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, it means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging (World Wide Web Consortium, 2009)

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by H. Song; T. Kidd, pp. 357-373, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 7.18

The Impact of Sociocultural Factors in Multicultural Communication Environments: A Case Example from an Australian University’s Provision of Distance Education in the Global Classroom Angela T. Ragusa Charles Sturt University, Australia

ABSTRACT Changes in the availability and quality of communication technology have revolutionized, and fundamentally altered, learning environments. As citizens of the “Information Age,” the breadth and impact of global communication are triggering unprecedented transformation of social structures and institutions. This chapter explores the impact of commodification on education when institutions of higher education sell knowledge as a commercial good. The contemporary phenomenon of distance education is increasingly offered and purchased by an international market which experiences heightened pressure for standardization from the global citizens it serves. It is argued here that technological changes necessitate reevaluation of

communication processes, discursive practices, and organizational policies. To stay competitive and produce quality products for increasingly international audiences, institutions must create well-articulated policies. By providing insight on the impact multiple sociocultural and communicative norms have on virtual communication, this research uses qualitative discursive analysis of case examples to examine how variance in the structure and delivery of virtual communication environments at a leading distance education university in Australia affects student satisfaction, perception, and learning outcomes. Whereas previous research fails to include a theoretical or conceptual framework, this work draws upon interdisciplinary work from the fields of sociology, education, and science and technology studies. How “cyberspace” changes interaction rituals,

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The Impact of Sociocultural Factors in Multicultural Communication Environments

masks cultural norms, and alters entrenched social expectations by creating new sensitivities is discussed, along with the ramifications of variation in technological availability, competence, and expectations in global classrooms. In sum, ideas for informing change in policy, administration, and the delivery of distance education and virtual communication in global environments are discussed to equip leaders and participants with skills to foster effective communicative and interaction strategies.

INTRODUCTION Analyzing the “Australian experience” with distance education1 (DE), this chapter uses qualitative data to show how the type and design of virtual learning environments influence both the process and purpose of communication outcomes in global learning environments. DE is a global phenomenon with “over 130 countries developing or offering distance courses, many of them based on new information and communication technologies (ICTs)” (Shields, Gil-Egui, & Stewart, 2004, p. 120). However, the “global marketplace for e-learning products and services” varies widely among and within countries, courses offered, and technologies (Bowles, 2004). As multiple sectors (education, corporate, government) are involved in its development and delivery, inclusion of culture as a primary foci of analysis remains limited (Bowles, 2004; Monolescu, Schifter, & Greenwood, 2004; Palloff & Pratt, 2001; Brooks, Nolan, & Gallagher, 2001). Failing to prioritize cultural analysis may be costly and ineffective in communicative environments with multinational participants. Applying secondary data analysis techniques using a sociological and science and technology studies (STS) lens, this chapter informs

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existing literature not only by prioritizing culture, but moreover overcomes the methodological challenge facing international studies (Au-Yeung, Ha, & Au, 2004; Hawkey, 2004) of isolating “pure elearning” (Bowles, 2004) environments in higher education to study virtual interaction without the added presence of face-to-face interaction. According to situated learning theory, knowledge cannot be removed from learning context and environment. Hence, not only are local norms set within a larger, global community, but a host of interaction-based, communicative norms are called into question as participants negotiate the boundaries of electronic communication dynamics. Critical analysis of such dynamics provides insight into the symbiotic relationship between culture and technology in affecting communication. As such, the principal objective of this chapter is to enable better-informed decision making and the refinement of virtual communication (VC), in learning and other environments, by offering in-depth examples of how cultural norms and interactions can, and do, impact VC. By exploring how structure impacts virtual dialogue, the chapter asks how normative assumptions affect the negotiation of communication rituals based on situational meanings. Anticipated to be of particular interest to academic researchers, teachers, managers, and administrators of crosscultural online learning environments, as well as business leaders working in international VC environments, this chapter uses case examples to demonstrate the strategic value of effective management; offers pragmatic steps that managers, teachers, and participants can take to maximize the virtual communicative experience; and asks all to reflect upon how sociocultural experiences interact with technologies to affect successful VC delivery.

The Impact of Sociocultural Factors in Multicultural Communication Environments

BACkGROUND Education as a Setting for Virtual Communication Education, as an institution, is a field complete with theories, methodologies, and practices which can lead to the dichotomization of knowledge production into either positivism or social constructivism. Classical educational theorists such as Dewey (1938) and Piaget (1927) have argued that learning can be understood as a process of praxis, or doing. Praxis stands in contrast with the ancient tabula rasa/ “blank slate” (Brooks & Brooks, 1993, in Palloff & Pratt, 2001) notion of students being empty blackboards waiting to be written upon. In assessing the use of multimedia tools to build collaborative virtual2 communities, Goldman-Segall (1992, p. 260) offers a study contradictory to “the traditional school curriculum [that] is based on the attendance of empiricism, rationalism, and pragmatism” (Scheffler, 1965). Goldman-Segall’s ethnographic research demonstrates how multimedia educational tools not only are mechanisms for cultural reflection/ taking “the other” perspective, but moreover reveal what “the virtual community feeds back into the real community” (p. 293). The outcome is a negotiated understanding reflexive of participants’ intentions and actions as collaborators in an educational project. Knowledge is constructed as an interaction between learner and environment, which subsequently reconfigures both (Semple, 2000). Applying a constructivist epistemology (Vygotsky, 1986), learning can be understood as a dialectical process infused by culture where meaning is constructed from a negotiation of cognitive thoughts within specific environments. Termed “electronic pedagogy” (Palloff & Pratt, 2001), this alternative view argues that when individuals work independently on subject matter and then engage in reflexive discussions about what fellow participants contributed, critical thinking skills are exercised. This chapter presents research

supportive of Goldman-Segall’s observation that multimedia, and particularly VC, enable individuals to reflect and view world events from others’ perspectives in ways unique and different from face-to-face interactions. In the past decade, much has been written about the pros and cons of DE from an educational framework. The main contributors are from education, technology, and administration disciplines. Additional disciplines beginning to address core cultural dimensions include humancomputer interaction, usability, and technical communication, and the field of rhetoric, which now includes discussions of culture and online issues. However, each admittedly has been slow to contribute in meaningful ways. Although researchers in these paradigms are well equipped to analyze the effectiveness of DE, discussion of cultural issues is less rigorous and sparse, even when the imperative for including culture is acknowledged (Jorgensen, 2002). Jorgensen’s (2002) review suggests that issues surrounding successful “community building” are a crucial component of culture in online communities (Borthick & Jones, 2000; Wegerif, 1998; Davis, 1997). Culture has also attributed great importance to the building of social capital within sociological theory (Putnam, 2005; Coleman, 1988) and society’s general functioning (Durkheim, 1951; Merton, 1968). To understand how communities3 function successfully, some traditional functionalists (Durkheim, 1951; Parsons, 1954) emphasize the establishment of common social norms. While functionalism may be useful to understand macrostructural organization of communities, those connecting macro- and micro-level analysis (Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1979), and particularly some feminist analyses (Collins, 1990; Smith, 1990), reveal that power dynamics differ by unit of analysis. Within the education literature, questions of how to create the best virtual community reflect the challenge of how to create a social presence in an online environment (Lynch, 2002).

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Australian market research attributes variation in cultural attitudes, communication, infrastructure, and government policy (Bowles, 2004) with responsibility for the current nature and climate of DE. Despite the vast majority of research being imported to Australia from the U.S. and the UK, there exists an absence of reliable Australian data on electronic learning (otherwise known as “e-learning”) trends, as governmental indicators and Bowles (2004) claim. These implications challenge the establishment of benchmarks and expectations as “the exponential growth of contacts and networks among educators in an increasingly multinational market exists in a context of local and global stratification” (Ragusa & Atweh, 2004). As the example ethnomathematics reveals, “Research has failed to develop an ability to produce knowledge about people from within. Moreover, the knowledges generated have failed to assist in the transformation of reality, leading not to social change in justice but rather confirmation of the status quo” (Ragusa & Atweh, 2003). According to theories within STS, “Developments in transportation communication as well as the crisis of world ecology have created the so-called global society” (Hess, 1995, p. vii). In turn, the “people of diverse nationalities find themselves in increasing contact with each other. In many countries women, underrepresented ethnic groups, gays and lesbians, and other previously excluded groups have gained a greater voice” which results in “public debates on diversity, pluralism, oppression, exclusion, inclusion, colonialisms, identity politics and other issues that can be glossed as multicultural” (Hess, 1995, p. vii). Social-psychological research shows variation exists in comfort and preference for VC (Lynch, 2004). Introverts tend to be more comfortable with electronic communication and reflection than extroverts (Palloff & Pratt, 1999). By applying this knowledge to a cultural critique, a Western/ non-Western divide emerges. For example, research in Hong Kong shows students prefer to passively receive instruction rather than partake

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in active pedagogy heralded by new technology and distance learning communication strategies of the 21st century (Au-Yeung et al., 2004). It is crucial to be cognizant of such cultural variation, especially with increasing student numbers and class size. The “Australian experience” with DE shows the limitation of research and recommendations which fail to include (Monolescu et al., 2004; Palloff & Pratt, 2001; Brooks et al., 2001) or give cursory attention to (Albalooshi, 2003; Lynch, 2002, 2004), culture as a fundamental variable of focus. This is not acceptable in increasingly global educational environments, of which DE perhaps leads the way by containing potentially the highest levels of multinational participants. Lynch (2002) cites the impact of cultural values which “are reflected in informal rules and reward structure of the organization” (p. 71) at the bottom of the list of Sherry and Wilson’s (1997) indicators of transformative communication. However, as this chapter reveals, ignoring and/or sidelining the impact of culture on VC environments may be both costly and damaging.

Distance Education in Australia In 2003, the Australian National Training Authority published two volumes detailing the expectations and delivery of online/computer-based education in Australia. As part of a strategic plan to meet national goals for delivering flexible learning educational products, the ability to meet policy objectives remains hampered by the lack of procedures for data collection, institutional variation, and limited coordination between states and the federal government. Changes in the delivery of education are forewarned by the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson MP, as crucial: Globalization, massification of higher education, a revolution in communications and the need for lifelong learning, leave Australian universi-

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ties nowhere to hide from the winds of change. (Nelson, 2005) However, this call for change is at least 13 years old. In 1992, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, Kim Beasley, Member of Parliament, commissioned a report which provided “formal advise from the Higher Education Council [HEC] on DE in Australia,” according to Peter Laver’s letter to the Minister. HEC wrote: “The potential is there…both for use of DE materials and for alternative modes of delivery … the council’s preferred position is consistent with the consultants: mixed mode should refer to flexible learning arrangements that can be made available to all students in all institutions” (HEC, 1992, p. 5). However, although “the potential exists technically in Australia for every higher education student to work in mixed mode format…for DE … usage is still not great. This wider use can be attributed more to enterprising teachers then to the influence of DECs [DE Centers]” (HEC, 1992, p. 6). As articulated by the federal government, the problem lies not within technological limitations but within cultural and business norms. From the cultural side: One major problem is cultural. Australian material has generally been produced for Australian cultural conditions and for use in Australian universities ... simply making courseware available to an overseas user on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis, leaving unattended a host of difficulties ranging from aptness of content to the cultural appropriateness of particular forms of examination questioning, could not suffice as an approach in the medium or long-term. (HEC, 1992, p. 7) Clearly, cultural and business norms overlap. This is evident by the government’s following statement: The other problem is the current fragmentary approach to the business enterprise of delivering

higher education overseas. Although the start-up costs are likely to be heavy, the prospective return is great for institutions and for Australia, both in terms of fees won and in terms of generating an ethos on campus towards more flexible approaches to learning. Yet, one of the certainties that Australian institutions must face is competition from other (Asian) nations already active in developing higher education services for delivery overseas. (HEC, 1992, p. 8) Although the report may seem philanthropic in its discussion of culture, further elaboration negates construing the Australian government’s interest as anything but economic: To be sensitive and responsive to the cultural needs of overseas students, who are to be engaged through DE materials and modes of delivery, may make the difference between developing an overseas market worth a few million dollars annually and a truly significant enterprise. (p. 8) Hence, technological solutions alone are problematic.4 For example, research on global collaborations among mathematics educators reveals: Increased technological capability does not translate into changes in the equitability of global knowledge sharing practices. Even as computer networks facilitate collaborative research, those from the periphery ‘will experience pressure against working in native languages, or on questions different from those attracting attention in the main centers. They will be measured against their peers in the centers, not against those in their own institution or region’ (Gibbons et al., p. 131). Ultimately, ‘globalization destroys local cultures and organizations’ (Gibbons et al., p. 131) and fosters standardization over plurality, contributing towards Western imperialism. (Ragusa & Atweh, 2003)

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Increasingly, when it comes to knowledge production, global interdependence among developed countries is total, while developing countries are left with “starvation and handouts from the developed parts of the world” (Winchester, 2005, p. 1). Furthermore, although we may like to think the Internet enables us to live in a “global village,” nation-state boundaries and ethnic prejudices, not to mention global disparities in world indicator statistics on health, mortality, education, wealth, and so forth (The World Bank, 2005), can bring firsthand accounts of some very large social problems right into your “own backyard.” This is particularly likely when global citizens come together to learn, as “globalization of the world’s economies is leading to increased emphasis on internationalization of the curriculum” (Barjis, 2003). Increasingly mobile and transient societies, fuelled by knowledge-overload in the Information Age, require new methods of communication. International competition, technological proficiency, multiple careers in renewed emphasis on productivity and quality are realities industries and businesses worldwide face (Barjis, 2003). Technology has irrevocably altered business models and policies, and higher education is no exception, in Australia and worldwide (Stein, 2003). VC presents an unprecedented opportunity for learning, dialogue, and social change. As we journey into the virtual horizon, however, it is necessary to take practical steps as businessmen/women, politicians, educators, technocrats, and general voyagers, to prepare for the journey with knowledge and cultural sensitivities of our fellow travelers, our virtual environment, and ourselves.

Case Study: Secondary Data Analysis of Virtual Communication In Western countries, such as America and Australia, student evaluation typically takes the form of quantitative student questionnaires

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distributed either electronically or via the postal service. In Asia (Au-Yeung et al., 2004) and the UK (Hawkey, 2004), even when case study methodology is applied to assess collaborative online learning communities, analysis remains quantitative. Critical analysis of quantitative studies reveals quantitative surveys’ subjective recall of past events can be problematic.5 Another problematic methodological issue of international studies (Au-Yeung et al., 2004; Hawkey, 2004) of VC environments in higher education is their impossibility to analyze communication that never entails face-to-face interaction. This complexity is also evident within Australia: ‘Pure’ e-learning delivery—that is, learning that relies entirely on information and communication technologies—can be hard to isolate, as the technology is often used to enable other forms of communication, such as face-to-face meetings between learners and facilitators, video or telephonic conferencing or exchange of materials.’ The National Centre for Vocational Education and Research believes that pure e-learning is rare in Australia. (Bowles, 2004, pp. 25-26) This situation makes the current study unique because the only formal interactions students had were virtual, mediated by a computer. The present study enhances the literature by addressing this situational challenge, in addition to foregrounding culture. Qualitative, secondary data/discourse analysis conducted via a case study6 approach is used to analyze communicative situations in my teaching experiences with two large DE subjects over two consecutive six-month periods in 20052006 at a rural Australian university7 known for its leadership as a DE provider. This research adds to the understanding of how structure impacts the effectiveness of virtual dialogue. Moreover, it provides insight and strategic ideas regarding the development of successful VC in global environments.

The Impact of Sociocultural Factors in Multicultural Communication Environments

Environment and Demographics The structure of the two learning environments was similar in the provision of material (everyone received a hardcopy DE “package” containing a subject outline, reading book, and study guide), yet differed greatly in level of VC required. “VG1” (Virtual Group 1) contained nearly 300 participants and “VG2” approximately 140. Both contained individuals from across Australia and abroad, representing a range of ethnicities, nationalities, ages, disabilities, academic aptitudes, and life situations. However, unlike VG2, which was led using a constructivist pedagogy, understanding the process of education as a socially constructed, reflexive practice characterized by collaboration, group projects, and praxis (Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Schon, 1991), VG1 contained only one asynchronous8 general virtual forum which participants were asked to visit weekly for announcements. Students were left to be individual distance learners, with the added dimension of having access to the voluntary, general forum. In contrast, VG2 participated in multiple asynchronous electronic forums: a general forum for announcements, working group sub-forums for group virtual presentation preparation, and topic sub-forums for student discussion leadership. All students in VG2 were required to participate weekly in virtual discussions run by group leaders.

Outcomes The constructivist and collaborative learning environment of VG2 is upheld by some as a key to virtual success. Jorgensen’s (2002) literature review lends support to this conception. “When students are actively involved in collaborative (group) learning online, the outcomes can be as good as or better than those for traditional classes, but when individuals are simply receiving posted material and sending back individual work, the results are poorer then [sic] in traditional classrooms”

(Jorgensen, 2002, p. 9). This quote epitomizes the difference between the two subjects. While both are defined equally as “DE,” the correspondence9 learning experience of VG1, supplemented by virtual chat and announcements, revealed minimal student satisfaction. In contrast, those in VG2 reported much learning of both subject content and life skills, such as team management. Despite variation in the quantity and quality of VC, both cohorts expressed learning resulted from their electronic dialogue. Although VG1 was active on the general forum (1,540 postings for 335 members and 103,802 “distinct reads”), its designation as an auxiliary learning tool resulted in little dialogue relating to subject content. Despite formal encouragement, rather than use the electronic forum to ask specific content-related questions, VG1 member primarily used it to vent grievances and assuage discontent/frustration with their learning experiences. This does not mean learning did not ensue. To the contrary, students learned much about the politics of communication using (post)modern technology. In contrast, VG2 produced 765 postings from 81 users, and 25,360 “distinct reads” on the general forum and multiple other communications not reviewed in the 11 topical discussion forums. To highlight some challenges and nuances involved in VC, this chapter proceeds with qualitative discourse analysis of virtual communicative text. Qualitative analysis reveals three key characteristics resulting from multicultural VC experiences: 1. 2. 3.

Intergenerational Negotiation ‘Real-World’ Impact of Ethnic Culture and Racism The Impact of Technology and Systemic Practices

Intergenerational Negotiation Although both VGs contained mature-age and traditional students, perhaps because VG1 was not

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structured as task-focused/topical (like VG2), introductions differed in their revelation of personal details. This impacted future communications in three ways. First, as those in VG1 disclosed their age and geographical location, allegiances formed. Participants self-segregated into “oldies,” “crusties,” “dinosaurs,” and “late starters,” with several 40-something-year-olds sharing their fears and excitement about starting university at this point in their life. As middle-agers became more active in the virtual dialogue, some younger participants, particularly those in their teens, expressed shock. For example, a student born in 1985 found it incredulous to study with others who left high school that same year. Soon, it became a competition among the young not to be the youngest and to be the oldest among the old. Some simply looked forward to graduating in the same year as one of their children. Second, although initially a topic of much conversation, age quickly took a backseat to the establishment of commonality, particularly by level of role-overload, which continued throughout the semester. All ages lamented the struggle to balance work, family, and study. Self-initiated disclosure of life situations fostered impromptu allegiances, most commonly family status (mothers/fathers, grandparents, etc.), school leavers, and geographical location. A third outcome of informally structured virtual dialogue among a group of 288 “strangers” was the formation of informal mentoring. Younger participants reading descriptions of life circumstances of older participants actively sought out mentoring from those “more mature” and “handling the stress better.” Younger ones perceived older generations to have the advantage of wisdom, along with better-developed stress management techniques. However, even though the requests were met with encouragement, older participants perceived younger ones to be advantaged because of their familiarity with technology, recent studying skills, and belief that stress is not correlated with age. Regardless of

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any extrinsic “truth,” the experience of being in this VC situation together led to the development of a collective consciousness expressed by such sentiments as “being in the same boat” and able to “fall in a heap together.” These conversations raised awareness of subjectivity, as discussions made it apparent that what constitutes maturity, old/young, privileged, and so forth, largely depends on one’s perspective and position relative to others. In contrast, although an equally varied range of student ages, experiences, and locations existed in VG2, the formality of the structure seemed to inhibit the formation of bonds based on demographic data. While some disclosed personal details and chatted occasionally, being assigned to a specific discussion group and work tasks had the effect of focusing virtual conversations. This led to discussions of team/task organization and learning, rather than primarily emotional support. Furthermore, VG2 infrequently left the structure of the “virtual classroom,” whereas in VG1 some asked others to continue the discussion via personal e-mail. What can be learned from this comparison, among other things, is the impact structure and management can have on the quantity and type of VC. Providing a group-work structure, facilitated by electronic sub-forums,10 resulted in role clarity and alleviated anxiety associated with the uncertainties of DE. As the exclamation of two in VG2 reveal, combining effective technology and “human” management can relieve stress associated with working in virtual groups: “Thank god for Angela! I think this will make things heaps easier rather than using our own personal e-mails, as that way no one misses out on whats going on etc.” “I agree with you and will go straight to our subforum once I have finished here. Great work!” It is important to realize although similar group dynamics exist in face-to-face and virtual groups (Lynch, 2004), virtual groups remain significantly different in structure. VC restricted

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to written form may be more tedious, time consuming, interrupted by unanticipated events, and subject to a host of considerations that differ from face-to-face interactions. Consequently, although some research indicates the effectiveness of electronic discussions is greater than for face-to-face discussions (Brooks et al., 2001), attenuating an exhaustive list of structural issues identified in the literature (Bowles, 2004; Lynch, 2002; Brooks et al., 2001), such as resolving issues of time management, discussion leadership, technological complications, authoritative control, and dialogue ground rules, is essential for effective VC.

‘Real-World’ Impact of Ethnic Culture and Racism The second important feature of VC is anticipating and managing the impact of ‘real-world’ events. The use of reflection in virtual learning environments, which is facilitated by the structure and reality of electronic learning technologies and VC practices, has caused a shift in pedagogy: Constructive knowledge involves the opportunity to critically analyze information, converse with others about its meaning, reflect upon how information fits within your personal belief in value structures, and arrive at a meaningful understanding of that information … this method is projected important, and lends itself well, to the online learning environment because learning online supports dialogue and the collaborative development of understandings. (Lynch, 2004, p. 109) As it becomes common practice for DE to bridge individuals’ roles as students and other life roles (Lynch, 2004), external factors may become increasingly influential. When dialogue can occur 24 hours/7 days a week from the comfort of one’s own preferred environment, under the influence of substances or not, within a structure that does not require communications to be pre-reviewed,

boundaries that usually govern face-to-face interaction are removed. This creates heightened potential for unmediated conflict, posing a greater risk to VC breakdown. It is imperative managers and administrators conduct risk assessment prior to commencement and build coping mechanisms within the structure to ensure that high-quality service delivery is not undermined. To minimize undesirable outcomes and maximize communicative action, risk assessment cannot be an entirely top-down strategy. VC requires negotiation on the part of each contributor. If equity in legitimacy of voice is granted to uphold democratic/pluralist ideology, be aware it will engender diversity, and thus conflict resolution/minimization may require equal plurality in approach. Knowledge production and true communication necessitates “we have to learn from the painful experiences and the irreparable suffering of those who have been humiliated, insulted, injured, and brutalized that nobody may be excluded in the name of moral universalismneither underprivileged classes nor exploited nations, neither domesticated women nor marginalized minorities”(Habermas, 1993, p. 15). When the public partakes in a VC discussion, traditional statues (gender, class, race, etc.) responsible for enforcing social norms remain covert. This is simultaneously liberating and constricting, as those accustomed to social privilege may find themselves lacking power they may ordinarily take for granted. In contrast, VCs grant traditionally marginalized social groups’ power to participate without the restrictions master statuses typically impose in face-to-face interactions. Analysis of virtual dialogue reveals it is not so easy to remove social identity and status that years of socialization have firmly entrenched via ideology. Even if social cleavages are not immediately recognizable through written prose, expressed value systems and the cultural relativity of social standpoints (Harding, 1991; Smith, 1987) become readily exposed when debate

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ensues, as the following case example illustrates. The result is twofold. On one hand, VC traverses boundaries (geographical, social, and economic), facilitating intimate dialogue among sectors of the public which otherwise may isolated. This poses a unique opportunity for education, as individual life stories and experiences work to dispel (or uphold) stereotypes. On the other hand, the threat exists for larger groups to divide along traditional nation-state, age, and other boundaries in the quest for validation of moral superiority. For instance, as Butler (1990) uses the category of gender to argue, gender is not some intrinsic state of being, but rather a negotiated performance reproduced and re-enacted daily. So, too, is culture a socially constructed product reinvented via VC. The informality of VC fosters an increasingly more intimate type of dialogue than face-to-face classroom interactions. This encourages deeper reflection on cultural norms and beliefs. The disclosure of “taboo” prejudices too politically incorrect to reveal beyond the safe environment of one’s computer terminal becomes commonplace as individuals’ biases are identified by others. Asynchronous VC is unique because it provides a written account of one’s own thoughts and dialogue which continue to exist even when one’s current opinions may no longer be reflected in past writings. In this study, the institutionalized VC structure made viewing all prior correspondence continuously available. The impact re-reading past communications had is noticeable. Perhaps due to the fractured nature of asynchronous VC, the expression of self-identities, while seeming reflexive of “real-life” realities, metamorphosed over the six months of virtual dialogue. Several who entered the dialogue espousing rigid, clear boundaries and belief systems revealed in later communication how their interactions, both within and outside the learning environment, changed. For some, this caused a discrepancy between their “old” and “new” selves, while for others virtual interactions served to preserve preconceived no-

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tions. To explore this phenomenon further, two case examples will be drawn upon. •

Case Example 1. The impact of multiculturalism on VC: VG1 dialogue regarding racism and immigrants emerged in response to the Macquarie Fields11 Riots in Sydney. What ended up being a nine-day virtual conversation among 35 participants was initiated by a 34-year-old who wrote how she was disgusted and appalled at the rape of a pregnant woman abducted by three men in Macquarie, Sydney. She reveals the incident caused her mental anguish and conflict because although she attended a highly multicultural school in inner-city Sydney, such incidents as racial riots in the media cause her to feel she’s becoming racist. She identifies that this is at odds with her identity as a “typical” Australian and notes how infuriating it is that the more Australia lets immigrants into the country, the more ethnic fights are imported from immigrants’ country of origin. The ensuing VC reveals three challenges technology poses to discussions of social problems. First, initial responses highlighted the complexity of dealing with heated emotional and sociocultural issues. A primary concern was how to communicate and define national/cultural identity in an environment where value systems and beliefs varied widely, and where individual characteristics remained unknown. For example, the very first response used the well-known history of Australia’s rape and decimation of thousands of aboriginals, and the years of aboriginal assimilation into white British culture, to question who counts as immigrants. Yet, because another student failed to read the discussion closely, s/he challenged the respondent’s justification of aboriginal men raping and murdering white women, arguing

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many ethnicities share a country and need to stop blaming each other for past actions. The discussion that followed reveals the second challenge virtual reality poses to effective communicationthe complexity of articulating any universal meaning/intention using subjective cultural symbols (words). When the original initiator reflected/re-read her initial words, she articulated how she did not explain herself properly, tried to qualify what she meant by “typical,” and backpedaled about her intended meaning. Responses to her clarification shows effort to clarify VC sometimes does little to change/retract original statements and may not assuage others’ discontent. For example, a fourth contributor challenged her “typical” Australian comment, noting that indigenous Australians are as typical as you can get and that noted accusations and judgments make matters worse. This virtual dialogue continued, as individuals debated concepts of race, racism, nationality/nationalism, immigration, hate, prejudice, Eastern vs. Western cultures, terrorism, rape and violence, power, control, and dominance. Arguments about ability to transcend culture led to standpoint/point-ofview discussions, escalating until the physical reality of seeing such dialogue alive as text on the computer screen inspired one to reflect how the very act of dialogue occurring among multicultural individuals was in and of itself inspiring. This participant found it empowering to note as a cultural artifact, a product of democratic societies. Although the reflection offset spiraling cynicism, uncertainty of being heard among competing cyberspace voices remained a reality, as the preface “whoever else cares to read this response” implied. Perhaps luckily for this communicator, the “reality” of the conversation itself was used by others to evidence

cultural pride as the tide of conversation flowed to embrace multiculturalism. Haraway’s (1991) concept of cyborgs captures the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines, and is increasingly manifested through social analysis of VC. “Technology is beginning to mediate our social relationships, our self-identities and our wider sense of social life to an extent we are only just beginning to grasp” (Featerstone & Burrows, 1995, p. 13). Although the racism example confirms the similarity of virtual asynchronous and synchronous faceto-face communication whereby inclusion of an alternative point of view shifts both focus and climate, it also reveals difference. What differs between the two communication styles (perhaps more synchronous vs. asynchronous) remains the quantity of time to devote to reflection. Synchronous dialogue demands an immediate response, often with little time to analyze the evidence previously provided. Yet, in asynchronous environments, a communicator can do considerable research before responding, as another contributor did when s/he noted the paucity of information provided to evidence claims of the influence culture has on events and ideas. Hence, the examples reveal asynchronous dialogue using computers as a medium alter the meaning, flow, and outcome of communication. This brings us to the third challenge VC poses: negotiating definitions of authority. In the classical Weberian tradition, power can be defined as the ability to achieve desired ends in the face of resistance. In this case, the power both the rapists and rioters exerted in Sydney demonstrates traditional power. Traditional power often lacks legitimization, as reflected in the conversation. The difference between power and authority lies within perception. Authority is power others perceive as legitimate, not coercive.

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When authoritative voices enter a dialogue, opposition is minimized. This occurred in this case when two police officers, one in Sydney, the other in Melbourne, added their perspectives. However, for VC, authority poses unique challenges: (a) there may be several authoritative voices competing for power in the dialogue, (b) it may be harder to verify whether one’s identity/position is indeed true, and (c) control over the direction of communication may be relinquished to persuasive writers, due to written dialogue’s uni-dimensionality. In this example, the Sydney police officer decided he had heard enough from what he defined as “armchair critics,” telling them it was time to “get real and listen to how it really is!!” As he described leading a riot team of police during the Macquarie Fields Riots, his authoritative prose left little room for further discussion. Emotionally charged, and backed by years of experience and hardships, he made a charismatic plea for hard-core justice, where all individuals are treated the same under the law, irrespective of ethnicity or politics. These insights were met with cries of joy from many, with thanks for the officer “set[ting] us straight on the subject.” The authority commanded by the police officer and role as expert were repeatedly asserted. Another added, “you have expressed how a lot of my family, friends & I feel about the Macq fields riots but you have the evidence to back it up.” The disadvantage of such discussions is the dichotomy that quickly is established between the knowers (those with the right to speak, who are identified as “absolutely right and are coming from a position of experience and knowledge”) vs. those with less worthy ideas. The impact of position to grant communicative authority is notable, and was acknowledged by many who stated they were glad to “have someone



in a position of experience who can shed light on this subject” and “always find it hard to form and express an opinion on these types of matters because I never know the real situation.” Who has the right to speak (and be heard) has been a topic of interest in feminist epistemology (Roof & Wiegman, 1995; Garry & Pearsall, 1989) and of critical political theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci. However, deciding whose perspective deserves legitimization is a contentious issue, and in this case, continues to fuel deep-seated prejudices. “Those who have developed these lovely theories do so from an educated persons perspective. These people have little knowledge of the type of individual that has no regard for the laws we are all expected to live by and for the safety, property and well-being of others.” Such was the sentiment of a self-identified Victorian police officer, who added he worked in disadvantaged and culturally diverse areas. He proceeded to use his status to express dissatisfaction with Australia’s welfare state “where we make excuses for poor (and even criminal) behavior.” Once again, this led to a flood of bigoted, culturally insensitive exchanges, such as a response from a participant who has a police officer as her partner. What began as agreement with the Victorian officer, regarding those who see situations firsthand, and everyday having more right to speak than others without such knowledge, digressed into disclosure of how, although she could “respect and appreciate poverty, youth issues and disadvantaged groups,” she was “tired of systems protecting these people to the detriment of others.” Her tirade ended with a revelation about how much better off her sister on “government handouts” is than she who owns a business.

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•

VG participants, equipped with all their identities and subsequent bodies of knowledge (as professionals in various fields, occupants of various neighborhoods and countries, situational knowledge from interpersonal relationships, etc.) acted out real-world battles in cyberspace. With each passing communication, participants divided more firmly along political lines, varying in expressions of sympathy vs. critique of police officers and level of open-mindedness. After nine days, interest subsided and new issues were up taken. However, unlike verbal dialogue, which lives in our memories alone, months later every detail of the communication remained intactas a “real” artifact for all to view, if desired. Unlike face-to-face communications, VCs appear to foster a unique combination of emotive and rationalized thoughts about world events. Although it may be impossible to anticipate every response in a debate, written responses tend to be more personal and reflexive than face-to-face discussions and exhibit less inhibition. In large groups, the geospacial/physical constraints imposed by size, where individuals may not get to discuss ideas one on one, is vastly altered by VC. VC enables multiple one-on-one conversations, which may result in a ratio of one to hundreds. However, it is questionable whether individuals consciously think about what it means to express deeply personal thoughts in a public forum. Case Example 2. The subjectivity of electronic communication: Research exploring communication norms in virtual environments in education (Palloff & Pratt, 2001) has drawn particularly from stage and systems theory to explain the organization and development of electronic group dynamics, including conflict and resolution (McClure, 1998; Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). The second case example provides support for the need of

task clarity, focused collaboration, and quick leadership intervention when conflict arises for successful group functioning (McClure, 1998). It also gives credence to Palloff and Pratt’s (2001) warning of the heightened potential for misinterpreted communication, due to lack of face-to-face interaction rituals and less adherence to social norms based on the work of Schopler, Abell, and Galinsky (1998). Adding to Thomas’ (1923) “definition of the situation,” as articulated in classic symbolic interactionism theory, the case illustrates how subjective meanings individuals attach to a situation have real-world consequences, which may be independent of any “objective” reality. As Lynch (2004) articulates, “when reading a typed message, there is a strong tendency to projectconsciously or notyour own expectations, wishes, anxieties, and fears into what the person wrote. This may lead to further conflict and, because it is written, sometimes builds a feeling of resentment that lasts longer” (p. 13). Long before the instance occurred, during the first weeks of communicating virtually, a participant described the complexities a later example would reveal: “Sorry if the ‘tone’ of my post to the forum provoked you. Thing about cyberspace communication is that it lacks toneor one has to work harder at communicatingsomething I’m still adjusting too.” Although this instance does not reveal miscommunication, there is agreement VC is indeed subject to misinterpretation: “No, didn’t provoke me as such and I agree with the lack of tone thing. Perhaps my messages are being misread also…pros and cons of technology!” Applying the once groundbreaking insights of Cooley (1922), whose “looking-glass self”12 concept revolutionized classical social-psychological theory, the computer may be understood as a mirror reflecting

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our self-image back to us. As we view this reflection, communicative uncertainty prevails: Is this indeed who I am? Have I expressed myself in a way that enables others to understand me as I wish them to? When an artifacta computeris added to the complex process of communication among humans, situational dynamics change. Let us consider the following example.13 In my role as lecturer, it is common practice to produce a final grade distribution chart so students can see their performance relative to others. To convey this data virtually, I wrote the following message: While I cannot offer you confirmation of your final grades, I have created a chart for you to see how the class did as a whole, which I am attaching as a word file. I think you will be happy to see that out of the xx of you who completed all 3 assessment items, only xx of you failed, which is just x%. While initially this received expressions of thanks, such was not the case for one failing student in VG1. This participant wrote how my note expressed an insensitivity to students’ feelings, contained “unsupportive comments” by confirming some failed, and would make those who failed feel worse. The correspondence ended with exclamations of how I do not know what damage I might be causing and how she found “this behavior quite disgusting, egotistical, and unethical.” This spurred 23 further communications, including a handful charging to my defense, telling her not to “tough talk behind a computer,” how failing is a reality of life, how her response demonstrates “unacceptable behavior from an adult,” and since they “are no longer children” university is preparing them for the “real world.” Others pointed to the “danger of technology” where instant thoughts can be “fired off” in

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the heat of the moment, whereas in the past, emotions would subside prior to mailing a letter. Noting the difference VC makes. One asks: “Would you have spoken to the person that way, face to face, in front of the class of 170 people? You might say ‘Yes’, but I suggest embarrassment would result.” In this case, older students took on mentoring roles, outlining strategies to effectively deal with disturbing electronic information. With painstaking effort, I responded by clarifying my intentions. However, no amount of preparation could have prepared me for her reply. From the apology and confession, I and the other approximately 200 virtual community members learned she just suffered the death of her daughter. Concluding communications displayed a range of emotionsempathy, sorrow for actions based upon imperfect knowledge, even resentment, as one noted although she “felt” for her situation, the group member only contributed once to the virtual dialogue. The armchair philosophers implored others to be nonjudgmental and reflected how “the answers to problems are not always as apparent as they appear on the surface.” In sum, all seemed to learn an invaluable life lesson that may not have been possible without participating in VC.

The Impact of Technology and Systemic Practices The third broad lesson to be learned from this case study is: when using technology to communicate, all aspects of communication can (and will!) be affectedfrom the hardware making it possible, or impossible, to the even slight confusion over definitions.14 VC depends on high-quality technical delivery for success, which is contingent on geographical location,15 resources, politics, and user abilityall beyond the scope of this work. However, it is worth noting that technological

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failure impacts communication. When technology fails, for any reason, confidence in the system wanes and anxiety rises. As the following experiences reveal, technological failure itself does not often cause the most customer dissatisfaction. Humans seem to expect machines, and technological systems, to fail. Many exhibit great distrust of technology. As the next example reveals, what humans are least forgiving of is other humans. A useful, yet fallible, electronic assessment submission system is the institutional means available to students to electronically submit their work in this case. At times, students submit work only to find out later it was received as unreadable due to computer format. When their work is returned as “unreadable,” some students get incited. In VG2, one student found that even though the Web site noted the submission as successful, her hard copy returned via the postal service saying “unreadable” led to her feeling “disappointed” to see hours of work done for naught. Rightly so, she wished to receive such advice weeks earlier, upon submission. Yet, when computers are not set up to properly “talk” to humans, errors in the system remain invisible. This single experience was exacerbated by another’s inflated perception of the event. Noting “what a horror story I really feel for you,” another student extrapolated the instance to her fear of taking the virtual exam. Student panic, resulting in questions about what happens if the Internet service provider “decides to disconnect during the exam,” led to continued fret and pleads for help to “eliminate this extreme worry.” If such communication was conducted by telephone or e-mail, the result would have been a one-on-one conversation where each concern was subsequently addressed. However, because it occurred in a public arena, it provided fuel for the entire virtual community to read and reflect upon. Hence, the very structure of “public” VCwhereby individuals post messages for all to readappears to encourage not only disclosure of individual fears, but moreover

generates chaos among others16 potentially impervious to such ideas. Perceptions, and perception management, are often all that exists in VC. Therefore, it is crucial that strong management exists to intervene and curtail escalated fears where necessary, taking proactive steps to negotiate positive outcomes. In VG2, far greater usage of educational technology (CD-ROM readings, sub-forums, electronic lectures, and student presentations in addition to electronic exams and assignment submission) existed. Hence, it is unsurprising that more technological difficulties, including elevated apprehension and student stress relating to inadequate technological knowledge, manifested. When two participants vented frustration at the inconveniences caused (babysitters planned, work schedules rearranged) due to Web site failure making their exam available, another participant mediated discontent by articulating faith in management. After confirming how everyone held such concerns about balancing “work, children, home and study,” she expressed faith in the lecturer’s management of the situation and ability “to give us the time we need to re-organize our schedules.” For global virtual communities, time is relative. The technical problem above occurred outside standard business hours, leaving management unaware until the next day. Thus, mechanisms for dealing with failure are best built into the system. Although every technological failure cannot be anticipated, it is most important to create a “humanistic side,” through consistent dialogue to encourage confidence that crises will be attended as quickly and professionally as possible. Specifically for DE, the establishment of reliable technological systems is synonymous with quality performance. For all its imperfections, technology is arguably a more viable alternative than solving geographical inadequacies of rural infrastructure and communication issues relating to distance. Both groups identified discrepancies in the privileges Australian urban residents experience compared to rural and international

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residents. Compounded by outdated policies, such as mandated use of the postal service to return assignments and grades, institutional rules can be inconsistent with efforts at technological leadership. Systemic inconsistencies lead to customer frustration. As new students in Saudi Arabia and Pipalyatjara communicated via e-mail, the delivery of mail varied widely (i.e., in Pipalyatjara, because of no rain in two years, “the mail plane [was] having some trouble landing,” and in Sudan, mail delivery by camel was said to be slow). Hence, university policies can add to student frustration, such as when individuals receive material for one subject, yet not others.17

CONCLUSION From the many examples discussed, three broad future recommendations can be put forth to encourage successful VC. VC should be: (a) culturally responsible, (b) flexible in time and style, and (c) mandatory, if group cohesion is desirable. When electronic communication is actively managed and made routine, it becomes part of the skill setanother tool in the toolkit of the global learner. Participants learn a new set of social and communication norms that differ in type and kind from face-to-face interaction. Without physical and verbal cues, interactionindeed communicationbecomes subject to hyperanalysis by participants. As analysis reveals, this can lead to heightened sensitivity and subjectivity of interpretation for content and intent. When participation is optional, the “free rider” phenomenon (Olson, 1965), commonly associated with social movements and collective behavior, ensues. It becomes all too easy, indeed even rational, for many to sit back and benefit from the contributions of a few hard workers. Hence, crucial to successful creation of an active virtual community is the participation of members. To achieve this, and simultaneously preserve the flexibility that makes DE so popular among mature-age and interna-

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tional students, it is recommended that learning materials be structured to enable participants to self-select into a set number of virtual discussions. Not only does this teach effective time management skills, but moreover it gives individuals the option to not partake in discussions that, at least in the social sciences, may be cultural hot buttons. For example, although lecturers might be eager to hear the opinions and reflections on personal experiences regarding issues such as abortion, refugees, terrorism, and so forth, as distance educators we must realize our capacity to intervene/counsel/educate is mediated by our distance. The realities of our students’ lives (and the impact a disturbing virtual conversation may have) must take precedence. The virtual community analyzed in this chapter makes explicit cultural norms operating when individuals construct meaning and make sense of their everyday worldwherever that is. Fostering dialogue among individuals holding varied statuses within the social hierarchy (that is, our global society) challenges cultural (and class, gender, age, ethnic, etc.) norms “…from different standpoints different aspects of the ruling apparatus and of class come into view” (Smith, 1987, p. 107). Applied as a methodological tool to VC, critical analysisinfused with phenomenological sensibilities that lend insight into how micro-level internalization of sociocultural values and norms (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) impact communicationprovides knowledge of how cultural awareness and individual belief systems result from systemic socialization. This subsequently creates a foundation for future analyses of global systems composed of nation-state citizens. Societies are not merely aggregations of individuals. As Hess (1995) theorizes, multicultural spaces can be understood as stages whose very existence predispose its participants to conflict as they negotiate meanings of nationalities, ethnicities, classes, genders, histories, and so forth.

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Tuckman, B., & Jensen, M. (1977). Stages of small group development revisited. Group and Organizational Studies, 2(4), 419-427. Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wegerif, R. (1998). The social dimension of asynchronous learning networks. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 2(1), 34-49. Wilson, J. M. (2002, January 11). Successful distance-education spinoffs. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48, 18. Winchester, I. (2005). Globalization, diversity and education for a democratic 21st century. Journal of Educational Thought, 39(1), 1-5. World Bank. (2005). World development indicators 2005. Retrieved February 13, 2006, from:// Web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20523710~h lPK:1365919~menuPK:64133159~pagePK:641331 50~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419,00.html

ENDNOTES

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Precisely defining what constitutes “DE” remains a contested issue. Adjectives such as “flexible delivery,” “virtual,” “correspon-

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dence,” and “online” are found intermittently dispersed throughout the literature to describe non-face-to-face education. Although DE is not a new phenomenon, with correspondence programs existing during the 19th century, the addition of technologically driven communication systems is recent (Schifter, 2004). The concept of “virtual” learning spaces is defined by Graves (2000) “as those not constricted by time or place” (Leebron, 2004, p. 241). Politics surrounding the concept “community” reveals it to be highly contested terrain (Little, 2002). For the scope of this research, community encapsulates neither the classical political theories of Aristotle, Tonnies, or Paine, nor entertains arguments over communitarianism vs. individualism. In this study I conceptualize community as a system of shared commitments and social values “expressed and promoted symbolically and culturally” (Frazer, 1999, p. 209 in Little, 2004, p. 131) as Frazer articulates in discussions of the welfare state. In sum, what I termed “virtual community” draws upon recent conceptualizations, due to societal changes brought on by modernity and globalization which no longer require geographical connection to establish “community.” As operationalized, community here is informed by identity politics and increasingly limited by mental and infrastructure limitations rather than geography. Prior to 2005, academic policy governing student computer access made computer requirements minimal. This meant, for social equity reasons, educators could not require students to participate in electronic forums. When policy in 2005 changed to reflect new technological minimum standards, making computer access mandatory, this did little to eradicate existing disparity among students. Despite shifting policy, variation in student

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access continued, with some having ready access via employment and/or home, while others traveled to public spaces with public terminals. Hence, practical implications of social inequality remain and continue to need addressing. For example, when trying to understand how and why individuals in specific communities spend their time, Robinson’s (1999) research reveals survey respondents’ estimations are grossly unrepresentative of reality and tend to exhibit bias towards over-reporting workload commitments. Although time use varies in kind from VC participation, the activity of cognition associated with memory recall is similar. Surveys produce a qualitatively different type of reflection and selection of content than analysis of primary texts yields. While the cohort for this study completed both qualitative and quantitative surveys, only discourse analysis is used as the basis for case study. As with every methodology, the inevitability of limitations must be noted. Using case study as an analytical tool means the findings are necessarily situational, contextual, and non-generalizable (Kruger & Neuman, 2006; Royse, 1999). In this environment, student forums were largely informal and participation optional. Discussions of DE provisions described as “asynchronous learning network (ALN)” (Wilson, 2002) and “computer-mediated communication (CMC)” (Herring, 2004) have been attributed with increasing popularity (Herring, 2004) among educators and described as “a canonical model of online education that has received wide acceptance” (Wilson, 2002). Although the ALN model, as described by the CEO of UMassOnline, contains “threaded discussions and live chat,” for the Australian case study, live chat is not currently possible.

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10

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13

14.

Traditional DE refers to learning by correspondence, whereby students are sent reading material and assessment items to complete and return by mail. The university in this study sought to enhance DE by simply creating electronic discussion forums. This approach is inadequate as unstructured electronic discussions do not necessarily translate into better learning. Even with a study guide, without the guidance of lectures, many students were unable to grasp the subject material. As one student defined, “sub groups are the groups we are in for our discussion groups … what every topic you are discussing is the sub group you are in.” The “Macquarie Fields Riots” occurred in Sydney’s southwest for four nights following a fatal motor vehicle accident on February 25, 2005, when two young men, passengers in a stolen motor vehicle, died after being pursued by Sydney police, while the driver fled the scene (Sydney Morning Herald, 2005a, 2005b). Cooley’s research explored how we imagine our appearance is to others, our imagination of their judgments of our appearance, and any subsequent modification. In contrast, no such situation arose in VG2. As the size, virtual structure, and assignment design differed, it is impossible to speculate why. Future studies may wish to analyze why, and under what conditions, such differences in communication arise. For example, although I thought asking students to send me an e-mail “so I can figure out if it's individual accounts or the whole system which isn’t working,” would clearly indicate I was referring to one’s e-mail account, not the subject forum, this proved to be an incorrect assumption. Distinguishing between electronic communication technologies was problematic for some who incorrectly attempted to clarify my instruc-

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tions by saying by “e-mailing Angela meant this actual post on the forum she has made” (for which I responded “Actually I meant real e-mail ...”)Although a minor point, had students used the wrong communication device, the technological problem would have been unsolved. Consider the following virtual correspondence received: “I am currently working in Sudan with the United Nations, in somewhat remote areas ... My issue is that to date, I have not received the prescribed reading

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material. I wanted to test the best method of receiving goods from Australia, and decided to put ‘camel mail’ to the test ... To datenon arrival!” Such sentiments continue to be put forth in telephone conversations with students, some who ultimately decide to only read lecturers’ forum postings to minimize distress. This is due to the university’s practice of mailing out DE material by subject, instead of by student. In this case, printing failure caused delay in the publication of some subject material, yet not others.

This work was previously published in Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age, edited by K. St.Amant, pp. 306-327, copyright 2007 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Section VIII

Emerging Trends

This section highlights research potential within the field of health information systems while exploring uncharted areas of study for the advancement of the discipline. Chapters within this section highlight new trends in digital e-learning environments, mobile technology as an e-learning tool, and the use of Web 2.0 in the classroom. These contributions, which conclude this exhaustive, multi-volume set, provide emerging trends and suggestions for future research within this rapidly expanding discipline.

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Chapter 8.1

Emerging Frontiers of Learning Online:

Digital Ecosystems, Blended Learning and Implications for Adult Learning Glenn Finger Griffith University, Australia Pei-Chen Sun National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan Romina Jamieson-Proctor University of Southern Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT The potential for online education for adult learning have been well argued, and in recent times there have been eLearning initiatives to realise the potential offered by online education. Adult learning institutions, particularly Universities, have adopted and introduced infrastructure to support Learning Management Systems (LMS), Local Area Networks (LAN), Learning Management Content Systems (LMCS), and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). Following discussion of those eLearning environments, this chapter will suggest that the limitations of those digital systems is leading to the next phase with the development of digital ecosystems conceptualised as learning platforms which keeps learning central, enables interoperability, and forms a base for building upon through DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch001

use of new technologies and increased capabilities of educators to use information and communication technologies (ICT) for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (Ingvarson & Gaffney, 2008). Digital ecosystems enable the integration of student administration, LAN (requiring teacher and student logins and passwords), VLE, content repository, community links, utilise Web 2.0 (social networking) technologies, and can have the adult learner as the central focus of the design of the platform and its functionalities. Subsequently, the chapter draws upon the findings of a research project (Sun, Tsai, Finger, Chen, & Yeh, 2007) which identified the critical functionalities for eLearner satisfaction to provide suggestions that the architecture and design of an eLearning system should be informed by the adult learners’ perceived usefulness of the system (Pitnuch & Lee, 2006). More recently, the presentation of face to face teaching and online learning as alternatives has been superseded by

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Emerging Frontiers of Learning Online

conceptualisations of blended learning. Through presenting these learning environments in terms of their possibilities and limitations, and the emergence of blended learning, implications for adult learning will be synthesised.

INTRODUCTION The importance of learners engaging online has increasingly been recognized in an information rich, digital networked world. As Sharpe et al. (2006) indicate, in relation to higher education and research into the impact of eLearning for institutions, practitioners and students, “We are now at a point where 95% [of] higher education institutions are operating at least one virtual learning environment [VLE]” (JISC, 2005) cited in Sharpe et al., 2006). Moreover, there is evidence to indicate that traditional face to face teaching is being blended with eLearning through the use of VLEs to supplement face to face teaching (Browne & Jenkins, 2003; Sharpe et al., 2006). Furthermore, Sharpe et al. (2006), in elaborating on these trends, refer to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) strategy for eLearning, which, in response to input from post-16 education sector, codifies “the prevalence of face to face teaching blended with e-learning (HEFCE, 2005). In this chapter, the use of the terms ‘online learning’and ‘eLearning’are used to refer to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for learning. Unlike traditional timetabled instruction which takes place in buildings such as classrooms and schools, eLearning is characterised by web-based and Internet enabled systems that enable both the instructors and students the ability to access information, to study, and to communicate irrespective of time and their physical location. Blended learning is used to refer to the use of ICT to engage students and to enrich the quality of the student experience through interactive learning activities, particularly with the aim

of achieving learning experiences not able to be realised through only face to face learning. In addition to VLEs, blending technologies is evident through adult learning institutions, particularly Universities, adopting infrastructure to support Learning Management Systems (LMS), Local Area Networks (LAN), Learning Management Content Systems (LMCS), and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). In relation to these emerging frontiers of learning online, research is needed to accompany this adoption to inform effective teaching and learning practices. Following discussion of those eLearning environments, this chapter will suggest that the limitations of those digital systems is leading to the next phase with the development of Digital Ecosystems conceptualised as learning platforms which keeps learning central, enables interoperability, and forms a base for building upon through use of new technologies and increased capabilities of educators to use ICT for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (Ingvarson & Gaffney, 2008). This chapter will argue that digital ecosystems enable the integration of student administration, LAN (requiring teacher and student logins and passwords), VLE, content repository, community links, utilise Web 2.0 (social networking) technologies, and can have the adult learner as the central focus of the design of the platform and its functionalities. Subsequently, the chapter draws upon the findings of a research project (Sun, Tsai, Finger, Chen, & Yeh, 2007) which identified the critical functionalities for eLearner satisfaction to provide suggestions that the architecture and design of an eLearning system should be informed by the adult learners’ perceived usefulness of the system (Pitnuch & Lee, 2006). Emanating from the discussion of new eLearning environments, including blended learning in terms of their possibilities and limitations, and the presentation of the critical functionalities for eLearner satisfaction, implications for adult learning will be presented.

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Emerging Frontiers of Online Learning: Emerging Digital Ecosystems In Australia, strategic considerations for developing the ICT infrastructure for online learning have led to a rich range of professional development and conferences which have responded to calls by educational leaders for guidance and a framework for learning at all levels and in all schooling sectors. For example, the success of the Leading a Digital School Conference held in 2006, has been followed by further annual conferences in 2007, 2008, and this is now a key event on the Conference calendar in Australia. The first Leading a Digital School Conference resulted in the publication of the book Leading a Digital School: Principles and Practice (Lee & Gaffney, 2008). Of direct relevance to this chapter is the work presented by Ingvarson and Gaffney (2008) on developing and sustaining the digital education ecosystem. The framework presented by them can inform adult learning, as educators continue their search for effective learning platforms. The following discussion draws upon their development of this framework. Ingvarson and Gaffney suggest that a more detailed history of VLEs is provided in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments), including the early development of computer-assisted learning, followed by learning management systems (LMS), and the refinement of these resulting in learning content management systems (LCMS) and the parallel emergence of the ‘open standards’ movement in response to the lack of interoperability experienced in the LMS. They indicate that the LCMS present difficulties for educators as they tend to be “complicated and labour-intensive, requiring staff dedicated to managing the content” (Ingvarson & Gaffney, 2008, p. 148). Intranets and Local Area Networks (LAN), requiring passwords and usernames are now commonly used by educational organizations to develop and share learning

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resources. They predict that these will continue to be a key architecture for VLEs. A more recent drive for change has seen the development of VLEs which are “less didactic, more open application of digital technology, which is more directed at learning and less about management and control” (Ingvarson & Gaffney, 2008, p. 149). Adult learners need to build resourcefulness and capabilities to become self-directed and self-managed learners who can pursue different, pathways for knowledge creation, rather than following a linear model characterized by command and control by the teacher. For example, Husband (2008) refers to wirearchy as “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology” (p. 1). Husband argues that: “The last thirty years have been about the building of the technical infrastructure that provides an interconnected world. The integrated platform for a transformation to economies and a world driven by the communication and exchange of information is now solidly in place. The next fifty years will be about learning how we will behave in an interconnected world and workplace”. (Husband, 2008, p. 1) From experiences of implementing VLEs, educators have realised that there are advantages in connecting student information systems with the online learning environment. According to Ingvarson and Gaffney (2008), the consequence was that educational leaders and systems introduced interoperability between student management systems and the administration systems, and overcame the division between school administration infrastructure and classroom learning systems. What is the emerging online frontier? Ingvarson and Gaffney predict and provide examples of the emergence of digital ecosystems, such as Blackboard (Blackboard, 2009), Moodle (Moodle, 2009), Drupal (Drupal, 2009), SharePoint (Microsoft, 2009), and D-Space (D-Space, 2009). In e-commerce, the Cisco-led Information Age

Emerging Frontiers of Learning Online

Partnership study (cited in Directorate General Information Society and Media of the European Commission, n.d.) conceptualised the progression towards digital ecosystems as follows: 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Email: for effective internal and external communications Websites: for visibility in the global marketplace, and for the diffusion and gathering of information E-Commerce Tools: for ordering and paying online, for reducing transaction costs, and to maximize accessibility to new markets E-Business Tools: for supply chains integration, realizing value in the supply-chain integration, and reducing costs Environments for Networked Organisations : for outsourcing, for enabling new business models, and virtual enterprises Digital ecosystems: for global dynamic connection and aggregation of businesses, sharing of knowledge, ideas, and capacities, and spontaneous selection and evolution among services and solutions

In an increasingly digital, networked world, these ecosystems need to enable learners to ubiquitously engage in connected ways characterised by interoperability between the VLEs which are usually managed systems and systems outside of those environments so that the learning platform can integrate aspects important to learning, such as the adult learner’s home, work, and their formal education. According to Ingvarson and Gaffney (2008), ‘healthy’ digital ecosystems “can provide a more responsive, personalized, effective, equitable and efficient learning experience for each student” (p. 152). This vision of healthy digital ecosystems remains elusive at this stage, and unless the way they are designed and informed by educationally sound rationales to justify what they are attempting to achieve, we may end up wasting resources and developing ‘sick digital

ecosystems’ that contain the pathological entities intent on undermining the vision and culture of the school or system. Examples of the latter would include…applications that…control processes or performance with no appreciable benefit in effectiveness, efficiency…for staff and students. (Ingvarson & Gaffney, 2008, p. 152) This raises the question – what are the characteristics of a ‘healthy’ digital ecosystem? The World Economic Forum (2008) identified 8 key areas or pillars that are core for a healthy digital ecosystem; namely, innovation, value of intellectual property rights, financial and legal structure, security and privacy, individual liberty, access, education and civic engagement. To elaborate, as examples, the pillar of innovation reflects an education system that fosters innovation, the individual liberty pillar means that individuals have the ability to communicate, interact and share content, while the pillar of access means that there is an infrastructure that provides ubiquitous, pervasive, simple, affordable broadband structure. The eight pillars can be grouped to reflect their emphasis on economic, personal, and societal values as shown in Table 1. The following section discusses blended learning approaches used in conjunction with networked learning environments can minimise the likelihood of ‘sick’ digital ecosystems.

Blended Learning Approaches The adoption of blended learning approaches in adult learning uses ICT in ways which involves integration of different modes of delivery, models of teaching, and styles of learning through strategic and systematic use of technology, combined with the best features of face-to-face interaction. In this way, blended learning can include varying levels of ICT use ranging from mainly face-to-face to fully online teaching. This expands the conceptualisation of eLearning to enable educators to make design decisions based upon the relative advantage of the ICT for more creative and effective learning

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Table 1. Themes and pillars of a healthy digital ecosystem (As proposed by World Economic Forum, 2008) Themes

Pillars

Economic

• Innovation • Financial and Legal Structure

Personal

• Individual Liberty • Security/Privacy

Social

• Access • Education • Civic Engagement

and teaching. This position is well described by Eklund et al. (2003) who stated that: The growing trend to blended learning recognises the use of ICT in the instructional process as one that augments rather than replaces face to face delivery, and provides unique experiences that assist in achieving desired learning goals. Continually changing demographic profiles for consumers of e-learning imply the need to adopt a user centred design process for development projects, rather than use an off-the-shelf or templated solution, and underscore the importance of developing processes and skills rather than product. (Eklund, 2003, p. 4) An example of blended learning is the approach used at Griffith University in Australia, as visually shown in Figure 1 below, which is “best understood as spanning a continuum that covers a wide spectrum of activities between conventional face-to-face interactions and those that are fully online” (Griffith University, 2008b, p. 1). The key principle is that pedagogical decisions can be made for a blend of face-to-face and

online approaches depending on the needs of the learner. The implication for adult learning is that the learning space, design and delivery can be informed by the needs of the adult learners to enhance effective learning outcomes. According to Griffith University (Griffith University, 2008b), blended learning brings together face-to-face classroom experiences with creative uses of existing and emerging technologies to: • • • • • •

•

make learning content and experiences more accessible for students; cater for student diversity in terms of background, learning styles and preferences; create dynamic communities of inquiry; enable real-world learning through simulations and interactive online environments; foster closer connections between classroom and work-based environments; enhance the quality of research-based learning by enabling students to access online databases or international research communities; and internationalise the curriculum through enhanced connections to international learning communities, resources and opportunities.

The planning considerations for blending learning involves decisions about blending time, blending the locus of learning, blending pedagogical approaches, and blending learning and assessment approaches. In essence, blended learning opens up the range of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment approaches which can suit the

Figure 1. Blended learning continuum (Griffith University, 2008b, p. 1)

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needs of the course being taught, the needs of the adult learner, and transform the restrictions usually associated with adult learning. For example, blending pedagogical approaches enables choice ranging from knowledge being provided in one to many large face-to-face lectures, to podcasting of those lectures to enable learners to revisit the presentation at a time and place of their choosing, including for just-in-time purposes, for further in depth study of the topic, and for examination preparation. In this way, traditional didactic large class lectures can be transformed to meet diverse, individual adult learner’s needs. Similarly, this conceptualisation of blended learning, through being situated within a digital ecosystem links learning materials usually available through LAN, LMCS and VLEs with student administration systems, assessment records, and the adult learner’s personal use of ICT, such as social networking using Facebook, Bebo, or MySpace. Importantly, the choice and design of the eLearning functionalities – e.g. podcasting, online discussion forums, wikis, blogs, simulations, wireless, netbook and laptop technologies – are able to be determined by the educator, rather than determined through a technological determinist approach which focuses on the technology. That is, learning is foregrounded, rather than the technology, to achieve the best possible learning experiences and outcomes. Blending learning decisions informed by educational considerations, enabled and enhanced by appropriate learning platforms can provide a healthy digital ecosystem for adult learners.

Critical Factors Influencing eLearner Satisfaction As indicated earlier in this chapter, there has been considerable enthusiasm for eLearning evident in many adult learning situations. However, it seems that this has not always translated to effective learning. There had been assumptions, particularly from those in management and administration

within learning institutions, that providing learning materials online would result in economic efficiencies, as well as assumptions that both instructor and learners, would find the online experience highly satisfying and conducive to learning. In an instructive study of the critical factors influencing eLearner satisfaction, Sun et al. (2008) revealed that the initial enthusiasm is sometimes displaced by subsequent non-use of the eLearning delivery. They undertook an extensive review of the related literature and concluded that: • •

•

Failures have been reported (Arbaugh & Duray, 2002; Wu et al., 2006); Little is known about why some users stop their online learning after their initial experience; and, Information system research clearly shows that user satisfaction is one of the most important factors in assessing the success of system implementation (Delon & Mclean, 1992).

In addition, Sun et al. (2008) in their review noted that in an eLearning environment, several factors which could be categorised into six dimensions had been found to account for eLearner satisfaction - student, teacher, course, technology, system design, and environmental dimensions (Arbaugh, 2002; Arbaugh & Duray, 2002; Aronen & Dieressen, 2001; Chen & Bagakas, 2003; Hong, 2002; Lewis, 2002). However, Sun et al. (2008) warned that the findings were primarily from descriptive or analytical studies, and therefore, further research was needed which undertook a more rigorous examination to provide guidance for designing online learning to improve eLearner satisfaction. With this guidance, the likelihood of success would be enhanced. This argument is reinforced by the study undertaken by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) (2004) which also examined the critical success factors and effective pedagogy for eLearning in Tertiary Education. That study holds

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implications for the design and implementation of eLearning for adult learners, and it noted the following trends: •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

eLearning should not be a mass of online material for individual access without guidance on how to learn from it effectively; Courses involving eLearning need to be planned for, and grounded in an understanding of the roles of teachers and learners, of learning, and of how students learn; The role of prior knowledge in learning is critical and must be taken into account in eLearning design, and therefore, ongoing formative assessment is part of this; As the brain is a dynamic organ shaped by experiences, then conceptual links are reorganised through active engagement with information in various contexts; Learning is an active process, and is the result of carrying out particular activities in a scaffolded environment where one activity provides the step up to the next level of development; Learning needs to be meaningful to learners and they should be supported in developing the skill of relating new material to what is meaningful to them; Learners should be enabled to become adaptable and flexible experts in their own current and future learning; Learning takes time and effective learning practices enable learners to work with materials from a variety of perspectives while they become fully conversant with it; and Weaving eLearning into existing teaching and learning practices adds more ways for students to be actively and deeply involved with subject area materials. (NZCER, 2004, pp. v-vi).

As indicated in the earlier discussion of blended learning which aims to take advantage of ICT to improve learning and teaching in ways that are

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not available in face-to-face teaching situations, similarly, eLearning is accompanied by an expectation that ‘better’ ways of teaching and learning are made possible (Piccoli et al., 2001). However, the instances of this being quite the opposite evidenced by the failures has tended to be explained by problems with the technology dimension. For example, adult learners might complain that the technology didn’t work, links didn’t work, they were unable to access the material, and various functionalities of the system were too difficult for them to manage and use. It’s of central importance for those technology dimensions to be appropriately provided, as interrelated problems occur when other dimensions are impacted upon by inadequate infrastructure. Similarly, where the technology dimension is appropriate, failures can result when other dimensions are inappropriately addressed. As elaborated upon in the following section, where there is a heavy reliance on the learner’s attitude and efficacy in using computers, learning effectiveness might be limited if the adult learner has no prior knowledge and/or confidence in engaging online. That is, the learner dimension requires understandings of the learner’s needs, skills, knowledge, and attitudes, for success to be achieved.

Implications for Adult Learning Although online learning has advantages over traditional face-to-face education, the needs of adult learners need to be considered. For example, adult learners who are undertaking formal study for the first time, might prefer face-to-face teaching to assist them in building their study capabilities. The design and failure of eLearning needs attention from management and system designers, as well as educators. Sun et al. (2008) noted that psychology and information systems research, while focusing on the technology, have identified important variables to inform enhanced eLearning success, including the technology acceptance model (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989), and

Emerging Frontiers of Learning Online

the expectation and confirmation model (Lin, Wu, & Tsai, 2005; Wu et al., 2006). Subsequently, six dimensions which impact upon eLearner satisfaction were identified by Sun et al .(2008) - student dimension, instructor dimension, course dimension, technology dimension, design dimension, and environment dimension. Furthermore, they reported that the six dimensions encompass thirteen factors, listed below. In relation to adult learning, we argue that these provide serious implications planning and implementation considerations, decisions and actions to enable eLearner satisfaction among adult learners; i.e. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Learner Dimension (i) learner attitude toward computers, (ii) learner computer anxiety, and (iii) learner Internet self-efficacy. Instructor Dimension (iv) response timeliness, and (v) instructor attitude toward eLearning; Course Dimension (vi) eLearning course flexibility, and (vii) eLearning course quality. Technology Dimension (viii) technology quality, and (ix) Internet quality. Environmental Dimension (x) diversity in assessment, and (xi) learner perceived interaction with others. Design Dimension (xii) perceived usefulness, and (xiii) perceived ease of use.

The contribution made by the study by Sun et al. (2008), when conceptualised in conjunction with blended learning approaches, and emerging digital ecosystems, is an integrated framework which acknowledges the complexity and interrelationships of the six dimensions, and the thirteen factors which can assist in eLearner satisfaction.

DEVELOPING SOLUTIONS: CONSIDERING THE DIMENSIONS AND FACTORS FOR SUCCESS To illustrate the possibilities of designing a blending learning approach, effective eLearning, and guidance for healthy digital ecosystems, case studies help to illuminate examples of practice. While there are limitations in the generalisability of case studies, these can be usefully drawn upon by others for them to consider the potential transferability of aspects evident in the case study to their educational context. Using the six dimensions and thirteen factors identified by Sun et al. (2008), the case studies can be investigated to examine those dimensions and factors which have been incorporated and contribute to success to inform the development of solutions in your contextual setting. For example, Kaufman et al. (2008) provide rich insights into supporting eLearning through communities of practice, defined as “a persistent, sustaining network of individuals who share and develop an overlapping knowledge base, set of beliefs, values, history and experiences focused on a common practice and; or mutual enterprise” (Barab et al., 2002, p. 495). Kaufman et al. (2008) draw upon the work of Henri and Pudelko (2003) who conceptualise virtual online communities of practice in terms of the goal of the community (from weak to strong), and in terms of the strength of the social bond (from simple gathering to a highly cohesive group). Therefore, communities of interest exist where the goal of community is weak, and the strength of the social bond is weak. As the strength of both increases, we find that there is a movement to a goal-oriented community of interest, and as further strengthening of both goal and social bond occur, a learning community develops. A community of practice occurs when both the goal of community and the social bond are the strongest. Kaufman et al. (2008) provides numerous case studies of emerging and developing online communities of practice. For example,

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Kaufman et al. (2008) uses the case study of Simon Fraser University’s Co-op Program Community to illustrate that: it is vital to implement design principles that allow for Co-op Community’s own direction, personality, and enthusiasm to lead the way. The design is non-traditional in the sense that the community’s organization and structure ere not predetermined, nor dictated by the developers. …involves open and ongoing communication as well as offering support… …In this way, the community’s social support systems are designed to create room for growth and cultivation of the online space that allow members to play active roles in shaping its features. (Kaufman et al., 2008, p. 484) That case study reflects the dimensions of the environmental and the design dimensions identified by Sun et al. (2008) discussed above. Specifically, the strength of the goal and social bond of the community of practice is determined by the perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use (Design Dimension), and the learner’s perceived interaction with others (Environmental Dimension). This example illustrates how the dimensions which influence eLearner satisfaction can be used as a framework for analysing aspects of online learning and blended learning in particular case studies. For example, what dimensions do you wish to use to guide your planning for a blended learning approach? In your current online learning contexts, which dimensions and factors guide your design and implementation? What dimensions and factors have you overlooked and consequently need addressing?

CONCLUSION The key message is that the adoption of new and emerging frontiers of online learning, by themselves, do not guarantee success for adult learners. The challenge for educators is to make learning design decisions and actions which result

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in blended learning approaches based upon defensible educational rationales, to enable healthy digital ecosystems, and promote eLearner satisfaction. The undesirable alternative can result in learning which does not adequately meet adult learning needs and principles, are technologycentred rather than learner-centred approaches, and result in what Ingvarson and Gaffney (2008) refers to as being ’sick digital ecosystems’. The chapter concluded by providing guidance to avoid failure, by providing implications for approaching the emerging frontiers of online learning to design effective learning for adult learners, by drawing upon the research undertaken by Sun et al. (2008) which conceptualised an integrated framework built around six dimensions - student dimension, instructor dimension, course dimension, technology dimension, design dimension, and environment dimension. Together with the eight pillars of healthy digital ecosystems proposed by the World Economic Forum (2008), namely, innovation, value of intellectual property rights, financial and legal structure, security and privacy, individual liberty, access, education and civic engagement, those dimensions can lead to successfully capitalising upon the potential of the emerging frontiers of online learning for adult learning.

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Moodle. (2009). Welcome to the Moodle community! Retrieved January 26, 2009 from http:// moodle.org/. New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). (2004). Critical Success Factors and Effective Pedagogy for e-learning in Tertiary Education. Retrieved January 26, 2009 from http:// www.itpnz.ac.nz/reports/NZCER_Final_Report_Critical_Success_Factors.pdf. Perspectives, 6(2), 50-54, cited in P. Sun, R.J. Tsai, G. Finger, Y. Chen, & D. Yeh. (2008). What drives a successful e-Learning? An empirical investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Computers and Education, 50 (4), 1103-1586. Piccoli, G., Ahmad, R., & Ives, B. (2001). Webbased virtual learning environments: a research framework and a preliminary assessment of effectiveness in basic IT skill training. MIS Quarterly, 25(4), 401–426. doi:10.2307/3250989 Pituch, K. A., & Lee, Y. K. (2006). The influence of system characteristics on e-learning use. Computers & Education, 47(2), 222–244. doi:10.1016/j. compedu.2004.10.007

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Sharpe, R., Benfield, G., Roberts, G., & Francis, R. (2006, October). The undergraduate experience of blended e-learning: a review of UK literature and practice. Retrieved January 26, 2009 from http:// www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ ourwork/research/literature_reviews/blended_elearning_exec_summary_1.pdf. Sun, P., Tsai, R. J., Finger, G., Chen, Y., & Yeh, D. (2008). What drives a successful e-Learning? An empirical investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Computers & Education, 50(4), 1103–1586. doi:10.1016/j. compedu.2006.10.007 World Economic Forum. (2008). Annual Meeting 2008. Governors Meeting for Digital Ecosystem: Convergence Between IT, Telecoms and media and Entertainment. Retrieved January 26, 2009 from http://www.bain.com/WEFweb/WEF_Emerging_digital_ecosystem_business_models.pdf. Wu, J. P., Tsai, R. J., Chen, C. C., & Wu, Y. C. (2006). An integrative model to predict the continuance use of electronic learning systems: hints for teaching. International Journal on E-Learning, 5(2), 287-302, cited in P. Sun, R.J. Tsai, G. Finger, Y. Chen, & D. Yeh. (2008). What drives a successful e-Learning? An empirical investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Computers & Education, 50(4), 1103–1586.

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Blended Learning: Brings together face-toface classroom experiences with creative uses of existing and emerging technologies. Digital Ecosystems: Enabling the integration of student administration, LAN (requiring teacher and student logins and passwords), VLE, content repository, community links, utilise Web 2.0 (social networking) technologies. eLearning: Refers to making information, knowledge, and resources available online with the focus on the learner and learning, often enabled by the provision of VLEs. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): Includes all technologies or tools that are used for communication and information retrieval purposes and which have a computer as a key tool e.g. computers, internet, software, email, digital cameras, mobile devices. Virtual Learning Environments (VLE): Refers to web-based applications enabling learning ‘anywhere’ and at ‘anytime’.

This work was previously published in Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Perspectives on Online Technologies and Outcomes, edited by T. T. Kidd; J. Keengwe, pp. 1-12, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.2

Wired for Learning—Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities for Education Irene Chen University of Houston-Downtown, USA Terry T. Kidd Texas A&M University, USA

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

This is an introductory discussion into Web 2.0 technologies for teaching and learning. It is based on a review of the current literature and thinking around Web 2.0 and its potential in education. There has been a surge in internet services that attract the label “Web 2.0”. Wide acceptance of this term implies that together these services identify a change in the nature of the World Wide Web. This report seeks to define Web 2.0 and how it can used. Consideration is also given to how these new technologies create opportunities for educational practice. Because these opportunities are not yet being widely taken up, the present discussion focuses on identifying challenges that may be impeding adoption of Web 2.0 ideas in teaching and learning.

Time magazine picked the public as “Person of the Year” for 2006, because the editors were convinced that the public was “seizing the reins of the global media”, creating “an explosion of productivity and innovation”, and helping to frame a new digital democracy. The editors who made the choice wrote, “Web 2.0 is a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. Web 2.0 is about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million channel people’s network YouTube and online metropolis MySpace. Web 2.0 is about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes” (Grossman, 2006). The fascinating story

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-782-9.ch007

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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described by the editors at Time magazine was made possible by the brand new Web 2.0 tools. As of July 2008, the term “Web 2.0” coined by O’Reilly Media in 2003 has more than 72.2 million citations in Google. Web 2.0 refers to the recent expansion of the Web which can be thought of as a new layer on top of the Web and refers to the ways the platform, the Web, is used. Previously, WWW sites were relatively static sites and provided the user information. This second generation of Web tools includes communication tools, interaction with media and humans, and collaboration and sharing. Many readers of this chapter probably have learned the differences of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 by watching Jeff Utecht’s Web 2.0 video and Mike Wesch’s “The Machine is Us/ing Us” on YouTube. However, much is still needed to be learned of Web 2.0. For education to not step up and maximize the Web 2.0 resources for teaching and learning is to risk becoming marginalized as a viable influence in helping to shape the 21st century (McLester, 2007). But there is still a huge amount of disagreement about what Web 2.0 means to education. This chapter is an attempt to present a broad overview the potential applications of Web 2.0 for teaching and learning.

BACkGROUND Web 2.0 is a set of web services and practices that give a voice to individual users. Such services thereby encourage internet users to participate in various communities of knowledge building and knowledge sharing. This has been made possible by the ever-extending reach of the (world wide) ‘web’. Meanwhile, navigating and exploring this web of knowledge has been greatly facilitated by the increased functionality of the web ‘browser’. The browser has thereby become the network reading/display tool that offers a universal point of engagement with the Web. More than that, the web browser has become a platform for of the

use of digital tools in community interactions. Further, Web 2.0 refers to the recent expansion of the Web. This expansion can be thought of as a new layer on top of the Web and refers to the ways the platform, the Web, is used. Previously, WWW sites were relatively static sites and provided the user information. This second generation of Web tools includes communication tools, interaction with media and humans, and collaboration and sharing. Web 2.0 tools allow users to create online content--they are writing to the Web. Many of these tools require less technical skill to use the various features thereby allowing users to focus more on the information exchange between collaborators (Parker & Chao, 2007). These tools allow users to be more engaged which hopefully means that learners are more engaged in learning. With a number of technological developments comes the creation of new ways of using the Web. Moreover, changes in access and speed have been accompanied by developments in software and data management. They also afford new patterns of internet use. In particular, the familiar web browser has become more versatile and easy to use. It has allowed a wider range of user interactions, collaboration, problem solving, and virtual teaming. These changes and to some degree technological innovations have led to a more participatory experience of internet use (Cook, 2008). Thus, Web 2.0 has provided a version of internet experience that encourages individual users to upload: that is, to offer up their own contributions to a vast and interleaving exchange. This is implicitly contrasted with the former (Web 1.0) experience of the internet, which was more a matter of downloading: that is, accessing the contributions of a much smaller set of information providers. In sum, the barriers to production and distribution have been loosened: an invitation for widespread participation is in place. These changes have led to a more participatory experience of internet use by all walks of life. Thus, Web 2.0 has provided a version of internet

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experience that encourages individual users to interact and create: that is, to offer up their own contributions to a vast and interleaving exchange. This is implicitly contrasted with the former (Web 1.0) experience of the internet, which was more a matter of downloading: and passively receiving information, which is, accessing the contributions of a much smaller set of information providers. In sum, the barriers to production and distribution have been loosened: an invitation for widespread participation is in place. O’Reilly and Musser explain that although each pattern is unique, they are by no means independent. In fact, they are quite interdependent. Thanks to open sources, lightweight programming, lightweight technologies, and public interface, Web 2.0 applications lead to creativity and better software applications. Ideologically, with Web 2.0, data value is created at multiple user layers, and micro-content flows between domains, servers, and machines through two-way access. Software applications are designed above the level of a single device, and are intended to integrate services across handheld devices, IPODs, PCs, and Internet servers. It has been anticipated that some applications will never end the beta cycle, as new features are developed and becoming available even daily. This phenomenon, which is called “the perpetual beta” by some, is sometimes achieved by harnessing the collective intelligence of users, who become co-developers. As the market shifts to a model of shared online services and user-generated micro-content, success often comes from data, which is called the next “Intel inside” by O’Reilly and Musser. Web 2.0, with its advantages of low cost production and distribution combined with infinite shelf space, is driving the change of the Long Tail economic model described by Chris Anderson. For an explanation of Long Tail, consult the Long Tail homepage (http://www.thelongtail.com/) or the RSS Feed on this topic (http://feeds.feedburner. com/TheLongTail). The many faces of wikis are

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good examples of the Web 2.0 characteristics mentioned above. People have also tried to explain the concept by examples, by outlining Web 2.0 with themes and by identifying what IT IS and what IT IS NOT: •

• •

•

It is important to recognize … that “Web 2.0” is not anything other than the evolving Web as it exists today. It is the same Web that we’ve had all along (Introduction to Web 2.0, 2005). Web 2.0 is not about technology; it’s about sharing information (Porter, 2005). Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology. It’s about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services (Talis, Web 2.0 and All That, 2005). Web 2.0 is about people, not technology. Sure it needs innovative technologies to facilitate it, but they are just in a support role (O’Reilly, 2005).

The list goes on and on. However, the question that should be asked is what was it that made us identify one application or approach as Web 1.0 and another as Web 2.0 in education? This question is particularly urgent due to the fact that in teaching and learning, some see Web 2.0 technologies as new and innovation instructional tool to help engage, enhance, and extend current educational practices.

MAIN THRUST AND DISCUSSION The term “Web 2.0” was first notable on the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. According to Tim O’Reilly’s (O’Reilly, 2005) speech, although Web 2.0 suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications. At first the concept was only a brainstorming and to clarify the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 (Table 1). For example, personal websites is Web 1.0,

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Table 1. Compiled list of Contrasting terms: Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 Web 1.0

→

Web 2.0

about client-server

→

about peer to peer

about companies or organizations

→

about communities

about dialup

→

about broadband

about owning

→

about sharing

about taxonomy

→

about tags

about Web forms

→

Web applications

about wires

→

about wireless

architecture of consumption

→

architecture of participation

attempts to create walled gardens

→

building value through open fields

centralized

→

Distributed

content management systems

→

Wikis

content produced by someone else

→

content produced by the user

deliberate

→

spontaneous, emerging

directories (taxonomy)

→

tagging (“folksonomy”)

domain name speculation

→

search engine optimization

download culture

→

remix culture

home pages

→

about blogs

individual

→

social, memetic

personal Web sites

→

Blogging

publishing

→

Participation

read only

→

read/write

rigid

→

loosely couple

screen scraping

→

Web services

static

→

connected, dynamic

transmission

→

Syndication

blogging is Web 2.0, which means the Web 2.0 is not only a new marketing buzzword, but in fact exist things on the Internet. It also doesn’t have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core, like the “meme map” of Web 2.0. Furthermore, Web 2.0 is a new form of internet application that is more interactive, customized, social and media-intensive (Shannon, 2006). Based on these concepts, O’Reilly (O’Reilly, 2005) suggested seven main characteristics that could describe this term:

1.

The Web as Platform: O’Reilly suggested three groups of web site and then compare then by showing the advantage of web application. He showed the drawback of desktop application which requires the user to pay and the risk of competition will lower the market share of specific application, say here, a web browser. And pointed out the power of “Long Tail”, which emphasize the collective power of the small sites that make up the bulk of the web’s content. Finally he also take the example of BitTorrent, which demonstrate the concept of “the service

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2.

3.

4.

5.

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automatically gets better the more people use it”. Harnessing Collective Intelligence: It emphasizes the power of collective intelligence. He gives the example of success websites which provide the collective information from users, but not web sites themselves. It also pointed out the organic growth of the Web 2.0 nature. And gave a conclusion that network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance in the Web 2.0 era. Finally, he pointed out the hottest feature of Web 2.0, blogging, which aggregated the wisdom of crowds would also be an essential part of harnessing collective intelligence. Data is the Next Intel Inside: This part of content concentrate on the competitiveness of owning data. He gave the example of online Map service providers. Although they publish the map service in different way, however, they need the original map data to implement all these applications. So he gave the concept of who own the data, they may have the chance to own the market. End of the Software Release Cycle: This paragraph shows that current modern Web 2.0 sites were trying to shorten their release cycle in order to follow up the newest requirement or resist any kind of accident. It also mentioned the open source dictum, “release early and release often” would be a trend of Web 2.0 sites. Lightweight Programming Models: This paragraph pointed out the advantage of using light weight programming models. For example, the using of lightweight service by Amazon and the simplicity of organic web services which introduced by Google. O’Reilly also addressed three significant facts. First, Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems, which lower the complexity of web service. Second, Think syndication, not coordination, which means webs should

6.

7.

try to syndicating data outwards, but not controlling what happens when it gets to the other end of the connection. Third, Design for “hackability” and remixability, which emphasized that only if one service’s barriers to re-use were low, it could enjoy the success of redistribution and popularity. Software above the Level of a Single Device: It gave an example of iTunes, which was a desktop application, but combine the massive web back-end to provide more information. It didn’t install every data but seamlessly reaches the same idea of owning the whole web database in your local system. Although it wasn’t a web application, however, it leveraged the power of the web platform which using the core principle of Web 2.0. Rich User Experiences: By using some newest technology or the combination of old ones, it provided a lot of new user experiences which never exist before. And those improvements were one of the most attractive characteristic of Web 2.0.

All above briefly explain the development of current Web 2.0 trend. And most of the technologies have already existed before the appearance of this terminology. So what they try to do is to clarify the concept of the developing situation. At least, Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly, 2006) made a more compact definition of Web 2.0 that “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.” It was almost the essential part of the topics he mentioned above. Web 2.0 also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use. This can result in a rise in the economic value of the web to businesses, as users can perform more activities online (Barnwal, 2007). However, those implementations are based on some technologies that we can’t ignore.

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While attempting to clarify just what they meant by Web 2.0, in September 2005, Tim O’Reilly and other attendees of an important Web 2.0 conference formulated their sense of Web 2.0 by examples (O’Reilly, 2005). The authors have combined the individual examples from O’Reilly (2005), Governor (2005), Brown (2007), Drumgoole (2006), and Barnett (2005) into a single list so that readers can formulate their own sense of Web 2.0 through these examples. The list of contrasting terms of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 presented in Table 1 may help to summon up much of the Web 2.0 ethos. Put together, the developments in Web 2.0 create four broad forms of impact, which can be summarized as research, comprehension, engagement, and writing. On the higher order thinking side, Web 2.0 presents opportunities for users to develop confidence in new modes of inquiry and new forms of literacy, including information literacy, technology literacy, digital literacy, and tradition reading and writing literacy (Cook, 2008). Web 2.0 users acquire the skills that are necessary to navigate and interrogate new knowledge space. Users also become literate in digital formats for expression: formats that go beyond the familiar medium of print. On the social side, an effective Web 2.0 user must becomes comfortable with collaborative modes of engagement and interactions. The Web 2.0 users also welcome new opportunities for writing and sharing information on the internet as well as engage an audience that comes integral to the support of that information exchange. To support these activities, a range of new online tools have emerged. Most of them exist as web-based services that are accessible through a traditional browser. However, most of them are also free to use and can be downloaded to a wireless handheld device, a laptop, and mobile computer, and even a cell/mobile phone. These tools have stimulated considerable growth in young people’s recreational use of both the tool and the web.

Much of this has been concentrated on gaming, communication, and shaping online spaces for the expression of personal identity. Online games with the Web 2.0 flavor, allows the web to coordinate the actions of geographically separated players. Interest in network communication has concentrated on text-based chat systems. While the celebration of personal identity has been through ‘social networking’ sites, within which users can develop an online identity and space to be shared with selected friends. Some inevitably are a source of concern in relation to the protection of young people from predatory contacts or from reckless commercial marketing (Cook, 2008). The variety of actual activity that is embraced by Web 2.0 is summarised in Table 2 along with examples of websites to illustrate each category. The table suggests the following overarching themes: •

•

•

First, Web 2.0 is about a scaling up of user participation that creates new possibilities for sharing and ‘network effects’ that are emergent from this new scale. Thus, many categories in the table refer to technologies that put users into contact with others: letting them enjoy an exchange of opinion, digital products, or conversation. The greater the number of people participating, the greater the value derived. Second, such sharing can evolve into more organised forms of joint knowledge building. Thus, Web 2.0 is about creating arenas for user collaboration. Third, Web 2.0 is about exploring a wide range of expressive formats. This is because digital media create new opportunities for manipulating more than the conventional texts of communication: in particular, they encourage exploration of images, sound and video. Moreover, these opportunities have now become widely available.

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Table 2. Major categories of Web 2.0 activity for educational considerations (Websites are given as examples only and no recommendation or endorsement is intended) Media sharing Uploading and downloading media files for purposes of audience or exchange Users empowered to download and upload to the internet were quick to swap digital files of their music collections via centralised websites. While music-sharing thrived on users copying of commercial material, photo-sharing (Flickr) involved user-generated content. The video-sharing that then emerged is a mixture of recycled film/TV and homemade clips (YouTube). Personalised versions exist for individual broadcasting (castpost). Other visual media that are popular for sharing include slideshow presentations (slideshare) and sketches (sketchfu). Sites now exist to package and present the various shareable media creations of individuals (loudblog), with increasing emphasis on rating and commentary from users. Online games and virtual worlds Rule-governed games or themed environments that invite live interaction with other internet users Being able to interact with other internet users invites the playing of games. Because users may be strangers, the game rules must avoid assuming mutual familiarity. Naming a sketch drawn by someone else, for example (isketch). Or having invisible user/partners suggest labels for random photographs – which also helps search engines tag them (imagelabeler). More traditional partnerbased electronic games are possible with internet connections between players (worldofwarcraft). ‘Virtual worlds’ create screen environments that allow users to navigate this space and interact with others through avatars. They do not demand game-like rules but they may have an economy for trading goods or services (secondlife). These spaces may be themed so as to narrow possible interactions in rooms such as in a hotel (habbo) or in mocked-up places (virtualibiza). They may be tailored for younger users (clubpenguin). For very young users they may be based on managing a pet-like avatar (webkinz), with extensive marketing links. Social networking Websites that structure social interaction between members who form subgroups of ‘friends’ An early form of internet social interaction was based on the dating agency principle (match). Recent sites organise real world meetings between members, such as meeting for Saturday breakfasts (fruehstueckstreff) or simply based on tracking mobile phone location (dodgeball). Other sites convened members online based on alumni relations (friendsreunited) or on business CVs (linkedin). However, the greatest success has been in sites that allow users to create digital spaces into which they can invite ‘friends’ to share messages, texts, videos etc, or to play games. Some have a strong student base (facebook), some are more media-oriented (myspace), and some are more for teenagers (bebo). Others create social links based on users tagging their personal goals (43things), or declaring themed interests, such as green politics (care2) or clubbing (dontstayin). Finally, tools exist for special interest groups to design their own social network sites (ning). Blogging An internet-based journal or diary in which a user can post text and digital material while others can comment

http://www.flickr.com http://www.youtube.com http://www.castpost.com http://www.slideshare.net http://sketchfu.com http://www.loudblog.com

http://www.isketch.net http://images.google.com/imagelabeler http://www.worldofwarcraft.com http://secondlife.com http://www.habbo.com http://www.virtualibiza.com http://www.clubpenguin.com http://www.webkinz.com

http://match.com http://www.fruehstueckstreff.org http://www.dodgeball.com http://www.friendsreunited.com http://www.linkedin.com http://www.facebook.com http://www.myspace.com http://www.bebo.com http://www.43things.com http://www.care2.com http://www.dontstayin.com http://www.ning.com

https://www.blogger.com/start http://www.livejournal.com http://technorati.com http://www.tumblr.com http://twitter.com

Web services offer users space and tools to launch their own ‘blog’ (blogger). Some encourage interaction around themed concerns and thus resemble social networking sites (livejournal). Search engines exist for the ‘blogosphere’ of blog postings (technorati). Some users favour shorter, more whimsical and multimedia postings (tumblr). While micro-blogging sites allow only short entries, these can be from other devices such as phones; updates can be sent to selected other users (twitter). These sites tend to thrive on building a community of signed-up ‘followers’ for their authors.

continued on following page

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Table 2. continued Social bookmarking Users submit their bookmarked web pages to a central site where they can be tagged and found by other users

http://del.icio.us http://www.diigo.com http://www.librarything.com

Some sites collect and aggregate tags on bookmarks that users have shared, thus allowing organised search (del.icio.us) based on personal tags or a ‘folksonomy’. Others incorporate user annotations with the tagging (diigo). Services exist to extend this beyond web pages: for instance, allowing users to share, tag and search on books that they are reading (librarything). Such activity encourages folksonomies or private or user-defined categorisation schemes rather than the more traditional hierarchical and constrained taxonomies. Collaborative editing Web tools are used collaboratively to design, construct and distribute some digital product

http://aswarmofangels.com http://docs.google.com http://www.glypho.com

Sites may allow users scattered across large distances to collaborate in making a single entity such as a film (aswarmofangels). By centralising documents on a shared web server, a group of users may edit those documents rather than hold many individual copies (docs.google). More structured sites allow the production of collaborative artefacts such as novels (glypho). Wikis A web-based service allowing users unrestricted access to create, edit and link pages

http://www.wikipedia.org http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page http://tviv.org http://www.tiddlywiki.com

The wiki construction process is best known through the public, collaborative encyclopaedia wikipedia. Similar ventures exist for more focused interests such as travel (wikitravel.org.en) or television knowledge (tviv). Or users may use the wiki concept to design and maintain a personal organiser (tiddlywiki). Syndication

http://www.bloglines.com http://www.podcast.net

Users can ‘subscribe’ to RSS feed enabled websites so that they are automatically notified of any changes or updates in content via an aggregator. Individual sites offer buttons that allow users to subscribe and thus be posted updated material. Other sites exist to ease the subscription process and allow users to select a profile of feeds (bloglines). However, the best known form of this feeding involves podcasts: audio or video files that can be delivered to subscribed sites. Websites act as portals to finding these podcasting sources (podcast.net).

•

Finally, the rich and democratic patterns of exchange and publishing that Web 2.0 affords mean that the internet offers novel frameworks and resources for research and inquiry.

Web 2.0 in Education The affordances of Web 2.0 seem to harmonize well with modern thinking about educational prac-

tice. In particular, these new technologies promise learners new opportunities to be independent in their study (Cook, 2008). These technologies encourage a wider range of expressive capability. They facilitate more collaborative ways of working and they furnish a setting for learner achievements to attract an authentic audience. To encourage these possibilities, Web 2.0 tools have evolved that create distinctive forms of support

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for learning and for independent research in this new internet. However, with the enthusiasm for adopting Web 2.0 practices in education, there is little evidence that discusses the benefits for using web 2.0 in the teaching and learning process. This is not helped by the fact that there remains very little research activity guiding the effective application of these new tools and practices with the teaching and learning process (Cook, 2008). This may reflect the fast-changing nature of services and, therefore, the reluctance of researchers to aim their interest at such a moving target. However, slow educational uptake also reflects the fact that adoption of Web 2.0 creates a number of practitioner tensions; these exist as significant challenges to innovation. Many education researchers agree that not only are many of today’s students digital natives, they also possess an information-age mindset (Frand, 2000). In order for something to hold their attention, they must be actively engaged in the content and visuals are used to convey information (McLester, 2006). To function effectively in the latest version of Web development, users need to be flexible and comfortable with the collaborative nature of the environment and the technology. The evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 reflects this change of mindsets. Given the Web 2.0 ethos of sharing mirco-content across services and the importance of social software, it is only logical that crossbreeds of news services and social software have emerged. Amid this outbreak of Web 2.0 services, what are the pedagogical possibilities? More perplexing to educators can be how do we harness the power of these new technologies to more actively engage students and increase their learning. The answer lies in web 2.0. With the marrying of web 2.0 and education comes many issues that reflect such a commitment. As of any marriage there are issues that arise. Just like a traditional marriage of two individual who come from different perspectives, so is web 2.0 and education. These issues include a learner-

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centered discourse, demands on the teacher, organizational infrastructure, and teacher training and development. The learner-centred discourse within the use of Web 2.0 and education may be welcome, however, should not imply that there are no significant new demands on teachers. Many are hesitant to invest in acquiring the new competencies required by Web 2.0. The resources are largely generic rather than content-based and so teachers find hidden calls on their time to orchestrate the relevant activities (Cook, 2008). Further, institutions need to decide whether to contain Web 2.0 activities within the local areas of their learning platform, rather than risk learners publishing in the open internet. That decision is closely linked to the widespread anxiety felt regarding the threats to safety that arise from unconstrained internet interactions. It is also closely linked to the duty schools feel to restrict pupils’ access to certain more playful (or morally suspect) sites that extensive Web 2.0 activity might indirectly make available. Teachers also will have to manage the consequences of a strongly collaborative form of working that Web 2.0 activity invites. This raises issues for managing individual assessment, as well as personalisation tensions when dealing with learners who may want to learn and express themselves more privately(Cook, 2008). Teachers may also have reservations about the forms of study and research that Web 2.0 encourages. This applies in particular to the ease with which digital media and a large arena of informal knowledge encourages cut-and-paste solutions to personal research. Managing a mature approach to how learners study is a significant challenge for teachers. They must guide students into recognising the basis of authority for internet-published work – over and above simply helping them to do the necessary navigation and exploration in this environment. Teachers may also have reservations about the multi-tasking modes of working that a rich Web 2.0 desktop environment may cultivate.

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In addition the use of Web 2.0 for education, presents a danger of focusing too much on the technology, rather than pedagogy or instruction. What may be more significant about these developments is that they highlight a certain ‘disposition’ that practitioners might adopt in relation to teaching and learning. Web 2.0 innovations may require closer attention to those matters of pedagogy rather than attention to novel internet configurations (Cook, 2008). This commitment entails teaching and learning disposition is not new. It is an attitude that acknowledges the multiperspective nature of knowledge, the reality of multiple perspectives, the value of collaborative thinking, and the significance for creativity of the learner. However, with education and Web 2.0, new tools provide a fresh drive for the way of thinking in education. These Web 2.0 tools alone do not form the necessary basis for realising such a disposition. The associated ideas have long been debated within discussion of pedagogy.

Therefore, it has already accepted that they can only be pursued when the underlying curriculum and regimes of assessment have been designed to be in sympathy with them (Cook, 2008). It is true that the enthusiastic uptake of Web 2.0 tools depends on an educational disposition: that is, the acceptance of particular attitudes towards knowledge and knowing. But all of this can only be made to take flight if it is located within systems of educational delivery, management and assessment that have been fashioned in harmony with such attitudes.

Educational Possibilities with Web 2.0 Table 2 identified 12 categories of Web 2.0 activities. In Table 3, the same 12 categories are explored in relation to their possible application to teaching and learning. Again, websites are identified that are indicative of the activities described and are more explicitly educational in design.

Table 3. Categories of educational Web 2.0 activity (Websites are given as examples only and no recommendation or endorsement is intended) Media sharing Sites have emerged that welcome creative digital material organised by educators. An example is the education groups on YouTube (Reteachers) or those made by young people themselves (BBC blast). The more educational media of video and PowerPoint may be shared (Sentation). However, student class notes define one of the most shareable of educational products (Miniciti, Notecentric). Media manipulation Graphical representations play an important role in education. Services exist for creating and sharing diagrams (Gliffy). More general tools allow a presentation to be built and played in a browser (Thumbstacks). Sections of web pages can be extracted and fashioned into a new web representation (Yoono). Such cloning of resources allows educational mashups, particularly popular among which are themes based on geography – such as linking literature to place (Googlelittrips) or attaching data to maps given coordinate position (Frappr). Online games and virtual worlds Platforms now exist for developing multi-player online games (Fablusi). Existing examples have taken ecology and climate as topics (Powerupthegame), and Shakespeare (Arden). Second Life has provided a development space for gifted learners (Schome) while development work for undergraduates is being explored (Vue).

http://youtube.com/group/reteachers http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast http://www.zentation.com http://www.miniciti.com http://www.notecentric.com

http://www.gliffy.com http://www.thumbstacks.com http://www.yoono.com http://www.googlelittrips.com http://www.frappr.com

http://www.fablusi.com http://www.powerupthegame.org http://swi.indiana.edu/arden http://www.schome.ac.uk http://vue.ed.ac.uk

continued on following page

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Wired for Learning

Table 3. continued Social networking The mainstream social networking sites typically include education-oriented friendship groups. However, they can also host institutions to establish their own college-based communities (Mynewport). Other sites provide a more explicitly child-oriented design and security service for cross-site collaboration (schoolnetglobal) or simply casual exchange around school interests (Goldstarcafe). Teachers may also be creating such communities (Learnhub). Blogging Blog hosting sites exist especially for students and teachers (Edublogs). Some student blog collections that are institutionally managed are publically readable; these exist in the domain of undergraduates (Warwick), secondary (Longeaton) and primary (Sandaigprimary). Academic publishers are now encouraging scientific authors to blog around their findings (Nature). Social bookmarking

http://apps.facebook.com/mynewport http://www.schoolnetglobal.com http://www.goldstarcafe.net http://learnhub.com

http://edublogs.org http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/pivot http://blogs.longeaton.derbyshire.sch.uk http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk http://www.nature.com/blog http://www.bibsonomy.org http://www.citeulike.org

Some systems for sharing bookmarks are designed more for research and education users (Bibsonomy). Others centre on the collection and shared organisation of research publications (Citeulike). Collaborative editing Text, spreadsheets and other documents can be stored centrally and collaborators emailed a URL to permit collaborative editing (Google docs). Wiki hosting software allows educators to create text-oriented collaborative pages (Scribblewiki). Other websites incorporate more visual tools for collaborators (Thinkature), some emphasising mindmaps for brainstorming (bubbl.us) or whiteboard simulations (Virtualwhiteboard). All of these tools might be recruited to foster international contact involving classrooms in the UK (etwinning), or internationally (Skoolaborate). Wikis There are sites that allow students and teachers to establish their own wiki, with an educational slant (Pbwiki). Popular wikis are well established with educational emphasis (Wikiversity) or with material for more specialist interests (Knowhomeschooling). Some schools make their student wikis visible (Westwood wikispaces). Other sites invite sharing of expertise but without the wiki structure (Squidoo). Syndication

http://www.google.com/docs http://scribblewiki.com/main.php http://thinkature.com http://www.bubbl.us http://www.virtual-whiteboard.co.uk http://www.britishcouncil.org/etwinning.htm http://www.skoolaborate.com http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki http://knowhomeschooling.com http://westwood.wikispaces.com http://www.squidoo.com

http://podcastschool.net http://itunes.stanford.edu

Students may find many publishing websites from which they can usefully take advantage of syndicated content. Particularly popular syndicated material includes podcasts such as those made for school students (Podcastschool) or sponsored by particular universities (Stanford).

CONCLUSION “Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making technology more efficient for computers. Web 2.0 is about connecting people, and making technology more efficient for people,” commented one visitor of the O’Reilly Radar blog in October, 2005. In the education arena, the “people” mentioned in the above statement will be replaced by

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“students and teachers” (O’Reilly Radar, 2005). As stated above, openness, social learning, virtual learning, and meta-services of the micro-content combine into a larger conceptual strand of Web 2.0 when applied in education settings, one that sees users as playing more of a foundational role in information architecture. Consumers’ experience with Web 2.0-class software is setting the bar of what software can

Wired for Learning

and should be. Web 2.0’s inevitable arrival within the education system is likely to follow the pattern set by the first generation of the Web, only to become more pervasive and essential. These issues are in need of further research.

REFERENCES Barnet, A. (2005). Alex Barnet’s Blog. Retrieved September 19, 2007 from http://blogs.msdn.com/ alexbarn/archive/2005/08/13/451282.aspx

O’Reilly, T., & Musser, J. (2007). Web 2.0 principles and best practices. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. O’Reilly Radar (2005). Retrieved September 19, 2007 from http://radar.oreilly.com/ archives/2005/10/web_20_compact_definition. html O’Reilly Radar (2006). Retrieved September 19, 2007 from http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/web_20_compact.html

Brown, M. (2007, March/April). Mashing up the once and future CMS. EDUCAUSE, 2(42), 8–9.

Parker, K. R., & Chao, J. T. (2007). Wiki as a teaching tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, 3.

Cook, C. (2008). Web 2.0 technologies for learning: The current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions. Becta Research Report. University of Nottingham, UK.

Shannon, V. (2006). A ‘more revolutionary’ Web. International Herald Tribune. Retrieved on May, 24, 2006 from http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/23/business/web.php

Drumgoogle, J. (2006). Copacetic. Retrieved September 19, 2007, from http://joedrumgoole. com/blog/2006/05/29/web-20-vs-web-10/

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Frand, J.L. (2000, September/October). The information-age mindset: Changes in students and implications for higher education. EDUCAUSE (pp. 15-18, 22, 24). Governor, J. (2005). James Governor’s Monkchips. Retrieved September 19, 2007 from http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2005/08/12/the-differences-from-web-10-to-web-20/ McLester, S. (2006). Integrating visual literacy. Technology & Learning, 27(3), 28–30. McLester, S. (2007). Web 2.0 for Educators. Technology & Learning, 27(9), 19–19. O’Reilly, T., & Musser, J. (2006). What is Web 2.0? Retrieved September 19, 2007 from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/ news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Blog: A site maintained by an individual, organization or group or people, which contains recurrent entries of commentary, view points, descriptions of events, or multimedia material, such as images, pictures or videos. The entries are typically displayed in reverse chronological order with the most recent post being the current focus. Net Generation Students: The present generation of undergraduate students who have grown up in a world dominated by technology and surrounded by multimedia. Podcasting: A multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. Though podcasters’ web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading feed format.

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Social Networking: A website is an online resource for building virtual social networks communities of individuals with common interests or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Web 2.0 Technologies: A variety of new technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and media sharing sites and social network sites that provide user –centered opportunities to create and share content. Web 2.0: A trend in World Wide Web technology, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking

sites, wikis, blogs, and other new technology approaches, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. Wiki: Short for “wiki wiki” which means “rapidly” in the Hawaiian language is a website that allows users with access to collaboratively create, edit, link, and categorize the content of a website in real time covering a variety of reference material. Wikis have evolved from being purely a reference site into collaborative tools to run community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems and educational sites.

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Human Performance and Instructional Technology, edited by H. Song; T. Kidd, pp. 119-130, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.3

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System Keita Matsuo Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan Leonard Barolli Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan Fatos Xhafa Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain Akio Koyama Yamagata University, Japan Arjan Durresi Indiana University Purdue University, USA

ABSTRACT Due to the opportunities provided by the Internet, people are taking advantage of e-learning courses and during the last few years enormous research efforts have been dedicated to the development of e-learning systems. So far, many e-learning systems are proposed and used practically. However, in these systems the e-learning completion

rate is low. One of the reasons is the low study desire and motivation. In our previous work, we implemented an e-learning system that is able to increase the learning efficiency by stimulating learners’ motivation. In this work, we designed and implemented new functions such as: interface changing function, new ranking function and learner’s learning situation checking function to improve the system performance.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

INTRODUCTION Due to the opportunities provided by the Internet, more and more people are taking advantage of distance learning courses. During the last few years, enormous research efforts have been dedicated to the development of distance learning systems and many large projects such as Arizona Regents University, Blackboard and WebCT, CALAT Project (1998), CALsurf (2000), California Virtual University, Globewide Network Academy, IU Online and Distance Education, Kentucky Virtual Campus, MindEdge (Online Education), Michigan State University (Virtual University), Ohio Learning Network, Oregon’s One-Stop for Distance Education, Pennsylvania State University (World Campus), The Open University, The University of the Air, University of Florida Distance Learning, University of Illinois Online, University of Wisconsin-Platteville Distance Learning Center, WIDE University (1997), WebCAI (1999) have been established. However, in these systems the e-learning completion rate is low. One of the reasons is the low study desire when the learner studies learning materials. Therefore, it is very important to stimulate learner’s motivation during the study. There are several Web-based e-learning systems that consider the learner's capability and understanding (Kuwabara, Tamaki, Yamada, Nakamura, Mistunaga, Konishi, & Amano, 2000; Tamaki, Kuwabara, Yamada, Nakamura, Mistunaga, Konishi, & Amano, 2000; Katayama & Kambayashi, 1999; Nakabayashi, Koike, Maruyama, Touhei, Fukuhara, & Nakamura, 1999). In Kuwabara et al. (2000) and Tamaki et al. (2000), the authors present the MESIA system. The system is able to keep the teacher operating cost low and to offer fine education by the cooperation of Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) and teacher. The system is able to recognize the learners who need assistance, but its main purpose is to support the teacher, not the learners. In (Koyama, Barolli, Tsuda, & Cheng, 2001; Koyama, Barolli,

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Cheng., & Shiratori, 2002) and (Barolli & Koyama, 2004; Barolli, & Koyama, 2005), we proposed and evaluated an agent based distance learning system to deliver appropriate studying materials to learners. In order to offer a suitable and efficient study for learners, in our previous work (Barolli, Koyama, Durresi, & De Marco, 2006), we proposed a Web-based distance learning system in order to increase learner’s efficiency. The proposed system has three subsystems: learning subsystem, learner supporting subsystem and teacher supporting subsystem. The purpose of this system is to increase the e-learning completion rate by stimulating learners’ motivation. We evaluated this system by several experiments and surveys and have shown that our previous system by using learner’s study history, encourage function, ranking function, and selfdetermination of the study materials can increase the learning efficiency. In this article, we designed and implemented new functions in our system such as: interface changing function, new ranking function and learner’s learning situation checking function. The article is organized as follows. Firstly, we introduce the previous system structure. Next, we present the design and implementation of new functions. In following, we evaluate the proposed system. After that, we discuss and compare the functions of the proposed system with other e-learning systems. Finally, we give some conclusions and future work.

OUR SYSTEM STRUCTURE The system structure is shown in Figure 1. The proposed system has three subsystems: learning subsystem, learner supporting subsystem and teacher supporting subsystem. The learning subsystem includes the studying materials, examination exercises, and some functions to stimulate learner’s motivation. The learner sup-

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Figure 1. System structure

porting subsystem supports the learners when they have problems during the study. In this subsystem are implemented some interaction functions. The teacher supporting subsystem has some function to get the learning situation of learners and to give hints from the teacher to improve the learning efficiency.

Learning System At the beginning, the learner by using the login and password enters the system. Next, he/she reads the text and if understands the text information starts to do the exercises. Then, the obtained results and ranking are shown in the computer display. After that, the learner decides the next items to study and the learning procedure is repeated again. If the learner does not understand some parts of the text, he/she moves to the learner support subsystem. After he/she understands the text, it goes back to the learning subsystem.

Teacher Supporting Subsystem In this subsystem, the person who is registered as a teacher can enter the system by using the registered login and password. By using this subsystem, the teacher is able to judge the learning situation of the learners. The teacher can check the following items:

• • •

• •

The learners who are using the system. The items which are finished. The learner has problems with studying or not (is the learner using the learner supporting system or not). The FAQ of the learner support subsystem. The Bulletin Board (BB) of the learner support subsystem.

If the teacher finds that a student is using the learner support subsystem, by using e-mail, the teacher can communicate with the learner. It is also possible to communicate with the learner by using Window Messenger (WM). If a learner has problems during the study, the teacher can use the e-mail and WM to communicate with the learner. By using WM, it is possible to have voice chat or video chat, while BB is used to explain the content that the learners do not understand.

Learner Supporting Subsystem The learner supporting system is used to help the learners when they have problems during the study. This subsystem includes: • • •

FAQ, BB, The list of persons who can communicate together. 1711

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Figure 2. E-learning flow

The learner can investigates by FAQ whether there are answers of previous questions related with the content that the learner is studying or not. If there are not answers, the learner waits until the answer is shown in the BB. If the learner needs the answer in real time he enters in the member list. Then, the present learner can select a member who answered the questions in the previous test and communicate with him.

Figure 3. RFID checking system

Interactive Functions The proposed system has the following communication modes: • • •

Communication between students. Communication between the student and teacher (question mode). Communication between the teacher and student (explanation).

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW FUNCTIONS In this section, we present the design and implementation of new functions for our system. The page output is generated by using JSP. For the

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system logic, we use Java and Java Servlet. For the system database is used Postgresql. The system works in the following way. At the beginning, the learner enters the study room. Next, the learner starts to study the learning materials. The teacher checks the learning situation and based on that decides how to support the learner. By using WM it is possible to have voice chat or video chat. Also, because the FAQ and learner support subsystem are linked in this page, they can be referred if are needed. The BB can be used by teacher to explain the content that the learners do not understand. If the learner understands the problem he asked the teacher, he goes back to the learning phase and starts again learning process. The e-learning flow is shown in Figure 2. In order to check whether the learner is in the

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Figure 4. System interface

room or not we implemented a RFID system as shown in Figure 3. The implemented system interface is shown in Figure 4. We will present in the following its new implemented functions.

Visible Motivation Function In the previous procedure of the learning, it is very difficult to check the student’s learning situation. For this reason we designed and implemented a new function. If a learner does not use the computer keyboard or the mouse for more than 20 minutes, it is assumed that he has lost concentration, for this reason the system sends the first alert (Figure 5) and changes the display color in yellow. If the learner still does not use the keyboard or mouse, after 10 seconds, the system sends the second alert (Figure 6) and the display is changed in red color. The present learning situation of the learner is checked by the teacher using his Web site as shown in Figure 7. In the left frame of the page are shown the students who are using the system, their ID, learning situation, SOS (students that have problems with learning materials) and Alert.

Sound Emission Functions In the case when the learner does not change his behavior, the system emits a relaxing sound to change the mood of learner. Another function is implemented using the cellular phone. We used the sound function of cellular phone to send some music to the learner.

Vibration Functions In the case where the learner still does not react, we considered the vibration function. We realized this function by using the vibration function of the cellular phone. Another implementation was carried out using a motor in the chair. We can control the motor of the chair by our implemented system as shown in Figure 8. By changing the angle of the motor, the system can change the learner’s mood.

Room Light Control Function In our system, we also implemented the room light control function. By this function, we can

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New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Figure 5. First alert

Figure 6. Second alert

Figure 7. Teacher page

Figure 8. Chair motor control

change the room brightness and stimulate learner’s to increase the learning efficiency. The snapshot of system is shown in Figure 9.

Ranking Function

Smell Function With this function the system changes the smell of the room based on the learner’s taste (learner’s favorite smell), so the mood of the learners can be changed.

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In the previous system, we used a ranking function that displayed the results of a learner that had an average more than a predefined value. However, this may cause problems if learners have not good results. In proposed system, we implemented a new ranking function as shown in Figure 10. The ranking method is as follows. We divide the learners in different ranks such as A (90 to 100 points), B (80 to 89 points), C (70 to 79 points), D (60 to 69 points), and E (0 to 59 points). If a learner is ranked in A or B rank, the system shows

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Figure 9. Room light control

Figure 10. Ranking function

Figure 11. Learning history

Figure 12. RFID and USB devices

EVALUATION OF PROPOSED SYSTEM FUNCTIONS the other learners that have 10 points more and 5 points less than the present learner. If the learner is ranked in C or D rank, the system shows the other learners who have 5 points more and 5 points less than the present learner. Otherwise, if the learner is ranked in E rank, the system does not display the results. Also, if a learner wants to check his studying situation and history, the system can show the ranking level for each item as shown in Figure 11.

For experiments we implemented some stimulation devices. The snapshot of RFID and USB experimental devices is shown in Figure 12. IC tag is recognized by the RFID reader and LEDs connected to the RFID reader by USB will start to blink. Our proposed system identifies the learners by RFID. Also, we controlled USB, RS232C, Motor, and RFID by implementing a Java program. The functions and interfaces of our proposed system are shown in Figure 13. The proposed system can detect the learner’s movement by using hand and body sensors. In our experiments, we used one hand sensor and two body sensors. The hand sensor detects the

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New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Figure 13. Functions and interfaces

Figure 14. Combination of Web and sensors technologies

Figure 15. Hand and body sensors

hand motions of the learner, while the body sensors are used for detecting the body movements of the learner. By combining Web and sensor technologies, the proposed system not only can monitor and control the learners’ in the internet but also can stimulate and increase the learners’ motivation. The combination of Web and sensor technologies is shown in a schematic way in Figure 14 and “Hand Sensor” and “Body Sensors” are shown in Figure 15. The measurement data for learners’ body and hand movements are shown in Table 1. We got these data after observing two learners studying for 40 hours. After a sensor reacts, the interval time will be reset to zero. For the “All Sensors,” we make the record of data whenever we get a

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reaction from either “Hand Sensor” or “Body Sensors.” We consider where is the point of effective stimulation for learners from the sensing rate values. We pay attention to the reaction frequency of each sensor. The interval of sensors’ response is very active at the point around 20-30 seconds, but it gets less active after 30 seconds. This tells us that the learners make certain actions once every 30 seconds while they are studying. After 80 seconds, there is almost no reaction from the sensors and we see that the point 50 seconds is between 30 and 80 seconds. Especially, when we see the response time for “All Sensors” this is very clearly. In Table 2 are shown values of reaction number for “All Sensors.” We can see from Table 1 that the learner’s body moves more than learner’s hand (mouse). We show in Table 3 the sensor response range and the average value of response time. Moreover, we can obtain the stimulation point by using the regression analysis.

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Table 1. Learner’s body and hand movement Hand

Body

Table 2. Reaction number for “All Sensors”

All

Response Range

All Sensors Reaction Number

Average of Appearance Time (min)

Response

Sensor

Sensors

Sensors

Range

Sensing

Sensing

Sensing

0s-10s

2747

0.9

Rate

Rate

Rate

10s-20s

1169

2.1

0s-10s

27.31

45.60

62.39

20s-30s

241

10.0

10s-20s

30.63

37.61

26.55

20s-30s

15.27

7.94

5.47

30s-40s

98

24.5

30s-40s

8.52

3.20

2.23

40s-50s

46

52.2

40s-50s

5.90

1.43

1.04

50s-60s

34

70.6

50s-60s

3.95

1.11

0.77

60s-70s

18

133.3

60s-70s

2.65

0.64

0.41

70s-80s

12

200.0

80s-90s

9

266.7

70s-80s

1.67

0.58

0.27

90s-100s

10

240.0

80s-90s

1.13

0.29

0.20

100s-110s

4

600.0

90s-100s

1.09

0.29

0.23

110s-120s

3

800.0

100s-110s

0.61

0.26

0.09

120s-130s

6

400.0

110s-120s

0.27

0.26

0.07

130s-140s

2

1200.0

140s-150s

3

800.0

150s-160s

1

2400.0

120s-130s

0.24

0.24

0.14

130s-140s

0.40

0.21

0.05

140s-150s

0.24

0.19

0.07

150s-160s

0.12

0.13

0.02

Total of Data

4403

Table 3. Regression line Response Range Middle Value [sec] (X)

i

Average Response Time [min] (Y)

Deflection Value (X)

Deflection Value (Y)

Product of Deflections

Value of Regression Line

0.9

-15

-8.5

127.1

-2.47

1

5

2

15

2.1

-5

-7.3

36.5

5.41

3

25

10.0

5

0.6

3.1

13.28

4

35

24.5

15

15.1

227.2

21.16

We used the least square method for obtaining the regression line. The regression line can be expressed by Equation (1). y = b0 + b1x

(1)

In order to construct the regression line, we should calculate b0 and b1 values, but they are very difficult to be calculated. For this reason, we will find the expectation values: 0 , 1. First, we find the relation between b0 and b1 shown by Equation (2).

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New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Average Response Time (min) .

Figure 16. Experimental values and regression line

Figure 17. Flow chart of learner’s stimulation

Average Response Time Value of Regression Line

30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 -5.0

5 15 25 35 Response Range Middle Value (sec) n

l( 0 , 1)

i 1

( yi

(

0

1

x)) 2

(2)

The Equation (2) should fulfill the condition of Equation (3). min 1 l ( 0 , 1 )

0

(3)

Then, the 0 , 1 values can be calculated by Equations (4) and (5).

( xi 1

0

x )( yi ( xi

y

1

x

x)

y) 2

(4) (5)

The experimental values and regression line are shown in Figure 16. It is proved that in general the people concentration is about 20 minutes. By checking the values of Figure 16, we see that when the response rage is about 35 seconds, the value of regression line is about 21.16 minutes. The calculation is done considering that the total experimental time is 40 hours. This value is very close with the region of human concentration (20 minutes). For this reason, we consider that is better

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to stimulate the learners after 20 minutes in the design of our proposed system. We considered an effective way to stimulate the learner after 35 seconds, 55 seconds, and 80 seconds as shown in Figure 17. According to the results of the experiment, we decided that if the learners don’t move for 35 seconds, we would give them a slight stimulation by light, and then after about 55 seconds from the start give them a sound stimulation and then start vibrate their chair after about 80 seconds. We will also give the smell stimulation to learners if they do not respond after more than 100 seconds. In order to evaluate the proposed system, 10 learners used the system and after that we made a questionnaire and asked the learners how it was the system performance and especially how the system stimulated the learner’s volition? The questionnaire content is shown in Table 4 and the questionnaire results are shown in Table 5. In the questionnaire, the learners answer the questions by using a five-grade system from 1 to 5. Only Q2 is a threefold choice (Table 4). The

New Functions for Stimulating Learners’ Motivation in a Web-Based e-Learning System

Table 4. Questionnaire content Question Number

Question Content

Q1

How much did the “Sound, Light Control, Chair Vibration and Smell function” keep your learning motivation?

Q2

How do you evaluate the stimulation by visual, sound and learner’s body movement? Which one do you think is more effective? [visual and sound, vibration and movement, both]

Q3

How do you evaluate RFID control and management function?

Q4

How do you evaluate the e-mail attention function when the learner is not in the room?

Table 5. Questionnaire results Question Number

Performance Results

Q1

Sound Light Vibration Smell

4.4 3.1 4.5 2.7

Q2

Visual, Sound Movement Others

10% 80% 10%

Q3

4.9

Q4

4.3

performance evaluation is better when the evaluation number is higher. When a learner evaluates with 5, it means that the system had very good performance. The values shown in Table 5 are the average values collected from 10 learners. Considering the questionnaire results, we conclude that proposed system is an effective system for keeping the learner’s motivation. The “Vibration function” and “Movement” of Q2 has the highest result. These results proved that by giving a directly physical stimulation to learners, the proposed system has a better efficiency than just using the computer display of the previous system. Especially, for the answer of Q2, the evaluation rate is 80 percent for the question: How you evaluate the directly stimulation to learners? This result also corresponds with the results of Q1. Therefore, we think that the proposed system is more effective than the previous system. Also, the implementa-

Table 6. Comparison of functions for different systems Functions

MESIA

Previous System

Proposed System

Hints

○

○

○

Tests

○

○

○

Teacher Student

○

○

○

Students Questions

○

○

○

Network

○

○

○

○

○

○

×

○

○

Ranking Function

×

∆

○

Interface Change

×

∆

○

Vibration Function

×

×

○

Sound Emission

×

×

○

×

×

○

×

×

○

Interaction

Environment Synchronous Learning Asynchronous Learning

Function

Function Room Light Control Function Smell Function

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tion of RFID has a high evaluation value. We think that we can develop even more effective functions using RFID. However, the evaluation of smell function was low. This is because the learners have different smell tastes. But, we think that by selecting an appropriate taste for each learner, the evaluation for this function will be improved.

way, encourage function, ranking function, and self-determination of the study materials. Our proposed system has all these functions. We also implemented the following functions: a new ranking function, automatic interface change function, vibration function, room light control function, and sound emission function.

COMPARISON OF PREVIOUS SYSTEM AND PROPOSED SYSTEM FUNCTIONS

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORk

In this section, we compare the functions of the proposed system with MESIA system and our previous system as shown in Table 6. In the proposed system the same with previous system the BB is used to give the hints by teacher, but in MESIA the hints are used to advice the learners on wrong answers and HELP/MORE for guiding learners to correct answers. As test function, MESIA uses a short test, while in our previous system and the proposed system the learner repeats the exercises until he passes the test. For teacherstudent interaction, MESIA uses messages, while in our previous system and the proposed system is used e-mail. In the case when a learner wants to ask the teacher a question, in MESIA is used an online message or video meeting. While, in our previous system and proposed system, the teacher answers the student’s question by e-mail or using WM. The MESIA is used in the Intranet environment, while the previous system and proposed system are Web-based application and can be used in Internet environment. In order to have an efficient study, in MESIA the student and the teacher use a synchronous interaction. The previous and proposed system can be used for synchronous and asynchronous learning. MESIA does not have a function to stimulate the learner’s motivation, while in our previous system has the display of learner’s study history, change of interface color in manual

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In this paper, we improved our previous Webbased e-learning system by implementing new functions such as: a new ranking function, automatic interface change function, vibration function, room light control function, and sound emission function. By using these new functions, the proposed e-learning system can increase learner’s efficiency by stimulating learner’s motivation. The experimental results showed that the implemented system has better performance then our previous system. In the future, we want to evaluate the proposed system and its new functions in a real environment. We also want to deal with following problems: learner’s privacy, system security, and improving the encouraging function by using not only text but also the animations.

REFERENCES Arizona Regents University. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www. azun.net/ Blackboard and WebCT. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.black board. com/webct Barolli, L. & Koyama, A. (2004). A distance learning system for delivering appropriate studying materials and stimulating learner volition. Journal of Distance Education Technologies (JDET), 2(1), 1-17.

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Barolli, L. & Koyama, K. (2005). A Web-based distance learning system using cooperative agents. In C. Howard, J. Boettcher, L. Justice, & K. Schenk (Eds.), Encyclopedia of online learning and technology, pp. 430-439. IGI Publishing. Barolli, L., Koyama, A., Durresi, A. & De Marco, G. (2006). A Web-based e-learning system for increasing study efficiency by stimulating learner motivation. Journal of Information Systems Frontiers, 8(4), 297-306. CALAT Project (1998). Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation. Retrieved from http:// www. calat.com/ CALsurf (2000). NTT Software Corporation. Retrieved from http:// webbase.ntts.co.jp/ California Virtual University. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.california.edu/ Canadian Virtual University. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.cvu-uvc.ca/ Globewide Network Academy. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.gnacademy.org/ Indiana University, IU Online and Distance Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.iu.edu /~iuonline/index.html Kuwabara, T., Tamaki, M., Yamada, K., Nakamura, Y., Mistunaga, Y., Konishi, N., & Amano, K. (2000). Support functions for stalled students and their effect in a multi-media assisted education system with individual advance (MESIA). Transactions of IEICE, J83-D-I, 83(9) 1013-1024. Koyama, A., Barolli, L., Cheng., Z., & Shiratori, N. (2002). An Agent-based Personalized Distance Learning System for Delivering Appropriate Studying Materials to Learners. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), 2343(1), 3-16. Koyama, A., Barolli, L., Tsuda, A. & Cheng., Z. (2001). An agent-based personalized distance learning system. Proceedings of ICOIN-15, 895899.

Katayama, K. & Kambayashi, Y. (1999). Support of distance lectures using active database. Transactions of IEICE, D-I, 82(1), 247-255. Kentucky Virtual Campus. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// www.kcvu.org/ Nakabayashi, K., Koike, Y., Maruyama, M., Touhei, H., Fukuhara, Y., Nakamura, Y. (1999). CALCAT: An intelligent CAI system using WWW. Transactions of IEICE, D-II, 80(4), 906-914. MindEdge. (n.d.). Online Education. Retrieved from http:// www.newpromise.com/ Michigan State University, Virtual University. Retrieved from http://www.vu.msu.edu/site/ Ohio Learning Network. Retrieved from http:// www. oln.org/ Oregon’s One-Stop for Distance Education (2008). Retrieved from http://oregonone.org/ Pennsylvania State University “World Campus” (2008). Retrieved from http://www.worldcampus. psu.edu/ The Open University (2008). Retrieved from http:// www.open.ac.uk/ The University of the Air (1984). Retrieved from http:// www.u-air.ac.jp/ Tamaki, M., Kuwabara, T., Yamada, K., Nakamura, Y., Mistunaga, Y., Konishi, N. & Amano, K. (2000). Multimedia assisted education system with individual student advance. IPSJ Journal, 41(8), 2351-2362. University of Florida Distance Learning (2008). Retrieved from http://www.distancelearning.ufl. edu/ University of Illinois Online (2008). Retrieved from http://www.online.uillinois.edu/ University of Wisconsin-Platteville Distance Learning Center (2008). Retrieved from http:// www.uwplatt. edu/disted/ 1721

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WIDE University, School of Internet (1997). Retrieved from http://www.sfc.wide.ad.jp/soi/ contents.html

WebCAI Courseware System (1999). Nihon University. Retrieved from http://iclab.ce.nihon-u. ac.jp/~webcai/

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 6, Issue 4, edited by S. Chang; T. Shih, pp. 34-49, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.4

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

A Contribution to the University of the Future Maria Manuela Cunha Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave, Portugal Goran D. Putnik University of Minho, Portugal

ABSTRACT Individualised open and distance learning at the university continuing education and post-graduate education levels is a central issue of today. The advanced information and communication technologies together with several applications offer new perspectives, such as the so-called virtual university. Simultaneously, to gain market share, several organisational arrangements are emerging in the virtual university field, like consortia arrangements and joint venture initiatives between and among institutions and organisations. The dynamically changing social and economical environment where we live claims for new approaches to virtual and flexible university continuing and post-graduate education, such as the concept of Agile/Virtual University proposed by

the authors. However, the implementation of this concept (and of other similar concepts) does not rely just on basic information and communication infrastructure, neither on dispersedly developed applications. Although absolutely necessary as support, the added value comes from the higherlevel functions to support individualised learning projects. The implementation of the Agile/Virtual University concept requires a framework and a specific supporting environment, a Market of Teaching Resources, which are discussed in the article.

INTRODUCTION In the fast-changing and strongly competitive business environment we live, a confluence of

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

factors such as (1) the economic globalisation and integration, (2) the impact of technological developments, (3) the growing demand for sustainable development and (4) the emerging work systems are having a strong impact on organisations, on society and on individuals. Advances in information technologies (IT) are now one of the major driving forces of change. IT is an essential infrastructure for competitiveness of other economic sectors, and the basis for trade, provision of services, production, transport, education and entertainment (ACTS, 1998). IT is transforming organisations into global networked structures, with processes extended through continents, creating markets and systems not just global and distributed, but virtual, in a new perspective of a global, networked and knowledgebased economy. The fast evolution of IT is creating a huge role of opportunities, and simultaneously of challenges to organizations and to society. Organisations of every stripe try to respond to the challenges by adapting their strategies and activities; that is, restructuring to align themselves to the new requirements of the changing economy, where every sector of society will systematically use IT. These technologies support concepts as distributed systems, computer supported cooperative work, telework, electronic commerce, electronic marketplaces, virtual manufacturing, concurrent engineering, some forms of distance education, and many others. Distance education (Web-based) seems to be a contribution towards the democratisation of learning access in particular in the domain we are concerned with - the university continuing education and post-graduate education. According to several authors, (Evans & Nation, 1996; Khakhar & Quirchmayr, 1999) the most relevant advances in distance education over the past three decades have been in the university sector, where Open Universities represent an attempt to establish fully integrated distanceteaching systems.

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However, the new approaches to learning, such as flexible and distance learning, are still at an immature stage. Although some of these concepts have existed for several years, there is not yet a clear understanding of the way these approaches will evolve and become useful and common practices. Another concern is that systems conceived to provide integrated standard off-the-shelf learning solutions are less efficient when compared with dedicated systems. Providers of units of learning, primitive or complex1, can be integrated in completely individualised (customised/tailored) flexible Web-based networked learning projects, which in turn can be agilely and dynamically adjusted to either the performance of the providers or to the learner evolution or changing requirements. This corresponds to a new structure of learning for each individual (learner) while, at the same time, each provider (teacher) can specialise himself in focused units of learning, and get economies of scope by providing - with high quality - this same unit in several different learning projects. This concept requires an environment to cope with several concerns, such as assessment, accreditation, quality assurance, trust, and so forth, such as the Market of Teaching Resources here proposed, and must be mediated by a broker. IT innovations are stimulating the growth of markets for educational services and the emergence of for-profit competitors, which could change the higher-education enterprise (Goldstein, 2000). In this contribution, we introduce the Agile/ Virtual University (A/V U) concept, as an integrated set of providers of units of learning that is integrated to respond to an individualised need. The product provided by the A/V U is an individualised learning project (a continuing training/education course). These providers can be universities, university teachers and individuals (independent teachers), organised and managed by either a higher-education enterprise or a university

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

itself, in a specific environment proposed by the authors as a Market of Teaching Resources. The paper discusses the challenges to the university of the future, introducing the concepts of individualised learning project and Agile/Virtual University in the second section, and the new roles of the teacher and of the individual in the third section. In the fourth section it is introduced a framework conceived to implement the A/V U model and, in the fifth section, it is introduced the Market of Teaching Resources as an enabler of A/V U. The sixth section concludes the article.

BACkGROUND: ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES, FRAMEWORkS AND APPLICATIONS Internet enabled and enhanced communication, publishing and collaboration for individuals and organisations over a worldwide computer network. Initially, restrictions in bandwidth, storage capacity and processor power limited interactions over the Internet to text-based applications and technologies (Looms & Christensen, 2002). Today interactive applications and media-rich content are possible due to several infrastructure and standards, such as the XML (the W3C Extensible Markup Language Standard) for document structure, the SOAP (the W3C Simple Object Application Protocol) as a specification for computer communication and MPEG (the Motion Picture Experts Group standards) for video compression and delivery, which allow one to package, delivery and present learning contents in new ways. But a new generation of needs emerged regarding the specificities of e-learning, which claimed for specific standards, frameworks and approaches. In this section we introduce some concepts and review the main developments and contributions regarding standardisation in the e-learning domain.

The Concept of E-Learning Objects Several different definitions of e-learning objects can be found in literature, and other terms are used seemingly interchangeable in place of elearning objects. In this paper, Wiley’s definition is adopted. Other terms proposed by Cisco (2001) are educational objects, content objects, and training components. According to Wiley, a learning object is a “reusable digital resource to support technology-supported learning” (2000). Cisco defines a learning object as a “(…) granular and reusable chunk of information that is media independent” (2001, p.5). Learning objects allow instructional designers to build small or elementary instructional components that can be reused in different learning contexts, deliverable over the Internet. They represent reusable units of learning content that can be consumed or studied within a single learning session or a predefined period of time, organised in larger units such as classes or courses, if desired. At CEDAR (Centre for Economic Development and Applied Research), an e-learning object is defined as a small piece of text, visual, audio, video, interactive component, and so forth, that is tagged, and stored in a database (Muzio, Heins, & Mundell, 2002, p.24). The first generation of e-learning systems focused essentially on the management and measurement of training process, delivering inflexible courses, adding little or no value to the learning process (Ismail, 2002). According to the author, with whom we agree, these e-learning systems (learning management systems) were not designed to help organisations to collect, organise, manage, maintain and reuse instructional content. In their current situation, learning technology standards do not support interactive learning objects properly, as widely accepted (Hanish & Straber, 2003). Today, it is recognised the need to move towards producing database-driven reusable learning objects, and that they should

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conform to relevant standards, some of them tobe-developed.

The Virtual University Concept In recent years the definition and application of open and distance learning has been evolving in parallel with the arrival of newer and intelligent technologies (Commonwealth of Learning, 2003). According to a Commonwealth of Learning evaluation report on virtual education (Farrell, 1999), the label virtual is widely and indiscriminately used and it is frequently used interchangeably with other labels such as open and distance learning, distributed learning, networked learning, Webbased learning, and computer learning. Another Commonwealth report (Farrell, 2001), clarifies that open and distance learning embraces any or all of the concepts and practices of open learning, flexible learning, distance education, online learning and e-learning, and virtual education. To gain market share in the lifelong learning market, several organisational arrangements are emerging in the university virtual learning, and are the result of partnerships between institutions or businesses and institutions, joint venture initiatives between and among institutions and organisations, consortia arrangements, and so forth. Examples of emerging models include: for-profit university initiatives (Dirr, 2001), consortia and alliances of universities or of high schools (Dirr, 2001), the open school, broker-type organisations (Farrell, 1999), and corporate-university joint venture (American Federation of Teachers, 2001). Simultaneously, complementary institutions that do not provide instruction directly emerge in the virtual university field. Examples include institutions authorised to provide services as quality assurance, award credentials, learning assessment, learning records and so forth, and broker-type organisations, designed to broker programmes from individuals and institutional providers. The definition proposed by the Commonwealth of Learning for the concept of virtual education

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institution (Farrell, 2001), consists of an institution involved as provider of learning opportunities to students, using information and communication technology to deliver its programmes and courses and provide tuition support, and is the result of alliances/partnerships to facilitate teaching and learning to occur without itself being involved as a direct provider of instruction. We accept this definition and use it as a basis to the proposal of the new concept of Agile/Virtual University. There are still few examples of virtual educational institutions, namely of virtual universities. Besides several valuable examples like the Michigan Virtual University (http://www.mivu. org/) and the University of Phoenix (hppt://www. phoenix.edu/), we still can say that most of the developments towards virtual universities are experimental, and many times still do not address the needs of their potential clients. The market for virtual university learning is being fragmented (as the markets for all sorts of goods and services), with niche learners, each time more demanding, rather than mass clientele, and this market is becoming more and more competitive even in a world-wide scale, with global providers acting through strategic partnerships.

Standardisation and Interoperability Efforts in theE-Learning Domain E-learning standardisation is currently a vital concern and a continuously evolving process that, according to several authors (Anido et al, 2003) will last for years until a clear and generally accepted set of standards is developed. From the perspective of integrability there are significant efforts towards standardisation at two levels: (1) Specification of data models and information models involved (specification of the format, syntax, semantics of data concerning learners, course structures, educational contents, etc., to be transferred among platforms); (2) Specification of architectures, software components and interfaces (for managing the information models,

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

i.e., for managing learning objects in online environments) (Anido et al., 2003). Several contributors towards the development of standards for education-related systems can be enumerated, such as IEEE’s Learning Technology Standardisation Committee (LTSC), The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. (Open Specifications for Interoperable Learning Technology) (IMS, 2004d), the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC, http://www.aicc. org), the US Department of Defence’s initiative Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL, http:// www.adlnet.org). Several projects should also be mentioned: the Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe (Ariadne, 2004), PROmoting Multimedia Access to Education and Training in EUropean Society (PROMETEUS), Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM), Getting Educational Systems Talking Across Leading Edge Technologies (GESTALT), and the Information Society Standardisation System are some of the most relevant. Specifications that have already been released by IMS2 include: IMS Digital Repository Interoperability model (first draft approved in August 2002) (IMS, 2003b), Content Packaging (IMS, 2003a), Learner Information Packaging (IMS, 2003d), Metadata (in May, 2004) (IMS, 2004a) and Question and Test Interoperability (last public draft in June, 2004) (IMS, 2003e, 2004b, 2004c) and Learning Design (IMS, 2003c) -- this last can be considered as an integrative layer to some of the above-mentioned specifications. IMS project groups are in the process of improving specifications for competency, accessibility, learning design and digital repositories. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) project, an ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) initiative based on the CMI specification of the Aviation Industry CBT Committee, is a model for content exchange between different learning management systems. The purpose of

SCORM is to achieve accessibility, interoperability, durability and reusability within SCORM compatible content (ADL, 2002). Another field that is waiting for developments is the educational metadata one. Metadata (data about data) provides descriptions, properties, information about objects (in our case, learning objects) to characterise them in order to allow its manipulation and management. Many efforts can be listed, including almost the entire above list of projects and initiatives, but we are still waiting for generally accepted recommendations and standards (Dodds, 2001). LOM, the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (IEEE 1484.12.1—2002) is a major contribution that specifies the syntax and semantics of learning object metadata (Hodgins, 2002). The ability to search repositories is fundamental to provide access and delivery content from distributed repositories. The Open Archive Initiative (OAI) is a technical and organisational metadata framework designed to facilitate discovery of content in distributed repositories, specially directed to peer-reviewed information (scientific papers) (Lagoze & Van de Somple, 2002). The growing interest over Web services is based on the potential for a combination of XML, the Web, the SOAP and WSDL specification and some to-be-defined protocols. Web services are designed as standard reference architecture to promote integrability.

Brokerage for Educational Systems Efficient searching and selection of educational content is a key feature of distributed Web-based educational systems. Traditional technology (search engines and directories) could be used to search the Web for educational content; however, it is easy to conclude that these do not cope with our requirements. The role of third party intermediaries, linking different parts of a value chain, has been covered extensively by researchers in economics and

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business, and the question seems to be whether the future will hold a place for intermediaries, given that new technologies facilitate direct links between market players, such as manufacturers and end-consumers of products, or businesses and their suppliers. In the e-learning environment, brokerage will support the match between offer and demand of learning objects. The GESTALT project proposes a brokerage service for educational resources, named Resource Discovery Service, within a pool of registered providers of educational contents (GESTALT, 2003). In Anido et al. (2003) it is described a proposal for a Domain CORBA facility for educational brokerage that defines the software services needed in an intermediation framework for learning objects, using the OMG’s3 Interface Definition Language (IDL). IDL is not tied to any specific environment or platform.

Frameworks and Applications Under Development It is a generalised concern the provision /delivery of effective and efficient access to information / learning contents /learning objects, communication teacher/ facilitator—learner, provides also improved learning opportunities. In Ismail (2002) it is proposed an e-learning systems framework, specifying a learning system’s architecture for pedagogical development and systems integration, based on the Learning Technologies Systems Architecture (Architecture and Reference Model Working Group, IEEE) developed by IEEE and other standards organisations such as Aviation Industry CBT Committee, IMS Global Learning Consortium and the Advanced Distributed Learning Network. This framework allows organisations to envision and craft their e-learning systems while maintaining interoperability with third party applications and content (Ismail, 2002). In Ong & Hawryszkiewycz (2003), the authors propose a framework for integrating person-

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alisation and collaboration in a virtual learning environment, in a learner-centric approach, where learners are expected to actively engage in the learning process to construct their own learning and instructors play the role of facilitators, guiding the learning process. Lin et al. (2001) propose a framework for designing and developing agent-based online learning systems, integrating software agents and learning objects. The contributions of Anido et al. (2002) address the interoperability problem due to the proliferation of online learning systems, proposing CORBA as the technological supporting infrastructure. Academic institutions such as the University of Calgary [CAREO System (CAREO, 2002)] or the Technical University of British Columbia [POOL Project (Richards & Hatala, 2001)] have developed and deployed Distributed Learning Objects Repository Networks (DLORN) using peer-to-peer protocols. The peer-to-peer (p2p) model is not new and despite its problems in the beginning of its use in the academia - generalized copyright violation and uncontrolled usage of the computational resources and the institution bandwidth, which are used in entertainment and non productive activities (Vilano, 2005) - a strong interest and curiosity in academic environments for such applications is rising (Schoder & Fischbach, 2003). Projects like Edutella (Nejdl, 2002), Comtella (Vassileva, 2004) and especially Lionshare (LionShare Team, 2004), and developments like Elena (Kieslinger & Simon, 2004; Rivera et al., 2004), bring p2p to the arena of large scale sharing of resources in the academic world.

A NEW CONTEXT AND NEW CONCEPTS The convergence of information technology developments, together with instructional and peda-

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

gogical developments, is creating opportunities for new paradigms of learning and teaching. New concepts of post-graduate university education and of university continuing education will emerge, where new roles for individuals and institutions will be available, and where new requirements will constringe. According to Hicks, Reid, & George (2001), universities are asked to provide for a larger and more diverse cross-section of the population, to cater for emerging patterns on educational involvement in order to facilitate lifelong learning and to include technology-based practices. In this section, we discuss a new concept of networked virtual Web-based learning and teaching environment, where universities or providers make their units of learning4 available to learners in a market of teaching resources (i.e., mediated by a third party), under the format of individualised learning projects.

The Agile/Virtual University and Individualised Learning Projects The emergence of virtual institutions is directly linked to the development of, and access to, information technology and communications infrastructure, and is contributing to overcome the socio-economic and geographical disadvantages in acquiring skills and knowledge. Many people believe that IT will introduce structural changes to the universities, both in the organisational domain and in the research and learning domains. While university administrative activities have been transformed by IT (e.g., student and faculty communications), other higher education functions have remained more or less unchanged, like teaching for example, which in many cases still continues to follow a classroom-centred, seat-based paradigm (National Research Council, 2002). This report by the National Research Council warns academe against “complacency in the fast-paced techno-

logical developments from virtual universities” (Kiernan, 2002). As in earlier periods of change, the university will have to adapt itself to this changing economy, while protecting its most important values and traditions, such as academic freedom, a rational spirit of inquiry and liberal learning (National Research Council, 2002). In this changing economy, adaptation to change means to identify challenges and opportunities, and to reshape roles and activities, in order to align the university missions with the new requirements of society. Scholarly communities will shift from physical campus to virtual and globally distributed and networked structures. One of the most widely discussed areas in recent business literature is that of organisational network structures as the basic principle to achieve flexibility and responsiveness in a highly complex environment (Bradley, Hausman, & Nolan, 1993; Byrne, 1993; Davidow & Malone, 1992; Handy, 1995; Miles & Snow, 1986). If, in the business domain, flexibility and responsiveness are the main competitiveness requirements to strategically align business with a more global, networked and demanding market, we are convinced that the same applies in the services domain, specifically in the domain of university education. We agree that universities should strive to become learning organisations, much along with the well-known concept of Senge (1990), self examining and self-improving the services; however, besides the recognised need to shift, the university of the future will not stand alone! It will consist on an agile network or partnership of providers of teaching units, configured in learning projects, designed and redesigned to dynamically respond to the needs of each individual. But the strength of the university of the future will be in the fast response, high quality, dynamics/agility and customisation, to closely meet the learner’s needs and expectations, which are traduced in an Individualised Learning Project.

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In our understanding, the concept of virtual university as presented in the literature and as we have introduced in the second section does not respond to the requirement of dynamics that we want to address. We understand the university of the future as a dynamically changing structure that works as a university. The university of the future is the Agile/Virtual University. The A/V U concept is defended by the authors as an agile and virtual entity, integrated from independent providers of learning units (in principle university teachers, but also other independent teachers), existing solely to dynamically respond to a learning opportunity or need, traduced by an individualised learning project. After the conclusion of that learning project, the A/V U dissolves itself. During its lifetime, the A/V U can be subject of reconfiguration (changing or adapting its physical structure) in order to keep aligned with the learning project. Reconfigurability dynamics is a main requirement of this model, in order to be closely aligned with the learner’s needs and expectancies. An A/V U is expected to have integration and reconfiguration capability in useful time. This way, a leaning project, viewed as an integrated set of units of learning designed to meet learner requirements, can show its maximum efficiency and effectiveness. A/V U reconfiguration implies the search and selection of new providers and can be the result of unpredictable changes in the environment (learner) or as a requirement of quality and competitiveness improvement, or even be due to un-accomplishment of responsibilities of a given provider. An A/V U can have as many instantiations (physical configurations) as required (reconfigurability) in order to align the Individualised Learning Project with the learner requirements. Two main requirements are identified in the implementation of the A/V U model: (1) permanent alignment with user (or learner) needs and

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(2) reconfigurability dynamics. In order to respond to these requirements, the implementation of the A/V U model requires an environment covering the whole process, from the design of the Individualised Learning Project until the creation and reconfiguration of the A/V U responding to the project, assuring trust, accreditation, efficiency, quality, assessment, and so forth. The concept of a Market of Teaching Resources consists of an electronically delivered intermediation service (with different degrees of automation), mediating offer and demand of teaching resources (or units of learning) to dynamically integrate in an A/V U and “brokers” (consultants, knowledge support). In this “virtual” environment, offer corresponds to teaching providers (providers of units of learning) that make their skills and knowledge available, as potential servers/partners for A/V U integration, and demand corresponds to learner, the individual looking for an individualised learning project to satisfy his needs. The Market of Teaching Resources intends to provide participants (learners/teachers) with access to a larger pool of learning/teaching opportunities (both offer and demand sides).

Teachers, Learners, Brokers and ... A Market of Teaching Resources A new entrant in the emerging university education market is the teaching provider (who can be a university teacher or a certified trainer/teacher), motivated to create learning opportunities for anyone who is interested. Specialisation is becoming a mark to those new teachers that need to make their skills and knowledge available to a global market, to integrate strategic and dynamically reconfigurable partnerships—A/V Us -- according to individualised learning projects. These teachers can be reached through institutions providing market access to teaching units, such as the Market of Teaching Resources.

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

Figure 1. Global domain for selection of teaching providers, globally distributed, organised according to units of learning

The several providers of units of learning are subscribed to the Market, and form a graph where links between units of learning represent all the identified meaningful/possible combinations of units of learning in Learning Projects (Figure 1). An A/V U instance represents a physical structure of a set of integrated teaching providers, and reconfigurability along a learning project lifetime corresponds to the changing physical structures, as represented in Figure 2. In the emerging context of learner pulls, versus market push, we assist to a shift from “knowledge providers to knowledge seekers” (Porter, 2000). The learner commands the process of course delivery, in such a way that a single university or educational institution could not answer. The proposed A/V U model empowers the individual/ learner. The agility and virtuality of this model is assured by the existence of a Market of Teaching Resources and by a human broker. The presence of the broker in the Market of Teaching Resources is justified with the answer to questions such as: how does the learner locate the teachers; find the units of learning that fit its needs or draw an individualised learning project. Brokers are tailors that use the Market of Teaching Resources to design Individualised Learning Projects and to integrate/reconfigure an A/V U that is able to provide that project.

New Challenges towards the Agile/ Virtual University Model It is to recognise that the development of this new virtual educational models brings in change forces in several domains: trust, quality and curriculum relevance to labour market needs, are some of the main requirements for the success of the A/V U model. Specific regulations, legislation, accreditation, recognition of degrees and curricula, consumer protection, and cultural sensitivity are urgent concerns to promote, in order to allow this step further towards the development of liberalised agile and virtual learning concepts and the materialization of a new sort of organisational supporting environments (of which the proposed Market of Teaching Resources is an example). It would be out of our scope to highlight all of them, but some challenges associated to the emergence of these learning concepts involve: • •

Certification of providers of units of learning, in a world-wide basis; Recognition and wide acceptance on the definition of units of learning, content, duration, objectives, supporting learning materials, and so forth. Recognition of units of learning between different institutions,

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Figure 2. The Learning Project lifetime

...

Physical structure 1

Physical structure 2

Physical structure n

Learning Project lifetime

• • •

• •

•

by the attribution of units of credit and possibility of transfer, and so forth; Accreditation of brokers and all sorts of third parties intermediating offer and demand; Accreditation of institutions like the Market of Teaching Resources; Assessment and quality assurance of units of learning and of learning materials of support; Assessment of skills acquired by the individuals/learners; Maintenance of a learner profile, comprising goals, learning history (learning units studied or successfully completed), learning performance and preferences; Standardised design processes to support the definition of individualised learning projects5.

Besides the legal aspects and the supporting legislation that this model would require, the Market of Teaching Resources should offer an environment responsible by assuring trust, assuring the implementation of rules and laws, quality assurance, counselling and management of the learning path of the individual, assuring the interface with the providers of teaching committing them to accomplishing the contracted roles, and so forth.

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THE AGILE/VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY FRAMEWORk The implementation of the A/V U model and its requirements requires a framework covering all processes in a learning project. The two basic properties, implicit in the designation A/V U, are virtuality and agility. Together with integrability and distributivity we have the four basic properties of the A/V U model6. The framework proposes that the A/V U model requires an enabling environment to cope with the intrinsic requirements of the model (the Market of Teaching Resources) and the Broker, acting through the Market, as the enabler for agility and virtuality. The Market of Teaching Resources together with the Broker offers the support to the A/V U model. In this section, we discuss the meaning of these four properties in the A/V U model and how are they implemented. But let us first introduce briefly the concept of hierarchical system, a basic concept to understand our framework.

A Hierarchical System Model The A/V U framework is based on a hierarchical system model as a global view of a learning project. The underlying formalisation is the theory of hierarchical multilevel systems by Mesarovic,

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

Figure 3. A hierarchical multilevel system X1

Y1

S1 C2

X2

W1 S2

C3

... Cn Xn

Control level i Y2

Integration Mechanism (i, i+1)

W2 Wn-1

Sn

Figure 4. Elementary structure for an integrated and open hierarchical multilevel system control

Control level i+1

Yn

Macko, & Takahara (1970). In hierarchical multilevel systems, a system S is specified as:

Figure 5. Integration mechanisms between levels of the A/V U framework (Learner)

S: X  Y

Control level i

where X is the set of outside stimuli and Y is the set of responses. Both X and Y are representable as Cartesian products, that is, X and Y are assumed as a families of sets such that:

Integration Mechanism (i, i+1)

X = X1 x … x Xn

Integration Mechanism (i+1, i+2)

and Y = Y1 x … x Yn representing the ability to partition the input stimuli and responses onto components. Each pair of (Xi, Yi), 1 ≤ i ≤ n, is assigned to a particular level of a system Si, represented as a mapping, as in Figure 3. Ci is the result of level Si-1 and passed to level Si, while Wi is the result of level Si+1 and returned to level Si, until we reach level 1.

Basic Properties of the Agile/Virtual University Model The properties of the Agile/Virtual University model include: integrability, distributivity, agility and virtuality, which are introduced in this section.

(Broker, agent of agility / virtuality)

Resource Management level i+1

(Teacher)

Control level i+2

Integrability One of the most important requirements for the A/V U is the capability for efficient access to heterogeneous candidate teaching resources and their efficient integration in the A/V U. By “heterogeneous” teaching resources we mean that under the technological perspective, their supporting systems (applications and platforms) may work/operate internally in their own specific, proprietary language, that is, they may not conform to the same standard(s). Portability and interoperability among heterogeneous systems, as well as extendibility, reconfigurability, and longevity, are characteristics of the so-called open system architecture. Integration is primarily the task of improving interactions among the system’s components using

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Figure 6. Elementary structure for a distributed hierarchical multilevel system control

Figure 7. Elementary structure for an agile hierarchical multilevel system control

Control level i

Control level i

ICT

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT_1 Level i+1

Control level i+1

Control level i+2

computer-based technologies with the following goals (Vernadat, 1996):

agility and of virtuality), as represented in Figure 5. At this moment, this property is dependent of the developments in the domain of standardisation already mentioned in the second section.

1.

2. 3.

To hide underlying heterogeneity and distribution of functions, data, knowledge and functional entities to business applications and users, therefore ensuring portability; To facilitate information exchange and/or sharing among applications, and To provide an open environment, that is, an interoperable “plug and play” environment in which new components can be easily added or connected, updated or removed, for integrated enterprise operations.

Although the definition of distributed system refers the computer application domain (hardware and software), the same problems occur for components and processes integration, requiring some integration mechanism for the distributed systems. In this framework the integration mechanism assured by an “Integration Mechanism” (IM), represented in Figure 4, where Control level i corresponds to the learner and Control level i+1 corresponds to the teaching provider. The integration mechanism functions7 represent the required interface or translation functions between control levels and resources management levels, to assure integrability between the participants. The environment supporting the A/V U model (such as a Market of Teaching Resources) must assure integrability between the participants (teachers, learners and agents of

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Distributivity In the context of the A/V U framework, the distributivity concerns the geographical dispersion of teaching providers (see Figure 1). It is important to consider spatial distribution of the A/V U components, because the A/V U requirement for reconfigurability, as a part of flexibility, implies the search of new teaching resources, to be allocated to the task to be performed, in order to satisfy new or changing circumstances. To obtain the best combinations of resources, it is desirable that as many as possible teaching resources providers concur to the integration of the A/V U. This requisite implies that the candidate providers are globally distributed and inter-connected using information and communication technologies (ICT), to enable the negotiation capability, the integration of the A/V U and the delivery of the contracted units of learning in an efficient, effective and real-time way. ICT enables the efficient access to remote providers distributed geographically, all over the world (see Figure 6). We are not concerned with the implementation of the distributivity characteristic, as this is assured by the ICT infrastructure. The definition presented is oriented to a spatial distribution of the A/V U elements and not to distributed man-

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

Figure 8. Agility in the A/V U model - operation scheme

agement or distributed software applications. A distributed structure does not imply a virtual structure. We may say that distributed structures are an intermediate step on the development and implementation of the virtual structures concept.

Agility The competitive foundations of agile manufacturing or enterprise are continuous change, rapid response, quality improvement, social responsibility and total customer focus (Kidd, 1994). An agile company is one capable of operating profitably in a competitive environment of continually and unpredictable changing customer opportunities (Goldman, Nagel, & Preiss, 1995). Agility is the capability for fast adaptability or fast reconfigurability in order to respond rapidly to the market (or customer demand) changes. We consider the same meaning for these concepts, in the context of the A/V U model. As the A/V U implies interactions between various independent teaching providers, it will be required to control and manage inter-provider

organisational configuration. It is essential to be able to define domains of responsibility for configuration management, which reflect organisational policy and permit limited configuration management facilities to be offered, or to be contracted. A/V U agility must be carried on by some “organisation configuration manager:” the resource manager or broker. The Market of Teaching Resources is a domain for configuration management, subscribed by a set of providers, to which a particular access control policy applies. The “organisation configuration management,” that is the agility function, is presented by the “Resource Management_1” level, and implemented by the broker (Figure 7 and Figure 8). Control level i corresponds to the learner and control level i+2 to the providers of teaching units (A/V U participants); control level i+1 corresponds to the broker. Figure 8 represents a scheme of the A/V U elementary structure operation. It is important to notice that the structure proposed provides the reconfigurability between two units of learning (by the unit of learning it is meant a set of processes carried on by a single provider and without inter-

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ruption). When the unit is concluded, the broker can reconsider the organisation structure and act with the objective to adapt it (to reconfigure it). The broker is the principal agent of agility. Reconfigurability between two units can also be a request of the learner: reconfigurability can also be the result of a demand of the learner to change its learning project, and the Market, together with the broker, can agilely respond to that demand.

Virtuality In the specific organisational structure between A/V U participants (teachers) and brokers, the learner is not aware of the mechanisms used to communicate with, activate, or store the server object, let objects discover each other at run time and invoke each other’s services. Virtuality makes possible the transition from one A/V U physical structure (instance) to another in a way that the learner is not affected by the system reconfiguration nor aware of the reconfiguration - the underlying service structure and reconfiguration process are hidden. To implement the “virtuality” in the A/V U it is proposed the introduction of some organisation configuration manager, that is, the broker, similarly as for the concept of agility. The organisation configuration management,that is, the function that provides virtuality, is presented through the Resource Management_2, implemented by the broker (Figure 9 and Figure 10). In Figure 10 it is presented a scheme of the A/V U elementary structure operation. It is important to notice that the proposed model hides the physical structure from the learner; that is, the elements of one instance of the A/V U are not seen by the learner. When the broker reconfigures the A/V U, it is without intervention of the learner. The underlying physical structure of the A/V U can be hidden to the learner. The broker must provide the transition from one physical structure to another in a way that the learner cannot be affected by the system reconfiguration.

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Figure 9. Elementary structure for a virtual hierarchical multilevel system control (Putnik, 2000) Control level i

R ESOURCE MANAGEMENT_2 Level i+1 Control level i+2

Figure 10. Virtuality in the A/V U model - operation scheme

The main motivation for the application of the three-level hierarchy model is the learner’s lack of time or of knowledge to supervise the teacher/ provider, or to monitor its own learning project. But even in the case the learner has both the required time and knowledge, in order to identify a reconfiguration need (substitution of any provider) it is necessary to perform reconfiguration in parallel8. In the agility scheme, as previously defined, the delivery of the unit of learning and

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

the A/V U reconfiguration are still performed in a sequence.

A MARkET OF TEACHING RESOURCES FOR INDIVIDUALIZED GLOBAL NETWORkED WEB-BASED LEARNING The implementation of the proposed concept of A/V U requires the ability of (1) flexible and almost instantaneous access to the potential teaching resources providers to integrate in a learning project, negotiation process between them, selection of the optimal combination and its integration; (2) design, negotiation, monitoring, management and performance evaluation functions independently from the physical barrier of space; and (3) minimisation of the reconfiguration and integration time. The learner must have a correct idea of its needs and requirements, so that the Market can traduce them into a learning project. This learning project must be clear and consistent, as it will be the basis to the task performed by the Market of searching, selecting and integrating the teaching resources providers in a virtual university able to respond to the learner requirements. The service provided by the Market is supported by: (1) a knowledge base of teaching resources and results of the integration of resources in previous projects, (2) a normalised representation of information, (3) computer aided tools and algorithms, (4) brokers and (5) a regulation, that is, management of negotiation and integration processes. It is able to offer (1) knowledge for resources search and selection and its integration in a virtual university, (2) specific functions of operation management of the virtual university, and (3) contracts and formalising procedures to assure the accomplishment of commitments, responsibility, trust and deontological aspects.

Market of Teaching Resources: The Process Structure The overall functioning of the Market of Teaching Resources is represented in Figure 11, using an IDEF09 diagram. It consists of the creation and management of the Market of Teaching Resources as the environment to support Virtual University Design and Integration and Virtual University Operation, offering technical and procedural support for the activities of identifying potential teachers, qualifying teaching resources providers and integrating the Virtual University, as well as coordination and performance evaluation mechanisms. •

•

Process A.1.—Market of Teaching Resources Creation and Operation: This process corresponds to the creation and operation (management/ maintenance) of the environment proposed, from the technological aspects—such as the creation of databases and development of software tools, implementation of communication systems –- up to the definition and permanent adaptation and updating of the managerial aspects, such as regulation and rules, criteria for selection, management and brokerage procedures, organisation of the Market, commitments definition, evaluation, and so forth, including the performance of the Market itself in order to improve the Market organisation. Process A.2.—Virtual University Design and Integration: This process consists of three main activities—Virtual University Request, Teaching Resources Selection and Virtual University Integration. Virtual University Request consists of treating the request presented by learner (or client), and involves the design of the learning project configuration/reconfiguration and the specification for teaching resources selection and negotiation (Virtual University Project) that

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Figure 11. IDEF0 representation of the global process for the Market of Teaching Resources Creation and for Virtual University Design, Integration and Operation Virtual Univ Integration Management Virtual Univ Management

Project Management Learning Process Patterns Virtual Univ Reference Model Learner/Teacher Project Constraints

Virtual University Contract Integration Results

Operation Results

Selection Results

Market of Learning Resources Management

Focused Markets

Market of Learning Resources Management Operation Failure

Market of Teaching Resources Creation Universe of Teaching Resources

Market of Learning Resources Management A1

Focused Markets

Market of Learning Resources Virtual University Design and Integration Learner Constraints /Negotiation Param. Learning Requirements

Virtual University Contract Selection Failure Integration Failure Dissolution

A2

Virtual University Project

Virtual University Operation

Learning Objects

Learning Results A3

Learning Objects Representation Language Database and Software Tools

Algorithm to Organise the Market

Communication Tools Simulation Tools

•

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matches the learner requirements. Teaching Resources Selection involves the search for the eligible resources providers to participate in the Virtual University to be created/ reconfigured, negotiation among them and then selection of the “best” combination of resources to be integrated in the structure. The re-design or reconfiguration of a Virtual University, implying the substitution/integration of new resources is considered also in this process, as well as the dissolution of the Virtual University. Integration consists on formalising the structure (contractualisation) and on the establishment of procedures regarding the integration of the participants and the implementation of management and evaluation techniques. Process A.2. is detailed in Figure 3. Process A.3.—Virtual University Operation: The service provided by the Market controls the operation of the integrated

Algorithm for Optimal Search Algorithm for Search over the Focused Domain

Virtual University, tracking the performance of each resource provider, and restructuring the structure (reconfiguring the Virtual University) whenever necessary along the learning project lifetime. The operation results are of interest to keep actualised historical information concerning the performance of the resources providers, to be taken into consideration in future selection processes, and to adjust the management and monitoring procedures.

Virtual University Design and Integration In this section we focus on the process of Virtual University Design and Integration (Process A.2.), detailed in Figure 12, discussing the alignment between (1) the client of the Market of Teaching Resources, (2) the entities involved in a Virtual

A Changed Economy with Unchanged Universities?

Figure 12. IDEF0 representation of Process A.2.—Virtual University Design and Integration C1 Market of Learning Resources Management

C4 Virtual Univ Integration Management

C2 Virtual Univ Reference Model C3 Learner/Teacher Project Constraints

Virtual University Contract

Virtual University Project Market of Learning Resources I4 I1 Operation Failure

I2

Virtual University Request

Dissolution O6 Virtual University Project O7 Selection Failure

A21

Operation Results

I6 Learning Requirements

Selection Failure

Teaching Resources Selection

I5 Learner Constraints /Negotiation Param. I3 Focused Markets

A22

Virtual University Project

Learning Objects Representation Language M1 Database and Software Tools M2 M3 Communication Tools

University integration, that is, candidate providers and (3) learning projects. To keep the dynamics of the Virtual University model, the optimal combination of resources to integrate should be obtained almost in real-time. The complexity of the resources selection in general means that a compromised domain size (as a base for the solution space construction) should be used for each resource search. For each search, the Market of Teaching Resources proposes a Focused Domain (composed by Focused Markets), reasonably dimensioned, to allow a good match at a limited time. The first step of the Design and Integration process is the design of the Virtual University, that is, the Learning Project, as a result of a Learner Request for a Learning Project (Process A.2.1.), which means (1) the translation of the specification parameters provided by the client and traducing its needs (input flow “Learning Requirements”) into Normalised Teaching Resources Selection Requirements and (2) the translation of the specific learning constraints defined by the client that will determine the process for search of potential resources providers (input flow “Learn-

O1

Selected Resources

Virtual University Integration

Virtual University Contract Integration Results Integration Failure

Request Contract

O4

Selection Results

A23

O3 O2 O5

M5 Algorithm for Optimal Search M4 Algorithm for Search over the Focused Domain

ing Constraints/Negotiation Parameters”) into Normalised Negotiation Parameters. The Teaching Resources Selection process (Process A.2.2.) takes place in three phases: (1) eligible resources identification, (2) negotiation, that is, identification of candidate resources and (3) final selection or identification of selected resources for integration. The process corresponds to visiting all the elements proposed by the focused domain, in order to identify negotiation parameters (availability, time to respond to the demand, or time to offer the resource, and costs), and perform an optimal search algorithm considering the client’s negotiation parameters and subjected to the client project constraints (time to complete the product, cost, etc.). Virtual University Integration (Process A.2.3.) consists on the formalisation of the structure that will provide teaching: establishing procedures, normalising processes, interoperability, responsibilities and commitments. While selection means to check availability and to find the best resources that meet the requirements, integration means effective allocation and formalisation of the partnership.

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CONCLUSION We highlighted the emergency to reshape the virtual university continuing education concepts. This article discusses the necessary evolution of continuing university education to face the changing economy and introduces a framework for a new concept of university virtual education—the Agile/Virtual University model. It is also included a high level specification of an environment to cope with A/V U called a Market of Teaching Resources. The model traduces a challenge to the traditional way we conceive the university structural organisation and the delivery of services to the society; the concept of the university of the future brings in serious implications and urgent concerns and, as such, must be faced with determination. The structure of the university of the future can be founded upon knowledge and concepts developed and under development in other domains, like the domain of the virtual enterprises, in order to accelerate the implementation of the university of the future and to take profit from concepts and advances already achieved and validated or under validation. The model introduced in this paper is part of a wider research project under development at the University of Minho, addressing the Agile/ Virtual Enterprises organisational model, whose validation the authors intend to undertake also in the university continuing education field.

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ENDNOTES 1

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Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. London: Century. Vassileva, J. (2004). Harnessing P2P power in the classroom. In J. Lester, R. Vicari, & F. Paraguacu (Eds.), Proceedings of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (pp. 305-314). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3220. Vernadat, F. (1996). Enterprise modeling and integration. Chapman & Hall. Villano, M. (2005). Meeting the P2P challenge. Campus Technology.

6

Complex units of learning are understood as meaningful combinations of primitive units. The concept of e-learning object (introduced in the second section) corresponds to the concept of primitive unit of learning. Documents available at IMS (http://www. imsglobal.org/specifications). OMG (Object Management Group) is an open membership, not-for-profit consortium that produces and maintains computer industry specifications for interoperability. To the authors, a unit of learning can be an e-learning object or a combination of e-learning objects, constituting a chapter or a module in a subject or a course. This is not a new concern in a “learningon-demand” environment. A consortium of around 600 institutions has been joining efforts towards the identification of standards since year 2000 (Porter, 2000). This framework is based on the BM Virtual Enterprise Architecture Reference Model (BM_VEARM), conceived by Putnik (Putnik, 2000; Putnik, Cunha, Sousa, & Ávila, 2005). The BM_VEARM is a reference model for enabling the highest organisational/structural reconfigurability dynamics and operational inter-enterprise dynamics of Virtual Enterprises. As the A/V U concept shares some of the properties of the Virtual Enterprise organisational model, the BM_VEARM is adapted to suit the specific requirements of the A/V U model.

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7

8

9

The integration mechanism functions (represented in Figure 5) are not levels of the model. This is the main principle of the concurrent or simultaneous engineering model. IDEF stands for ICAM DEFinition methodology (ICAM—Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing). IDEF diagrams illustrate the structural relations between two processes and the entities present in the system. The processes (represented as boxes) trans-

form the inputs into outputs (respectively the left and the right arrows of a process), using the mechanisms for the transformation (the bottom arrows of a process) and constrained by control information or conditions under which the transformation occurs (the top arrows).

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 5, Issue 4, edited by S. Chang; T. Shih, pp. 5-25, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.5

Web-Based Video for E-Learning:

Tapping into the YouTube™ Phenomenon Chareen Snelson Boise State University, USA

ABSTRACT The recent explosive growth of Web-based video has expanded the repository of free content that can be tapped into for e-learning. Millions of video clips are now available online and more are uploaded each day. Since the creation of YouTubeTM in 2005, a video clip phenomenon has swept the Internet. Never before has it been so easy to locate, record, and distribute video online. This opens intriguing possibilities for teaching, learning, and course design for e-learning. This chapter introduces Webbased video as a new form of educational motion picture, delves into technical aspects of Web 2.0 video tools, describes instructional strategies that integrate Web-based video clips in e-learning, and examines barriers that could potentially inhibit its use. Future directions are also discussed. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-729-4.ch009

INTRODUCTION: THE YOUTUBE PHENOMENON Since the invention of YouTubeTM (http://www. youtube.com) in 2005, video has spread rapidly on the Web. These days online video is so common that it seems to turn up everywhere. Video is embedded or linked from Web pages featuring nearly every imaginable type of content including news, travel, fitness, education, and more. YouTube has sparked a phenomenon of online video viewing, sharing, and production that now extends well beyond the confines of its website. Dozens of video-sharing sites, with features similar to YouTube, have appeared online in recent years and this trend continues. While many of these sites were designed for the general user, others with a more specialized focus have begun to emerge including several oriented toward academic fields. Examples include video sites for science or scientific research such as LabAction

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Web-Based Video for E-Learning

(http://www.labaction.com) and SciVeeTM (http:// www.scivee.tv) Video-sharing sites designed for educators include TeacherTube® (http://www. teachertube.com) and SchoolTube ® (http://www. schooltube.com) As the number of video-sharing sites grows so does the amount of free video content available for instant access through the Internet. On YouTube alone, the number of video clips has skyrocketed into the millions and more clips are uploaded every day (USA Today, 2006). In fact, every minute more than ten hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube (YouTube, 2008). The result is a growing repository of media that can be tapped into for e-learning. Web-based video has attracted a sizable viewing audience of Internet users as well. A report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Madden, 2007) indicates that many Internet users are regularly watching video online. This is corroborated by Internet marketing statistics which reveal that online video viewing is on the rise (e-Marketer, 2008). A form of video clip culture, characterized by frequent consumption of short video segments, has emerged on the Web with YouTube ranking among the top ten online video destinations (Comscore, 2007; Nielsen, 2008). Web 2.0 video-sharing technologies are beginning to play an important role in educational institutions. The Horizon Report for 2008, copublished by the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, predicts that adoption of video-sharing technologies by educational institutions will become widespread within one year or less. Already, a large number of universities have established YouTube channels that they populate with video clips of school news, lectures, or other events. Examples include the UC Berkeley channel (http://www.youtube. com/user/ucberkeley) and the Stanford University channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/stanforduniversity.) The massive quantity of free online video content combined with the widespread availability

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of Web 2.0 video tools brings new opportunities to integrate multimedia into e-learning environments. This chapter introduces Web-based video as a new form of educational motion picture, delves into technical aspects of Web 2.0 video tools, describes instructional strategies that integrate Web-based video clips in online education, and examines barriers that could potentially inhibit its use. Future directions are also discussed.

WEB-BASED VIDEO: THE NEW EDUCATIONAL MOTION PICTURE Fundamental Attributes of Motion Picture Technologies The term Web-based video is used in this chapter to describe digital video that is distributed through the Internet and accessed with computers. At its fundamental core, Web-based video is simply another form of motion picture technology. Video is composed of a sequence of moving images and may or may not include a sound track. This basic description includes any form of image sequence that plays across a timeline, including animation, image slideshows, and video recordings of realworld people and places. The elemental nature of film and video as an image sequence has remained a constant since the creation of motion picture technologies in the late 1800s. At that time, inventors such as Thomas Edison were busy crafting devices that would record and play motion picture film. The Edison Manufacturing Company recorded a large number of films in a homemade studio called the Black Maria (Dickson & Dickson, 1970). A few of these films can be found on YouTube by typing the name “Thomas Edison” into the search form. However, a more complete collection of digitized Edison films is located at the Library of Congress American Memory website (http:// memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhm.html.) These films provide a glimpse back to the earliest days of motion pictures.

Web-Based Video for E-Learning

Motion Pictures in the Schools Early in the twentieth century, the motion picture began to appear in U.S. public schools. According to Saettler (2004) the first use of educational film occurred in 1910 in the Rochester, New York school system. Silent films were the available technology of the time and were considered by some to be a technological wonder. One of the earliest teaching manuals for classroom film described in glowing terms how film could bring the miracles and wonders of nature into the classroom (Ellis & Thornborough, 1923). A similar sentiment was echoed by Greene (1926) who wrote that, “The films furnished a wealth of new scenes, inaccessible actualities, new experiences that were instantly comprehensible; motion pictures broadened horizons swiftly and enjoyably; and thus inevitably started the world to thinking about the power of the picture” (p. 123). Others, who were less enthusiastic, warned that the benefits of educational film were unfounded and based on unproven psychological principles (Castro, 1922). Related concerns were articulated in recent years by Clark and Feldon (2005) who described several principles of multimedia learning that are commonly believed to be true, yet are not adequately supported by research. Questions about the effect of media on learning and the interplay between media and instructional method have been researched and written about for decades. Much of the discussion has manifested as an ongoing argument called the “media effects debate” (Clark, 1983, 1994; Kozma, 1994; Nathan & Robinson, 2001).

Technical Capabilities of Media that Support Learning The complex issue of how media might impact learning is compounded by the technical parameters governing what it can actually do. Each form of media has different capabilities that support or inhibit how it can be used for instruction. As an

example, consider the attributes of silent film, which was the first form of educational motion picture. This was a medium that supported presentations of visual motion sequences, without a synchronous audio track. It was visual and silent, but adequate for some instructional events. For example, a time-lapse video showing a flower bud opening in moments rather than days would be sufficient on its own without the inclusion of sounds from the surrounding environment. Alternatively, if a teacher wished to teach a science lesson on lightning, he or she could play a film showing the lightning strike. Unfortunately, the sound of the slightly delayed thunder could not be included in silent film. Thus, an incomplete representation of the natural phenomenon is constrained by the limitations of the technology used to present it. This further illustrates the complicated interplay between media and method. The media might support some methods, but not others and vice versa. The technical capabilities of film began to expand in the late 1920s when the sound film became available. Brunstetter (1937) described how the sound film surpassed earlier forms of visual aids, including silent film, because motion could be coupled with its associated sound. One of the intrinsic benefits of synchronized sound was described by Brunstetter as continuity of thought, whereby “Scenes and sequences are linked together for the orderly exposition of ideas or the chronological development of narration” (1937, p. 3). Brunstetter described continuity of thought as an advantage of sound film that was logically evident. In the early days of sound film there was little in the way of theory or research to support this assertion. However, decades later Paivio’s (1990) dual coding theory proposed the presence of separate channels for processing of visual and verbal information in the human mind. Related multimedia learning research on the modality effect revealed that the simultaneous presentation of visual and auditory information can reduce cognitive load and improve learning

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under certain conditions (Low & Sweller, 2005; Mayer, 2001).

Technological Advancements and Obsolescence The fundamental combination of visual and auditory information that was introduced in the sound film has endured through decades of technological advancements. In general, prerecorded motion pictures involve the dual technologies of media and media players. The evolution of motion picture technology has produced several iterations of media and player systems. The film reel and projector was the dominant technology used in schools for several decades from the early 1900s through the 1950s (Saettler, 2004). In the 1960s schools began to switch over to videotape and the older film reels and projectors began to vanish (Winslow, 1970). During the 1980s and 1990s, a series of videodisc formats emerged, including the 12 inch interactive videodisc, compact disc, and DVD. Investment costs for players and media were imposed on schools and libraries when switching to newer formats. It was never certain how long the latest video media and player hardware would last before becoming obsolete. While writing about library acquisitions of media technologies, Dick (1999) noted that “In an age of increasingly rapid technological obsolescence, the anticipated shelf life of any new video format—rather than its inherent superiority—probably figures into its widespread adoption” (p. 51). The problem of technological obsolescence due to continually changing media formats and players is minimized with Web-based video. The technology on YouTube is designed for the general Internet user to access and view through a standard Web browser. Authoring capabilities are also starting to become browser-based, which further diminishes issues of cost and obsolescence for video technologies. The technical capabilities of Web 2.0 video tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated, making them a valuable tool for e-

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learning designers and practitioners. Because of this, it is beneficial to gain at least a basic understanding of the tools and their capabilities. This facilitates the process of matching Web 2.0 tools to instructional methods that are supported by the existing technical capabilities. The next section provides an overview of the technical capabilities commonly found on YouTube, which is the largest video-sharing service online. Since similar features are found on many of the other videosharing sites, knowledge of YouTube is generally transferable to other Web 2.0 video tools.

TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES OF WEB 2.0 VIDEO TOOLS Flash Video Format Web 2.0 video tools typically work through Web pages and browser software such as Internet Explorer®, Firefox®, and Safari®. There are some video services that require users to download and install a player on their computers (e.g. iTunes®). However, the discussion here will focus on those tools that allow users to work directly through the browser to view, manage, and upload video content. This is how YouTube works. Each video on the YouTube site is embedded in its own Web page for viewing directly from the browser window. Videos on YouTube, and most other video-sharing sites, are encoded as Flash® video, which is free and nearly ubiquitous. Marketing statistics published on the Adobe® website indicate that Flash has been installed on nearly 99% of all Internet-enabled computers (Adobe Systems Inc., 2008). Updates and installations are simple to perform through a few mouse clicks at the download site located at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/. The Flash player is not only common, but cross platform as well. This minimizes the need to install multiple players to open proprietary video formats such as Windows Media® Player, QuickTime®, and Real Player® media. For online educators,

Web-Based Video for E-Learning

who have little control over the diverse array of computer systems students use to access their courses, this is a valuable technical attribute. It means that students should be able to view online videos without experiencing excessive technical difficulties.

Figure 1. YouTube Video Page

Recording and Producing Video for youTube The process of recording, editing, and producing video for YouTube is relatively straightforward. This is due in part to the growing array of easy to use video cameras and software tools designed for the everyday user. These days, many cell phones and digital cameras have the capability to record short video clips in addition to static photos. Inexpensive portable video cameras, such as the Flip camera (http://www.theflip.com), make it easier than ever to record, capture, and edit video clips suitable for online video-sharing. Built-in webcams are now standard equipment on many laptop computers and low cost plug-and-play webcams are available for any computer with a USB port. Webcams can be used to record video directly into YouTube through the Quick Capture feature on the YouTube site. Alternatively, video can be saved or transferred to the hard drive of a computer where it can be edited using free software that comes bundled with the operating system. For example, Windows® computers typically come with Movie Maker software and Macintosh® computers come with iMovie®. YouTube will accept videos that are produced using either of these programs. Browser-based editing is also beginning to appear, which means that users may soon be able to do nearly all video production through the browser. An example is Adobe® Premiere® Express (http:// www.adobe.com/products/premiereexpress.) This software makes it possible for users to edit video directly in the Web browser and then host it on the PhotoBucket (http://photobucket.com) media sharing site. Over time, more services like this may become available.

Tools Available with a youTube Account All video-sharing sites require users to create an account before they can use features beyond simple searching and viewing. After YouTube became an independent subsidiary of Google, Inc. it became possible to establish a YouTube account through an existing Google account (Google Press Center, 2006). Those with accounts can establish their own YouTube channel, which is a Web page that can be customized and populated with playlists, subscriptions to other channels, and uploaded videos. At the present time, account holders may upload any number of videos. However there is a limitation on length of approximately 10 minutes and file size of 1GB. This may change in the future since the technology is continually evolving. Currently, when a video is uploaded it is converted to Flash format and a player, Web page, and HTML embed code are automatically generated for the video as shown in Figure 1 (Fahs, 2008). After logging into a YouTube account, videos may be collected and organized into playlists, quicklists, or favorites on the personal YouTube channel. Playlists add the advantage of providing a way to share a collection of videos using a link to the playlist, or with an embeddable player. An example of a playlist of is shown in Figure 2. Custom players may be created from playlists or favorites to produce an interactive and navigable collection. Once established they can

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Figure 2. A YouTube Playlist

Figure 3. Custom Video Player Created in YouTube

be updated to change the appearance or content dynamically. A screenshot of a custom player is shown in Figure 3. Users can watch the videos in sequential order, progress ahead or back using the arrows, or navigate by clicking on the desired selection in the navigation panel. Basic usage statistics indicating number of views for each video clip, dates of viewing, demographics of users, and country of origin are available through the YouTube Insight tool shown in Figure 4. This can be valuable for an instructor or researcher who is interested in usage data for video content he or she has uploaded to YouTube. After a video has been uploaded to YouTube, there are additional tools that can be used for editing. The screenshot in Figure 5 shows several of these. The Info & Settings tool enables changes to the video title, description, or tags to be made. The Audio Swap tool provides a way to select a music track from a list within YouTube and use it as background music for a video. The Annotations tool makes it possible to add notes, speech bubbles, or clickable hotspots that can be linked to another YouTube video, channel, or search result. (For examples see: http://uk.youtube.com/t/ annotations_about). The Captions and Subtitles tool allows a closed caption file to be added to the video for accessibility.

Online Distribution of Video

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Web-based videos are easily distributed online through hyperlinks, HTML embed code, or through a set of share options that allow video to be posted to MySpace® (http://www.myspace. com/), Facebook® (http://www.facebook.com/), personal blogs, or social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us® (http://del.icio.us/) or DiggTM (http:// digg.com/.) The hyperlink to the video page can be pasted into other Web pages or electronic course documents for students to click and open just like any other Web page. Each video on YouTube typically comes with a piece of HTML embed code that can be copied and pasted into the HTML of a website, blog, or online discussion forum. Unless the person who uploaded the YouTube video has disabled embedding, this code is located in a box near the word “embed” on each video’s Web page to the right of the video player as illustrated in Figure 6. The code contains a link that points to the video and the player appears directly where the code is pasted. The video looks like it is part of the Web page even though the actual video file streams from YouTube and is not physically copied over to a new site. Once the code has been pasted, the player is embedded in the page and only needs to be clicked to play the video.

Web-Based Video for E-Learning

Figure 4. YouTube Insight Usage Tracking Data

Figure 5. Editing Tools in YouTube

Figure 6. The HTML Embed Code for YouTube Videos

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Downloading and Related Copyright Issues The ability to download the actual video clip file varies from one video-sharing site to another. At the time of this writing, Google VideoTM (http:// video.google.com/) and Metacafe® (http://www. metacafe.com/) serve as examples of videosharing services that do provide a mechanism for downloading. However, YouTube does not currently provide a download button or tool that will allow users to capture a copy of the video file to save on a computer hard drive or portable device. Many third party options are available to capture, download, and convert video files from YouTube and other similar services. A Google® search will turn up a considerable selection of software tools and how-to articles explaining how to download videos from YouTube. There are even videos on YouTube explaining how to download YouTube videos. However, caution is advised for two reasons. First, the YouTube terms of use at http://youtube.com/t/terms prohibits the use of technologies other than their own player to access video. Second, copyright and fair use issues are problematic, subject to change, and full of unclear rules about the current online video distribution phenomenon. However, some information specific to online video is available. The Center for Social Media website at http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org is a good starting point for information related to fair use of online video. Copyright applies to both downloading and uploading video, meaning of course that copyrighted video should not be uploaded or downloaded. Many video clips have been removed from YouTube due to copyright violations. Some of these have been tracked as part of a research project conducted by MIT Free Culture on the YouTomb website at http://youtomb.mit.edu/. In order to combat the problem, YouTube recently added a new video identification tool, which is a technology designed to help detect copyright violations. Through this tool content developers

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can attach a type of digital fingerprint to video content which can be detected through YouTube. This provides better control over copyright protected content on the YouTube website (YouTube Help Center, 2008).

Searching for Video Online It is possible to avoid downloading or uploading video altogether if simple search and online sharing are all that is needed. Nearly all video-sharing sites offer a search tool and many have advanced search features. It should be noted that when users upload videos to YouTube, they type their own title, description, video category, and search tags for their video. This can sometimes lead to unexpected search results. It may be necessary to use multiple synonyms to locate clips of interest. The panel of related videos on each YouTube video page can also help identify content of interest on a particular topic. It is typical to be able to search for, view, and share video clips from most video-sharing services. However, those tools work only within the service they are contained in. For example, when searching YouTube for a video clip about polar bears all results will be YouTube videos related to polar bears. Fortunately, there are other video search tools available that enable users to search across multiple video-sharing sites. A few examples of these are Blinx (http://www.blinkx. com), Google VideoTM (http://video.google.com), Searchforvideo (http://www.searchforvideo.com), and TubeSurf (http://tubesurf.com) Specialty video search tools have also begun to appear online. EduTube (http://www.edutube.org) is a search tool designed specifically for educational video search. EduTube allows users to search for video by category, video type, duration, and educational level. Another search tool, called MeFeediaTM (http://mefeedia.com), provides a way for users to create channels where they can aggregate playlists of video clips from multiple video-sharing sites. Tools such as these expand

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the search coverage and increase the chances of finding useful video content.

Collaboration Tools Within video-sharing sites there exists the potential for collaborative activities suitable for online instruction. The use of these tools may require that all participants have accounts with the service, however. As an example, YouTube has a contact list feature that works much like an internal message system. It allows videos to be shared with other YouTube users for either public or private viewing. If all of the students in an online course possess accounts on YouTube it is possible to share video clips privately with those students only. Comments and video responses can also be posted by YouTube members to respond to posted videos. YouTube Groups provides another mechanism for a community of YouTube members to post video and have asynchronous discussions based on a topic or interest. An example of an educational group on YouTube is the K12 Education group (http://www.youtube.com/ group/K12.) Synchronous real-time collaboration is also possible through the YouTube Streams tool (http://www.youtube.com/streams_main.) With streams, a group of students can share and discuss YouTube videos in real time. A summary of some of the technical capabilities of YouTube that online educators may find valuable are listed in Table 1. Many of these features are available on other video-sharing sites. The

next section of this chapter explores instructional strategies that are possible given the existing technical attributes of YouTube and many other video-sharing services.

INTEGRATING WEB-BASED VIDEO: INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR E-LEARNING youTube as an Educational Tool The literature about YouTube as an educational tool is scant at the present time. However, a selection of proposed educational strategies for YouTube video has begun to appear. Strategies for general classroom integration of YouTube videos include critical analysis and debate of video speeches posted by political candidates, evaluation of science experiment videos, presentation of art and music performances, student-generated videos to replace PowerPoint presentations, examples of real-world math concepts, and student plays recorded and posted online (Tamim, Shaikh, & Bethel, 2007). Strategies proposed for online education include the use of Web-based video for visualizing concepts, depiction of real world and historical events, vicarious experience through virtual field trips, video case analysis in online discussions or WebQuests, and motivational or human perspective videos (Snelson, 2008a, 2008b). Integration strategies have also been proposed for specific content areas as well. Rees (2008)

Table 1. Technical capabilities of YouTube conducive to online education Locate Video

Basic and advanced search

Watch Video

Flash player embedded in Web page

Share and Distribute Video

E-mail or paste link in course documents, copy and paste HTML embed code, use social bookmarking tools

Collect and Organize Video

Personalized channel, favorites, quick list, playlist, subscriptions, custom players

Video Production

Video upload, quick capture, annotations

Collaboration

Contact list, comment tools, groups, live streams

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explained how YouTube and other primary source video sites serve as valuable repositories of video clips for the history classroom. Historical video clips can be used to illustrate events, attitudes, and lifestyles of the past. YouTube videos are also being considered for use in medical education. Skiba (2007) described YouTube content that might be valuable in nursing education. McNeilly (2008) suggests that there is potential benefit in the use of YouTube video vignettes depicting psychiatric conditions within the field of behavioral science medical education.

Representational Attributes of Video for Learning Although there is a small handful of published suggestions pertaining to integration strategies for YouTube, there is currently little direct theory or research to guide e-learning practitioners. Information must be extrapolated from related sources such as the educational film and video literature that spans back about one century. Since YouTube is essentially a hosting and distribution system for video, this literature serves as a baseline of information to build on. There are researchbased principles of multimedia learning that can be applied to Web-based video. The way people learn from multimedia presentations is likely to maintain some level of consistency across learning contexts. This assertion is based on the fundamental nature of video as a representation that combines a visual motion image sequence with a sound track, consistent with the visual-verbal information channels proposed by dual coding theory (Paivio, 1990). As video plays, the eyes and ears simultaneously channel dual streams of information together into working memory thus limiting competition for limited visual resources. This implies enhanced information processing efficiency while learning from video presentations, which are a form of multimedia. According to Mayer (2001), “The rationale for multimedia presentations—that is, presenting material in

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words and pictures—is that it takes advantage of the full capacity of humans for processing information” (p. 4). Depending on how it is designed, multimedia has the capacity to present information in an efficient form that minimizes cognitive load (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). In other words, video can be used to make learning easier under some conditions such as when illustrating how a bicycle pump works using animation and audio narration (Mayer, 2001). As a dynamic form of representation, video has the capacity to effectively illustrate ideas, events, and processes. The intrinsic representational value of the educational motion picture has contributed to its longevity in education. Video can represent motion sequences; draw attention to details; replay real-world events, speeches, or performances; enable vicarious visits to dangerous or faraway places; change the speed of natural phenomena, or show scenes of microscopic life. These attributes span across all forms of motion picture technology available since late 1920s when sound films began to appear. Specific examples illustrating common educational uses for the representational attributes of motion pictures are listed in Table 2.

Interactive Video The YouTube phenomenon extends the traditional instructional uses for video by providing greater ease of distribution and enhanced opportunities for interactivity. All videos on YouTube have basic interactivity in the YouTube video player, which is common to most video-sharing services. Multimedia with basic interactivity, where users have control over the pace of the presentation, has been associated with learning gains (Mayer & Chandler, 2001). Greater levels of interactivity that permit users to jump directly to video sections pertaining to specific informational needs have also been associated with learning gains (Zhang, Zhou, Briggs, & Nunamaker, 2006). The hypermedia environment of Web-based video supports both basic and branched interactivity. Basic

Web-Based Video for E-Learning

Table 2. Educational uses for representational attributes of motion pictures Strategy

Example

Motion Sequence

Demonstrate the sequence of movements in a yoga stretch.

Draw Attention to Details

Use an animated diagram with moving arrows to illustrate blood flow through the human body.

Replay Real-World Events, People, or Performances

Show the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse, see a speech by President Kennedy, watch Luciano Pavarotti sing.

Visit Dangerous or Faraway Places

Use video in a virtual field trip to a volcano or the Moon.

Change the Speed of Natural Phenomena

Slow the speed of a water drop splashing to reveal the details or speed up the process of a flower blooming.

View the Very Small

Watch video of cell division or see the swimming motion of microscopic pond life.

interactivity is provided through the player with its controls for stop, play, and rewind. Branching interactivity can be constructed through custom players, playlists, and annotation links placed directly on each video to enable users to jump to other videos. For example, a video documentary of the Oregon Trail could contain links to other videos showing stops along the way. Branching stories or training scenarios can also be created so that learners explore different video segments to correspond with the choices they click along the way. Collaboration among students working through this type of branching scenario can be facilitated through the comments or messaging system in YouTube. This is consistent with constructivist concepts of learning, where learners construct knowledge based on interpretation of their experiences in both individual and social learning environments (Jonassen, 1999). Social construction of knowledge aligns closely to the participatory culture of Web 2.0 learning environments (Brown & Adler, 2008).

Video for Online Discussions Within the online course, video-sharing can serve as an alternative to text-based discussions. This works through the use of webcams, which students can use to record video logs, or vlogs, of thoughts and ideas about the discussion topic. The vlog posts are easily uploaded to YouTube for distribution to classmates and the instructor. An asynchronous

video conversation occurs when video responses are made to reply to other student or instructor vlog posts. Vlogs can be shared directly through YouTube or by pasting the HTML embed code into the discussion board posts within a course management system. Other types of video-enhanced discussions can be centered on existing YouTube videos that match course content. News videos are easy to find online and can be used to introduce critical current event topics that depict scenes and people who are involved in the event. Web-based video can also be used to explore broad themes such as bias, diversity, human behavior, or media literacy. Critical thinking can be introduced by asking students to critique and analyze the quality or accuracy of information presented in YouTube videos. Students may also locate and contribute videos on a given topic for further discussion.

Tips for Getting Started with youTube Educators can find considerable value in Webbased video. It is free, easy to distribute, and integrates an audiovisual element to the text-based virtual classroom. Although video is something most educators are familiar with, they may experience some disorientation when first exploring the Web 2.0 video environment. Those who are new to the array of YouTube-like video sites may find themselves overwhelmed and not sure where to begin. The suggestions described above provide

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some direction and ideas. However, the applications of Web-based video may vary considerably across the content areas. The following strategies are useful when first exploring what Web-based video, YouTube, and the other services have to offer. •

•

•

•

•

Begin with a video search to see if there is any content available for the specific need. Try sites such as YouTube and also video search engines such as EduTube, TubeSurf, and Blinx (described earlier). Use multiple synonyms as search phrases. If video for a specific topic is not located, then try a broader or more generic theme. Is there a common thematic thread that weaves through the topic such as equity, diverse human perspective, prosperity, activism, motion, or travel? Browse the video categories listed on each site. Videos are organized by genre such as comedy, education, and news. On YouTube the genres are found by clicking the Videos link near the top of the screen at the YouTube site. Create an account with YouTube (or other service) and collect links to videos that match course content. Prepare playlists with more video than needed in case a clip is taken offline. When possible, develop original content that meets course needs. Post it on YouTube (or elsewhere) for easy distribution on the Web.

While the tips and strategies just described provide direction toward successful integration of Web-based video in e-learning, it should be noted that there are also some potential barriers. The next section describes some of the most common issues that might surface when working with video on YouTube and the rest of the video sites now available.

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ADDRESSING BARRIERS TO THE INTEGRATION OF WEB-BASED VIDEO Concerns about Academic Value One barrier that might be encountered when integrating Web-based video is a form of bias against video-sharing sites containing user-generated content. The academic value of what is considered by some to be an entertainment service may not be readily apparent. There have also been instances of inappropriate or illegal behavior on YouTube. Examples include the recent videotaped beating of a teenage girl (Schoetz, Canning, & Brady, 2008) and embarrassing videos of teachers that were secretly recorded on cell phone cameras and posted on YouTube (Carr, 2007). While the presence of poor behavior and entertainment video give pause, nevertheless there are many educational gems to be found on sites like YouTube. They are not always obvious at first glance and some open-minded exploration is often necessary. The presence of good educational content should help to alleviate the concerns of skeptics. Several examples of educational YouTube channels are listed in Table 3. There are many more to be found online while searching for appropriate video content. Additional evidence of educational and academic value of YouTube is found in the emergence of innovative research and practice. One example is the work of Kansas State University professor Michael Wesch, whose research in digital ethnography extends into YouTube (See: http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch.) His video, Web 2.0…The Machine is Us/ing Us (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE) released on YouTube on January 31, 2007 has been viewed more than 6 million times. A more recent video called An anthropological introduction to YouTube (http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU), was presented at the Library of Congress on June 23, 2008. This 55 minute presentation includes over 40 minutes of video prepared by Wesch and

Web-Based Video for E-Learning

Table 3. Examples of YouTube channels containing educational content Name of YouTube Channel

Website Address

Computer History Museum

http://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

http://www.youtube.com/user/MIT

National Geographic

http://www.youtube.com/user/NationalGeographic

Nobel Prize

http://www.youtube.com/user/thenobelprize

Public Broadcasting System

http://www.youtube.com/user/PBS

ScienCentral News

http://www.youtube.com/user/sciencentral

TED Talks

http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector

UChannel

http://www.youtube.com/user/uchannel

his students. This work highlights the academic credibility that can be found on YouTube.

Concerns about Quality Concerns about the use of YouTube for e-learning may involve issues pertaining to quality. This is understandable given that video-sharing sites contain a mixture of content created by a range of amateur and professional developers. There are at least two logical dimensions where quality can suffer in Web-based video: 1) content, and 2) audiovisual display. In other words, the information in the video should be educationally valuable and it should be clearly seen and heard (if sound is included.) Of course, the educational value of video is subjective and will vary depending on instructional goals. In some respects almost anything can be educational depending on the purpose for which it will be used. For example, a video that includes erroneous information may not be suitable for introducing students to a new concept, but it could be used for the alternative purpose of initiating discussion of common misconceptions on the topic. The quality of the audiovisual display is sometimes problematic on video-sharing sites such as YouTube. If the content is good, but it cannot be clearly seen or heard then it may be rendered useless for instruction. There are a number of reasons underlying poor audiovisual display ranging from

production techniques to compression strategies. A video that starts out fuzzy, shaky, and full of audio static will only get worse when uploaded to YouTube. When video is uploaded to YouTube it is resized, compressed, and converted to Flash® video (Fahs, 2008). The result can be fuzzy or distorted, thus reducing the visual quality to the extent that important details become difficult to discern. This issue is particularly evident with on-screen text. Software tutorials created with screen recording software may be usable until after they are uploaded to YouTube simply because the text is unreadable. This is also a problem for PowerPoint slides that have text printed on them as illustrated in Figure 7. Fortunately, there are some strategies that can help the video developer work around the screen resolution problem. The following tips are useful when working with video containing text. •

•

Use captions: Screen recordings of software tutorials can be enhanced with captions in large text to help explain menus or icons containing fuzzy text. Zoom in on the text: Video editing or recording software that enables zooming in on the screen is also a good strategy. This will increase the size of the text and keep it readable after the video has been uploaded. Part of the screen may be invisible when

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Figure 7. Text distortion in small font sizes

•

•

zooming in, however. Zoom back out to maintain perspective. Use large font and limit text: With PowerPoint slides it is better to stick with large font and limit text to key words or phrases. A lot of text or small font will likely end up unreadable. Use text caption, subtitle, or annotation tools: YouTube provides the annotation tool that can be used to add text after the video has been uploaded. Subtitles may be added to videos using tools such as dotSUB (http://dotsub.com/)

At the present time, many of the Web-based video sites produce low resolution video clips. However, there is some movement toward high definition video for the Web. Vimeo (http://www. vimeo.com/hd) currently offers a service that supports 1280 by 720 HD (high definition) video and YouTube recently switched to a widescreen high definition format. HD improves visual clarity of video considerably over the lower quality videos commonly found online today. Of course, the original video recording must be high quality to begin with. This is not always the case with portable video recorders such as those found in cell phones or digital cameras. Mobile video clips can be enhanced, however. An online service called FixMyMovie (http://www.fixmymovie.com/ splash/) provides a place where users upload their videos which were recorded on lower resolution

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mobile devices. After upload the video is processed and the resolution is enhanced. The fixed movie can then be shared directly from the site or downloaded to the user’s computer hard drive.

Broadband and Web-Filtering Barriers Barriers to the effective use of online video include broadband and computer limitations, particularly in U.S. public K-12 schools. This is not necessarily a problem of Internet availability because nearly all U.S. schools have access to the Internet (Wells, Lewis, & Greene, 2006). The problems are more along the lines of limited access to computers, lack of technical assistance, and lack of training, which inhibit opportunities to use online resources. A recent survey of teachers and support professionals indicates that the number of computers available for student use in individual classrooms is inadequate for effective instruction (National Education Association & American Federation of Teachers, 2008). Without adequate equipment, technical support, and teacher training the potential benefits gained with access to extensive online video resources are beyond reach. Even when computers with Internet access are available, broadband limitations can inhibit access to online video, one minute of which requires ten times the bandwidth of voice (Kleeman, 2007). A report from the Communication Workers of America (2008) indicates that high speed Internet access

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in the U.S. lags far behind other industrialized nations such as Japan and South Korea. Although broadband access is growing, access continues to vary. The online course developer should consider broadband availability when integrating video that will be delivered on the Internet. Broadband is not the only potential barrier to Web-based video into a classroom. Access restrictions due to Web filtering are likely to occur in public K-12 U.S. schools as well. In order to receive financial support for Internet service under the E-Rate program, schools and libraries must demonstrate compliance to the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Technology protection measures are required to block access by minors to inappropriate or obscene content, secure safety when using e-mail, chat rooms, or online communications, prevent unauthorized hacking or unlawful online activity, protect against unauthorized disclosure and dissemination of personal information, and restrict access to material harmful to minors (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003; Universal Service Administration Company, 2008). This means that online video-sharing services, which may contain obscene content, will most likely be blocked at institutions supported under the E-Rate program. Some control over offensive video content is managed by YouTube through a reporting mechanism in which the online community flags inappropriate videos. However, any video can end up on the site for a short period of time until it is reported and removed. In a school where access to YouTube is restricted, teachers have no access to the good content that is available, because the bad content forces the entire site to be blocked. This has led some educators to resort to the use of download tools which capture of video files that can be watched independently of the YouTube site (Dyck, 2007). As noted earlier in this chapter, video download from YouTube remains a questionable practice due to the uncertain legality of video downloads using third party software. A

safer choice may be to locate a video site that is not blocked, although this will limit the amount of available content to select from.

Video Unavailable when Needed Those who are not involved with K-12 public schools may have little to be concerned about with respect to filtering software. However, there is another potential barrier to be aware of when working with Web-based video for any audience of learners. Online content that is created and maintained by others can be removed from the Internet at any time. Hosting services can also go out of business or shut down for maintenance making content unavailable or temporarily inaccessible. Some video content seems to stay online for a long time, but there is always the chance that the wonderful video located today will be gone tomorrow. Because of this, it is essential to plan for the possibility that the video may vanish before it can be used in the classroom. Playlists of similar videos can be created in advance for this purpose. Sometimes, the same video will be uploaded onto more than one YouTube channel. When this occurs, each copy can be added to the playlist for backup.

Continually Changing Technologies The potential disappearance of video is compounded by the continually changing technologies found on Web 2.0 services, including YouTube. In some ways it is like working with a moving target of evolving features. Something that works a certain way this week may change next week. This is the nature of the YouTube phenomenon and Web 2.0 in general. Some features such as video upload, play, and sharing remain consistent since they are core essential features. Other tools such as the YouTube Remixer, which allows users to edit video through the Web browser, have been known to be available for awhile and then go offline for repair. Features that appear on the

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YouTube TestTube site (http://www.youtube. com/testtube) are experimental and may be more likely to change. These can be used successfully within e-learning as long as alternative options are prepared in advance just in case. In some ways, it seems to require a sense of adventure to tap into the YouTube phenomenon. It can be a marvelous adventure, however.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS The YouTube phenomenon, characterized by video viewing, sharing, and production has gained considerable momentum in a just a few years time. There is much to offer e-learning in terms of tools and content, yet there is little direct guidance to be found. A starting point for uncovering best practice strategies for e-learning is to build from what is already known about educational video. To expand on this prior knowledge, a series of case studies that explore how YouTube is used within authentic practice across the disciplines is needed. Formative and summative evaluations conducted as part of these studies will yield evidence of additional benefits or barriers within e-learning. Design-based research, characterized by repeated cycles of design, implementation and analysis may also be applicable to uncover the impact of YouTube within the context where it will be used for instruction (The Design Based Research Collective, 2003; Snelson, 2006). Experimental studies should be conducted with care to avoid the problems associated with media comparison studies, which have a history of producing results of no significant difference (Warnick & Burbules, 2007). There is a need both now and in the future to clearly define the role of video-sharing and Web-based video content as a component of digital curriculum in both online and face-to-face education. Despite some continued skepticism (Tahmincioglu, 2008), online learning is now considered to be mainstream and enrollments

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continue to grow (Allen & Seaman, 2007). The expansion of online education implies a need for digital instructional content that can be accessed on the Internet. The need for digital curriculum has also begun to spread to face-to-face education as well. Some K-12 schools have already begun experimenting with laptop computers and digital content to replace traditional textbooks (Associated Press, 2005). Electronic textbooks are becoming widely available for higher education (Guess, 2008) albeit with concerns about affordability, printability, and accessibility (Allen, 2008). Computer-based digital content enables and supports integration of rich multimedia content including video. The millions of video clips, accessed for free on the Web, provide a repository of content that educators can tap into as part of the digital curriculum. Much of the free content now on the Web is stored on sites like YouTube, which were designed for general public video-sharing purposes. Access problems due to Web filtering and confusion over the legality of video download add to the complexity of the problem. As Web filtering software becomes more sophisticated it may become feasible to open limited doorways of access for teachers allowing them to avoid resorting to questionable download solutions. The development of progressive school policy that supports reasonable use of YouTube content is also essential to guide the process of accessing the wealth of free video available to educators. As more and more educators turn to videosharing services there is increased need to clarify copyright and fair use laws to better inform those who create, upload, or download Web-based video. At the present time the rules are unclear, full of legal verbiage, and fail to clearly guide educators. As Web 2.0 evolves, the laws governing fair use and copyright may also need to evolve to address the use and distribution of online content including video. Fortunately, some informational resources are being produced to provide guidance (Aufderheide & Jaszi, 2008; Jaszi & Aufderheide,

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2008). It is essential that all who are involved with the use or production of online video become as well informed as possible about copyright and fair use. Web 2.0 video tools are an exciting addition to the suite of interactive, browser-based services. At some point in the future, the need to purchase software for desktop and laptop computers may be reduced or eliminated. It is conceivable that most software needs may eventually be handled through the browser. Video editing on the Web is still in its infancy, but work is underway to produce tools for this purpose. It is an excellent time to tap into the YouTube phenomenon for e-learning and ride the wave into the future.

REFERENCES Adobe Systems, Inc. (2008). Flash player penetration. Retrieved July 12, 2008, from http://www. adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/ Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2007). Online nation: Five years of growth in online learning. Retrieved August 5, 2008, from http://www.sloan-c.org/ publications/survey/pdf/online_nation.pdf Allen, N. (2008). Course correction: How digital textbooks are off track and how to set them straight. Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium. Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://www.maketextbooksaffordable.org/course_correction.pdf Associated Press. (2005, July 11). Arizona school won’t use textbooks: Vail’s new Empire High to be all-wireless, all-laptop. Retrieved August 5, 2008, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8540381/ Aufderheide, P., & Jaszi, P. (2008). Recut, reframe, recycle: Quoting copyrighted material in user-generated video. Washington, DC: Center for Social Media. Retrieved July 19, 2008 from http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/ publications/recut_reframe_recycle

Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), 16-32. Retrieved November 1, 2008 from http://connect.educause. edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/MindsonFire OpenEducationt/45823?time=1225579636 Brunstetter, M. R. (1937). How to use educational sound film. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved June 11, 2008, from http://www.archive.org/details/howtouseeducatio00brunrich Carr, N. (2007, October). YouTube creates cyber nightmare for teachers. eSchool News, 10, 41. Castro, M. (1922). Some psychological and pedagogical aspects of visual education. The Educational Screen, 1(3), 6-9. Retrieved June 6, 2008, from http://www.archive.org/details/ educationalscree01chicrich Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445–459. Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21–29. doi:10.1007/ BF02299088 Clark, R. E., & Feldon, D. E. (2005). Five common but questionable principles of multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 97-115). New York: Cambridge University Press. Communication Workers of America. (2008). Speed matters: A report on Internet speeds in all 50 states. Retrieved August 23, 2008, from http:// www.speedmatters.org/document-library/sourcematerials/cwa_report_on_internet_speeds_2008. pdf

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Comscore. (2007). YouTube continues to lead U.S. online video market with 28 percent market share. Retrieved October, 6, 2008, from http://www. comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1929 Dick, J. T. (1999). DVD the next big (digital) thing? Library Journal, 124(9), 50–51. Dickson, W. K. L., & Dickson, A. (1970). History of the kinetograph, kinetoscope & kinetophonograph. New York: Arno Press & The New York Times. Dyck, B. (2007). Using YouTube in the classroom. Retrieved August 3, 2008, from http://www. education-world.com/a_tech/columnists/dyck/ dyck016.shtml e-Marketer. (2008). Online video viewing still rising. Retrieved May 29, 2008, from http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006291&src=article_ head_sitesearch Ellis, D. C., & Thornborough, L. (1923). Motion pictures in education: A practical handbook for users of visual aids. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Retrieved June 4, 2008, from http:// www.archive.org/details/motionpicturesin00ellirich Fahs, C. (2008). How to do everything with YouTube. New York: McGraw-Hill. Google Press Center. (2006). Google to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. Retrieved May 29, 2008, from http://www.google.com/press/ pressrel/google_youtube.html Greene, N. L. (1926). Motion pictures in the classroom. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 128, 122–130. doi:10.1177/000271622612800120 Guess, A. (2008, August 26). Next steps for etexts. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved November 1, 2008 from http://www.insidehighered.com/ news/2008/08/26/etextbooks

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Jaszi, P., & Aufderheide, P. (2008). Code of best practices in fair use for online video. Washington, DC: Center for Social Media. Retrieved August 10, 2008 from http://www.centerforsocialmedia. org/resources/publications/fair_use_in_online_video/ Jonassen, D. (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. 2, pp. 215-239). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Kleeman, M. (2007). Point of disconnect: Internet traffic and the US communications infrastructure. San Diego, CA: University of California. Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://cpe.ucsd. edu/assets/013/6535.pdf Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 7–19. doi:10.1007/BF02299087 Low, R., & Sweller, J. (2005). The modality principle in multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 147-158). New York: Cambridge University Press. Madden, M. (2007). Online video. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/ PPF/r/219/report_display.asp Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mayer, R. E., & Chandler, P. (2001). When learning is just a click away: Does simple user interaction foster deeper understanding of multimedia messages? Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), 390–397. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.93.2.390

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Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43–52. doi:10.1207/S15326985EP3801_6

Schoetz, D., Canning, A., & Brady, J. (2008). Teens in video beating case charged as adults. ABC News. Retrieved August 1, 2008, from http://abcnews. go.com/GMA/Story?id=4609528&page=1

McNeilly, D. P. (2008). YouTube and the emerging worlds of video-sharing for behavioral science education. Annals of Behavioral Science and Medical Education, 14(1), 25–30.

Skiba, D. J. (2007). Nursing education 2.0: YouTube. Nursing Education Perspectives, 28(2), 100–102.

Nathan, M., & Robinson, C. (2001). Considerations of learning and learning research: Revisiting the “media effects” debate. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 12(1), 69–88. National Education Association & American Federation of Teachers. (2008). Access, adequacy, and equity in education technology: Results of a survey of America’s teachers and support professionals on technology in public schools and classrooms. Washington, DC: National Education Association. Retrieved June 11, 2008, from http://www.nea.org/ research/images/08gainsandgapsedtech.pdf New Media Consortium & EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2008). The horizon report: 2008 edition. Retrieved May 18, 2008, from http://www. nmc.org/publications/2008-horizon-report Nielsen Online. (2008). The video generation: Kids and teens consuming more online video content than adults at home. Retrieved October, 6, 2008, from http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/ pr/pr_080609.pdf Paivio, A. (1990). Mental representations: A dual coding approach (Vol. 9). New York: Oxford University Press. Rees, J. (2008). Teaching history with YouTube. Perspectives on History, 46(5). Retrieved June 11, 2008, from http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2008/0805/0805tec2.cfm Saettler, P. (2004). The evolution of American educational technology. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Snelson, C. (2006). Virtual design based research. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 10(4), 107–110. Snelson, C. (2008a). Web-based video in education: Possibilities and pitfalls. In Proceedings of the Technology, Colleges & Community Worldwide Online Conference (pp. 214-221). Retrieved August 23, 2008, from http://etec.hawaii.edu/ proceedings/2008/Snelson2008.pdf Snelson, C. (2008b). YouTube and beyond: Integrating Web-based video into online education. In K. McFerrin, R. Weber, R. Carlsen, & D. A. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 732-737). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Tahmincioglu, E. (2008, September 7). Online colleges earning respect to a degree: Many hiring managers still skeptical, but distance learning hard to ignore. MSNBC. Retrieved November 1, 2008 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26458424/ Tamim, R., Shaikh, K., & Bethel, E. (2007). EDyoutube: Why not? In G. Richards (Ed.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2007 (pp. 1302-1307). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. The Design Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-based research: An emerging paradigm for educational inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 5–8. doi:10.3102/0013189X032001005

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Today, U. S. A. (2006, July 16). YouTube serves up 100 million videos a day. Retrieved May 29, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/200607-16-youtube-views_x.htm Universal Service Administration Company. (2008). Step 10: Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Retrieved June 11, 2008, from http:// www.usac.org/sl/applicants/step10/cipa.aspx U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2003).Web-related legal issues and policies. In Weaving a secure Web around education: A guide to technology standards and security. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/ pubs2003/secureweb/ch_3.asp#H9 Warnick, B. R., & Burbules, N. C. (2007). Media comparison studies: Problems and possibilities. Teachers College Record, 109(11), 2483–2510.

Winslow, K. (1970). The adoption and distribution of videotape materials for educational use. Washington, DC: Academy for Educational Development, Inc. (Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED039716) YouTube. (2008). YouTube fact sheet: Overview and features. Retrieved October, 08, 2008 from http://www.youtube.com/t/fact_sheet YouTube Help Center. (2008). What is YouTube’s video identification tool? Retrieved July 30, 2008, from http://www.google.com/support/youtube/ bin/answer.py?answer=83766&topic=13656 Zhang, D., Zhou, L., Briggs, R. O., & Nunamaker, J. F. (2006). Instructional video in e-learning: Assessing the impact of interactive video on learning effectiveness. Information & Management, 43(1), 15–27. doi:10.1016/j.im.2005.01.004

Wells, J., Lewis, L., & Greene, B. (2006). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994-2005 (No. NCES 2007-020). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/ pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007020

This work was previously published in Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking, edited by H. H. Yang; S. C. Chen, pp. 147-166, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.6

E-Learning 2.0:

Web 2.0, the Semantic Web and the Power of Collective Intelligence Chaka Chaka Walter Sisulu University, South Africa

ABSTRACT This chapter contends that both Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web (the SW) serve as critical enablers for e-learning 2.0. It also maintains that the SW has the potential to take e-learning 2.0 to new frontiers of advancement. Most significantly, the chapter argues that Web 2.0 and the SW provide an ideal platform for harnessing collective intelligence, collective knowledge, the power of the groundswell, the network effect, and the collective power of simulation for higher education institutions (HEIs) in the area of e-learning 2.0. Against this backdrop, the chapter provides, first, a short overview of e-learning 2.0, Web 2.0 and the SW. Second, it characterises the way in which Web 2.0 social software technologies (e.g., blogs, wikis, social networks and virtual worlds) can be deployed in HEIs for delivering elearning 2.0 for educational purposes. In addition, it outlines the manner in which the SW (in the form of semantic blogs, semantic wikis, semantic social networks and semantic virtual worlds) can enhance DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-788-1.ch003

each of these Web 2.0 technologies for deploying e-learning 2.0 in HEIs.

INTRODUCTION E-learning 2.0 has a lot to gain from leveraging both Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web (the SW). This is particularly so as these two sets of hybrid technologies are the critical drivers of not only e-learning 2.0 but of other forms of today’s learning technologies as well. In addition, the SW adds semantic ingredients to the existing Web 2.0 social software applications that underpin e-learning 2.0. Based on this, this chapter explores the uses that blogs and semantic blogs, wikis and semantic wikis, social networks and semantic social networks, and virtual worlds and semantic virtual worlds have for higher education institutions (HEIs). It draws on relevant documented instances and argues that the deployment of blogs and semantic blogs on the one hand, and of wikis and semantic wikis on the other hand, respectively helps leverage collective intelligence (CI) and collective knowledge (CK)

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

E-Learning 2.0

for HEIs in relation to e-learning 2.0. Likewise, it contends that the use of social networks and semantic social networks on the one hand, and of virtual worlds and semantic virtual worlds on the other hand, enables the harnessing of both the power of the groundswell (PoG) and the collective power of simulation (CPoS), respectively.

E-LEARNING 2.0, WEB 2.0 AND THE SW: OVERVIEW This section offers a brief overview and related multidimensional definitions of e-learning 2.0, Web 2.0 and the SW. It also establishes the nexus existing between the last two instances of hybrid technologies and e-learning 2.0.

E-Learning 2.0 E-learning 2.0 is perceived in three related perspectives here. First, it is an approach that involves virtual collaborative and distance learning leveraged through computer-mediated communication technologies. Accordingly, it enables learners to actively participate in the learning value chain as creators and co-creators of content, and as authors, co-authors and contributors of knowledge by harnessing each other’s CI. In this sense, it entails an e-learning 2.0 ecosystem existing within a Web 2.0 universe (Ivanova, 2007) – such as reflected in Figure 1 - that views a learning space as a medium for personal activities and for communication and collaboration with members of learning communities. Second, it is about Web 2.0 social software technologies and services applied to e-learning (Calvani, Bonaiuti & Fini, 2008; Downes, 2004; Spadavecchia, 2008). In this instance, it is a loosely coordinated, components approach that harnesses the synergy of distinct but complementary applications and web services such as blogs, wikis, and other social software tools to support learning. As such, it is a bottomup and learner-driven peer learning.

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Third, it refers to an architecture of learning networks. Such networks are decentralised, distributed, emergent and dynamic. Therefore, it encompasses networked learning. The latter is a learning in which information and communication technologies are employed to foster connections between learners, between learners and tutors, and between learning communities and learning resources.

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 has many and varied definitions. In this chapter, Web 2.0 is understood from four complementary perspectives: transition, technologies, environment and mindset. The transition perspective of Web 2.0 relates to the transitional stage in which the Web has evolved from Web 1.0 into Web 2.0. It also underlines the idea that the Web is in a constant beta version. The technologies view of Web 2.0 refers to the fact that the latter consists of social software technologies (e.g. blogs, wikis, social networks and virtual worlds) and offers value-added services and data. This embodies the environment conception of Web 2.0: the view that Web 2.0 is a social and participation Web environment. The mindset approach to Web 2.0 encompasses the notion that the latter is a Read/ Think/Write Web and that data, content, and applications/tools are services (see Ullrich, Borau, Luo, Tan, Shen & Shen, 2008). Additionally, it is about the Web as a platform through which the long tail, the network effect, social data and the wisdom of the crowd (WoC) (e.g., users, learners, employees, and customers) can be leveraged. This is the Web connecting end-users in an ecosystem of value additions.

The Semantic Web Like Web 2.0, the Semantic Web (the SW) has multiple definitions and is often represented through different metaphors. Three such metaphors - Web 3.0, the Data Web, and the Intelligent Web - are

E-Learning 2.0

Figure 1. The sample e-learning 2.0 ecosystem made up of composite Web 2.0 applications (Source htpp:// bp2.blogger.com/_OxsnUFtqD1o/R0bENKEeIwIAAAAAAAAAFo/Tgx--cYEQGE/s1600-h/el2.jpg)

employed here to concisely delineate the SW. Web 3.0 signals the evolutionary nature - the perpetual beta - of the Web. It is an advanced stage and the next wave of the Web after the current Web 2.0. It is a view conceiving of the SW as a universal medium facilitating information exchange through documents containing computer-processable meanings (semantics) (Metz, 2007). It is the Web based on artificial intelligence and knowledge representation theories. It thus allows data to be published using semantic technologies or standards such as resource description framework (RDF) and web ontology language (OWL). As a Data Web, the SW entails a universally reusable Web of data that seamlessly inter-connects complex and unstructured data across diverse applications, platforms and contexts. Hence, it comprises self-executable Web abstraction layers (Bittencourt, Isotani, Costa & Mizoguchi, 2008; Davis, 2007-2008) signalling a transformation of the Web from a network of discrete applications and content repositories to an interoperable

medium. Moreover, the SW is also the Intelligent Web. This means it possesses smart and intelligent agents, applications, tools and ontologies that can handle data, content, knowledge and information autonomically. That is, it can reason about and represent meanings, theories and knowledge separately from data, documents and programme codes. Moreover, it can mount intelligent searches. In this manner, the SW synergistically integrates Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies (Bittencourt et al., 2008; Davis, 2007-2008; Wahlster & Dengel, 2006). Given the above, it becomes clear that e-learning 2.0 not only leverages Web 2.0 technologies but is also modelled on the Web 2.0 paradigm. This is where it derives its 2.0 orientation and philosophy. In this way, integrating both Web 2.0 and SW technologies into e-learning 2.0 has an added value of synergising the collective power of these technologies for e-learning 2.0 purposes (Gruber, 2007; Ullrich et al., 2008). Thus, both Web 2.0 and the SW are critical enablers for e-learning

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2.0. This is more so as Web 2.0 and the SW share commonalities: both combine natural language, taxonomies and tools in an open environment and strive to improve Web capabilities.

•

E-Learning 2.0, Web 2.0 Social Software Applications and the SW: Leveraging Collective Intelligence

•

This part of the chapter focuses on the way in which Web 2.0 and SW social software applications can be deployed for delivering e-learning 2.0. In particular, it outlines and demonstrates how applications such as blogs/semantic blogs, wikis/ semantic wikis, social networks/semantic social networks and virtual worlds/semantic virtual worlds can be leveraged for deploying e-learning 2.0. The main focus here is on the educational uses of these applications and on their ability to harness collective intelligence (CI), collective knowledge (CK), the power of the groundswell (PoG), and the collective power of simulation (CPoS) respectively. In each case, this section draws on instances documented at and applicable to given higher education institutions (HEIs) and highlights how the SW can enhance such applications for e-learning 2.0 purposes.

• • • •

Blogs and Collective Intelligence Blogs are among the earliest Web 2.0 social software applications to have been deployed by HEIs for educational uses. In this context, they serve as a social writing and collaborative participation platform. In particular, they are the primary Web 2.0 technologies capable of harnessing CI for educational purposes in an e-learning 2.0 environment.

Blogs and their Educational Uses Blogs can help synergise participants’ CI in the area of e-learning 2.0. Thus, they can serve as a medium for:

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Online collaborative learning and research, and the expression of diverse views, perspectives and opinions Communities of learners (CoLs) and communities of practice (CoPs) Group projects to co-produce content (e.g., collaborative writing projects for teachers and students, group e-portfolios, and group journals) Discussion groups Networks for teachers and students Personalised learning environments Conference participation (e.g. conference blogs) Constructing a corpus of interrelated knowledge via collective posts and comments Syndication technologies (e.g., really simple syndication (RSS) feeds) to enable groups of teachers and students to have notifications or alerts regarding new posts A collaborative reviewing of course content by both teachers and students (Cobb, 2008; Franklin & Van Harmelen, 2007).

There are several documented instances of educational blogging pertaining to HEIs. Among these are: University of Warwick; University of Leeds; University of Brighton; University of Edinburgh; Bond University; Queensland University of Technology; Central Queensland University; University of Melbourne; Harvard University; University of Arizona; and University of British Columbia (Coghlan, Crawford, Little, Lomas, Lombardi, Oblinger et al., 2007; Franklin & Van Harmelen, 2007). For example, the University of Brighton (United Kingdom) rolled out the Elgg blogging system in September 2006, integrating it with its existing institutional systems. Both staff and students swiftly adopted the system which they used as an online social and academic community. Currently, Elgg - a multi-purpose application - is used formally by staff and students within courses and modules, thereby enabling them to share in-

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formation, reflections and comments across course boundaries. At the same time, students use the system for their personal development planning and for creating their e-portfolios. Some of them even use the system in tandem with social networking applications such as MySpace (Franklin & Van Hermelen, 2007). In this scenario, Elgg allows staff and students to constitute themselves into communities of practice (CoPs) and communities of learners (CoLs) capable of leveraging their CI. Integrating Elgg and MySpace in this case represents a peer-to-peer (P2P) harnessing of CI. In a different but related scenario, Central Queensland University (CQU) launched - in 2006 - a blog-based project for its master’s level course - Systems Development Overview. The latter is offered online to more than 1 000 students (many of whom are international) spread across 7 of CQU’s campuses. At the start of the project, 278 students - assigned to 14 instructors - were asked to set up their blogs on Blogger or WordPress. Their blogs were then integrated into CQU’s blog aggregation management system. One of the aims of the blogbased project - relevant to this chapter - was to give students and instructors authentic experience of using Web 2.0 technologies. The project itself was intended for online submission, assignment management, plagiarism detection, grading and student records. One salient feature of the project is that it enabled both the students and instructors to blend Web 2.0 applications such as blogs with existing institutional systems (Coghlan et al., 2007). As such, it introduced all the participants involved to the practice of harnessing their CI in an e-learning 2.0 context. Likewise, the University of Melbourne trialled CultureBlogging in its Cultural Studies Programme in 2007. Equipped with RSS feeds, marking tools and variable cataloguing functions, among other features, this platform involved 225 first year students. Preliminary results of this project indicated that blogging was a valuable teaching and learning tool (Farmer, Yue & Brooks, 2008).

There are also instances of synergising blogs with other Web 2.0 applications such as wikis that lead to tapping into the CI of these applications. One such instance is an undergraduate course IST301X: The Information Environment offered by the State University of New York - University at Albany. The course incorporates both blogging and a wiki - introduced in 2005 and 2007 respectively - to encourage student team presentations and collaborative writing. The use of these two tools helps foster CoPs among students (Mackey, 2007) and enables the latter to harness the wisdom of the crowd. Another instance is iMechanica hosted at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (since 2006) and powered by Drupal, an open-source content management system. The platform allows mechanics academics, practitioners and students to experiment with innovative ideas on engineering education, and collaborate and share these ideas among themselves, and with other interested users globally. It leverages three Web 2.0 applications: blogs, a wiki (wikiMechanica) and RSS feeds. The iMechanica project has had institutional collaborative efforts. In 2007 a fracture mechanics course was offered to students from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Nebraska (Li & Suo, 2007). Thus, this platform manages to harness CI at the level of users, applications and institutions.

Semantic Blogging Semantic blogging is part of the SW. It builds on traditional blogging technology and adds semantic structure and metadata to the SW. For example, it can: use a resource description framework (RDF) vocabulary to represent and export blog metadata; enrich snippet metadata by using published vocabularies such as Friend of a Friend; and integrate data across multiple blog entries. Moreover, semantic blogging offers the following benefits for HEIs: rich semantic searches/queries and retrievals; distributed conceptual blogging

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and opinion publishing; semantic navigation and annotation; autonomic knowledge management and content management; intelligent harvesting, aggregation and syndication of data; enhanced data sharing; and human-machine synergy (Cayzer, 2004, 2006; Wahlster & Dengel, 2006). Based on the above, semantic blogging offers many opportunities for harnessing CI or the wisdom of the crowd. That is, it allows new ways of convenient data exchange between users within a blogosphere — blog authors and blog users alike. For instance, semantic blog users at HEIs can mount semantic queries/searches and retrievals to access and leverage their respective communities’ CI. Alternatively, they can mount semantic navigation and annotation so as to find blog items of interest or blogs bearing semantic similarity (Metz, 2007). They can do so in order to facilitate collaboration, research and development, and innovation adoption or service promotion. One semantic blogging application offering value to users is semiBlog. This application leverages, references and annotates users’ blog posts (e.g.,

address book entries, events, publications and music files) stored on their personal desktops. The value-added benefits offered by this application include the following: reuse of data (once a user has entered metadata into their desktop applications, there is no need to re-enter it when annotating a blog post); reuse of functionality (external applications such as electronic address books and calendars integrate well with semiBlog); and always up-to-date affordance (semiBlog links to desktop objects instead of duplicating them this means that, when a user updates data in an external application, this update is automatically reflected in their blog) (Möller, 2006). Most importantly, researchers at HEIs can share, annotate and aggregate their research publications using a decentralised semantic blogging publication aggregation system such as Bibster or SocioBiblog. The former – depicted in Figure 2 - is a peer-to-peer system for exchanging bibliographic data among researchers. It allows researchers to:

Figure 2. A screenshot of Bibster (Source http://bibster.semanticweb.org/screenshots.htm)

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Query a single specific peer (e.g., their own computer), a specific set of peers (e.g., all colleagues in an institution), or the whole network of peers Search for bibliographic entries using simple keyword searches or advanced semantic searches for special publications (together with their relevant attribute values) Integrate query results into a local knowledge base for future use (Haase, Broekstra, Ehrig, Menken, Mika, Plechawski et al., 2004; Shakya, Takeda, Ohmukai & Wuwongse, 2006).

The latter is a decentralised platform for sharing bibliographic information often used in conjunction with BuRST (Bibliography Management using RSS Technology). It has the following affordances: •

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Decentralised information sharing (it is fully decentralised and supports both the publishing and aggregation of information) Social network based aggregation (bibliographic metadata is aggregated from the social network neighborhood of bloggers and posts by co-authors of publications are also listed) Interoperability (bibliographic information feeds can be aggregated from different systems, metadata from different systems can be quoted in blog entries, and comments can be posted on the publications) Integration and filtering (information from different sources can be integrated using a common semantic standard, the collection can be filtered by metadata criteria, and results can be redistributed as new feeds) (Shakya, Takeda, Wuwongse & Ohmukai, 2007).

As pointed out earlier, within this educational semantic blogosphere, users can engage in distributed conceptual blogging and opinion

publishing. This twin process involves conceptmaps constructed collaboratively in different containers with each participant controlling specific containers for viewing and publishing. It is aided by concept browsers. One example of the latter is Conzilla, which facilitates an effective collaboration environment for knowledge management on the SW. Conzilla presents knowledge in terms of specific context-maps. This is a semantic blogging tool for representing content in contexts through concepts. Another aspect of semantic blogging is Confolio which is a SW portfolio platform for a distributed opinion publication network allowing portfolio owners to publish anything which has a publicly retrievable Universal Resource Identifier. Other instances of semantic blogging applications that help harness CI by educational semantic blog users are Magpie, Wordpress, SemanticGuide and SemanticIntegrator (Cuel, Louis, Delteil, Jack, Leger, Rizzi et al., 2008).

Wikis and Collective knowledge Wikis are convenient Web 2.0 social software applications for leveraging collective knowledge (CK) for educational purposes in an e-learning 2.0 environment. Like blogs, they also serve as a social writing and collaborative participation platform. Additionally, they too can harness the power of multiple users and be used jointly with other Web 2.0 applications such as podcasts, social networks, RSS feeds, etc.

Wikis and their Educational Uses In the area of e-learning 2.0, wikis can aggregate and synergise CK possessed by multiple users. Therefore, among other functions, they: • •

Facilitate CK from diverse experts and contributors Enable collaborative management of educational resources

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Serve as repositories of CK, as a platform for knowledge management and content management, and as tools for electronic portfolios Foster teamwork, group research projects and collaborative publication of course resources (e.g., syllabi and handouts) Enable users (teachers and students) to co-author, co-edit, co-revise and peer review content and co-produce annotated bibliography Operate as online encyclopaedias and dictionaries Serve as virtual forums for (re-)versioning, (re-)writing and (re-)reading content, thereby promoting a beta concept of content creation Promote virtual communities of practice (Cobb, 2008; Franklin & Van Harmelen, 2007).

There are many and varied documented cases of educational wikis related to HEIs. The following are but a handful: University of Vancouver; University of Arizona; Deakin University; University of Leeds; University of Plymouth; University of Zagreb; University of Sydney; University of British Columbia (UBC); Cambridge University; and University of Melbourne. As an illustration, staff at the University of Vancouver incorporate wikis into their e-learning system. They use them as: reference tools for courses, database for course outlines, brainstorming strategies, and teaching tools; in-class communication tools; collaborative content and project management resources; and collaborative writing spaces. Moreover, at the University of Plymouth, medical and health education students use wikis in tandem with blogs and podcasts as part of e-learning 2.0. Some of the functions they serve, in this case, are as: tools for creating, sharing, disseminating and sourcing information and knowledge; a method for e-collaboration; and a means for facilitating group dialogue. To this ef-

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fect, students even create medical wikis such as the Flu Wiki which helps local health officials prepare for the flu season (Boulos, Maramba & Wheeler, 2006; Mietz, n.d.). Thus, not only are students able to form a virtual community of practice but they also manage to tap into the collective knowledge of the entire virtual community of practice. In a different but related scenario, in 2006 the University of British Columbia (UBC) created a health library wiki to support its health library course in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies. This was established using MediaWiki and the resultant wiki was intended to be a knowledge base for health librarians. The wiki now boasts about 150 articles and 100 registered users and has had more than 260 000 page views. Moreover, UBC has course development wikis used by collaborating staff, and wikis for teaching writing skills and organising live conferences. Other wiki applications used in medicine are Ask Dr. Wiki (http://wwww.askdrwiki.com) and Ganfyd (http://ganfyd.org) (Barsky & Giustini, 2007). There are two more noteworthy instances of educational wiki practices leveraging CI and CK. The first is the Engwiki project launched by the Faculty of Organization and Informatics at the University of Zagreb (Croatia) in 2006. Two of its most important goals were: to test the applicability of wiki technology in teaching ESP (English for Special Purposes) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) at the university level; and to innovatively deploy a wiki by engaging students in different types of individual and collaborative e-tivities (electronic activities). The project yielded, inter alia, the following pedagogical spin-offs: multiple perspectives were supported with a diversity of representations of concepts; and cooperative and collaborative peer-to-peer (P2P) learning was achieved in order to expose students to alternative viewpoints (Kovacic, Bubas & Zlatovic, 2008). The second instance concerns wikiMechanica which is an experimental project for solid mechanics involving six United States

E-Learning 2.0

(US) universities: Harvard University; University of Texas at Austin; University of California at Berkeley; University of Houston; University of Wyoming; and Columbia University. wikiMechanica is used in conjunction with the iMechanica blogging platform and allows all concerned to subscribe to RSS feeds (Li & Suo, 2007). These are two instances of educational wiki practices exemplifying the harnessing of CI and CK in the higher education (HE) sector.

Semantic Wikis Semantic wikis enhance traditional wikis by adding to the latter semantic technologies such as RDF, OWL, conceptual graphs, or topic maps. One of the main purposes behind these technologies is to make the inherent structure of traditional wikis accessible to machines (agents, services) beyond mere navigation. In this case, semantic wikis allow for the encoding of semantic data - e.g., metadata together with their relations - concerning knowledge described in their pages. Moreover, they offer semantics-on-demand by making semantics accessible to ordinary users in the same way as ordinary wikis make hypertext accessible to users. Classic examples of semantic wikis are Semantic MediaWiki (SMW), Platypus Wiki, IkeWiki, KawaWiki, Makna, OntoWiki, Rhizome, WikiSar, AceWiki and SweetWiki. It is worth commenting briefly about each of these semantic wikis: •

Semantic MediaWiki (SMW): It is the extension of MediaWiki (the system which powers Wikipedia), enabling the latter to become a semantic wiki. It enhances MediaWiki annotations and conceptualises pages as concepts. Moreover, it places semantic markups directly within the text to ensure that machine-readable data agrees with the human-readable data. Some of its benefits are presenting the semantic anno-

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tations of each page at the bottom, giving a summary and an improved browsing. Platypus Wiki: It is one of the older semantic wikis, having originated in late December 2003. With its Java-based implementation, this wiki conceptualises pages as resources, stores semantic statements in RDF, and keeps them separate from the main content of the wiki. It requires users to have technical knowledge for manipulating it. IkeWiki: This is a complete rewrite of MediaWiki in Java, with powerful semantic features. It is aimed at knowledge engineers and advanced users, and has multiple editing functionalities. KawaWiki: This semantic wiki aims to offer a complete formal structure of the data with proper use of RDF and RDFS (RDF Schema). Its architecture is divided into three main layers: RDF templates, RDFS and wiki content. Makna: This is an extension of the JSPWiki adding semantic functionalities to it. Each of its pages is an ontology-controlled concept. It uses the JENA reasoning engine which allows the execution of complex queries, and rejects any changes to a page which are likely to cause inconsistencies to its semantic model. OntoWiki: This is a community-editable knowledge base which is more of a collaborative ontology editor than a semantic wiki. While it does not have the usual wiki interface to represent concepts, it however, supports various collaborative features and allows the installation of plug-ins. Rhizome: This semantic wiki uses a set of Rx technologies that provide alternatives to traditional standards used by wikis and the Semantic Web. In it, RDF is used to express the wiki information: its main focus is on management of knowledge rather than on advanced reasoning.

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WikiSar: This wiki combines the notions of both a wiki system and the Semantic Web while adding features to integrate the semantic wiki into users’ desktops. It better functions as a PIM (Personal Information Management) system. In this regard, it allows the wiki to be integrated with users’ desktops and provides for a link to the local machine (similar to Google Desktop). One of its features is query chaining which allows one query to be fed to another query, thereby facilitating the creation of more interesting and useful queries. AceWiki: AceWiki is a convergent semantic wiki which tries to integrate ontology, rules and query language into one. Its editor allows users to either directly type in the statements or use a guided form of selecting from the existing ontology. It conceptualises each wiki page as a concept and produces an OWL output of the underlying ontology. SweetWiki: It identifies itself as a system which uses an ontology for the wiki and not a wiki for the ontology. As a result, it can describe more than one resource on the same page. However, it does not version knowledge structures alongside the wiki content. It makes use of two ontologies: one for the wiki structure and the other for the content. One of its distinguishing features is that many of its concepts are annotated on the same page (Kousetti, Millard & Howard, 2008; Millard, Bailey, Boulain, Chennupati, Davis, Howard et al., n.d.).

All these types of semantic wikis differ in terms of both the knowledge required to use them and the expressivity they have. The former dimension – which refers to how much technical skill a user needs to have to use a wiki and its ontology - consists of four categories: everyday user; power user; professional user; and ontologist (ontology expert). And the latter dimension – which

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refers to how much expressive the final ontology is - comprises four levels of expressivity and formalism: simple taxonomy; relations between concepts; OWL Lite level (better formality than simple relations with some restrictions similar to the functionality offered by OWL Lite); and OWL DL and OWL Full levels (high formality of a rich ontology which has a functionality similar to that of OWL DL and OWL Full, allowing for more restrictions and expressive relations with property characteristics such as transitive, functional, disjoint, etc). Figure 3 indicates how the ten semantic wikis, together with MediaWiki, compare in terms of these two dimensions when represented in a graph. For example, wikis such as SMW, IkeWiki, WikiSAR and SweetWiki in the middle of the graph, balance out expressivity and required knowledge. On the one hand, the wikis on the right-hand side of the graph (Platypus Wiki, Rhizome, and to some degree OntoWiki) - even though quite expressive - are difficult to use by non-expert users, as they require knowledge of SW technologies or elaborate special syntax. On the other hand, wikis on the left-hand side of the graph (AceWiki and KawaWiki) restrict user input and require little user knowledge. However, they require users with ontology expertise to setup, monitor and help grow the wiki. To this end, there are many e-learning 2.0 affordances offered by semantic wikis for HEIs. These include: •

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Semantic navigation: relational information added to the viewed content facilitates orientation; information about certain persons could be enriched with information about user affiliations or connections to other people; and links such as works in or knows would contain this information Semantic search and querying: semantic search means that one cannot only search for knowledge elements but also for links or combinations of elements; and when searching for works in institution a, the

E-Learning 2.0

Figure 3. A graph representing the ten semantic wikis and MediaWiki and showing how they compare in terms of required knowledge and expressivity (Source Kousetti, Millard & Howard, 2008)

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system would display all the stakeholders belonging to that institution Reasoning support: the ability to employ reasoning engines to infer additional knowledge from explicit annotations made by users; and since links relate knowledge elements to each other, additional information can be deduced (e.g., when it is specified that a person works in an institution, it can be deduced that she/he is an academic, an employee, a manager, or a student) Typing and annotating links: knowledge elements can be connected through annotated links that state the type of association existing between the elements - such annotated links could be works in, connecting persons and institutions Improved user experience through WYSIWYG editing (e.g., IkeWiki and SweetWiki) A standardised Web service interface and data exchange format for automated clients and distributed systems

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Integration with other social software applications (e.g., SnipSnap integrates the wiki and blogging functionalities with semantic features) Context-aware presentation: since both links and knowledge elements are annotated, semantically related pages embed the content into a context. This means that content is semantically enriched. For instance, pages about a city in a certain country might be enriched with other cities located in that country. Semantic Desktop computing (Granitzer, Stocker, Hoefler & Tochtermann, 2008; Kiesel & Sauermann, 2005; Schaffert, Bischof, Bürger, Gruber, Hilzensauer & Schaffert, 2006).

The instances cited above indicate that semantic wikis have a lot to offer regarding harnessing the CK and CI - through the human-machine synergy - of HE users in an e-learning 2.0 scenario. For example, through a Firefox add-on such as Zotero, students and researchers can collect, manage, and

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cite research material (especially bibliographic resources). They can even edit the data saved by Zotero and attach additional data such as notes, tags, and related files so as to share them with other users. In addition, they can integrate their Zotero data with applications like WordPress and Microsoft Word. Alternatively, they may search and browse the captured data both online and offline. Moreover, using a Firefox add-on like Piggy Bank - which turns a browser into a mash-up platform - users can capture metadata for online resources and mix them together. They then can locally store, tag, search and browse their collected data (Dobrzański, 2007; Dobrzański, Nagle, Curry, Gzella & Kruk, 2007). Other SW applications - e.g., Semantic MediaWiki and Semantic Desktop - also lend themselves well to leveraging the P2P CK and CI for HE semantic wiki users. Semantic MediaWiki, for example, enables semantic data to be encoded within wiki pages. The encoded data can be used for semantic searches and aggregating pages, and exported via RDF. Key benefits for end-users are that: they can search for, organise, browse, evaluate and share the wiki content; and they can create content faster (Cuel et al., 2008). Furthermore, Schaffert et al. (2006) maintain that semantic wikis can facilitate cognitive apprenticeship, cooperative learning, project-based learning, interdisciplinary and intercultural learning and CoPs (communities of practice). They also argue that they can serve as e-portfolios. For its part, a Semantic Desktop is about deploying SW technologies to desktop computing. It is a virtual device allowing users to store personal or academic digital information such as messages, documents and multimedia that can be interpreted and accessed as SW resources. It facilitates the integration of various data sources. That is, all available data sources can be first integrated into a Semantic Desktop data integration framework, and then be accessed from it by users through semantic wikis. Data sources can be either treated as virtual RDF graphs or buffered completely in

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RDF databases. In this sense, users can also leverage a Social Semantic Desktop. Thus, a Semantic Desktop is a truly enlarged supplement to users’ collective memory (Kiesel & Sauermann, 2005; Wahlster & Dengel, 2006). There are documented cases of semantic wiki practices involving the sourcing of CK and CI in varying degrees. One of these cases is the Centre for Biosecurity and Public Health Informatics Research (University of Texas Health Science Centre at Houston). As an illustration, the Centre has developed SAPPHIRE (Situation Awareness and Preparedness for Public Health Incidents using Reasoning Engines) for users. Key benefits of this system for end-users are: •

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Distributed collaboration and interoperability (diverse and heterogeneous data can be integrated, exchanged and utilised dynamically and seamlessly P2P) Multidisciplinary reuse of information (users can re-purpose the available data in the system to address unprecedented use cases) Human-machine interaction (human users interact intelligently with systems, allowing for easier and more effective and intuitive communication) (Cuel et al., 2008).

Social Networking, the Power of the Groundswell and the Network Effect Social networks are virtual or online networks of people. Depending on the purposes they serve, they can be classified as follows: leisure-oriented, or entertainment and personal socialising sites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Mixi, Cyworld, Bebo, Orkut, or Windows Live Space); and professional networking sites focusing on business networking (e.g., LinkedIn, Ecademy, Xing, or Visible Path) (Brock, 2007). Within an e-learning 2.0 framework, social networks help educational users both harness the power of the groundswell (PoG) - in the form of swarm intelligence - and

E-Learning 2.0

leverage the network effect. In either case, the resultant interactions lead to P2P and peopleto-people learning networks, opening access to content, branding, expertise, innovation and global connections (see Siemens, 2008). Moreover, social networks enable users to leverage social capital, relationship capital and the long tail economics. All of this dovetails with the ethos of the network economy - the more connections are made, the more value is added to the network and to the other members of the network.

Social Networks and their Educational Uses In the arena of e-learning 2.0, social networks may have diverse uses. For instance, they may serve as a platform for: • • • • • • • • •

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Establishing professional and private contacts Connectivity and social rapport CoPs, CoLs, and communities of interests (CoIs) Learning networks and connections Networked and connected peer learning Distributed and socialised learning Networking with members and experts Developing collaborative culture Announcing commonly shared (online) activities (e.g., conferences, webinars, paper/ chapter/book writing, etc) and participating in them Sharing knowledge, views, or opinions Increasing brand awareness of HEIs Promoting issues of social concern or related to institutional social responsibility Profiling the institution and enhancing its institutional image, reputation and identity Marketing, advertising and promoting institutional products and services (e.g., programme, course or module offerings) Recruiting and screening/reviewing potential candidates, students, or partners

(Marketing Leadership Council [MLC], 2008). Some of the documented instances of social networking practices leveraging the PoG and the network effect in the HE sector are: University of Westminster; Keele University; University of Bath; Oxford University; University of London; Montpellier 3 University; William Paterson University; Harvard University; Pennsylvania State University; University of Washington; and Stanford University. In this regard, the University of Westminster launched a closed social networking platform, Connect, in September 2007 for use by both students and staff. By January 2008 this project had 3 048 registered users. Since its inception the project has integrated Web 2.0 features such as personal and community blogs, tagging, personal and community file storage, private and public communities, social networking capability and syndication support. Leveraging this social networking site, both students and staff can create their profiles, form and join discussion groups, upload photographs and documents, send messages, and publish blogs and presentations (Oradini & Saunders, 2008). Thus, not only are students and staff able to mix the social with the academic - thereby synergising their collective social and intellectual capital - but they can also harness the PoG and the network effect. Similarly, Stanford University’s practice of using Facebook for classroom purposes does not only enable students to leverage the PoG, but also has the element of the viral network effect built into it. Here a course, Create Engaging Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook, is offered to computer science students. It is intended to help these students, and others in the business school, to learn how to develop and market user-friendly software using Facebook as a platform. Students are required to build applications for Facebook, garner and analyse information concerning how Facebook users employ them. They then have to use detailed numerical

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measurements to guide software loopings just as developers do with existing Facebook applications. Working in groups of three, students first develop an application likely to appeal to most Facebook users. Based on this, they develop a second application, focusing more closely on using Facebook for educational purposes, such as sharing class notes with each other. In this course students are graded according to the number of the active Facebook users they can get to use their applications (Eldon, 2007). Herein, lies a recipe for engaging students in collaborative learning and grading them by leveraging the PoG and the network economics offered by Facebook. Another classic instance of an organisation tapping into the PoG, the network effect, social and relationship capital, and the long tail economics is Amazon. Amazon is an online shop selling books (particularly academic books for HEIs), DVDs or software whose content is driven primarily by users. It encourages users to review, rate and recommend books or films sold through its platform. This practice enables potential customers to have a basic idea of the usability, quality and suitability of the products. The site is populated by user content (product previews, reviews, ratings and recommendations) (Tandefelt, 2008). All the company does, is provide a social networking platform for its users by harnessing their collective groundswell, network effect, and social capital and by applying the long tail approach to selling its products.

Semantic Social Networking As far as HEIs are concerned, semantic social networking (SSN) combines the strengths of social computing with SW technologies. SW technologies enable SSN applications to mount concept-based search instead of language-based search and navigation (Davis, 2007-2008). On this score, SSN can help HEIs better leverage the PoG, the wisdom of the crowd and the network economy through:

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Semantically interlinked online communities or multiplex social networking Network computing - distributed computing entailing P2P networks and exploiting diverse connectivity between participants in a network and a cumulative bandwidth of networked participants Semantic Grid - networking together large communities with decentralised infrastructures for data and computation sharing and enabling users and applications to link and cooperate with the data available and stored within a grid (like finding videos related to photos of a subject searched for) Semantic interoperability across HEIs and academic disciplines Allowing people and groups to search for and exchange social information (information describing people, their attributes, their relationships with others, etc) based on the FOAF ontology Enabling people and groups to read, publish and exchange information and knowledge, thereby enhancing interoperability, cooperation and service-oriented architectures Networked Semantic Desktop - enabling people and groups to collaborate directly with their peers while extensively reducing the time spent filing and filtering information (Decker & Frank, n.d).

Virtual Worlds and the Collective Power of Simulation Virtual worlds (VWs) are digital simulated environments exhibiting real or imaginary spaces through the use of 3D (three-dimensional) computer graphics. They comprise various forms of emerging universes: metaverses; intraverses; paraverses; MMORPGs (massively multi-player online role-playing games); and MOLES (multiple online learning environments) (Kish, 2007). These 3D VWs borrow much from gaming concepts, real world physics simulators, and existing streaming

E-Learning 2.0

audio/video/data technologies. They do so in order to offer opportunities for real time simulation, experiential learning and collaboration in virtual spaces that transcend physical and geographical barriers. Users or residents of VWs may explore or inhabit them by assuming digital personalities called avatars. Depending on the composition of the VWs or the physics programmed into them, users can walk, swim, fly or teleport through embodied avatars. Typical examples of VWs are: Second Life (SL); Active Worlds; Habbo Hotel; The Sims Online; There; Cybertown; and Disney’s Toontown (Hargis, 2008; Jennings & Collins, 2007; Siozos & Palaigeorgiou, 2008). VWs - such as SL - enable residents to meet other residents, socialise, form social networks, and participate in individual and group activities. They also allow residents to create items and services and trade them with one another. As such, they attract a lot of users. For example, by mid-May 2007, more than 6.4 million people had joined SL and created accounts in it (Joly, 2007). Given this, it follows that VWs are ideal spaces for leveraging the collective power of simulation (CPoS) in e-learning 2.0 scenarios.

Educational Affordances of VWs VWs offer many educational affordances. To this effect, they operate as ideal platforms for: • • •

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Multiple online learning environments (MOLEs) Simulated, scenario-based, experiential and experimental distance learning Embedding learning in complex, interactive 3D environments that allow environmental manipulation (e.g., wind, sun, rain, etc) Collaborative, networked, immersive, and community-based learning Blended and convergent learning (e.g., converging and synergising different Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, so-

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cial networks, instant messaging (IM), mashups, etc) for learning purposes Promoting role playing and project-based assessment Synchronous/asynchronous in-world teaching and learning Educational and learning islands Academic research and test beds (e.g., design, computer science, literacy, media, sociology, psychology, education, etc) Exhibitions (showcasing what HEIs can offer prospective students) Networking, meeting and communicating (Bennett & Peachey, 2007; Joly, 2007).

In this context, there are several documented instances of HEIs tapping into the affordances and the CPoS offered by VWs. Among them are: INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires); Ohio University; Stanford University; Ball State University; Harvard University; Indiana University; University of Florida; Open University; Oxford University; Staffordshire University; University of London; and Sheffield University (Hargis, 2008; Joly, 2007). Three of the cases cited above, INSEAD, Ohio University (OU) and the Open University, warrant a closer scrutiny. INSEAD - a leader in graduate business education - has two campuses in France and Singapore and offers a flexible learning environment which brings together people, ideas and cultures from around the globe. This ethos and INSEAD’s institutional commitment to the entrepreneurial spirit is embodied in its campus in SL. In this regard, INSEAD’s SL campus is an operative virtual campus environment in which learning, research and communication occur completely virtually. That is, it maintains its mission, creates its location, and executes its educational operations virtually without replicating them in the real life form. In contrast, OU provides an example of a reflective virtual campus environment: it reproduces its institutional spirit and its physical campus in the

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virtual world, and connects the virtual campus to the physical real world. It offers a strong liberal studies education to over 16 000 undergraduate students and rigorous graduate programmes in its major academic divisions. Its SL campus combines the old and new traditions into the virtual environment. This virtual campus has Stocker Centre, Welcome Centre, Art and Music Centre, Classroom and Meeting Centre, Learning Centre, Student Centre, Featured Game, and a Sandbox (Jennings & Collins, 2007). These two cases represent scenarios where residents or avatars are able to meet, socialise, learn and form social networks. All this makes it possible for INSEAD and OU residents to leverage the CPoS and the affordances offered by SL for educational purposes. Finally, the Open University deploys the SL platform as a learning support facility (to support courses or modules) for its geographically dispersed students. For example, it has purchased several islands in SL dedicated to offering various modules or courses and intended for teaching and learning opportunities within the multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs). One such island is Cetlment island – shown in Figure 4 - which is available for tutors to use on a range of courses (e.g., mathematics, science, computing and technology). On Cetlment island learners interact as avatars, using text chat in conjunction with audio, animations and gestures. The university also employs the Sloodle (Second Life Object Oriented Distributed Learning Environment) mashup for hybrid learning purposes within the MUVE (Bennett & Peachey, 2007).

VWs and the SW WVs - for HE purposes - have much to benefit from the SW in many respects. This is particularly so concerning their leveraging the CPoS which is one of their core affordances. Some of the benefits the SW can add to VWs are:

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Avatar-and multi-user-driven in-world learning, meeting, conferencing, workshopping and training spaces (with animated 3D avatars that can talk, e.g., Avatalk) for users or residents Increased and enhanced virtual 3D trading, marketing, advertising and payment Enhancing, leveraging and synergising the rich immersive and experiential affordances associated with the 3D Web (e.g. MMORPGs, MOLES, MUVEs, etc) that are impossible to replicate in real life. Data interoperability and convergence of platforms and applications Intelligent and autonomic queries and searches Automatic and intelligent collating and harvesting of the data and information from multiple sources

THE OUTLOOk FOR SEMANTIC WEB-BASED E-LEARNING 2.0 Six trends are likely to emerge as some of the critical drivers determining the future of a SWbased e-learning 2.0. These are: cloud computing; Networked Semantic Desktop (NSD) computing; distributed collective knowledge systems; collective computing; value-added SW navigation; and semantic reality. Cloud computing is likely to benefit from SW technologies. For instance, P2P grid storage, database and generic computing capabilities will be semantically enhanced enabling various applications to have more storage or computational power for a better return on educational investment (Murugesan, 2007). Cloud computing will be enriched further by the personalisation and widgetisation of Web applications and by lightweight computing deriving from lightweight applications. Related to cloud computing is NSD computing. The latter will enable group data (messages, documents, multimedia, artefacts, etc) to be accessed by users via their Semantic Desktop. NSD will

E-Learning 2.0

Figure 4. Cetlment Island (Source Bennett & Peachey, 2007)

also facilitate collaboration through P2P end-user applications to maintain shared and evolving views aggregated from disparate sources. As a collaboration user platform, NSD will be peer-based in two senses: socially (by allowing peer reviewing) and technically (by being deployed through P2P technology). It will connect participants to a global P2P network thereby operating as a truly Social Semantic Desktop (Decker & Frank, n.d.; Wahlster & Dengel, 2006). Additionally, it will engender distributed collective intelligence and the wisdom of the crowd (WoC) both in the human and technical senses. A further future critical driver of a SW-based e-learning 2.0 is value-added SW navigation. Two such instances are value-added search or federated searching and virtual semantic browsing. The former relates to intelligent searches that yield more precise and relevant results displayed on customised pages. Reportlinker and ZoomInfo are classic examples of value-added SW search engines (Murugesan, 2007). The latter has to do with avatar-based browsing that will allow avatars and their properties to move between VWs. Tied

to this trend, is the idea of travatars: avatars that will travel between disparate VWs. This will add to 3D virtual innovating and transform VWs into platforms of choice so HEIs can better leverage their CPoS for research and academic purposes. Lastly is semantic reality. This is, on the one hand, an all-encompassing semantically driven convergent information space integrating disparate domains (e.g., ambient intelligence, artificial intelligence, embedded systems, distributed systems, software engineering, social networking, the SW, etc) on a large scale (Hauswirth & Decker, 2007). On the other hand, it refers to the transformation of the current Web versionings into the ultimate SW (ultimate semantic reality). This twin process – and the notion of semantic reality - will result in semantic e-learning 2.0: e-learning 2.0 powered by the SW.

CONCLUSION This chapter has made two related arguments: that both Web 2.0 and the SW are the key en-

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ablers of e-learning 2.0; and that these two hybrid technologies help leverage collective intelligence (CI), collective knowledge (CK), the power of the groundswell (PoG), the network effect, and the collective power of simulation (CPoS). To substantiate these arguments the chapter has explored two sets of technologies - blogs/semantic blogs, wikis/semantic wikis, social networks/ semantic social networks (SSNs), and VWs/ semantic VWs as classic examples of Web 2.0 and the SW respectively. It has located these two sets of social software technologies within the HE sector drawing on relevant and specific documented instances of their actual and potential applications. For example, it has, on the one hand, highlighted that blogs/semantic blogs and wikis/ semantic wikis help leverage CI and CK in the HE arena respectively. To illustrate the notion of semantic wiki system, in particular, ten examples of semantic wikis have been provided and briefly outlined. On the other hand, the chapter has characterised how social networks such as Connect and Facebook and SSNs are able to harness the PoG and the network effect, and how VWs and semantic VWs can tap into the CPoS. It has mounted three short case studies of Second Life (SL) - deployed at HEIs - as possible instances of VWs exploiting the CPoS. Finally, the chapter has mapped out the future scenario for a SW-based e-learning 2.0. A salient feature of this future scenario is semantic reality which, as the chapter argues, will lead to semantic e-learning 2.0. Once that happens, the ultimate SW will have been realised.

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Vickery, G., & Wunsch-Vincent, S. (2007). Participative Web and user-created content: Web 2.0, wikis and social networking. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://213.253.134.43/oecd/pdfs/ browseit/9307031E.pdf

kEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS BuRST (Bibliography Management using RSS Technology): This is a lightweight specification for publishing bibliographic information using RSS 1.0 and bibliography-related metadata standards. Facebook: Interactive social networking site (started at Harvard University) allowing users to create networks of friends, personal profiles, blogs, music, photos and videos Intraverses: Intraverses are VWs operating within corporate firewalls. Metaverses: These are VWs (such as SL) that are essentially socially inclined as opposed to being game oriented. MMORPGs (Massively multi-player online role-playing games): These are Web-based simu-

lated computer games (such as World of Warcraft) involving multiple players simultaneously. Networked Semantic Desktop: This is a global desktop network which can connect people and communities to directly collaborate with their peers while reducing the amount of time spent filing and filtering information. Ontologies (Ontology): Ontologies consist of a set of knowledge terms, including the vocabulary, the semantic interconnections and some simple rules of inference and logic for a particular topic. Technically, an ontology is a text-based piece of reference-knowledge, stored somewhere on the Web (for agents to consult it when necessary) and is represented and accessed through the syntax of an ontology representation language Paraverses: Also known as mirror worlds, paraverses are VWs such as Google Earth that operate beyond metaverses Second Life (SL): SL is a synthetic 3D online world (simulation) where users or their avatars can virtually walk, fly, swim, teleport, etc Semantic Desktop: This is a SW based virtual desktop allowing users to file and store personal data like messages, documents, multimedia, etc. It is an instance of desktop and cloud computing

This work was previously published in Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in E-Learning: Issues and Trends, edited by H. Yang; S. Yuen, pp. 38-60, copyright 2010 by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global).

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment Qinghua Zheng Xi’an Jiaotong University, China Xiyuan Wu Xi’an Jiaotong University, China Haifei Li Union University, USA

ABSTRACT One of the challenges in personalized e-learning research is how to find the unique learning strategies according to a learner’s personality characteristic. A learner’s personality characteristic may have many attributes, and all of them may not have equal values. Correlation analysis, regression analysis, discriminator function, and educational psychology have been used to find solutions, but these methods have their shortcomings. This article proposes an improved approach based on rough set theory to find the key personality attributes and evaluates the importance of these

attributes. The approach has been successfully used in the actual e-learning environment for a major research university in China.

INTRODUCTION Nowadays, there has been a shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age and many of traditional instructional models are no longer suitable for today’s society characterized by rapid change, global communication, and high technology (Reigeluth, 1997a, 1997b). Reigeluth maintains that one of the key results of this shift is

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

that instruction needs to be customized rather than standardized and it needs to be learner-centered and help people learn and develop their potential. The instructor needs to become a facilitator, empowering the learners to construct their own knowledge, rather than being the sole source of direction and knowledge in the class (Reigeluth, 1997a, 1997b, 1999). The combined power of new communications and computer technologies is the driving force in this approach. The World Wide Web can be fruitfully employed to support every aspect of e-learning. The key aspect of hypermedia is that it should provide easy access to information within an interactive and customizable environment. The Web-like linking of ideas that characterizes hypermedia is more akin to the functioning of human cognition than the traditional linear structure found in most educational programs. Also, as a Web structure grows rapidly, it is easy for end users to customize the learning environment (Reigeluth, 1999). The economic revenues made by the online personalization industry reached US$1.3 billion in 2000 and US$5.3 billion in 2003. In 2001, Vermetten, Lodewijks, and Vermunt (2001) predicted that by 2003, 85% of the global 1000 Web sites would use some form of personalization. The worldwide revenues for personalization software rose from US$10.85 million in 2000 to US$93.4 million in 2005 (Kobsa, Koenemann, & Pohl, 2001). Some fundamental learning theories show that learning strategies are vital aspects of personalized learning (Liu & Huang, 2002; Liu, Li, & Zheng, 2004). Studies in educational psychology show that learning strategies are greatly affected by the learner’s personality characteristic (Liu & Huang, 2002; Vermetten et al., 2001). Personality characteristic refers to often subtle but relatively stable traits that are part of a person’s inner being. Physiologically, the characteristic includes physical traits that can be distinguished by human senses. Psychologically, the characteristic

includes intellectual types, personal interests, motivation, emotion, will, and others (Yang & Wang, 2003). Finding a learner’s key personality characteristic attributes is a challenging job. First, it is necessary to describe a learner’s characteristic and obtain it quantitatively. Second, it is important to discover the key attributes because the personality characteristic consists of hundreds of attributes and the importance of these attributes is not equal, with some attributes even being redundant. If all attributes in a personalized e-learning environment are considered, the problem of “dimension disaster” becomes unavoidable. One example will be an e-learning university where thousands of students are enrolled and each of them needs hundreds of attributes to describe her characteristic. In this situation, finding appropriate strategies for each student is a challenging problem. Let us assume that an e-learning university has 3000 students. In order to describe a learner’s characteristic, the following features are generally needed: demographic data, individual traits, user knowledge level, user skills, user interests, learning styles, user goals, learning conception, hyperspace experience, and so forth. Each feature is only a group name and has also many attributes to describe it. For example, the following attributes are generally needed in order to describe demographic data: name, address, class, age, sex, education, city, province, country, telephone, parents’ ages, occupation, and so forth. Suppose 10 features are needed to represent a user’s characteristic and each feature needs 10 attributes to describe it. This means that 100 attributes will be required to describe one user’s characteristic. Clearly, it is an important research problem to reduce the number of attributes so that only key attributes are identified and used in the search for appropriate learning strategies in a personalized e-learning environment. This article presents the results of a research project to explore learners’ key personality attributes and determine the relative weight of each one.

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

THEORETICAL BACkGROUND As pointed out by Kobsa et al. (2001), personalization is often a data-intensive task. Data about the user’s characteristic, data about the user’s interactive behavior with the systems (computer usage), and data about the user’s hardware, software, and physical environment need to be considered by a personalized system. Kobsa argued that most systems were based on the following categories of user data for personalization: demographic data, or “objective facts” about the user; user knowledge level; user skills and capabilities level; user interests and preferences; and user goals and plans (Kobsa et al., 2001). Brusilovsky (2001) suggested that user data should include the following user features that were used by personalized systems developed until 1996: the user’s goals/tasks, knowledge, background, hyperspace experience, preferences, and interests. He went further and added user’s individual traits to the list. Each of the user data categories is a group name with many attributes. For example, demographic data include name, address, class, age, sex, education, city, province, and so forth; personality traits can also include many factors (e.g., Cattell 16 personality factors). The question to be answered is, with so many learners’ attributes, which of them are key for a personalized e-learning environment? Several issues should be considered. First of all, it is important to consider how to describe and capture learners’ attributes. Another important issue is how to effectively find key learner personality characteristic attributes. Many researchers have acknowledged that there is little agreement on this point (Brusilovsky, 2001) and it becomes the main challenge in exploiting learner personality characteristics for a personalized e-learning environment (Papanikolaou, Grigoriadou, Kornilakis, & Magoulas, 2003). Selecting appropriate personality attributes can improve learning accuracy when using numerical methods, such as decision-tree induction, to infer for personalization (Kobsa et al., 2001).

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Nowadays, there are some studies on the relationship between learners’ characteristics and their learning strategies. Most of them are from the perspective of educational psychology. The methods used are correlation analysis, regression analysis, and discriminator function (Busato, Prins, Elshout, & Hamaker, 1998; Vermetten et al., 2001). These studies only focus on the correlation study, but how to identify which attributes are key and which ones are redundant (i.e., which are the targets for reduction) still involves human experts. The process is subjective and time consuming. Furthermore, most researches simply study the relationship between a single attribute and learning strategies. They do not consider the influence of the combination of attributes to the strategies. Methods such as regression analysis cannot be applied when the attributes have interdependencies. Traditional statistical methods are employed to handle massive data sets in e-learning and the process may have to be redesigned because of the high number of attributes (Hand, 1999). Since there is no direct interaction between instructors and students in an e-learning environment, the collected data tend to be more haphazard than those obtained through traditional face-to-face interaction, and choosing a method that can deal with the uncertainty is an important problem. Rough set theory, laid out by Zdzislaw Pawlak, provides a relatively new mathematical method to handle imprecise, uncertain, and incomplete data (Pawlak, 1997; Pawlak, Grzymala-Busse, Slowiński, & Ziarko, 1995). The introduction of this theory in the 1980s coincided with the surge of interest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition, and expert systems (Ziarko, 2000). The indiscernibility (similar) relation is the mathematical basis of rough set theory and any vague (rough, imprecise) concept is replaced by a pair of precise concepts called the lower and the upper approximation of the vague concept (Pawlak, 1997). In recently years, rough set theory has been applied to areas like machine

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

learning, knowledge discovery, data mining, and decision support (Krysinski, Skzypczak, Demski, & Predki, 2001; Pawlak, 1997, 2002; Pawlak et al., 1995; Ziarko, 2000). The inference process of rough sets naturally simulates the self-adaptive behaviors and characteristics that exist in human beings. The key advantage of the rough set approach over others is that there is no need for prior knowledge (Pawlak, 2002) and it is able to reveal the natural relationship through data itself (Pawlak, 1998). In order to remedy the shortcomings of correlation analysis, regression analysis, and discriminator functions mentioned above, an improved method based on rough set theory is presented to study how to find learners’ key personality characteristic attributes and how these attributes influence learners’ learning strategies. The method first constructs an information system for learners’ personality characteristics, and then applies an improved algorithm based on rough set theory. The algorithm builds the core set and the nocore set to calculate the attribute reducts based on the logical calculation directly. At last, the method analyzes the results to find learners’ key personality attributes and their relative weights. The experiments and analysis, presented in the seventh section, have shown that the method is able to solve the problems of dimension disaster and huge data volume in a personalized e-learning environment. For the sample data set, the initial personality characteristic has 28 attributes. After the process by the algorithm, the number of attributes of the key personality characteristic can be reduced to less than 25% of the original number and the reduction rate of data volume is about 50%.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE APPROACH The following are the steps for the approach. First, a learner’s personality characteristic is described through some forms (i.e., initial learner

model) and is obtained quantitatively. That is essentially the issue of acquiring and representing the characteristic. Second, the algorithm of finding key personality attributes is applied to get the key attributes and the improved learner model. Third, the inferring method to obtain the learning strategy is applied. Figure 1 shows the architecture of the approach. The approach is comprised of four modules and the data storage. The modules are: (i) acquiring and representing module that describes and obtains the learner personality characteristic, (ii) finding key attributes module that processes the initial learner model and obtains key personality attributes and the improved learner model, (iii) inferring learning strategy module, whose function is to generate the rules about learning strategies following improved learner model, and (iv) presentation model that presents the learning strategies by following the rules in an e-learning environment. The operations of the Acquiring and Representing Module and Finding Key Attributes Module, which are highlighted in Figure 1, are the focus of the article. The module of finding key personality attributes receives its input from the module of acquiring and representing, which directly gathers numeric information about the learners. The output of the module of finding key personality attributes provides the improved learner model and information for the module of inferring learning strategy to generate the rules that will be utilized by the presentation module to construct a personalized e-learning environment.

CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS Educational psychology research and practices have shown that personality factors (traits), learning styles, and learning conceptions have influences on learning strategies (Carson & Longhini, 2002; Chamot, 2005; Ehrman, Leaver, & Oxford, 2003; Ford & Chen, 2000; Vermetten et al., 2001;

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Figure 1. Schematic of the architecture of the new approach Presentation Model

Material Presentation Inferring Learning Strategy Module Learner Learner Finding Key Attributes Responses Module Acquiring and

Data Store Rules Improved Learner Model

Initial Learner Model

Representing Module

Wenden, 1991). Personality factors are representative of the affective and cognitive aspects of individual traits. Recent research results in psychology have shown that investigating personality factors helps predict a person’s learning patterns and strategies (Vermetten et al., 2001). Learning styles denote cognitive styles observed specifically in a learning context. Cognitive styles are tendencies that are consistently displayed by individuals to adopt a particular type of information processing strategy (Ford & Chen, 2000). Learning conceptions are a person’s conceptions and ideas about what learning is. They have a strong impact on which learning strategies will be used (Vermetten et al., 2001). There is still a debate about the definition of learning strategy in education and educational psychology. Our understanding of learning strategies is mainly based on the experiences gathered through the study of foreign language (mainly English) at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. College English is a required course for almost all students in Chinese universities. Personality characteristics include personality traits, language learning styles and language conception, and learning strategies include metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, form-focused strategies, meaning-focused strategies, compensation, and social strategies

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(Cohen, 1998; Liu & Dai, 2003). Definitions used in this article are presented below.

Definition 1. Personality Characteristic A learner’s personality characteristic is the relatively stable traces that are revealed internally. Personality characteristic includes personality trait, learning style, and learning conception. It can be represented as CA={PT, LS, LC}. CA is the whole attribute set for a personality characteristic. PT is the attribute subset for describing personality trait, for example, the 16 personality factors (16 PF) identified by Raymond B. Cattell in the 1940s (Fehringer, 2004). LS is the attribute subset for describing learning style, such as visual, audio, or experimental learning style. LS is the attribute subset for describing learning conception, such as self-management conception in learning. In this article, PT is represented with the 16 PF proposed by Cattell, Eber, and Tatsuoka (1970). (See Box 1). LS refers to the language learning styles. It is represented with the scales of the special questionnaire, which is revised to fit the situation of Chinese students by School of Foreign Language, Xi’an Jiaotong University, according

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Box 1. PT = {Warmth, Brilliance, Emotional stability, Dominance, Excitement, Persistence, Social boldness, Sensitivity, Vigilance, Imagination, Shrewdness, Apprehension, Radicalism, Self-reliance, Self-discipline, Tension} = {A, B, C, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4}

Box 2. LS = {Visual|Auditory|Experimental, Independent| Dependent, Group|Individuality, Analytical|Synthesis, Systematic|Random, Spontaneity |Thoughtfulness} { GROUP1, GROUP2, GROUP3, GROUP4, GROUP5, GROUP6}

Box 3. LC = {Self-management, Dependence on mother tongue, Self-efficacy, Ascribing conception, Language learning conception, Learning strategy conception} = SM, DOMT, SE, AC, LLC, LSC}

to the research of Oxford (2001) and Wen and Wang (2004). (See Box 2). LC refers to the language learning conception. It is represented with the scales of the special questionnaire, which is revised to fit the situation of Chinese students by School of Foreign Language, Xi’an Jiaotong University, according to the research of Oxford (2001) and Wen and Wang (2004). (See Box 3). CA can be described as the set of three subsets and each subset has its own attributes. Details are shown in the following. The corresponding abbreviations for each attribute are defined after the third equal sign. (See Box 4.) Even if a learner’s demographic data and other data concerning skills and capabilities level,

interests, goals, and so forth are not considered, there are at least 28 attributes about each learner’s personality trait, learning style, and learning conception. So, it is important to find an approach to select the key attributes.

Definition 2. Learning Strategy Learning strategies can be described as a set with five elements: D= {mcs, afs, ffs, mfs, css} Where, mcs represents metacognitive strategy, afs represents affective strategy,

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Box 4. C A = {PT , LS , LC} { {Warmth, Brilliance, Emotional stability, Dominance, Excitement, Persistence, Social boldness, Sensitivity, Vigilance, Imagination, Shrewdness, Apprehension, Radicalism, Self-reliance, Self-discipline, Tension}, {Visual|Auditory|Experimental, Independent| Dependent, Group|Individuality, Analytical|Synthesis, Systematic|Random, Spontaneity |Thoughtfulness} {Self-management, Dependence on mother tongue, Self-efficacy, Ascribing conception, Language learning conception, Learning strategy conception}} { {A, B, C, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4}, {GROUP1, GROUP2, GROUP3, GROUP4, GROUP5, GROUP6}, {SM, DOMT, SE, AC, LLC, LSC}}

ffs represents form-focused strategy, mfs represents meaning-focused strategy, css represents compensation and social strategy. •

•

•

•

•

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Metacognitive strategy refers to planning the organization of a learner’s learning, such as establishing the goal for learning, making a schedule, and so forth. Affective strategy refers to controlling one’s affection during learning, such as encouraging oneself when feeling depressed. Form-focused strategy refers to the concrete approach to mastering the knowledge, such as memorizing the words by reciting. Meaning-focused strategy refers to the practice of reading, speaking, listening, and so forth, such as improving listening ability by listening to foreign language radio. Compensation and social strategy refers to the methods used during the communications with others, such as gesturing when one can not express any words (Busato et al., 1998; Fehringer, 2004).

Definition 3: Information System for Learners’ Personality Characteristic (ISLPC) The construction of an information system for the personality characteristic of learners is the foundation for analyzing key personality characteristic attributes. In essence, the information system is the set of learners. The set can be represented as S=(U, CA ∩ D, V, f ). U is the non-empty finite set for all learners. CA is the non-empty finite attribute set for the personality characteristic of learners as defined in definition 1. D is the non-empty finite set for the learning strategies as defined in definition 2. CA ∩ D= Ø, CA D=AS , where AS is all the attributes of S; V = ∪ Va, where Va is the a∈ AS

value domain for α є AS . f: U × AS→V is a single mapping function such that there is a unique value in V for all a є AS. For example, if Warmth є AS , V Warmth ={1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}, for a learner z in U, she has a score of 7 through Cattell 16 PF questionnaire, then f (z,Warmth) = 7.

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

(2) CA' is independent of D. redD (CA) represents the set of all reducts of CA. The core set is the intersection of all reducts, namely core(CA) = ∩redD (CA). The core set is included in every reduct and is the most important subset of attributes (Pawlak, 1997).

Definition 4. key Personality Characteristic Attribute Set A key personality characteristic attribute (key personality attribute, for short) is the one that is vital to infer learners’ personalized learning strategies. The key personality characteristic attribute set, namely the reduct, is the reduction result of applying the approach described in this article. Reduction is the process through which personality characteristic attributes, that have little influence on the learning strategies, are eliminated according to the implicit relationships among personality attributes and learning strategies. In rough set theory (Pawlak, 1997), suppose R ⊆ CA, X ⊆ U, R*(X)={x є U: R(x) ⊆ X}, is the R − lower approximation of X.

Definition 5: Weight Value of key Personality Characteristic Attribute Different key personality attributes have different weight values. For one key personality characteristic attribute α є CA', the weight value of α is defined in Box 5.

Definition 6: Discernibility Function If ai є CA, x, y є U and belong to different equivalence sets of di є D, a(x, y) = {a1, a2 ,...,ak} represents the subset of CA and ai є CA can differentiate x and y in U (the learner’s domain).

posR ( D) = ∪ ( R* X ) X ∈U / D

is R − positive region of U / D and is essentially the union set of all objects, which can be classified into U / D using the learners’ personality characteristic subset R. If a є R, posR (D) = posR (D) then the α attribute is superfluous in R. − {a} Otherwise, α is indispensable in R. If every α in R is indispensable, R is independent of D. For details, see Pawlak (1997). For a given information system of learners’ personality characteristic S, the key personality characteristic attribute set CA', namely the reduct, is a non-empty subset of CA such that (1)

∑ a ( x, y ) = a ∨ a 1

2

∨  ∨ ak.

If a(x, y)= Ø , then let

∑ a( x, y) = 1. The discernibility function is defined as:

∆=

Π ∑ a( x, y).

( x , y )∈U ×U

posC ' ( D) = posC A ( D),

Theorem 1: The minimal disjunctive normal form of the discernibility function ∆ corresponds to the

A

Box 5.

SGF (a, C A' , D) = (| posC ' ( D) | − | posC ' −{ } ( D) |) / | U | A

A

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Figure 2. Construction of the Learner model Learner

PF

LS

LC

Learning strategy

Figure 3. Cattell’s 16 PF questionnaire for acquiring data of a learner’s personality traits Psychological tests

PF Test LC Test LS Test

Cattell 16PF questionnaire

Learning Strategy Test

all reduction sets of S. This has been proved by Zhang, Wu, Liang, and Li (2001).

Definition 7: Reduction Efficiency The data volume of the information system before the reduction is defined as: ES =CA * Uand after the reduction is defined as: ES' =CA '* U. The reduction efficiency is: E =1 − ES'/ ES.

OBTAINING THE PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTIC ATTRIBUTES This section describes how to construct a learner model, how to acquire the original data of a learner’s characteristic, and how to represent, organize, and manage them. The learner model, shown as Figure 2, is the collection of learner information. In Figure 2, PF, LS, LC, learning strategy were

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defined in the Concept and Definitions section. Personality factor, learning style, and so forth are stable features of a learner and are traditionally extracted not by a simple interview, but by specially designed psychological tests (Brusilovsky, 2001). So, simple interviews cannot extract the learner data needed in this article. Psychological tests and questionnaires are specifically designed to acquire the data of learners. To acquire learner personality trait data, Cattell’s 16 personality factor questionnaire is applied, as demonstrated in Figure 3. There are many methods to measure personality traits, such as 16 PF (Cattell et al., 1970), EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire) (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975; Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985), MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) (Hathaway, 1951; Hathaway & McKinley, 1967), CPI (California Psychological Inventory) (Gough, 1975), and MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

(Myers, McCaulley, & Most, 1985), and so on. There are differences about the definition of personality trait, and so forth, so the methods often do not agree with each other (Fehringer, 2004). To eliminate the confusion, many personality psychologists have attempted to develop a common taxonomy. A notable attempt at developing a common taxonomy is Cattell’s 16 PF model, which is based upon personality adjectives taken from the natural language (Fehringer, 2004). The Cattell 16 PF model is probably the most widely used system for categorizing and defining personality. Other similar systems exist and may be preferred by certain organizations and professionals, but 16 PF in its various forms is universally understood (Famous models Cattell 16PF profile, n.d.). To acquire the data describing learners’ learning styles, learning conceptions, and learning strategies, three questionnaires were applied for this article. These questionnaires are based on the research of Oxford (2001), Cohen and Dörnyei (2002), Wen and Wang (2004), and so forth, and were revised by the School of Foreign Language, Xi’an Jiaotong University, according to Chinese students’ special needs. Learning styles denote cognitive styles observed specifically in a learning context. Cognitive style represents tendencies that are consistently displayed by individuals to adopt a particular type of information processing strategy (Ford & Chen, 2000). Learning is one of the cognitive activities. Learning conception is a person’s conceptions and ideas about what (academic) learning is. It is believed to have a strong impact on learning strategy use (Vermetten et al., 2001). Entwistle argued that learning strategy is about how students tackle a specific learning task (Entwistle & Waterston, 1998). To find key personality characteristic attributes, the learner model needs to be represented with one structure. Since inferences operate on the contents of user models, methods for user model representation, and inferences are often closely related (Kobsa et al., 2001). In this article, the approach based on rough set theory is applied

on the learner model, so the model needs to be represented as an information system.

FINDING kEY PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTIC ATTRIBUTES Because of the huge volume of learners and the high number of personality characteristic attributes in an e-learning environment, the traditional reduction methods (Zhang et al., 2001) are generally not suitable. This article proposes an improved method that directly builds a core set and a nocore set and calculates the reducts based on the logical calculation. A large discernibility matrix (Nguyen, 1998) is not necessary in this method. The attributes in the nocore set can be absorbed in advance to reduce the volume of calculation. A detailed explanation of the optimal strategy is described in the Algorithm subsection. Personality characteristic attributes, denoted by CA, are the conditional attributes and learning strategies, denoted by D, are the decision attributes. Once the reduct set is available, the key personality attributes and the weight values SGF can be computed.

Preprocessing Since the initial data acquired by the specially designed psychological tests are a quantitative measurement (the score in each attribute), they need to be transformed into a qualitative measurement in order to use the approach. According to the theory of psychological tests and the histogram method (Poosala & Ioannidis, 1997), learner personality trait data, learner learning style data, learner learning conception data, and learning strategy data can be quantized into three degrees (1 for low degree, 2 for medium, 3 for high) or four degrees (1 for low degree, 2 for rather low, 3 for medium, 4 for high). The equiwidth histogram for learner personality traits is shown in Figure 4.

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Figure 4. The equiwidth histogram for learner personality trait 3 Degree

2 1 0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Trait Degree 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3

Initial data

Based on the above discussion, a function can be defined: γ :U → [1,2,3], where U is the universe of discourse of the function. For example, the value γ(x)of the function for an input x of the initial data of the learner personality traits represents the degree of x. The function γ is equal to:

 1,  ( x) =  2, 3, 

1≤ x ≤ 3 4≤ x≤7 8 ≤ x ≤ 10

Then, for an input whose value equals 6, the value of function f is γ(6)=2. The interpretation of this is that one personality trait of a learner can be considered as medium degree. A similar method is applied to preprocess the data describing the learners’ learning styles, the learners’ learning conceptions and the learning strategies.

Algorithm The core is the set of the single attributes by which any two learners can be distinguished in the domain. It is defined in Box 6. That is to say, there exists a single attribute c for which any two learners (x, y) in U have different values on the attribute c and have the same value in other corresponding attributes.The nocore set includes the attributes that are not in the core set, but can still be used to distinguish some two learners in the domain. (See Box 7). The algorithm compares subjects in the domain U of S one by one. If two subjects have the same value in the attribute d є D, do not need compare the attributes in CA and continue to compare other subjects in the domain. Or else, compare the attributes in CA respectively in file; record the attributes to the variable attr that have unequal values in the two subjects and record the number of the attributes to the variable flag. At the same time, the optimal strategy is applied; that is to say, if the attr set and the core set have common attribute, the attributes recorded can be absorbed in advance and other attributes need not be compared continually or else continue to compare the next attribute until all attributes in CA are compared. See the value of the variable flag. If the value is 1, the attribute in the variable attr is added to the core set or else the attributes in the variable attr are added to the nocore set. The Cartesian product is generalized over the core set and the nocore set.The red set is the set that is minimum

Box 6. core = {c ∈ C A : ∃c such that ∀c* ∈ C A c* ≠ c, having (f xi , c* ) = f ( x j , c* ) and f ( xi , c) ≠ f ( x j , c)}

Box 7.

nocore = {a ∈ C A : a ∉ core, having (f xi , a ) ≠ f ( x j , a )}

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Table 1. An example of an information system Learner Subject

CA

D1

Personality Characteristic Attributes

Learning Strategy

one

two

three

four

……

A

1

2

1

1

……

B

1

1

2

1

……

C

2

2

1

1

……

E

2

2

3

2

……

F

1

1

1

2

……

G

3

3

2

2

……

H

2

2

2

2

……

I

3

3

2

2

……

L

1

1

2

2

……

M

1

1

3

1

……

N

2

2

3

3

……

O

3

3

2

3

……

Q1

1

1

3

2

……

Q2

2

2

1

3

……

Q3

3

3

2

3

……

Q4

2

2

3

3

……

GROUP1

2

2

3

1

……

GROUP2

3

3

3

1

……

GROUP3

3

3

2

1

……

GROUP4

2

2

1

2

……

GROUP5

2

2

1

3

……

GROUP6

1

1

1

2

……

SM

1

1

3

3

……

DOMT

3

3

2

2

……

SE

2

2

1

1

……

AC

2

2

3

3

……

LLC

2

2

3

2

……

LSC

2

2

3

1

……

mcs

3

2

3

3

……

cardinality of the result, namely, the set of key personality characteristic attribute. According to the formula of definition 5, calculate the weight value of the key attributes. The following is a detailed description of the algorithm.

Algorithm: A rough set based approach to find learners’ key personality characteristic attributes. Input:Information system S=(U, CA ∪ D, V, f ) Output: The set of reduced result red and the set of key personality attribute K.

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Table 2. Core set and nocore set for five learning strategies Personality Characteristic Attribute Set

Learning Strategy

Core Set

Nocore Set

mcs

{E, H, O, Q4, GROUP1, DOMT, LLC}

{C, I, M, N, Q2, GROUP3, GROUP4, LSC}

afs

{B, E, G, H, I, N, O, Q2, Q3, Q4, GROUP2, GROUP3, AC, LLC, LSC}

ffs

{E, GROUP4}

mfs

{A, C, G, H, N, O, Q2, Q3, Q4, GROUP1, GROUP3, GROUP6, DOMT, SE, AC}

css

{G, I, M, O, Q4, GROUP2, GROUP5, AC, LLC, LSC}

Approach: Step 1: Let red = Ø; nocore = Ø;core = Ø; flag = Ø; attr = Ø; Step 2: Compare subjects in the domain one by one, calculate core set, and nocore set. (Details of step 2 are given in Appendix.) Step 3: red = min{αα є core × nocore} Step 4: Convert S=(U, CA ∪ D, V, f ) to S=(U, red ∪ D, V, f ) ; Step 5: According to the formula of definition 5, calculate SGF; Step 6: Weight value = SGF. The following example shows the application of the optimal strategy. Table 1 shows an example of an information system. According to the above algorithm, when comparing the learner subjects one and two in Table 1, core = {A} is obtained, because the subjects one and two can be distinguished only by the single attribute A; when comparing the subjects two and three, attr = {A}is got because it is the attribute that has unequal values on the subjects two and three. According to the optimal strategy, since attr ∩ core ≠ Ø, it is not necessary to continue to compare the values of the attributes B, C, and others on the subjects two and three. The reason is that if one more step is calculated, attr = {A, B} is got. However, according to the logic absorb principle (Zhang et al., 2001), {A, B} will

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Ø {I, Q2, SE}

Ø {A, C, F, GROUP1, GROUP3, GROUP4}

be absorbed to {A} ultimately. After applying the optimal strategy in this step, core = {a} and nocore = Ø have been obtained without comparing the other attributes, such as b, c and others. The effect is prominent because the number of attributes in ISLPC is high. In the worst case, the number of the attributes is the cardinality of CA , and the time complex is O(N2*CA ). Table 2 shows the final results of core set and nocore set.

EXPERIMENTS AND ANALYSIS Based on the above approach, a personalized English learning system (PELS) was developed. It aims to facilitate learners by providing diagnosis and advice to learners and representing the appropriate knowledge for novices. Figure 5 shows PELS’s Web site and Figure 6 is the main screen of PELS. The above method is illustrated by the following example. More than 300 students from several colleges of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, have used the personalized English e-learning system to improve their English skills. A total of 157 valid samples have been collected. In this situation, the personality characteristic of each sample has 28 attributes and, according to definition 7, the value of ES is 4396 (157 * 28 = 4396). As shown in the

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Figure 5. The PELS Web site

Figure 6. The main screen of PELS

PF Test LC Test

-What’s the learning style? -How does the learning style shape? -………

LS Test Learning Strategy Test

following, after processing by the above method, the number of key personality characteristic attributes can be decreased to below one fourth and the reduction rate E is about 50%. If the method were applied to a large-scale e-learning university with thousands of students, the result should be remarkable. As described in definition 2, learning strategies set D = {mcs, afs, ffs, mfs, css} includes multiple

-……… -To test your kind of learning style -How to learn according to your kind of learning style?

attributes. In order to simplify the calculation, these five learning strategies can be separately implemented to speed the process of finding the optimal learning strategies. So, S=(U, CA ∪ D, V, f ) can be decomposed into five different subsystems {S1, S2, S3, S4, S5}, where Si = (U, Ri, V, f ) , Ri = CA ∪ {di}, and di (1 ≤ i ≤5) represents the ith element in the set D = {mcs, afs, ffs, mfs, css}.

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Table 3. Key personality characteristic attributes for five learning strategies Learning Strategy

Key Personality Characteristic Attribute Set

|Key Personality Characteristic Attribute Set|/|CA|

mcs

{C, E, H, I, M, N, O, Q2, Q4, GROUP1, GROUP3, GROUP4, DOMT, LLC, LSC}

0.54

afs

{B, E, G, H, I, N, O, Q2, Q3, Q4, GROUP2, GROUP3, AC, LLC, LSC}

0.54

ffs

{E, I, Q2, GROUP4, SE}

0.18

mfs

{A, C, G, H, N, O, Q2, Q3, Q4, GROUP1, GROUP3, GROUP6, DOMT, SE, AC}

0.54

css

{A, C, F, G, I, M, O, Q4, GROUP1, GROUP2, GROUP3, GROUP4, GROUP5, AC, LLC, LSC}

0.57

Box 8. CA = {{A, B, C, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4}, {GROUP1, GROUP2, GROUP3, GROUP4, GROUP5, GROUP6}, {SM, DOMT, SE,AC,LLC, LSC}}

Box 9. Key Personality Charateristic Attribute Set = {{C, E, H, I, M, N, O, Q2, Q4}, {GROUP1, GROUP3, GROUP4}, {DOMT, LLC, LSC}}

After applying the reduction algorithm, described in the Finding Key Personality Characteristic Attributes section, for Si ={U, Ri, V, f}, (1 ≤ i ≤5), the key personality characteristic attributes for five kinds of learning strategies are available and they are given in Table 3. Before being processed by the algorithm, the initial personality attribute characteristic sets are available in Box 8: After being processed by the reduction algorithm, for metacognitive strategy (mcs), the key

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personality characteristic attribute set is available in Box 9. The following less important attributes are eliminated. The reduction rate is almost 50%. The results of the other four learning strategies are shown in Table 3. Personality characteristic attributes included in each learning strategy vary significantly. No one characteristic attribute is related to all five strategies. Sensitivity (I), apprehension (O), self-reliance (Q2), tension (Q4), and

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Table 4. The weight value of key personality attributes for mcs Weight Value (SGF)

Key Personality Attributes (for mcs)

Attribute Abbr.

Visual|Auditory|Experimental

GROUP1

0.1146

Shrewdness

N

0.0764

Social boldness

H

0.0701

Dependence on mother tongue

DOMT

0.0637

Language learning conception

LLC

0.0510

Sensitivity

I

0.0382

Group|Individuality

GROUP3

0.0382

Apprehension

O

0.0255

Self-reliance

Q2

0.0255

Tension

Q4

0.0255

Emotional stability

C

0.0127

Dominance

E

0.0127

Learning strategy conception

LSC

0.0127

Imagination

M

0.0009

Analytical|Synthesis

GROUP4

0.0009

Table 5. The weight value of key personality attributes for afs Key Personality Attributes (for afs)

Attribute Abbr.

Weight Value (SGF)

Ascribing conception

AC

0.0701

Sensitivity

I

0.0510

Independence|Dependence

GROUP2

0.0510

Social boldness

H

0.0446

Tension

Q4

0.0446

Persistence

G

0.0382

Self-reliance

Q2

0.0318

Apprehension

O

0.0255

Self-discipline

Q3

0.0191

Learning strategy conception

LSC

0.0191

Language learning conception

LLC

0.0127

Brilliance

B

0.0008

Dominance

E

0.0008

Shrewdness

N

0.0008

Group|Individuality

GROUP3

0.0008

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Table 6. The weight value of key personality attributes for ffs Key Personality Attributes (for ffs)

Attribute Abbr.

Weight Value (SGF)

Dominance

E

0.2803

Analytical|Synthesis

GROUP4

0.0828

Self-efficacy

SE

0.0764

Sensitivity

I

0.0318

Self-reliance

Q2

0.0318

Table 7. The weight value of key personality attributes for mfs Attribute Abbr.

Social boldness

H

(SGF) 0.0382

Apprehension

O

0.0318

Warmth

A

0.0255

Emotional stability

C

0.0255

Tension

Q4

0.0255

Ascribing conception

AC

0.0255

Persistence

G

0.0127

Self-reliance

Q2

0.0127

Self-discipline

Q3

0.0127

Visual|Auditory|Experimental

GROUP1

0.0127

Dependence on mother tongue

DOMT

0.0127

Self-efficacy

SE

0.0127

Shrewdness

N

0.0009

Group|Individuality

GROUP3

0.0009

Spontaneity|Thoughtfulness

GROUP6

0.0009

group|individuality (GROUP3) are the attributes that affect four learning strategies. Brilliance (B), excitement (F), systematic|random (GROUP5), and spontaneity|thoughtfulness (GROUP6) are attributes that affect only one learning strategy. SGF is the weight value of each key personality attribute, and the detail is illustrated from Table 4 to Table 8. Key personality characteristic attributes have important influence on learning strategies and should be considered top priority. The assessment of key personality attributes need to be

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Weight Value

Key Personality Attributes (for mfs)

revised progressively and iteratively following learners’ learning situations in an e-learning environment. According to definition 7 in the fourth section, before using the reduction algorithm, the value of ES for S1 is 4396 (157 * 28 = 4396) and after the reduction, the value of E'S is 2355 (157 * 15 = 2355). The reduction rates E for S1, S2 and S4 are 46% respectively. The reduction rate E for S3 is 82%. The reduction rate E for S5 is 43%. Figure 7 shows that the data volume has been dramatically reduced.

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Table 8. The weight value of key personality attributes for css Key Personality Attributes (for css)

Attribute Abbr.

Weight Value (SGF)

Sensitivity

I

0.0446

Visual|Auditory|Experimental

GROUP1

0.0382

Warmth

A

0.0255

Persistence

G

0.0255

Imagination

M

0.0255

Emotional stability

C

0.0127

Excitement

F

0.0127

Apprehension

O

0.0127

Tension

Q4

0.0127

Independence|Dependence

GROUP2

0.0127

Ascribing conception

AC

0.0127

Language learning conception

LLC

0.0127

Learning strategy conception

LSC

0.0127

Group|Individuality

GROUP3

0.0007

Analytical|Systhesis

GROUP4

0.0007

Systematic|Random

GROUP5

0.0007

Figure 7. Reduction efficiency Reduction efficiency of information system 5000 4000

Data volume

3000 2000

Es

1000 0

E's S1

S2

S3

S4

S5

Information system

CONCLUSION The primary goal of the article is to investigate which personality character attributes have deep influence on learning strategies and are key attributes. From Table 4 to Table 8, the conclusion can be drawn that the learning style attribute, visual|auditory|experimental, has the deepest

influence on the metacognitive strategy; the learning conception attribute, ascribing conception, has the deepest influence on the affective strategy; the personality trait attributes, dominance, social boldness, and sensitivity, have the deepest influences on the form-focused strategy, meaning-focused strategy, and compensation and social strategy, respectively. Sensitivity,

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

Figure 8. A sample of the rules if

C(2) and E(2) and H(2) and I(1) and M(2) and N(2) and O(2) and Q2(2) and Q4(2) and GROUP1(1) and GROUP3(3) and GROUP4(3) and DOMT(2) and LLC(3) and LSC(3) then mcs(3)

Figure 9. Summary example Toolbar

The following is the comparison of your credit with the general:

diagnosis to learner

-the credit -the credit for the clou items - the credit for the detail items -……… -………

Navigation area

Content area

Figure 10. Self-monitoring example

statistics of learner’s credit credit

specific student

the personality trait, contributes most to all the learning strategies. Furthermore, these significant relationships make substantive sense. For example, one of the major characteristics of being ascribing conception is if she believes that the key factor for successful learning is herself. It is not surprising that

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average credit of excellent student average credit of all student

an individual with a strong ascribing conception use affective strategy to learn. After finding the key attributes of learner characteristics, a further process can be applied in order to generate the association rules between key attributes and each learning strategy. These association rules can be used to construct a personalized e-learning system (Wu, 2005). Rough set

A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

theory can also provide the initial method for rule generation. The improved approach is described in Chang, Wang, and Wu (1999) and the value of SGF is used as heuristic information. All attributes are sorted according to the SGF value. The improved approach first processes the key attributes, and then processes other attributes that have higher values of SGF one by one. If the optimal rules have already been obtained in one phase, the remaining attributes need not be processed. The details are discussed in Wu (2005). Figure 8 shows a rule. In the rule, the abbreviations in the “if part” specify the key personality characteristic attributes with values (values are specified within the parenthesis). The “then part” indicates that the learner prefers metacognitive strategy (because the value for mcs is 3) and can achieve good performance. The rudimentary definition of metacognition strategy is that learners are aware of monitoring and controlling their learning, and planning and regulating before, during, and after learning (Adkins, 2007). According to the theory of instruction design, applying a metacognitive strategy focuses on equipping learners with the appropriate navigation tools and not leaving the learner adrift in a sea of content. Generative summaries, generic self-monitoring, and the like are typical examples to maximize metacognitive strategy transfer (Adkins, 2007; Gogoulou, Gouli, Grigoriadou, & Samarakou, 2005). Figure 9 shows the presentation of a generative summaries example and Figure 10 shows the presentation of a self-monitoring example. This article investigates the problem of key personality attributes that influence the personalized learning strategies in an e-learning environment and proposes an algorithm to effectively identify key personality attributes. The algorithm is based on rough set theory and does not require any prior knowledge. An extensive experiment has been conducted in a major Chinese research university to validate the method. The algorithm’s categoricalness is not taken into account in the article. More research in the

problem will be developed in the future. The results of the article will be used to guide the construction of a personalized e-learning system. The association rules, between personality characteristics and learning strategies, need to be assessed and adjusted to improve accuracy. How to effectively present the learning strategies in an e-learning environment also will be an important research problem.

ACkNOWLEDGMENT This research is supported by China National Science Foundation Grant number 60473136, 60373105, 60633020, and China’s Tenth Five Year Plan key project grant number 2005BA115A01, China’s Eleventh Five Year Plan Key project grant number 2006BAH02A24.

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A Rough Set Based Approach to Find Learners' Key Personality Attributes in an E-Learning Environment

APPENDIX Details of Step 2, in the algorithm section, are given as follows: 1) For ( i = N; i > 0; i--) //N is the number of learner subjects in U 2) { For ( j = i-1; j >0; j--) { if f (i,d) ≠ f (j,d) //d ε D, refer to definition 2, f (i,d) is //described in definition 3. { for ( k = 1; k <= FN; k++) //FN is the cardinality of the //personality attribute set CA, //refer to definition 1 if i[k] ≠ j[k] { attr = attr ∪ i[k] ; //Record the personality //characteristic attributes that have //unequal values. if (attr ∩ core ≠ ∅) {attr = ∅ ; got to step 2;} // apply optimal //strategy, that is to say, if // attr and core have //common attribute, then //the attribute was absorbed //in advance and other //attributes need not to be // compared continually. else flag++; //flag marks the number of personality //characteristic attributes that have unequal //values. } } if flag>1 { nocore = ∪ nocore attr;} // the attribute in attr //is not core. if flag = 1 { core = core ∪ attr ; //the attribute in attr is already in the core. if (attr ∩ nocore ≠ ∅ ) nocore = nocore\ attr; } flag=0; attr = ∅ ; } } This work was previously published in International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Vol. 3, Issue 4, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 29-56, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.8

Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes: An Actor-Network Approach Xueguang Ma University of Maryland, USA Roy Rada University of Maryland, USA

ABSTRACT The learning and accountability needs in a teacher education department drove the development of a novel Web-based education accountability system (EAS). To fit the EAS with the organization, actornetwork theory (ANT) was used to guide the social and technological development. In the course of fitting the technology to the educational setting, a novel multi-dimensional perspective to ANT was formalized. Four dimensions of organizational culture, politics, process, and profession were used. Participant observation, field notes, and interviews were used to reveal how standard teacher education practices were created and recreated. Detailed DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-525-2.ch001

translations occurring at multiple levels provided insight into the technical agency of the EAS and showed technology shaped the emergence of a socio-technical solution for a teacher education program.

INTRODUCTION This chapter considers the introduction of a new ‘educational accountability’ technology in a teacher education program. The interactions between the technology and the educational organization are explored. Contributions of the chapter include the method of developing the technology and observations about how an educational organization can best exploit its technology.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes:

Educational accountability is critical to successful education. A search on the Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC) citation database in May 2007 for citations containing the term ‘accountability’ returned 18,000 citations. Multiple books on the subject of education accountability were published in 2007, including Wilkerson and Lang (2007) and Drake (2007). Many of the ERIC citations are related to teacher accountability and the use of information systems to support accountability. Teacher education accreditation has presented great challenges to teacher education programs in the United States. The introduction of new standards by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has accentuated these challenges (Castenell, Benson, deMarrais, Butchart, & Lewis, 2001; Linn, 2000). The comprehensive data collection mandated by the NCATE 2000 standards require advanced IS solutions and organizational changes (Wise, 2001). To better understand the interplay between technology and organizations, the “black-box” of technology and process must be opened to expose the embedded socio-economic patterns (Bijker & Law, 1992). The implementation of an information system (IS) is shaped by the organizational context and simultaneously shapes the organization (Orlikowski, 1991). Economic, political, and cultural issues should be examined together with the IS as a “web of computing” or “socio-technical interaction network” (Kling, Kim, & King, 2003). Common approaches to researching technological innovation in education focus on the technical aspects of an innovation, and cannot account for the interactions between IS design and organizational changes (Scacchi, 2004; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001). actor-network theory (ANT) treats equally the contributions of both human and non-human actors, and can capture the complex interactions between humans and technology. The notion of actors and networks is fundamental to understanding how information systems diffuse in educational organizations (Lewis,

Marginson, & Snyder, 2005). The actor-network approach has been used to interpret the relationship between existing technology and education (Morgan & Ryan, 2003). This chapter looks at both the development and the use of an information system in education with the help of ANT; the education application is teacher education accreditation. This study extends ANT analysis with multidimensional views to examine the successful implementation of a Web-based education accountability system (EAS). The EAS was implemented in a teacher preparation unit (hereafter called the ‘unit’) in a Department of Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The EAS was used to help the teacher candidates to learn and the unit to teach. The impact of Web technology on learning (e.g., Esnault & Zeiliger, 2000; Folkman & Berge, 2002) has been extended in this study to overall program improvement.

Theoretical Framework Technological determinist approaches to technology innovation contend that only the ‘most appropriate’ innovations are adopted, and assume that all outcomes of technological change are attributable to the technological rather than the social (Grint & Woolgar, 1997). At the other extreme is social determinism, which holds that social factors can be used to explain technological change (Law & Callon, 1988) and concentrates on the investigation of social interactions, attributing little to technology. Intermediate approaches emphasize the contingent relationship between the social and technical: social context enables and constrains the usage of a technology, while technology conditions the social context (Barley, 1986; Giddens, 1984; Kling, 1987; Orlikowski, 1992). One approach that strikes a balance between the social and technical elements is ANT (Doolin & Lowe, 2002; Neyland, 2006). In terms of the adoption of technology in education, ANT stands in sharp contrast to diffusion theory (Rog-

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Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes:

ers, 2003). Diffusion theory in education treats technology as immutable (Dooley, 1999), while ANT assumes that technology and social context shape one another. ANT treats human and non-human stakeholders as actors who have interests in a sociotechnical actor-network. The actor-network seeks stabilization through the processes of translation and inscription. The interests of various actors are translated, aligned, and inscribed into technical and social arrangements, such as business norms or software applications, which stabilize the actor-network, at least temporarily (Callon, 1987). Once stabilized, an actor-network may become seemingly irreversible and thus resistant to further translation (Callon, 1991). Therefore, formation and maintenance of a strong actornetwork with aligned interests is crucial to the success of an IS project. Multiple perspectives are valuable for IS development (Hirschheim & Klein, 1989). Multidimensional analysis has its root in ‘multiple perspectives’ theory (Steinbruner, 1974; Checkland, 1981). Examples of multi-perspective theory include: Technology-Organization-People (Linstone, 1999), Wuli-Shili-Renli (Zhu, 2000), and Multi-Modal Systems Design (de Raadt, 2001). Atkinson’s multidimensional representation of actor networks identifies four dimensions: the informational, the clinical decision making, the psychosocial, and the political (Atkinson, 2002). However, Atkinson did not explicitly advocate a multi-dimensional analysis. In this study, dimensions at a macro and a micro level are identified from a taxonomy of IS success factors (Larsen, 2003): • •

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Macro level: (1) Organizational culture; (2) Power relationship and politics; Micro level: (3) Process and operation; (4) Professional.

Figure 1. Convert an actor-network (left) into multi-dimensional actor-networks (right)

These four dimensions are most relevant to teacher education program improvement and accreditation. Actor-networks representing multiple alignment themes can be broken into several actornetworks (see Figure 1), and each could be called a one-dimensional actor-network (ODAN). The same actor can be involved in different ODANs. Three models (de Vreede, van Eijck, & Sol, 1996) are adapted to illustrate the ODANs: actor model, process model, and interaction model (API). The interaction model consists of actors communicating with each other by sending messages, or constraining each other, such as controlling resources. The symbols used for the graphical representation of an interaction model are given in Figure 2. An example shows a distance education system (DES) used for an online master’s degree program (see Figure 3). The interaction model also identifies actors in the actor-network. Actors are identified by following the interacting activities of the DES. The DES was constrained by the budget, the academic requirement, the developer, and the users. The users’ activity would

Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes:

affect the functions and purposes of the DES. In Figure 3, the DES and the academic requirement are mutually constrained. The emergent features of the DES and the academic requirement are changed and shaped interactively via translations and negotiations. The interaction model does not describe how the actor-network was formed and aligned for a certain goal. The process model bridges the gap by modeling a sequence of actions along the actornetwork alignment process. The process model shows how the various stakeholders use the DES to maintain the online academic programs. The third and final model is the actor model, which depicts the interdependencies of the actions an individual actor has to perform to achieve actor-network stability. An actor model consists of the same elements as a process model. The difference is that the actor model represents all the actions of individual actors, whereas the process model represents the actions of all actors in an actor-network. model symbols are pictured in Figure 4, and an actor model is illustrated in Figure 5. The actor model shows how the students are enrolled, taught, and administered via the DES. The workflow is useful to reveal the details of each process.

Figure 2. Symbols of the interaction model

CASE STUDY The selection of this case is based on two issues. The first is that the unit (Department of Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County) is undergoing dramatic organizational changes. Technology and social agendas are ill-defined because there is no best practice to follow. Secondly, academic departments are different from for-profit firms in that they are more autonomous and have fewer profit-making pressures. The Maryland Redesign of Teacher Education (Redesign) sets the context for the implementation of a comprehensive assessment system in the unit. To meet the teacher standards from the state, federal, and professional organizations, the unit built the education accountability system. ANT is used to

Figure 3. Example of an interaction model

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analyze how the EAS and organizational changes are mutually shaped and constructed during and after the IS development. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data sources were the interviews. Secondary sources were publications, documents, and annual reports of the unit. Secondary data cover different sources and provide an essential preparation and guidance for the interviews. The interviewees were selected on the basis of their closeness to the topics of the study and their levels of experience in management and organizational issues. Five faculty, four supervisors, six teacher candidates, and three administrators were interviewed. Each interview ranged from one to one-and-a-half hours. All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed into ‘Word’ format.

Organizational Culture Organization history, norms, leadership, and environment were identified as the actors to initiate the EAS project. As shown in an interaction model (see Figure 6), the inefficiency of the existing IS challenges the unit chair. Informed by the Redesign, the unit chair expected changes to meet these challenges. The Capstone and the EAS were two competing alternatives. The champion of the EAS employed specific strategies to enroll the identiFigure 5. Example of an actor model

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Figure 4. Symbols of the actor model

fied actors (chair, technology lead, existing IS, and education community), while the technology committee failed to do so. The champion portrayed the EAS as an indispensable technology and established herself as the obligatory passage point (OPP) through which other actors could access the EAS. The champion defined the roles of other actors to play in the actor-network. The technology lead was persuaded by the superiority of the EAS over Capstone and inscribed the proposal into a prototype system, which itself became an actant and spoke for the champion in many contexts. Additionally, the advocate of the Capstone did not form any connections with other actors except its advocate. The EAS prevailed over the Capstone by having more connections with

Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes:

Figure 6. Interaction model: Organizational culture. The actors inside the dotted rectangle represent the final aligned actor-network

other actors, which made the EAS more appealing to the unit chair. By enrolling the unit chair, the champion made her actor-network legitimate and temporarily in domination. Faculty members emerged from the assessment redesign with a greater understanding of the collective notion of what teacher candidates should know and be able to do at any given point in their programs. They also emerged from the development process with a greater appreciation of variation in how individuals develop and evaluate assessments. Through practice and collaboration, faculty members were working toward greater consensus. These experiences in turn shaped the manner in which they assessed teacher candidates.

Power Relation and Politics The translation process was used to show how the power affects the decision making during the IS development. Power is defined as “a capacity of

A that influences the behavior of B so that B does things that B would not otherwise do.” Politics is defined as the attempt to influence “the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within an organization” (Robbins, 1996). The EAS development demonstrated how the wills of different political groups translated and negotiated in the academic environment. Actors for this dimension were depicted in an interaction model (see Figure 7). The champion employed a series of measures to translate the unit’s interest and enroll power parties into the actor-network. Based on Figure 7, the EAS development was constrained by the focal actor (champion), time (NCATE deadline), budget, and resources (groups A, B, and C). To solve the limited budget issues, the champion contacted the Office of Information Technology (OIT) to request hardware and software support for a production system. OIT passed the request to its Web development center (called group A). Group A considered the EAS was too complicated and declined to offer

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Figure 7. Interaction model: Power relation and politics. The actors inside the dotted rectangle represent the final aligned actor-network. The champion controls the EAS development while the EAS shapes the champion’s view and strategy to interest and enroll other actors.

any help because all its staff were occupied with other projects. The champion decided to implement the EAS with the available resources. After inscribing the EAS proposal into a prototype system, the champion decided to enroll the Office of Institutional Research (called group B) into the actor-network for data access. Group B was impressed by the prototype and agreed to work with OIT management (called group C) to look at the possibility of modifying the data dictionary. This time group C paid attention to the EAS endeavor because group B has more power than group C. However, group C was not happy with the unit’s unilateral conversation with group B, which is reflected in a memorandum sent to group B criticizing the unit’s system development and

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project management. The champion then used the technology lead to ease the tension because the technology lead was well connected with group C. The technology lead presented the possible usage of the EAS for broader audiences beyond teacher education and informed them of the undergoing patent application. Group C changed its position and agreed to provide database support. Although groups B and C were not fully enrolled into the actor-network, they did not jeopardize the actor-network’s stabilization. The champion continued EAS development while keeping group B and group C updated periodically. This diplomatic approach was considered crucial in that either of the two groups could negatively affect the development if they perceived power

Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes:

diversion. The champion continued disseminating the EAS project at different meetings, by demonstrating it indeed worked to facilitate the unit’s change process. The aim was to have all related political groups understand the importance of the EAS and its contribution to the university. The university president even asked group C about the status of the EAS.

Process and Operation The actor-network inscribed the EAS into various artifacts including an IS, intern handbooks, training manuals, published papers, and state and federal reports. Changes inscribed in the organizational structure became temporarily irreversible because it would be unthinkable or too costly to do so (Callon, 1991; Law & Callon, 1992). The EAS effectively became the medium for inscribing how the unit would operate. Process changes before and after the stabilization of EAS actor-networks were shown in an actor model. As the unit discovered the potential to achieve better and more with the EAS, the unit changed some processes to take advantage of these new capabilities. The major changes included: •

•

•

The Application for Admission to Teacher Certification Program was implemented by the unit at both the undergraduate and graduate levels to reinforce program entrance criteria and assessments. The EAS and the program-specific content were developed and further refined with the aim of alignment of curriculum, outcomes, and assessments with the conceptual framework and the various national and state standards. Undergraduate and graduate curriculum and advising instruments were revised to align with the five-stage benchmark incorporated in the EAS, and curriculum and

•

•

•

•

•

advising instruments were developed for two new master’s programs. Assessment requirements, administration frequency, and timelines were redefined and implemented across programs. A syllabus template was developed to help coordinate instructions, expectations, and outcomes across programs. Electronic portfolio (EP) assignments were incorporated to facilitate and sustain technology integrated-teaching and learning, and to help demonstrate competencies in meeting the Maryland Teacher Technology Standards. A program-wide Clinical Practice Exit Conference was established to evaluate holistically and collaboratively each candidate’s performance. EP development and assessment became requirements in all intern seminars. EP presentation and review were instituted as part of the clinical practice exit criteria. Unitwide EP assessments were held to evaluate candidate competencies and to collect feedback on portfolio policy and process.

Users complained about changes when the EAS was in its first pilot semester. One candidate commented “…too much fluctuation within the program.” To address this concern, the champion developed a series of customized workshops to familiarize the users with the program changes. With additional actors enrolled in the actornetwork, the EAS was adjusted to accommodate the needs of successive users. The OTE tracked the clinical placement of interns using a spreadsheet program. After joining the actor-network, the OTE’s needs became the interest of the actor-network. The EAS was thus changed to accommodate the needs of the OTE and help the champion use the technology to serve the inscribed interests.

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Professional Issues Four different groups used the EAS: teacher candidates, mentors, advisors, and supervisors. Teaching professionals are independent and enjoy academic freedom. The actor-network could not successfully persuade professionals to use the EAS by just inscribing the usage into the administration requirements. A process model shows the interactions between professionals and the EAS. Inscriptions have to be linked to a larger actornetwork in order to give them sufficient strengths, which determine the actor-network’s stability and domination. Special strategies appropriate to the professional characteristics were employed to enroll the professionals into the actor-network. For example, most of the supervisors were educators with more than 30 years of experience. Most of them were not technology savvy. They speculated that the system was designed only for the administration. First, the champion enrolled two senior faculty members to help present the EAS in various meetings. Second, the champion persuaded program directors to act as delegates in each program to lead the adoption. However, most supervisors printed the forms from the EAS to record the supervising outcomes. This translation result alerted the champion to adopt shorter forms and design a special interface for supervisors, such as Web pages with a larger font size. Some supervisors began using EAS regularly. The stability of the actor-network is only achieved through negotiations between the technology and its social context.

DISCUSSION The openness for change, leadership support, and active management led to the successful initiation of an actor-network. The dominance of one network over another depended on the way in which a network of actors was able to translate and inscribe its ideas into convincing social and

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technical arrangements, and thus impose its desired structure upon other actor-networks. The analysis of translations demonstrated how the political environment shaped technologies, and how it was mutually shaped by technologies. An actor-network should try its best to prevent the power holders from becoming opponents in case they cannot be enrolled in the actor-network. Although the champion initiated the EAS and enrolled the other actors in the network, the champion continued to describe the EAS project as a joint effort involving many actors and as a part of the university IT office’s strategy. It was important that the political groups did not see the EAS project as something that was out of their control. The EAS and the unit shaped each other during EAS development. The unit’s processes were redefined to accommodate changes inscribed by the actor-network. The EAS was also refined to reflect these process changes. Actors enrolled in the actor-network were mobilized to negotiate a temporary stability between the organization’s requirements and the system’s capability. The active involvement of the professionals (faculty, mentors, and supervisors), consistent support from the administration (unit, college, and university), and the culture of accepting change (redesign of teacher education and new accreditation standards) were critical to success. The EAS development evolved as the leadership team and the technology team communicated with each other about the various teacher standards and the functions that would be necessary to support those standards. During this collaborative development, the local practitioners began to share ways that the technology could facilitate the accreditation preparation, while the technology team began to share the content of the process. All actors were contributing to and shaping the actor-networks, which consisted of actions and structures of the unit. The hierarchical decisionmaking process was replaced by decentralized decision making. The unit established a long-term

Web-Based Education Accountability System and Organisational Changes:

assessment system development plan as required by the NCATE. Information practice in the unit was no longer an invisible act. The EAS permeated all social practices and became part of daily life. The analysis showed that the IS and organizational processes were orchestrated to achieve the stability of an actor-network. The actor-network inscribed how the workflow and information should be organized into the IS. The processes inscribed in the IS became business norms, which reinforced the legitimacy of the IS and the actornetwork. The formation of social structure (process and operation) and technical artifact (EAS) were emergent processes. Neither social nor technical aspects wholly determined the trajectory. The ANT analysis showed that users affected the IS development, but also the technology influenced the users’ way of thinking and acting. ANT provided a vocabulary to describe this complex process (Latour, 1991). The uniqueness of the teaching profession played an important role in the shaping of the EAS and its usage. Professionals would only use the system when they considered that the benefits justify the costs. This should be given special attention when developing IS for audiences who cannot be coerced into the actornetwork, as in the educational context.

CONCLUSION This study used ANT to analyze the implementation and consequences of a successful IS implementation in a teacher education program. ANT analysis was applied at four dimensions: organizational culture, power/politics, process/operation, and professional. Translation, inscription, and stabilization of the actor-network were delineated with actor identification, interest translation, and actor-network maintenance. Through translation,

the interests of the champion became the interests of a wider network of actors (education community, technicians, and higher management). Through inscription, discourse about education accountability became “frozen” in the EAS, which helped improve the unit’s decision-making process and operation. The most important lesson learned from this practical problem situation was that the collaborative modeling and system development process contributed significantly to the shaping of social practices in the unit. This study has demonstrated that IS development is not just about technology development; rather it is also about social development. The lesson learned is applicable to other education programs in similar settings. This study demonstrates how the actor-networks formed, evolved, and dominated, noting the role played by IS within a teacher education program. The process of change was examined by viewing change as a series of translations and negotiations that engage both human and non-human actors. Few studies in education have exploited the advantages of ANT to study social consequences of IS, but this research provides valuable insights into the processes of translation and inscription by which actor-networks are developed. The requirements and design of an organizationally integrated IS are never finished or final. The goal is to move an actor-network into an irreversible status, from where it is impossible to go back to a point where alternatives to the IS exist. The ANT analysis leads to identification of potential contending actor-networks, which could be used to adjust translation and inscription strategies to keep the current actor-network in dominance. Future research might examine how to maintain a sustainable actor-network when the actors change dramatically.

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de Raadt, V. D. (2001). Multi-modal systems method: The impact of normative factors on community viability. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 18(2), 171–180. doi:10.1002/sres.410 de Vreede, G. J., van Eijck, D. T. T., & Sol, H. G. (1996). Dynamic modeling for re-engineering organizations. Journal of Information Systems and Operational Research, 34(1), 28–42. Dooley, K. E. (1999). Towards a holistic model for the diffusion of educational technologies: An integrative review of educational innovative studies. Educational Technology & Society, 2(4), 35–45. Doolin, B., & Lowe, A. (2002). To reveal is to critique: Actor-Network Theory and performativity in critical information systems research. Journal of Information Technology, 17(2), 69–78. doi:10.1080/02683960210145986 Drake, S. (2007). Creating standards-based integrated curriculum: Aligning curriculum, content, assessment, and instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Esnault, L., & Zeiliger, R. (2000). Web learning with NESTOR: The building of a new pedagogical process. In A.K. Aggarwal (Ed.), Web-based learning: Opportunities and challenges (pp. 79102). Hershey, PA: Idea Group. Folkman, K., & Berge, Z. L. (2002). Learning from home: Implementing technical infrastructure for distributed learning via home-PC within Telenor. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 26(1), 51–66. doi:10.2190/YR57-4FX3-VYMR32TR Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Grint, K., & Woolgar, S. (1997). The machine at work: Technology, work, and organization. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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Hirschheim, R. A., & Klein, H. K. (1989). Four paradigms of information systems development. Communications of the ACM, 32(10), 1199–1216. doi:10.1145/67933.67937 Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 23(1), 67–93. doi:10.2307/249410 Kling, R. (1987). Defining the boundaries of computing across complex organizations. In R.J. Boland & R. Hirschheim (Eds.), Critical issues in information systems research (pp. 307-362). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Kling, R., Kim, G., & King, A. (2003). A bit more to IT: Scholarly communication forums as socio-technical interaction networks. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(1), 47–67. doi:10.1002/ asi.10154 Larsen, K. R. T. (2003). A taxonomy of antecedents of information systems success: Variable analysis studies. Journal of Management Information Systems, 20(2), 169–246. Latour, B. (1991). Technology is society made durable. In J. Law (Ed.), A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination (pp. 103-131). New York: Routledge. Law, J., & Callon, M. (1988). Engineering and sociology in a military aircraft project: A network analysis of technological change. Social Problems, 35(3), 284–297. doi:10.1525/ sp.1988.35.3.03a00060 Law, J., & Callon, M. (1992). The life and death of an artifact: A network analysis of technical change. In W.E. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change (pp. 21-52). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Robbins, S. P. (1996). Organizational behavior: Concepts, controversies, applications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Scacchi, W. (2004). Socio-technical design. In W.S. Bainbrigde (Ed.), The encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. Berkshire. Steinbruner, J. D. (1974). The cybernetic theory of decision. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wise, A. E. (2001). Performance-based accreditation: Reform in action. Retrieved April 28, 2005, from http://www.ncate.org/documents/ QualityTeaching/qtspring2000.pdf Zhu, Z. (2000). WSR: A systems approach for information systems development. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 17(2), 183–203. doi:10.1002/ (SICI)1099-1743(200003/04)17:2<183::AIDSRES293>3.0.CO;2-B

Wilkerson, J. R., & Lang, W. S. (2007). Assessing teacher competency: Five standards-based steps to valid measurement using the CAATS model. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

This work was previously published in Web-Based Education and Pedagogical Technologies: Solutions for Learning Applications, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 1-16, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.9

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses1 Gwo-Jen Hwang National University of Tainan, Taiwan Hsiang Cheng National Chi Nan University, Taiwan Carol H.C. Chu National Chi Nan University, Taiwan Judy C.R. Tseng Chung-Hua University, Taiwan Gwo-Haur Hwang Ling Tung University, Taiwan

ABSTRACT In the past decades, English learning has received lots of attention all over the world, especially for those who are not native English speakers. Various English learning and testing systems have been developed on the Internet. Nevertheless, most existing English testing systems represent the learning status of a student by assigning that student with a score or grade. This approach makes the student aware of his/her learning status through

the score or grade, but the student might be unable to improve his/her learning status without further guidance. In this paper, an intelligent English tense learning and diagnostic system is proposed, which is able to identify student learning problems on English verb tenses and to provide personalized learning suggestions in accordance with each student’s learning portfolio. Experimental results on hundreds of college students have depicted the superiority of the novel approach.

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

INTRODUCTION The advance of computer and Internet technologies has significantly affected the style of tutoring and learning (Kuo & Chen, 2004). Many educational institutions all over the world have started to develop and deliver Web-based courses on the Internet (McCormick, 2000). English has been the most popular language for the past decades, probably due to its systematical grammatical structure. Even though English has such positive characteristics, learning it has always been substantially difficult for ESL/EFL (English as Second/Foreign Language) students. Additionally, English tenses play an important part in explaining the temporal background of English sentences. Nevertheless, EFL learners in general often omit or misuse them. These errors can significantly alter the intended meanings, especially in higher-level communications. Moreover, EFL learners’ confusion about English tenses seemed to be the most significant reason for their learning obstacles. Experts of language education have recommended that the best way to learn English is to establish a good study environment and practice it through various approaches, thus making it a satisfying learning experience (Wang & Lin, 2004). From this viewpoint, an e-learning environment seems to be a good solution to improve a student’s English learning performance. Most existing e-learning systems for English courses evaluate and represent the learning status of a student with a score or grade, which merely makes the student aware of his/her learning status through the score or grade, but the student might be unable to improve his/her learning status without further guidance. In this article, an intelligent English tense learning and diagnostic system is proposed by employing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, which is able to identify student learning problems on English verb tenses and to provide personalized learning suggestions in accordance with each student’s learning portfo-

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lio. Furthermore, some experimental results are given to demonstrate the benefits of the novel approach.

RELEVANT RESEARCH In recent years, many researchers have attempted to make use of computers to help ESL students in learning English (Chan et al., 2001). Through implementing computer-mediated education, many advocates emphasize its positive aspects and the English learning tutoring systems, which are computer-based, that have been developed by numerous academic research groups (Wang & Lin, 2004). For example, Tsou et al. (2002) applied the ideas from computer-assisted learning (CAL) and language learning to the development of a multimedia Web-based English abstract word learning system. An experiment on thirteen commonly encountered abstract words at the elementary school level has demonstrated the benefit of applying the system. Recently, Yang et al. (2005) proposed a Web-based interactive writing environment designed for elementary school students. The environment includes several writing themes to encourage reading comprehension, creativity and problem-solving skills of students. In addition to the examples mentioned above, there exist innumerably splendid and elaborate works devised by researchers around the world (e.g., Park & Shirai, 1998; Brett & Nash, 1999; Li, 2000; Wintergerst et al., 2003; Itakura, 2004; Ruthven et al., 2004; Coniam & Wong, 2004; McDonald, 2004). Moreover, the issue of applying information technologies to the improvement of English learning efficacy for those who are not native English speakers has attracted researchers from various fields regardless of educational circles, such as linguistics and computer science. Meanwhile, the computer has evolved into a tool that can improve the accuracy, efficiency, interface, and feedback mechanism of online tests (Ho & Yen, 2005). Many researchers have

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

attempted to inject information technology into computer-assisted learning (CAL) for further diagnosis on how well students learn, or where they are having difficulties during the learning process. For instance, Virou et al. (2000) created an intelligent multimedia tutoring system for the passive voice of the English grammar. The main focus of the tutoring system is on the student’s error diagnosis process, which is performed by the student modeling component. In 2001, Virvou & Tsiriga (2001) created the Web PVT (Web Passive Voice Tutor), an adaptive Web-based intelligent computer assisted language learning (ICALL) system that aims at teaching non-native speakers the passive voice of the English language. The system incorporates techniques from intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) and adaptive hypermedia to tailor instruction and feedback to each individual student. Furthermore, it is capable of detecting misuse and performing ambiguity resolution of passive voice based on the long-term student model. One year later, Fox & Bowden (2002) presented GRADES (GRAmmar Diagnostic Expert System), a diagnostic program that detects and explains grammatical mistakes made by non-native English speakers. GRADES performs its diagnostic task, not through parsing, but through the application of classification and pattern matching rules. This makes the diagnostic process more efficient than other grammar checkers. GRADES is envisioned as a tool to help non-native English speakers learn to correct their English mistakes, and it is also a demonstration that grammar checking need not rely on parsing techniques. The study of new methods for diagnosing learning problems has also attracted the attention of researchers from computer and education fields. Hwang (2003) developed a network-based testing and diagnostic system that provides learning suggestions for each student by analyzing answer sheets and the relationships between subject concepts and test items. Furthermore, to assist the teachers in providing the relationships

between subject concepts, some methodologies and tools have been proposed (Tseng et al., 2004; Hwang, 2005).

RESEARCH ARCHTECTURE AND DESIGN In this section, we shall demonstrate our novel approach to diagnosing student learning problems in learning English tenses.

Classification of Tenses in English Grammar In diagnosing student learning problems on English tenses, it is an important issue to classify the associated grammatical concepts (e.g., articles, quantity words, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, verbs, and even sentence patterns) of English by defining its grammatical category. By means of referring to various English grammar bibles, consulting English experts on grammar teaching, and grouping relevant English concepts into grammatical categories, we bring out a systematic categorization of English grammar by proposing fourteen tense-related concepts of English grammar in this study. Table 1 shows the name and the instance of these concepts. In the tense category, four patterns (i.e., simple pattern, progressive pattern, perfect pattern, and perfect progressive pattern) and two adverbs (i.e., time adverb and frequency adverb) that might affect the variation of verbs in a clause are taken into consideration.

Identification of Online Learning Performance with Fuzzy Approach We attempt to identify each learner’s online performance and provide corresponding learning suggestions based on the fuzzy approach. Fuzzy Set theory was proposed in the mid-sixties by

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Table 1. English tense category Category

Tense

Concept

Instance

C1

Present Simple

The earth is round.

C2

Past Simple

I graduated from Harvard last year.

C3

Future Simple

I will be the winner.

C4

Present Progressive

Kent is reading that best-selling biography.

C5

Past Progressive

They were dancing when the teacher came in.

C6

Future Progressive

Two days later, I will be driving a new car.

C7

Present Perfect

I have seen that movie twenty times.

C8

Past Perfect

Jerry had studied a little English when he came to the US

C9

Future Perfect

I will have perfected my English by the time I come back from the US

C10

Present Perfect Progressive

I have been studying English since 1987.

C11

Past Perfect Progressive

He had been driving all day before he went to class.

C12

Future Perfect Progressive

By the time you leave, you will have been living in Rome for six months.

C13

Time Adverbs

The plane landed five minutes early.

C14

Frequency Adverbs

I always brush my teeth before I go to bed.

Zedah (1965), and was extended later to include fuzzy logic (Zedah, 1973), a superset of conventional (Boolean) logic that has been developed to handle the concept of partial truth. Fuzzy sets (or vague sets) generalize the notion of crisp sets (Gau & Buehrer, 1993); that is, an element could be in a set with a membership degree between 0 and 1. The source of fuzziness in “if-then” rules stems from the use of linguistic variables (Zadeh, 1971). Concept understanding degree, for example, may be viewed as a numerical value ranging over the interval [0, 100%], and a linguistic variable that can take on values like “high,” “not very high,” and so on. Each of these linguistic values may be interpreted as a label of a fuzzy subset of the universe of discourse X = [0, 100%], whose base variable, x, is the generic numerical value concept understanding degree. Each linguistic value is defined by a membership function, which helps to take the crisp input values and transform them into degrees of membership (Ngai & Wat, 2003). A membership

1828

function (MF) is a curve that defines how each point in the input space is mapped to a membership value, or degree of membership, between 0 and 1. The function itself can be an arbitrary curve whose shape can be defined as a function that suits the particular problem from the point of view of simplicity, convenience, speed and efficiency (Kalogirou, 2003). In practical application, four standardized MFs are constantly used: Z-type, Λ-type (lambda), Π-type (pi), and S-type, as shown in Figure 1. Fuzzy rules serve to describe the quantitative relationship between variables in linguistic values. These IF-THEN rule statements are used to formulate the conditional statements that comprise fuzzy logic (Kalogirou, 2003). In the following, we shall present the fuzzy approach for identifying online learning performance in detail. •

Definition of the Linguistic Variables

Related linguistic variables and the membership functions to measure the status of learners

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 1. Four standardized membership functions

Z-Type

Pi-Type

Lambda-Type

S-Type

shall be defined in this section, including individual’s relative learning achievement, concentration, and patience. As the system will eventually provide a five-scale remedial learning suggestion, these linguistic variables are designed to have five linguistic values, as shown in Table 2. The linguistic values of the output linguistic variable RLAsc(Si,Cj), for example, are between Grade 1 to Grade 5, where Grade 1 represents the lowest achievement degree and Grade 5 represents the highest achievement degree.

Moreover, in order to know whether the learner was concentrating on the online learning materials, as well as to forbid them from daydreaming, gossiping, browsing irrelevant Web pages, or even playing games, we designed a concentration windows (CWs) mechanism. Learners were asked to make responses to these pop-up windows (click to close) during the learning progress (Hwang, 1998). The system kept track of the time when CWs popped open (CW_ jumpingTime) and were closed (CW_closeTime), as well as whether the CW was valid (CW_valid). Whether a CW is valid is defined as: CW_valid= true if (CW_closeTime - CW_ jumpingTime) ≤ CW_autoCloseTime, where the setting of the parameter CW_autoCloseTime is considered to be one of the functionalities that the role teacher can use. For example, suppose the auto-close time of CWs (CW_autoCloseTime) is set to 8 seconds, the CWs will close themselves automatically after the eighth second if the learner did not respond to it. In contrast, the system will also record valid responses when the learner

Table 2. Linguistic variables and values used in the study Linguistic Variables

Definitions

Linguistic Values

Input LAsc(Si,Cj)

Learner Si’s individual learning achievement toward a certain concept Cj.

Low, Medium, High

ALAc(Cj)

The learning group’s average learning achievement toward a certain concept Cj.

Low, Medium, High

concentration(Si)

Learner Si’s response rating toward the concentration windows during the learning progress.

Grade 1~5

pageBT(Si)

Learner Si’s average browsing time to the learning materials.

Short, Moderate, Long

RLAsc(Si,Cj)

The Si’s relative learning achievement toward a certain concept Cj compared with the learning group.

Grade 1~5

Patience(Si)

Learner Si’s patience rating performed during the learning progress.

Low, Medium, High

Output

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

clicks the close button on the window within the time span. Hence, we are able to know a learner’s concentration degree concentration(Si) through the following mathematic formula: nCW

concentration( Si ) =

∑ cw i =1

i

nCW

,

where cwi is the i-th concentration window (cwi = 1 if cwi ∈ CW ; cwi = 0, otherwise), nCW is the total number of concentration windows that popped up during the learner’s learning progress, and CW represents the set of concentration windows to which the learners responded validly. In spite of concentration, patience was also adopted to measure the learner’s ability to continuously engage in the learning progress, which could be calculated by comparing the learner’s individual and learning group’s average browsing time on learning materials. We have

Total time the learner Si spent on browsing the materials Total number of learning materials that learner Si browsed

and nStu

∑ pageBT (S ) i =1

i

nStu

,

where nStu is the total number of learners who participated in the study. Consequently, by mapping the rules, the grade of patience can be met and the appropriate learning suggestion will be provided to the learner. • Definition of the Membership Functions In this study, we assume that the input and output fuzzy numbers are in triangular forms and these forms approximate human thought

1830

Lear ning Achievement: LAsc(S i ,C j) and (1) ALAc(Cj) Generally, most examinations are assessed using a cut-off point of 60 percent to judge whether a learner passed or failed. This rule of thumb is also adopted in our study. We use 60 points as the minimum criterion for determining whether a learner/learning group understands enough of the concept. Hence, the membership function of learner Si’s learning achievement degree toward the concept Cj is defined as follow: ;Linguistic Term is Low  Z ( x;0.4,0.6)  Tri ( x;0.4,0.6,0.8) ;Linguistic Term is Medium  S ( x;0.6,0.8) ;Linguistic Term is High 

The graphical representation of membership functions is shown in Figure 2.

pageBT(Si) =

pageABT =

processes. That is, three membership functions: Z-type, Lambda-type (triangular), and S-type are used. Related membership functions of input and output linguistic variables are defined as follows:

Online lear ning behavior: R LAsc(S i ,C j), (2) concentration(Si) and patience(Si) For the learner’s relative learning achievement degree, valid response ratio toward CWs (concentration) and the patience manifested during the process of material learning, we split them into five grades: Grade 1~5 (Grade 1 represents the worst performance; Grade 5 represents the best performance). Based on these grades, the system renders the learner with the individualized learning suggestions. The Membership Functions are as follows:  Z ( x;0,1/ 6, 2 / 6) Tri ( x;1/ 6, 2 / 6,3/ 6)  Tri ( x;2 / 6,3/ 6, 4 / 6) Tri ( x;3/ 6, 4 / 6,5 / 6)   S ( x;4 / 6,5 / 6,6 / 6)

;Linguistic Term is Grade 1 ;Linguistic Term is Grade 2 ;Linguistic Term is Grade 3 ;Linguistic Term is Grade 4 ;Linguistic Term is Grade 5

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 2. Membership functions to model learning achievements

Page browsing time: pageBT(Si)

(3)

This variable represents the average Web page browsing time of student Si in comparison with the average time of all of the students. The range of pageBT(Si) is limited between 0~2×pageABT, where pageABT is the total average time the whole learning group spent on the learning materials. The membership functions are defined as follow: ;Linguistic Term is Short  Z ( x; pageABT / 2, pageABT )  Tri ( x; pageABT / 2, pageABT ,3 pageABT / 2) ;Linguistic Term is Moderate  S ( x; pageABT ,3 pageABT / 2) ;Linguistic Term is Long 

• Definition of the Fuzzy Rules Fuzzy reasoning model plays an important role in our system for diagnosing learning performance. For learners, it provides indispensable assisted information. Thus, the establishment of fuzzy rules is critical to analysis and concerns the correctness of inference results. There are twenty-four rules defined in our study, as shown in the following: R 1: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= Low AND ALAc(Cj)= Low THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 3 R 2: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= Low AND ALAc(Cj)= Medium THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 2

R 3: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= Low AND ALAc(Cj)= High THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 1 R 4: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= Medium AND ALAc(Cj)= Low THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 4  R5: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= Medium AND ALAc(Cj)= Medium THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 3 R 6: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= Medium AND ALAc(Cj)= High THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 2  R7: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= High AND ALAc(Cj)= Low THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 5  R8: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= High AND ALAc(Cj)= Medium THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 4 R 9: IF LAsc(Si,Cj)= High AND ALAc(Cj)= High THEN RLAsc(Si,Cj)= Grade 3 R 10: IF concentration(S i)= Grade 1 AND pageBT(Si)= Short THEN patience(Si)= Grade 1 R 11: IF concentration(S i)= Grade 1 AND pageBT(Si)= Moderate THEN patience(Si)= Grade 2 R 12: IF concentration(S i)= Grade 1 AND pageBT(Si)= Long THEN patience(Si)= Grade 3

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 3. Architecture of an expert system

R 13: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Short THEN patience(Si)= Grade 1 R 14: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Moderate THEN patience(Si)= Grade 2 R 15: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Long THEN patience(Si)= Grade 4 R 16: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Short THEN patience(Si)= Grade 1 R 17: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Moderate THEN patience(Si)= Grade 3 R 18: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Long THEN patience(Si)= Grade 4 R 19: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Short THEN patience(Si)= Grade 2 R 20: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Moderate THEN patience(Si)= Grade 3 R 21: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Long THEN patience(Si)= Grade 5 R 22: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Short THEN patience(Si)= Grade 2 R 23: IF concentration(S i)= pageBT(Si)= Moderate

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Grade 2 AND Grade 2 AND Grade 2 AND Grade 3 AND Grade 3 AND Grade 3 AND Grade 4 AND Grade 4 AND Grade 4 AND Grade 5 AND Grade 5 AND

THEN patience(Si)= Grade 3 R 24: IF concentration(S i)= Grade 5 AND pageBT(Si)= Long THEN patience(Si)= Grade 5 For example, R 2 is concerned and mainly expresses that the learner’s individual concept achievement degree is low and the learning group is medium. Consequently, we would consider the relative concept achievement degree of this learner to be Grade 2, and provide the equivalent learning suggestion to him. Moreover, from R10 to R24, there are fifteen fuzzy rules defined for enumerating distinct patience grades based on linguistic variables concentration(Si) and pageBT(Si).

IMPLEMENTATION OF A FUZZY EXPERT SYSTEM FOR ENGLISH TENSE DIAGNOSIS ET-DES (English Tense Diagnosis Expert System), a Web-based diagnosis expert system focusing on the verb tenses of English, was built to evaluate EFL students’ learning performance and to render personalized learning suggestions. An expert system is a computer program in which the knowledge of an expert on a specific subject can be incorporated in order to solve problems or give advice (Jackson, 1990). It usually consists of a knowledge base (KB), an inference mechanism, an explanation component, and a user interface (Nebendahi, 1987). Figure 3 shows the basic

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 4. Architecture of ET-DES Setting system parameters Setting quiz parameters System Administrator

Internet Networking Interface

Learners

Browsing tense materials

DBMS (SQL Server)

Receiving on- line testing

System Parameter Database

Browsing the testing results Inspecting personal learning portfolio Inspecting fuzzy analysis results and Individualized learning suggestions

Setting the relations between concepts and test items Inspecting the relations between concepts and test items

Teachers

Tense Materials

Inspecting learners learning performances Setting the learning suggestions

architecture of a fuzzy expert system. Individual components are illustrated as follows. Expert system shell packages give users the opportunity to develop an expert system-based decision aid that is geared toward their specific needs while assisting users who do not possess technical expertise in computers. In our study, we adopt DRAMA to serve the core of fuzzy reasoning. DRAMA is an expert system shell developed by CoreTec Corp.

System Architecture and Functionality ET-DES accommodates three roles: learners, teachers, and system administrator. The users of different roles logs into the system via the same user interface. ET-DES will identify the user privilege and guide the user to different main pages based on their IDs. Figure 4 depicts the architecture of ET-DES, where KB of LSA represents

Learning Portfolio XML

Fuzzy Interface

User Database Test item Database

Inference Engine KB of LSA

KB of LOD

DRAMA Expert System

Knowledge Base of Learning Statue Assessment, while KB of LOD stands for Knowledge Base of Learning Obstacle Diagnosis. From the perspective of technique, ET-DES is developed on a 3-tier architecture: in the clienttier, the users access the system through Internet browsers (e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer); in middle-tier, Tomcat 4.0.4 is used as the Web server, in coordination with J2SDK1.4., and JSP (Java Server Pages) is used to write programs of various functions, such as parameter transmissions among Web pages, data computations, database accessing, learning portfolio recording, and DRAMA expert system invocating. On the usertier, the client language JavaScript is employed to check user’s input, preventing any possible error from happening. Moreover, SQL Server 2000 is employed to maintain the databases, including the item bank, user’s individual information, the relationships between concepts and test items, and so on.

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 5. Learner interface for system operation instruction

User Interface Design

Receiving Online Testing

A registered learner logging into the system is first shown a system operation instruction describing the characteristics of the system and its functions (see Figure 5). The following sub-sections demonstrate the functions of the interfaces for learners in accordance with the operational sequences.

This part of the system provides learners the opportunity of self-evaluation. The test is designed in the form of multiple-choice questions with four answer choices and all concepts included in the test alternatives are limited to the tenses of English grammar. Figure 8 shows the user interface for conducting a test.

Browsing Tense Materials As shown in Figure 6, the screen is divided into two: concept material selection buttons are on the left; the content of the materials is shown on the right. By clicking on these buttons, learners can select any specific tense material to browse. To detect if the learner paid attention to the subject materials, the system pops up some concentration window (as shown in Figure 7) and asks the learner for a response. If the learner does not respond to the concentration window within the predefined period of time, the windows will automatically close.

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Browsing the Testing Results Via the user interface depicted in Figure 9, learners can browse the list of relevant concepts, the correct answer, and his/her own answer for each test item. Moreover, there are two “supplements” given to the learner, providing the learner the opportunity of improving his/her learning performance. One is the magnifying glass icon, which can display, the original question accompanied with the four possible answers, another is the question mark icon, which provides detailed explanation to every test item.

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 6. Learner interface for learning the tense materials

Figure 7. Concentration window

Figure 8. Learner interface for taking the tense testing

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 9. Learner interface for inspecting the testing result

Figure 10. Learning portfolio of individual student

Browsing Personal Learning Portfolio Figure 10 shows the user interface for presenting a learner’s learning portfolio. The presented information includes the Web pages that have been visited, the time the leaner entered and exited those Web pages, the concepts learned, and so forth.

1836

Browsing Analysis Results and Individualized Learning Suggestions After comparing a learner’s individual learning performance with that of the learning group by invoking the DRAMA expert system, ET-DES presents the diagnosis results, which are displayed in a horizontal bar chart, together with the percentage value (see Figures 11-15).

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 11. Average learning performance of the group

Figure 12. Personal learning records

The information contained in the learning diagnosis results are depicted as follows: •

The average learning achievements of all participants: such as average score, browsing time, concentration window response time, concept understanding degree, and so forth, are shown in Figure 11.

•

•

The online behaviors of learners: such as a student’s score for the testing, total staying time, response time, learning achievement of each tense concept, and so on, all are provided on the Web page as shown in Figure 12. The summarized information on learning achievements: (as shown in Figure 13) is used to compare and highlight the learning

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 13. Comparison of the student’s individual and the learning group’s learning achievement

Figure 14. The student’s learning achievement degrees and the corresponding learning suggestions

•

•

1838

achievement of the individual and the group for every concept to be learned. Personal information on learning achievements: (as shown in Figure 14) reveals the learning levels of fourteen English tense concepts and the corresponding learning suggestions. Evaluation of the learner’s online behavior: includes patience and the comprehensive learning suggestions (as shown in Figure 15). The summarized learning suggestion

consists of two parts: first, it provides a clear learning guidance for the learner (a list of the concepts the learner needs to improve and a brief conclusion of the learner’s understanding degree), informing the learner of his/her strengths and deficiencies; second, it draws an integrated comment of the learner’s level of concentration and patience. These suggestions are followed by concrete suggestions for advancement.

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 15. Learning suggestions based on the student’s individual learning performances

EXPERIMENT AND ANALYSIS To evaluate the performance of ET-DES, an experiment was conducted at National Chi Nan University in March 2005. Two hundred and fifty-seven undergraduate students participated in the experiment. Initially, the system developer gave the participants a brief orientation about the purpose of the experiment and the operations of the system. The participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire after using the system. This questionnaire was composed of four facets: the system, the learning material, the test items of the quiz, and the diagnosis result. The choice of each question is based on a scale of 1 to 5. Table 3 shows the statistical results. Table 4 shows that the participants have a positive attitude toward the facet of SYSTEM (Mean = 3.704), indicating that the functionality, interface, difficulty of operation, and operation flow smoothness have been well accepted by the participants (S.D.=0.1867). When considering the facet of MATERIAL (Mean = 3.4662), based on the statistical results

of “Material is easy to understand” (Mean = 3.3139) as well as “Material typesetting is good” (Mean = 3.6233), we conclude that there is room to improve the quality and content of learning materials in our system. For the question “The test items can gauge your understanding degree for tenses?,” the mean value is 3.5874, reflecting a positive agreement. That is, the students tend to believe that the system is helpful in improving their learning performance. For the facet of DIAGNOSIS RESULT, approximately seventy percent of the students agree or strongly agree that the provided diagnostic information (grades and corresponding learning suggestions) of “Learning Achievement of Concepts” is helpful for their learning, as shown in Figure 16. Additionally, other provided information about the diagnosis results such as concentration, patience, and comprehensive learning suggestions are also well accepted by the participants with a high rate of acceptance, as shown in Figure 17. Consequently, the question “If possible, are you willing to take other relevant system assis-

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Table 3. Statistics of questions of four facets Options Issues

Satisfaction (4+5)

1

2

3

4

5

Mean

S.D.

1. System Function Grading (1=VP, 2=P, 3=N, 4=G, 5=VG) a

5 (2.2%)

4 (1.8%)

69 (30.9%)

124 (55.6%)

21* (9.4%**)

3.6816

.7605

145(65%)

2. System Interface Grading (1=VP, 2=P, 3=N, 4=G, 5=VG) a

4 (1.8%)

8 (3.6%)

49 (22%)

130 (58.3%)

32 (14.4%)

3.7982

.794

162(72.7%)

3. System Operation Difficulty Grading (1=VD, 2=D, 3=N, 4=E, 5=VE) b

6 (2.7%)

5 (2.2%)

39 (17.5%)

132 (59.2%)

41 (18.4%)

3.8834

.8246

173(77.6%)

4. System Operation Flow Smoothness Grading (1=VP, 2=P, 3=N, 4=G, 5=VG) a

14 (6.3%)

34 (15.3%)

41 (18.4%)

105 (47.1%)

29 (13%)

3.4529

1.0931

134(60.1%)

1. Material is easy to understand? (1=SD, 2=D, 3=N, 4=A, 5=SA) c

5 (2.2%)

40 (18%)

75 (33.6%)

86 (38.6%)

17 (7.6%)

3.3139

.931

103(46.2%)

2. Material typesetting is good? (1=SD, 2=D, 3=N, 4=A, 5=SA) c

3 (1.4%)

8 (3.6%)

80 (35.9%)

111 (49.8%)

21 (9.42%)

3.6233

.7617

132(59.22%)

1. Test items of the testing are easy? (1:SD, 2:D, 3:N, 4:A, 5:SA) c

26 (11.7%)

86 (38.6%)

77 (34.5%)

24 (10.8%)

10 (4.5%)

2.5785

.9827

34(15.3%)

2. The test items can gauge your understanding degree for tenses? (1:SD, 2:D, 3:N, 4:A, 5:SA) c

6 (2.7%)

18 (8.1%)

58 (26%)

121 (54.3%)

20 (9%)

3.5874

.8648

141(63.3%)

1. Learning Achievement of Concepts (1:SD, 2:D, 3:N, 4:A, 5:SA) c

4 (1.8%)

13 (5.8%)

57 (25.6%)

122 (54.7%)

27 (12.1%)

3.6951

.8255

149(66.8%)

2. Concentration Degree (1:SD, 2:D, 3:N, 4:A, 5:SA) c

8 (3.6%)

27 (12.1%)

65 (29.2%)

78 (35%)

45 (20.2%)

3.5605

1.0547

123(55.2%)

3. Patience Degree (1:SD, 2:D, 3:N, 4:A, 5:SA) c

6 (2.7%)

21 (9.4%)

66 (29.6%)

95 (42.6%)

35 (15.7%)

3.5919

.9536

130(58.3%)

4. Comprehensive Learning Suggestions (1:SD, 2:D, 3:N, 4:A, 5:SA) c

4 (1.8%)

4 (1.8%)

41 (18.4%)

135 (60.5%)

39 (17.5%)

3.9013

.7647

174(78%)

Facet 1 - SYSTEM

Facet 2 – MATERIAL

Facet 3 - QUIZ

Facet 4 – DIAGNOSIS RESULT

Frequency* (Percentage**) a

VP:Very Poor, P:Poor, N:Neutral, G:Good, VG:Very Good

b

VD:Very Difficult, D:Difficult, N:Neutral, E:Easy, VE:Very Easy

SD:Strongly Disagree, D:Disagree, N:Neutral, A:Agree, SA:Strongly Agree

c

Table 4. Statistics of each facet Facets

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Options 1

2

3

4

5

Mean

S.D.

Min

Max

Satisfaction(4+5)

SYSTEM

29 (3.3%)

51 (5.7%)

198 (22.2%)

491 (55%)

123* (13.8%**)

3.704

0.1867

0.7605

1.0931

614 (68.83%)

MATERIALS

8 (1.8%)

48 (10.8%)

155 (34.8%)

197 (44.2%)

38 (8.5%)

3.4662

0.2198

0.7617

0.931

235 (52.69%)

QUIZ

32 (7.2%)

104 (23.3%)

135 (30.3%)

145 (32.5%)

30 (6.7%)

3.083

0.7134

0.8648

0.9827

175 (39.24%)

DIAGNOSIS RESULT

22 (2.5%)

65 (7.3%)

229 (25.7%)

430 (48.2%)

146 (16.4%)

3.6872

0.1539

0.7647

1.0547

576 (64.57%)

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Figure 16. Statistical result for the helpfulness of “Learning Achievement of Concepts” How do you think the provided information "Learning Achievement of Concepts" is helpful for your learning? 54.71%

60% 45%

25.56%

30% 15% 0%

1.79%

12.11%

5.83%

Strongly Disagree Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

Figure 17. Graphical representation of efficacy of diagnosis results 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

Learning Achievement of Concepts Concentration Degree PatienceDegree Comprehensive Learning Suggestions

tances in the future?” has a high mean of 3.6061 and a standard deviation of 0.7344; therefore, we conclude the system has been well approved by the experiment participants.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORkS In this article, we designed and implemented a Web-based English Tense Diagnosis Expert System named ET-DES, which is capable of finding out the tense-related concepts that the learners failed to learn and rendering personal-

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Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

ized learning suggestions by invoking a fuzzy approach. To sum up, with the assistance of the system we proposed, EFL students have better opportunities to enhance their learning efficiency of English tenses by aiming at those concepts that were diagnosed to be deficient. Currently, we are planning to conduct a long-term experiment on college English courses by applying ET-DES. The learning portfolios of the students will be analyzed at the end of each semester to find out the efficacy of our novel approach; moreover, the performance of the system can also be improved based on the experimental results and the suggestions from the learners.

Kuo, R.J., & Chen, J.A. (2004). A decision support system for order selection in electronic commerce based on fuzzy neural network supported by real-coded genetic algorithm. Expert Systems with Applications, 26, 141–154.

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Li, Y. (2000). Linguistic characteristics of ESL writing in task-based e-mail activities. System, 28, 229-245. McCormick, J. (2000, April 24). The new school. Newsweek, pp. 60-62. Park, P., & Shirai, K. (1998). Distance education systems for English learning on the Internet. Arizona: Frontiers in Education Conference, 4, 78-93.

Tsou, W., Wang W., & Li, H.Y. (2002). How computers facilitate English foreign language learners acquire English abstract words. Computers & Education, 39, 415-428. Ruthven, K., Hennessy, S., & Brindley, S. (2004). Teacher representations of the successful use of computer based tools and resources in secondaryschool English, mathematics and science. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 259-275. McDonald, D.S. (2004). The influence of multimedia training on users’ attitudes: Lessons learned. Computers & Education, 42, 195-214. Wang, Y.H., & Lin, C.H. (2004). A multimedia database supports English distance learning. Information Sciences, 158, 189-208. Wintergerst, C.A., DeCapua, A., & Verna, M.A. (2003). Conceptualizing learning style modalities for ESL/EFL students. System, 31(1) 85-106.

Development of a Web-Based System for Diagnosing Student Learning Problems on English Tenses

Yang, J.C., Ko, H.W., & Chung, I.L. (2005). Webbased interactive writing environment: Development and evaluation. Educational Technology & Society, 8(2), 214-229.

ENDNOTE 1

This study is supported in part by the National Science Council of the Republic of China under contract numbers NSC-942524-S-024-001 and NSC 94-2524-S-024 -003.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 5, Issue 4, edited by S. Chang; T. Shih, pp. 80-98, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.10

Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment Tin-Yu Wu I-Shou University, Taiwan Han-Chieh Chao National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

This article develops an environment for mobile e-learning that includes an interactive course, virtual online labs, an interactive online test, and lab-exercise training platform on the fourth generation mobile communication system. The Next Generation Learning Environment (NeGL) promotes the term “knowledge economy.” Internetworking has become one of the most popular technologies in mobile e-learning for the next generation communication environment. This system uses a variety of computer embedded devices to ubiquitously access multimedia information, such as smart phones and PDAs. The most important feature is greater available bandwidth. The learning mode in the future will be an international, immediate, virtual, and interactive classroom that enables learners to learn and interact.

The development of new approaches and technologies to support distance learning are undergoing now. In particular Web-based and mobile asynchronous learning environments and virtual classrooms via the Internet have been adopted widely. Static information as an instructional delivery method is the current trend in e-learning. Learners using these kinds of conventional learning methods are only able to browse through the mass static information. This is passive learning by reading online. In the last decade, technologies enabling elearning have increased learning location flexibility. Wireless communication technologies further increase the options for learning location. Advances in wireless communication technologies have provided the opportunity for educators

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

to create new educational models. With the aid of wireless communication technology, educational practice can be embedded into mobile life without wired-based communication. With the trend in educational media becoming more mobile, portable, and individualized, the learning form is being modified in spectacular ways (Gang & Zongkai, 2005). In the third generation cellular system (3G) environment (such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, UMTS), the data rate reaches 2Mbps while the user is standing and 384Kbps while the user is moving slowly. Multimedia streaming, video conferencing, and online interactive 3D games are expected to attract increasing numbers of users. Such bandwidth is not sufficient for these increasingly popular applications and would be the major challenge for wireless networks. The 3G bandwidth has great problems with interactive teaching (Bos & Leroy, 2001). In the future, wireless network traffic is expected to be a mix of real-time traffic such as voice, music, multimedia teleconferencing, online games, and data traffic such as Web page browsing, instant messaging, and file transfers. All of these applications will require widely varying and very diverse quality of service (QoS) guarantees for the different types of offered traffic (Dixit, 2001). For these reasons, a fourth generation improved mobile communication system is necessary. The 4G system can support more bandwidth than other systems. It has advantages like authentication, mobile management, and quality of service (QoS). How to implement future distance learning environments for the fourth generation mobile communication system is the question. In this article, we distinguish four kinds of interactive courses, virtual online labs, interactive online tests, and lab-exercises training platform to deliver over the fourth generation mobile communication system. The fourth generation mobile communication system can use a variety of computer embedded devices to ubiquitously access multimedia infor-

mation, such as smart phones and PDAs. Most important is that have more bandwidth. Hence, it supply ubiquitous learning environment (Girish & Dennett, 2000). These new functions can improve the latency and location limits during transmission. Our proposed Next Generation Learning Environment offers learners the opportunities to use all kinds of mobile nodes that can connect to an Internet learning equipment system for access using All-IP communication networks. The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is used to compose information. Hence, as you can imagine, the condition of the learning mode in the future will be an international, immediate, and virtual interactive classroom that enables learners to learn and interact. The article is organized as follows. We first describe the environments for mobile learning, followed by the virtual online classroom. The 4G testbed system design analyses are dealt with, and then the mobile e-learning results are discussed. The last section concludes the article.

ENVIRONMENTS FOR MOBILE LEARNING Several investigations have focused on how to support great service for mobile e-learning. How many services will be able to fill the bill? In this session, we are introducing that mobile e-learning environment possesses many unique characteristics as follows (Tony, Sharples, Giasemi, & Lonsdale, 2004). • • • • • •

Better adaptation to individual needs Ubiquitous and responds to urgent learning need Flexibility of location and time to learn Interactive knowledge acquisition Efficiency due both to re-use and feedback Situational instructional activities

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•

Integrated instructional context (Chao, Wu, & Kao, 2004)

Figure 1. The virtual classroom on 4G system

The mobile e-learning system includes interactive courses, virtual online labs, interactive online tests, and lab-exercises training platform on the fourth generation mobile communication system. As shown in Figure 1 the following sessions will present each part: •

•

•

•

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Interactive course system: In learning history learners could experience interactive learning only in the classroom. The e-learning systems support only a single way for learning. These ways cannot support learning anytime and anywhere. We therefore developed an interactive course system to do that. Learners can choose which chapter they want to learn in this system. This learning method is not limited by the environment. Virtual online labs system: Generally speaking, experiments must be conducted in a laboratory. Learners are thereby limited to a specific learning area. To solve this problem special equipment is required. How can this problem be overcome? We simulated an experiment on laboratory all the time by Flash program. This virtual online lab platform supports step-by-step experimentation. Learners are therefore not restricted in the laboratory. Interactive online test system: An online interactive testing system is used to examine the teaching effect on students. The instructors can know how many learners were impacted via the testing system. Learners can obtain the learning effect on themselves. Lab-exercises training platform: The learners have more items for experimentation. NetSmooth Inc. developed a complete solution called NetGuru platform to tackle this issue. The learners can access the lab-

exercises training platform via pre-arranged authorization. A communication system is required to transfer the learning data. The most common communication platform used by students is the third generation cellular system. The data rate reaches 2Mbps while the user is standing and 384Kbps while the user is moving slowly. This kind of system does not have enough bandwidth and no All-IP core network. Therefore, we developed a 4G testbed system that can support high transfer bandwidth.

VIRTUAL ONLINE CLASSROOM Today there is much work going on in the field of virtual online classrooms around the world. The Web-based virtual classroom via the Internet as an instructional delivery method is a popular trend. Traditional learning methods only allowed the student to browse through mass static information. This is passive learning. In this session, we will introduce an interactive virtual classroom that includes the interactive course, virtual online labs, an interactive online test, and a lab-exercise training platform. For more information, see the

Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 2. The interactive virtual online classroom Web site

virtual online classroom interactive Web site: http://6book.niu.edu.tw/ (6BOOK).

Setting up the Interactive Learning Course Web Site Platform The Internet has uni-location and unlimited time features. Early online teaching materials included video lessons captured by DV, e-books, poster messages, and so on. These materials were used via the Internet. However, these approaches are single direction learning. These approaches are not good approaches for learning. These ways cannot attain learning anytime and anywhere. Therefore, we developed the interactive course system to do that (see Figure 3). The learners can choose which chapter they want to learn in this system. It can repeat whatever the learners want. The course collocates the interactive online test with interactive capability. The learners can

learn anytime and anywhere unlimited by the environment. Learners can select the chapters that they want to learn or review rapidly. They can study the chapters in order or preview or review any chapters, in any order. They can save all of their previous study processes. During learning, the system supports sliders with hints and oral explanations. Learners can control their learning speed and repeat it at will. Learners can see clearly just like taking the classes live (see Figure 4).

Setting up Virtual Online Lab Exercises Generally, learner lab exercises must be conducted in a laboratory. They cannot perform experiments without a laboratory. This reduces a lot of opportunity to learn. Therefore, we used FLASH to produce a series of online lab exercises, explaining the lab exercises from the beginning and perform-

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Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 3. Interactive learning course Web site platform

Figure 4. The teaching slides with voice on the platform

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Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 5. The virtual online lab exercises

ing the exercises with detailed background voice and subtitles. There are explanations in great detail for each exercise. These explanations include the experiment goals, steps, and approaches that can help learners understand the background. Most important, the learners can control the speed at which the lab-exercises proceed by themselves. Relying on online lab exercises, learners can perform lab exercises an unlimited number of times. They can perform experiments anytime from anywhere. The instructors do not have to spent time to prepare lab exercises or setup equipment. If learners have any questions about the exercises, they can use hyperlink to text to the Web site for answers. This teaching platform covers both theory and lab exercises interactively.

Setting up On-Line Exercises The Virtual online lab exercises and interactive learning Web site platform help learners study efficiently. This system is able to identify the learning effect. We developed online interactive exercises for each chapter. These exercises identify the comprehension of each learner for the instructor that uses these teaching materials. The system tutors learners that do not exhibit complete lesson understanding. Learners can also know clearly what areas should be enhanced and the content of each chapter by practicing the exercises.

Lab-Exercises Training Platform The lab-exercises training platform is set-up using the NetSmooth Inc. test platform. This platform supports another solution with lab exercises for

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Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 6. The online interactive exercises platform

learners. The proposed NetGuru platform helps instructors to conduct network courses easily with Web-based tutorial courseware. It also assists students to strengthen the concepts of network with hands-on lab experiences (Chiang, Liang, Wu, & Chao, 2005). The pragmatic lab exercises for the IPv6 training platform use a small-sized personal computer. There are some characters as follows (shown in Figure 7): • • • • •

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All necessary lab hardware equipment is bundled together. No PC is required. Large-scale training labs are supported with multiple Netguru sets. The default setting is easily restored to initiate another lab work. Built-in 3 hosts and 3 hubs. (Each host has 3 NICs) Each set of NetGuru supports 3 groups to do Lab work.

•

Simply connect monitor, mouse and keyboard with NetGuru to start Lab work instantly.

NetGuru integrates hardware, lab software, and training media into one complementary training set. We equipped the system with common use software to easily implement network services, such as routing, DNS, VPN, DHCP, NAT, Firewall, and so on. With build-in Ethereal tools for packet analyzing, learners will reinforce their conception about the packet structure. Based on the online commands, the environment will restore and default setting to initiate another lab work easily. In past days, while establishing a network environment, we not only needed computers, but also the heavy and complicated equipment configuration. With NetGuru, the TCP/IP lab environment can be easily set-up requiring no PC. We scaled down the size, and the small footprint allows easy relocation. Thus, we can set-up the TCP/IP lab environment anytime and anywhere. As we mentioned before, with multiple sets of NetGuru,

Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 7. NetGuru platform framework interface

large-scale training labs can easily be supported. NetGuru also supports extended network devices. Instructors can design other advanced lab work for use with this system.

4G Testbed System Design Analyses We propose a fourth generation mobile communication testbed system. The system can support greater bandwidth than other systems. It has advantages like authentication, mobile management, and quality of service (QoS). This session will introduce our fourth generation communication testbed system. We followed the specification defined in 3GPP to design our system. This system is composed of two main components: RAN (Radio Access Network) and Core-Network. RAN includes RNC and Node B. The Core-Network then includes SGSN (Serving GPRS Support Node), GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node), and HSS (Home Subscriber Server), as shown in Figure 8. At RAN, Node B works like the access point of wireless network, providing the ability for UE (User Equipment) to connect to the core network through radio interface, each RNC can work with

single or multiple Node B to form a RNA. RAN is then constituted by these RNS. At the core network, SGSN is responsible for tasks such as connecting to the core network with single or multiple RAN, access control, location management, routing management etc. GGSN is an interface responsible of connecting core network and outer network, also routing traveling packets. It is also responsible for mobility management (Uskela, 2001). HSS is a data center responsible for recording the operations of the entire network. HLR is its main component. Its function is to store the user’s identity, location, and registered services that are allowed to the user. Since the radio frequency used by a 3GPP cell phone is a licensed band, a legal license must be acquired. Therefore we used 802.11g which belongs to the ISM band instead. Through broadcasting UDP packets to simulate the radio network, and because the protocol stack of the simulation program is executed in UE according to the 3GPP standard, all generated packets are identical to packets generated by an actual 3GPP cell phone. UE enables us to acquire the flow chart of packets generated through the data exchange

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Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 8. The cross-layer coordination plane

process between UE and the network. Figure 9 shows the entire system (3GPP, 3GPP TS 23.228, 3GPP TS 23.234).

Measurement Results with Mobile e-Learning Wireless networks and mobile systems will continue to have explosive growth in the future. The traffic is expected to be a mix of real-time traffic such as voice, music and multimedia, and data traffic such as Web page browsing, instant messaging, and file transfers. All of these applications will require widely varying and very diverse quality of service (QoS) guarantees for the different types of offered traffic. Therefore, the mobile e-learning environment will be replacing traditional e-learning. We proposed a fourth generation mobile communication testbed system with advantages such as high transmission rate, robust wireless QoS control, wide cover area and

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supply IMS technology. Next generation communication technology can supply a variety of portable devices to ubiquitously access multimedia information, such as smart phones and PDAs. All Learners can use portable devices to log-on to the virtual classroom. Figure 10 shows a portable device surfing the virtual classroom via 4G. In this session, we measure the mobile eLearning system results via 4th generation core network. The scenarios are the UEs ability to connect to WLAN. Two scenarios are used for this measurement. The first scenario is that the UE connects to the core network through WLAN. We measure the end-to-end delay of voice packet delivery. We captured the packets using the Wireshark protocol analyzer. We installed the protocol analyzer at the end of the core network client to capture the packet and decode the voice stream. End-to-end delay refers to the time cost used for a packet to be transported across a network

Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

Figure 9. The fourth generation mobile communication testbed system

Figure 10. To learn in virtual classroom via PDA

from the source to destination. For voice packet transmission, we calculate the end-to-end delay according to RFC 3550. Figure 11 shows the end-to-end delay for voice packet delivery in WLAN.

The second scenario is that the UE connects to core network through WLAN. We measure the throughput of video packet delivery. These results show the transported bandwidth in the 4G testbed system, as shown in Figure 12.

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Figure 11. End-to-end delay

Figure 12. End-to-end bandwidth

CONCLUSION The explosive development of the Internet and wireless communications has made personal communication more convenient. Mobile computing uses the Next Generation Learning Environment (NeGL) to set up learning systems. We proposed a mobile e-learning system that includes interactive courses, virtual online labs, interactive online

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testing, and a lab exercise training platform via the fourth generation mobile communication system. It offers learners opportunities to use all kinds of mobile nodes or anything that can connect to an Internet learning equipment system to be accessed using All-IP communication networks. In order for Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) to compose information, the 4G can use a variety of computer embedded devices

Mobile e-Learning for Next Generation Communication Environment

to ubiquitously access multimedia information, such as smart phones and PDA. Most important is that more bandwidth is available. As you can imagine, the condition of the learning mode in the future will be an international, immediate and virtual interactive classroom that enables learners to learn and interact.

REFERENCES 3GPP. Third Generation Partnership Project,

http://www.3gpp.org

3GPP TS 23.228 V6.10.0 (2005-06). IP multimedia subsystem 3GPP TS 23.234 V6.5.0 (2005-06). 3GPP system to Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) interworking 6BOOK: http://6book.niu.edu.tw Bos, L., & Leroy, S. (2001). Toward an all-IPbased UMTS system architecture. IEEE Network, 15(1), 36-45. Chao, H.-C., Wu, T.-Y., & Kao, T. C.M. (2005). Environments for mobile learning: Pervasive and ubiquitous computing using IPv6. Chapter of Encyclopedia of Online Learning and Technology, Information Science.

Chiang, F.-Y., Liang, M.-H., Wu, T. Y., & Chao, H.-C. (2005). Pragmatic lab exercises for IPv6 training. Proceedings of iCEER-2005, Tainan, Taiwan, March 1-5. Dixit, S.S. (2001). Evolving to seamless all-IP wireless/mobile networks. IEEE Communications Magazine, 39(12), 31-32. Gang, Z. & Zongkai, Y. (2005). Learning resource adaptation and delivery framework for mobile learning. Proceedings of Frontiers in Education, 2005 (FIE ‘05). Girish, P. & Dennett, S. (2000). The 3GPP and 3GPP2 movements toward an all-IP mobile network. IEEE Personal Communications, 7(4), 62-64. Tony, C., Sharples, M., Giasemi, V., & Lonsdale, P. (2004). Educational metadata for mobile learning. Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education 2004, pp. 197-198. Uskela, S. (2001). All IP architectures for cellular networks. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on 3G Mobile Communication Technologies, pp.180-185.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 6, Issue 4, edited by S. Chang; T. Shih, pp. 1-13, copyright 2008 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.11

The eLogBook Framework:

Sustaining Interaction, Collaboration, and Learning in Laboratory-Oriented CoPs Yassin Rekik École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Denis Gillet École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Sandy El Helou École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse Christophe Salzmann École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Suisse

ABSTRACT Convinced by the important role of CoPs (communities of practice) and the innovative learning modality they offer, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne is currently developing a framework to sustain interaction, collaboration, and learning in laboratory-oriented CoPs, namely the eLogBook. This paper describes the services provided by this framework, the 3A model on which it is based, and the main features it presents. The eLogBook presents several innovative

features that make it different from other classical collaboration workspaces. The eLogBook offers a high level of flexibility and adaptability so that it can fit the requirements of various CoPs. It allows CoPs’ members to define their own rules, protocols, and vocabularies. The eLogBook also focus on usability and user acceptance thanks to its personalization and contextualization mechanisms. Finally, the eLogBook provides a community’s members with ubiquitous services thanks to its multiple views and its advanced awareness services.

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The eLogBook Framework

INTRODUCTION Since 2000, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has been deploying the eMersion Environment, which is a Web-based environment for sustaining remote and virtual experimentation activities in higher engineering education (Gillet, Nguyen Ngoc, & Rekik, 2005). The eMersion environment provides students and teachers with services covering the main needs for carrying out collaborative hands-on activities such as controlling access to experimentation resources, storing and sharing experimental data, managing tasks and activities, and supporting and monitoring the learning process. Evaluations performed over the last 8 semesters’ periods showed a great acceptance of the eMersion environment by students, teaching assistants, and professors (Nguyen-Ngoc, Gillet, & Sire, 2004). These results are very encouraging since the use of eMersion is completely optional in that the students always have the possibility of carrying out their experiments within the university campus in a traditional face-to-face way. Our evaluations of the eMersion environment during the last eight semesters demonstrate clearly that the key service for the acceptance of the learning modality and the appropriation of the environment by the students is a shared electronic notebook called the eJournal, which has been introduced to support collaboration and interaction between the members of a learning community (Farkas, Nguyen Ngoc, & Gillet, 2005). This tool allows flexible integration and collaborative usage of laboratory resources to support knowledge building and sharing within the learning community. In the context of the Palette European integrated project (http://palette.ercim.org), the eJournal and the associated features are currently enhanced and extended in order to address the needs of a broader range of communities of practise involved in management, education, and engineering, and to effectively support mediated interaction, col-

laboration, and learning. Laboratory-oriented CoPs are groups of people interacting freely to deepen their knowledge and know-how through interaction and experimentation in a specific domain where laboratory equipment is involved. As an example, educators, teaching assistants, and students involved in a laboratory course form such a community. Researchers and technicians working on shared equipment or studying samples form another one. Teams of engineers involved in collaborative engineering activities are also laboratory-oriented CoPs. Extending the eJournal in order to support laboratory-oriented CoPs is motivated by the fact that CoPs have been recognized as effective environments to support learning in professional organisations and educational institutions (La Contora, 2003). In both academic and professional context, CoPs represent an interesting alternative to formal and institutional learning and training. CoPs allow bypassing organizations’ boundaries and building virtual communities of actors sharing common interests and goals. When formal learning is more focusing on information delivery, CoPs focus on participation and collaboration and help members to capitalize and share knowledge, to develop collaboration and cooperation skills, and to enhance argumentation and negotiation capabilities (La Contora & Mendonca, 2003). This paper describes our work aiming at extending the eJournal to become an innovative framework for sustaining interaction, collaboration, and learning in laboratory-oriented CoPs. Our work started by a modelling phase where the objective is to propose a model for structure and behaviour of laboratory-oriented CoPs. Then, this model has been implemented as a generic framework called the eLogBook framework. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 gives a short overview of the eJournal tool and its main services and features. Section 3 presents the 3A model we propose for laboratory-oriented CoPs. The five main concepts of this model, which are Actors, Activities, Assets, Events, and Protocols,

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The eLogBook Framework

Figure 1. The eJournal user interface

are detailed. Section 4 describes the eLogBook framework and its main services. Two important paradigms we adopted for the implementation of the eLogBook are described. The first one is the multiple views paradigm. The second one is the contextual visualisation and navigation paradigm. Section 5 concludes the paper and presents the current state of implementation and the future work perspectives for the next months.

THE EJOURNAL TOOL The eJournal is more than a digital asset management system (Natu & Mendonca, 2003), an ePortfolio (Carroll & Calvo, 2005) or an electronic laboratory notebook (Talbott, Peterson, Schwidder, & Myers, 2005). It can be defined as an assets-based interaction system. Its core feature is designed as a mailbox, a familiar metaphor for users. Instead of simple e-mails, the eJournal contains digital assets of various types. Contrary to a mailbox that belongs to a unique person, the eJournal is shared by members of a team. The team members can either tag or annotate the assets at

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creation or later. Some context-related tags and metadata are also automatically added when the assets are created. In addition to the mailbox-like Asset area (See bottom part of Fig. 1), the eJournal seemingly integrates contextual and awareness information in the workspace (See top part of Fig. 1). The idea behind this design is that the users should not have to look for basic context and awareness information elsewhere. They should not even have to think about finding such information. It should be implicitly obtained while manipulating assets. As an example, the Team area provides awareness about the role and right for the user in the given context, as well as indications regarding the possible presence of other team members. The Activity area provides information regarding pending tasks. The Folder area provides means to filter the context-oriented assets to be displayed. The Category column in the Asset area is used to summarize user and system-defined metadata. The eJournal differs from typical digital assets management (DAM) systems in many aspects. First, the eJournal was initially designed for eLearning applications, where the process of cre-

The eLogBook Framework

ating assets and reflecting over assets, by linking and tagging and rating them, has more value than the assets themselves. DAM systems are typically designed for digital-repository applications (pictures, movies, documents, etc.) where the value is only in the assets. In addition, the eJournal is a pivotal service to build more comprehensive systems integrating other asset-oriented components/ services, while DAM are usually closed systems due to right management constraints. One could also compare the eJournal with forums or blogs supporting group work. Forums and blogs are driven by comments, some of those comments being possibly augmented by assets. The eJournal is driven by assets; some of those assets being possibly augmented by comments. Interaction within the eJournal is mostly asynchronous since many of the actions performed do not require other components or users to be active or online at the same time. For this reason, the eJournal user interface only provides simple synchronous awareness indicators (as example, the current number of members online instead of the full list of their names). The state of these indicators may trigger interest for more detailed or additional information in some contexts.

and collaborative learning in both academic and professional learning. The first step towards this objective is to model the interaction and collaboration processes within laboratory-oriented CoPs. Many models of CoPs already exist (e.g., see La Contora & Mendonca, 2003; Wenger, 1999). Almost all of these models meet on the basic concepts and only present some small differences. However, our study of these models made it possible to release certain limitations that motivated us to develop our own model. The main limitations are: 1.

2.

3.

THE 3A MODEL FOR LABORATORY-ORIENTED COPS Despite the large acceptance of the eJournal tool by students and teachers at EPFL, this tool has a very strict limitation. In fact, the eJournal has been designed to be used in formal learning context where the community is ruled by fixed and predefined rules. In the context of Palette European project, we are currently working on a new framework, namely the eLogBook, involving the main features of the eJournal, but more flexible and more adaptable so that it can be used in any laboratory-oriented CoPs. The idea behind it is to cover not only formal learning modalities in academic institutions, but also knowledge sharing

4.

5.

The majority of the studied models are very detailed and complex. They focus on a detailed presentation of all the structural abstractions and links related to CoPs. This complexity makes it very difficult to translate these models into usable and functional environments. In the majority of the studied models, two extremes dominate: models that just focus on structural aspects and do not involve behavioural ones, and models that involve rigid and constraining rules and protocols to describe CoPs dynamics and behaviours. None of the existing models make it possible to consider heterogeneous communities mixing human and software actors. In laboratory-oriented CoPs, the role played by experimentation equipment and tools is as relevant as that of human actors. None of the existing models allows dynamic allocation of accessibility and visibility rights over assets and activities. Lastly, the existing models do not consider the concept of CoPs memory. Indeed, since the majority of models focuses on a structural representation of the community, it is often impossible to have a sight on the lifecycle of CoPs and their productions.

Building on the results of our study of existing models, we worked on a new simple model,

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The eLogBook Framework

Figure 2. Main concepts of the 3A model

much more adapted to laboratory-oriented CoPs. When developing this model, we mainly focused on three aspects: simplicity of the model, extensibility and adaptability to various contexts and situations, and balance between the structural and the behavioural modelling on the CoPs and its lifecycle. The model we propose, namely the 3A model, is based on three structural concepts and two behavioural ones (See Fig. 2). The three structural concepts are Actors, Assets, and Activities (from where the name of the model 3A). The two behavioural concepts are the events and the protocols. All these concepts are detailed in the next paragraphs.

The Concept of Actor In the 3A model, we consider as actor any entity capable of triggering an event or performing an action that can be perceived directly or indirectly by the community. The typical example of an event or an action is to create a new document in the community’s repository and to share it with other actors. This definition exceeds the simple human actors, but integrates also any tools or services making it possible to create assets in an automatic

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way, to access a list of assets, to modify the state or the characteristic of an asset, and so on. This extension of the concept of actor meets an essential need in the context of laboratoryoriented CoPs, which is to build heterogeneous communities involving human users, tools, and services. In heterogeneous communities, interaction between human members is as important as interaction between users and experimentation resources. It is important to clearly separate here between tools or services that play the role of an actor within the community by creating, accessing, and manipulating assets, and on the other hand, tools and services that are just used by users in order to perform their own activities. In many CoPs models, such tools are called resources. In the 3A model, only tools that interact directly with the assets of the community are considered as actors. For example, we consider as an actor a simulation tool that produces measurement files and sends them automatically to the assets repository.

The Concept of Activity CoPs can range from well-structured entities with well-defined objectives to unstructured entities where members interact and communicate without

The eLogBook Framework

predefined objectives, except sharing information. For laboratory-oriented CoPs, we are generally dealing with structured communities where the goals are well defined. In this case, it is necessary to classify and organise the actions, interaction, and events performed by members of the community into activities. A community can have several running activities with several groups that can, jointly or separately, work and contribute in each of these running activities. An actor can be active in one or more activities. However, and within the framework of an activity, an actor always has a well-defined role. The roles are not preset, but defined by the one responsible for the activity, who is generally its creator. It is possible to associate one or more deliverables to a running activity. Adding deliverables enforces or reminds the members that they are expected to submit assets before a possible deadline, as a contribution to a specific task. There are two kinds of deliverables. Deliverables without review are automatically considered as completed when an authorized member associates an asset with them (we call this action an asset submission). For deliverables with review, submitted assets have to be accepted by a reviewer. The list of reviewers for a deliverable is defined through the list of roles. The activities can have semantic links which connect them. Thus, an activity can be a subactivity, a continuation, or an alternative to another one. No predefined links are proposed, and the community members have to define, by themselves, the links appropriate to structure their activities. The semantic links between the activities allow rich navigation and clustering facilities to the community actors.

The Concept of Asset An asset is any entity produced by the actors of the community, stored in the community’s repository, and exploited by other actors. The simplest and most known form of assets is documents and files.

The documents being the most traditional form of information sharing and exchange, they represent the most used assets within CoPs. However, in our model, this concept also integrates other forms of information produced by the members of a community. Among them, we can mention images, comments, dialogues, and so on. In the 3A model, an asset is always contextual. Thus, an asset is always associated with one or more actors (initial creators, owners, viewers) and related to an activity, where it is created. Several actions can be performed over assets such as rating, linking, and tagging: •

•

To start with, an asset can be augmented and annotated by semantic tags. The tags are created by the actors involved in the same activity. There is no preset list of tags. The actors progressively create them and thus build their own vocabulary. The annotation of assets makes it possible to carry out advanced clustering, filtering, and research. In addition to the annotation mechanism, the 3A model considers also the possibility of connecting assets by using semantic links. For example, a graphical asset can be an illustration for another textual asset, an asset containing numerical data can be connected to simulation code.

Mediation Role of Events In order to model the dynamic and behavioural aspect of a community, we introduced the concept of events. In fact, an event can be defined as the persistent representation of all actions performed by actors. The concept of event makes it possible to situate and store the actions and operations performed during the activities’ lifecycle. An event is a pivotal concept that connects assets, actors, and activities all together. In fact, an event is generally carried out by an actor, on an asset, within the framework of an activity. A typical event is, for example, the creation of a new

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asset by a given actor within the framework of a given activity. Other examples are the annotation of an asset, the association of a comment for an asset, the suppression of an asset, and the submission of an asset as deliverable. The 3A model also defines events that are not directly asset-related but actor-related. These events are useful only for tracking and memorizing the profiles of actors. For example, registering to an activity, creation of a new activity, and sending invitation for an actor to participate in an activity are examples of actor-related events. Events play a very important mediation role in the 3A model. In fact, combining asset-related and actor-related events makes it possible to build an incremental representation of the community dynamics and behaviours. This can be used in order to provide actors with advanced awareness such as activities’ work progress, actors’ activeness, actors’ profiles and preferences, assets’ circulation, and so on. This awareness has been recognized to be an affective instrument in sustaining motivation among actors, in enhancing collaboration and interaction between actors, in supporting coordination and mediation within CoPs, and in building adaptable and personalized views and services for actors.

The Contextualization Role of Protocols The protocol is the framework that rules and governs the events of a community. It is always related to an active context, and allows deciding whether a given actor has the right to perform a given action on a given asset in the framework of a given activity. An example is to decide whether an actor can submit a given asset as a deliverable for a given activity. More generally, several types of access rules or rights govern Assets and Activities. No actor can perform an action over an asset within an activity or over an activity unless he/she is assigned the right to do so. In addition,

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rights can either be static or dynamic. To explain, the right to access an asset and/or activity can be assigned statically to a specific actor. However, it is also possible to assign rights dynamically on a membership or even a role basis, for instance, if the author(s) of an asset decides to make it viewable to members of a specific activity at time t. If a new member joins the activity at time t+1, then he/she can also see the asset. However, when an actor is no longer a member of this activity at time t+1, then he/she can no longer see the asset in his/her workspace, nor can he/she have access to the new tags, links, rates, and awareness statistics related to the asset. The same applies for rights over activities, which can also be defined in a static as well as dynamic way. For instance, an actor will have access to a specific activity X as long as he/she has a specific role in another activity Y, linked to activity X. For example, a student assistant has access to “Prelab Evaluation” only because he/she is a member of “Mechanics Laboratory” with the role “assistant validator.” When the former condition is no longer valid, he/she loses his/her access rights over “Prelab Evaluation.” Table 1 lists all possible rights related to activities and assets. It is worth noting the parallelism that not only exists in the way rights are given to actors (statically or dynamically through their membership and their role in an activity), but also in the kind of right given over an activity or an asset. But this is not all. Through the observation and the analysis of the needs and urges of Palette CoPs, it was noticed that there are general conventions over who can do what. For that reasons default rights over Activities and Assets were made available. For example, in Table 1, in the first column, rights in italic are rights automatically given to members of an activity. Those in bold are automatically given to the administrator of the activity (its creator). The same applies for assets; its author(s) and owners (actors that were given access to it by its authors) have all rights over it.

The eLogBook Framework

Table 1. Rights over activities and assets Activity

Asset

View

View

Modify/Delete

Modify/Delete

Manage Visibility

Manage Visibility

Manage Membership

Manage Ownership

Link

Link

Tag

Tag

Submit Deliverable

Rate

Evaluate Deliverable Post Assets Mange Deliverables (create, update) Manage Roles (create, update, assign)

However, all these settings can be parameterized in order to address specific cases. For example, in the context of EPFL laboratory-oriented CoP of students, the teacher wishes to give the right of rating or evaluating a posted asset in the “Mechanics Lab Session 1” activity, only to the members having the role of “assistants” and not to those with the role “Students.” Another important possible feature is that it is possible to make an activity visible by nonmembers, but disallowing them to collaborate (post assets, link them, link the activity to others, etc.) within this activity unless they become members. This feature is comparable to forums where you can read what is happening but you cannot contribute unless you become member. Consequently, the eLogBook, which is based jointly on predefined conventions but also ex-

tremely flexible and adaptable protocols with the possibility of assigning dynamic and static rights, is able to able to answer general as well as specific needs and requirements for various laboratory-oriented CoPs. The possibility of adapting, dynamically, the protocol is not only useful to govern the events and control them, but mainly to define an active context allowing dynamic adaptation of the interfaces and the functions offered to the actors. Disabling inaccessible actions over assets, building personalized views, and highlighting some kind of awareness, all are simple examples of contextualisation role of protocols. This contextualisation mechanism increases the usability of an environment dedicated to support CoPs, and enhances the appropriation of such an environment by the actors.

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 3A MODEL: THE ELOGBOOk FRAMEWORk The eLogBook is a collaborative Web-based environment aiming at sustaining and strengthening collaboration and coordination in laboratory-oriented CoPs. It is designed as an implementation of the 3A model, and consists of an activity-oriented workspace where Actors, engaged in Activities, perform several actions (such as linking, submittal, evaluation, sharing, etc.) over stored Assets. Protocols are used to define access rights of Actors over Activities and Assets.

Functional Description of the eLogBook The main services provided by the eLogBook are asset management, actors and notification preferences management, activity management, events logging, and awareness building and visualization.

Asset Management eLogBook offers a collaborative space where assets can be created, stored, uploaded, downloaded, and exchanged among all or some members of the community. The main functions that the eLogBook provides for assets management are: •

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Assets’ repository: All assets created by actors are stored in a common repository. The assets are clustered relating to activities. Access rights associated to an asset can be set by default depending on the activity rules, or redefined by the creator. In this case, the asset’s creator can give access to specific actors and/or actors having specific roles. An actor can see an asset if he/she has a specific role within an activity that gives him/her a right over this asset, if he/she is a

•

•

•

member of an activity which has rights over this asset, or if he/she was given right over it on a direct personal basis. Assets’ linking and tagging: Each actor can define tags over the assets he/she can access. he/she can choose to make his/her tags private, viewable only by some groups, or public to the whole community. Each member can also link assets and specify the appropriate type of link. Assets submission: An Asset can be submitted or delivered as a response to a specific delivery requirement within an activity. Assets evaluation: For some deliverables, a reviewing is mandatory. In this case, the deliverable is considered as achieved only after an evaluation of the submitted asset by a reviewer. An asset can be rated and evaluated by specific actors depending on their role in the activity.

Management of User Profile and Notification Preferences Every member has a space where he/she can edit his/her personal profile and his/her notification preferences. The member’s personal profile includes his/her contact information, as well as his/ her level of expertise and domain of interest. The member’s notification preferences include the specifications of what, how, and when he/ she would like to be notified. This means that, by default, there exist some notification rules for all the community members. Nonetheless, any member can choose to tune these rules according to his/her own preferences.

Activity Management All the members of a community are considered to take part of a main activity which purpose or objective is nothing but the reason behind the existence or the creation of this community. Moreover, and under the umbrella of the main activity,

The eLogBook Framework

members of a community can form subgroups to take part in subactivities where different roles can possibly be defined. Each activity has its own purpose, description, its own protocol, concerning possible expected deliverables, conditions for joining, its own administrator, and its private space to collaborate and share assets.

Events Logging The eLogBook keeps track of the history of the community. All events occurring within the eLogBook are logged not only in a chronological order, but also, and more importantly, in a contextual fashion; every action is traced within the context in which it occurred. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the use of event logging to provide awareness takes into account the privacy of each actor and the privacy of each subgroup, in the sense that, actors are held “aware” of actions and events that only concern the activities in which they are involved.

Awareness Services The eLogBook Awareness services rely on all the previous services in order to provide, for each and every user, three main interconnected types of awareness: •

Asset-based awareness: This is the main type of awareness. It includes informing each and every actor about all events that occur around the assets that are being exchanged within the community and within the groups to which he/she belongs. This includes informing him/her about the creation of new assets, new links and tags over these assets, as well as the evaluation, or submission of assets. It also includes statistics about how many members have access over a specific asset and how many have read it, tagged it, evaluated it, and so on.

•

•

Actor-based awareness: This includes informing each and every actor of the state of other members that are involved with him/ her in activities (connected, absent, busy) as well as suggestions of candidate members who can provide help about specific issues. It also includes notifications of new members’ arrival. Activity or task-based awareness: This includes reminding the members of their dues, when they are expected to deliver something or evaluate something within a specific activity, and the deadline for this submission is close.

The Multiple Views of the eLogBook In order to enhance the acceptance and the appropriation of the eLogBook actors of laboratoryoriented CoPs, the eLogBook provides multiple views. Each view is supposed to answer the specific needs of a work modality. Three main modalities have been considered: synchronous interaction, asynchronous interaction, and mobile interaction.

Sustaining Asynchronous Interaction Through Activity-Oriented View The first view provided by the eLogBook aims at providing actors with a contextual and comprehensive representation of running activities. The activity-oriented view is a Web-based interface offering all the services and functions described in the previous section. It mainly allows navigation into activities and access and manipulation of the involved assets. However, navigation into activities and manipulation of assets are made easier and more efficient thanks to all awareness information embedded into this view. Usability has also been enhanced through the introduction of the mechanism of contextualisation and personalization. The idea is to avoid

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Figure. 3. Some windows of the activity-oriented view

classical list-based views, and to use adequate graphical metaphors in order to display all assets and activities and to express the different kinds of relations existing between displayed items (See Fig. 3). For example, when an actor accesses a given activity, he/she would not be interested in having a classical list of all existing assets. It would be more efficient to highlight, to him/her, assets that fit with its context and preferences such as the last asset he/she manipulated, the last assets created, the links and comments added to its assets, and so on. In other words, we have focused on “visually” highlighting the relative relevancy and importance of the displayed elements displayed with respect to the actor context and preferences. We also allow him/her to seemingly “participate” in the design of the interface by dynamically adapting the views according to his/her own style and allowing him/ her to filter the displayed information through the use of smart views.

Sustaining Synchronous Interaction Through Actor-Oriented View Synchronous interaction and awareness in laboratory-oriented CoPs may require knowledge about the presence of the members, the state of the equipment and the status of the activities. To

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provide this variety of information in a simple way, we have introduced an actor-oriented view that focuses on the status of the community’s actors. In order to develop this view, we adapted the hexagon tool (http://kmi.open.ac.uk/technologies/) developed by the Knowledge Media Institute of The Open University in the United Kingdom. The Hexagon is basically a virtual video chat room. The online members are visible and can be clustered or put away according to the user interests (Fig. 4). To be suitable for supporting a hybrid community, any relevant piece of equipment is considered as an actor of the community. Hence, devices, such as the electrical drives displayed in Fig. 4, are visible in the virtual video chat room. To push further this idea of nonhuman actors joining the community, composite images are built using additional awareness information, and pushed in video channels of the room (left-hand side hexagon). This feature is implemented by using a special video digitizer.

Sustaining Mobile Interaction Through Ubiquitous Mobile View Providing ubiquitous awareness to mobile members of a community does not mean cloning what is

The eLogBook Framework

Figure 4. Actor-oriented view of the eLogBook

Figure 5. Feed navigator for mobile actors

available on a desktop computer. One should focus on the necessary and sufficient requirements for people on the move, as well as the actual capabilities and features of current and next generation mobile devices. In other words, the service should be designed for the high-end devices of today that correspond to what the majority of people will

be using in one or two year horizons. In terms of PDA, mobile phones, portable play stations, and audio/video players, we should consider audio and video Input/Output, GPRS, WiFi, and/or 3G networks as available features. According to these features, the proposed solution to provide ubiquitous awareness to mo-

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bile actors of laboratory-oriented CoPs is a feedoriented client interface instead of a traditional e-mail, calendar, or agenda-like one. This service should be always active. In fact, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or Atom feeds displayed by the so-called feed navigator client have the necessary structure to support awareness broadcasting, knowledge dissemination, or assets delivery. A feed can be updated right away when something occurs in the laboratory-oriented CoPs (creation, event, action, discussion). It has a creator, a title, a summary (annotation), metadata (tags), and possibly an attached file (asset) or the URL of an asset-oriented service. The feed navigator will be designed to display these relevant elements in the most convenient way for minimizing the users’ actions and maximizing context-awareness. Feeds navigation through scroll wheels, like the one found on Clie or Blackberry devices, or even more advanced iPod-like tactile wheels, will improve usability. The main difference between the feed navigator and an e-mail client is that the user subscribes only to the feeds he/she wants to receive. In addition, instead of being only classified by date, size, sender, and so forth, the feeds could be classified according to elements like action request, action report, asset request, asset received, comment request, comment received, priority, deadlines, and so forth.

CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES This paper presented a software framework, namely the eLogBook, developed by the EPFL, with the aim of sustaining collaborative learning and knowledge building within laboratory-oriented CoPs. Contrary to traditional learning modalities, CoPs are nonformal structures, often virtual, governed by moving rules, often built dynamically by community actors. The eLogBook has been designed to fulfil the requirements of this specific context, and to make it possible for a community

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to build its own protocol by defining appropriate roles, vocabularies, semantics, and so on. The eLogBook is an implementation of the 3A model we proposed in order to model the structures and the behaviours of laboratory-oriented CoPs. The 3A model is mainly built on five concepts, which are Actors, Assets, and Activities for the structural part, and Events and Protocols for the behavioural one. The eLogBook presents some innovative features that make it different from other classical collaboration workspaces. First, the eLogBook is flexible and adaptable so that it can fit the requirements of various CoPs. Second, the eLogBook is usable and efficient thanks to its personalization and contextualisation mechanisms. Finally, the eLogBook is ubiquitous thanks to its multiple views and its advanced awareness services. Achieving the implementation of all the views of the eLogBook is planned for the next months. Then, a validation and evaluation process will be conducted in the framework of the Palette European project. In this context, the eLogBook is supposed to be used by multiple CoPs and evaluated both technically and pedagogically. In parallel to the implementation of the eLogBook, we are investigating some issues dealing with interaction and collaboration in CoPs. The first issue we are working on is awareness. Our goal here is to develop a generic framework to sustain awareness building and visualisation in any collaborative environment. The second issue we are working on is to couple the eLogBook with efficient knowledge management tools. The idea is to help communities to build their own ontologies and to benefit from knowledge extraction and classification services. The last aspect we are targeting is to enhance voice/video-based communication within CoPs. The idea is to reinforce the activity of community members by encouraging dialogue and argumentation, by increasing motivation, and by building mutual trust.

The eLogBook Framework

ACkNOWLEDGMENT The elements presented in this paper result from various e-Learning projects and activities carried out with the support of the Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and of the European Union in its sixth framework program (ProLEARN Network of Excellence and Palette Integrated Project).

REFERENCES Carroll, N. L., & Calvo, R. A. (2005). Certified assessment artifacts for ePortfolios. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Information Technology and Applications, 2005, Vol.2 (pp. 130- 135). Fakas G. J., Nguyen Ngoc A.V., & Gillet D. (2005). The electronic laboratory journal: A collaborative and cooperative learning environment for Webbased experimentation. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 14(3), 189-216. Gillet D., Nguyen Ngoc A. V., & Rekik, Y. (2005). Collaborative Web-based experimentation in flexible engineering education. IEEE Transactions on Education.. 48(4), 696–704.

LaContora, J. M., & Mendonca D. J. (2003). Communities of practice as learning and performance support systems. Paper presented at International Conference on Information Technology: Research and Education, 2003. Natu, S., & Mendonca J. (2003, October 16 - 18, 2003). Digital asset management using a native XML database implementation. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on information Technology Curriculum (CITC4 ‘03) (pp. 237-241)Lafayette, IN. New York: ACM Press. Nguyen-Ngoc A. V., Gillet D., & Sire S. (2004). Evaluation of a Web-based learning environment for hands-on experimentation. In W. Aung, R. Altenkirch, T. Cermak, R. W. King, & L. M. S. Ruiz, (Eds.). Innovations 2004: World Innovations in Engineering Education and Research (pp. 303-315). New York: iNEER in cooperation with Begell House Publishing. Talbott T., Peterson M., Schwidder J., & Myers J. D. (2005). Adapting the electronic laboratory notebook for the semantic era. In Proceedings of the 2005 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (pp. 136- 143). Wenger, E. (1999). Community of practices: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press.

This work was previously published in International Journal Of Web-Based Learning And Teaching Technologies, Vol. 2, Issue 3, edited by L. Esnault, pp. 61-76, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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Chapter 8.12

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems Krzysztof Gierłowski Gdansk University of Technology, Poland Krzysztof Nowicki Gdansk University of Technology, Poland

ABSTRACT In this article we propose a novel e-learning system, dedicated strictly to knowledge assessment tasks. In its functioning it utilizes web-based technologies, but its design differs radically from currently popular e-learning solutions which rely mostly on thin-client architecture. Our research proved that such architecture, while well suited for didactic content distribution systems is ill-suited for knowledge assessment products. In our design we employed loosely-tied distributed system architecture, strict modularity, test and simulation-based knowledge and skill assessment and an our original communications package called Communication Abstraction Layer (ComAL), specifically designed to support communication functions of e-learning systems in diverse network conditions (including offline environment).The

system was tested in production environment on Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics, Technical University of Gdansk with great success, reducing staff workload and increasing efficiency of didactic process. Tests also showed system’s versatility as the system was deployed in environments of classroom, remote and blended learning.

INTRODUCTION The task of knowledge assessment is one of the fundamental elements of didactic process. It was also one of the first didactic tasks to be conducted by various electronic learning devices employed to support didactic process. Currently there are many e-learning solutions supporting knowledge assessment both as their

Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

main functionality or as an additional module. Almost any advanced e-learning tool offers this functionality, with Open Source products like Sakai (“Sakai”, 2007) and Moodle (“Moodle Course Management System”, 2007) as prime examples. In light of those facts we could conclude that this area of e-learning is a well explored one and suitably supported in practical e-learning products. Our experience with e-learning systems both as their users and designers, leads us to conclusion that the above statement is far from correct. Vast majority of currently available electronic knowledge assessment tools are extremely similar and offer strictly limited functionality. Such products offer almost exclusively knowledge assessment based on various choice tests and their automatic grading mechanisms most often are not very comprehensive and fit to support different grading scenarios. In complex e-learning systems knowledge assessment functionality is treated as mandatory element, but also receives no special consideration, which often results in a simple implementation of choice test. Specialized knowledge testing solutions (employed for example by Microsoft during their computer proficiency exams) include more advanced mechanisms, like adaptive question selection, but they are few and still do not go beyond the basic scenario of choice test (“Learning Management Systems”, 2004), (Jesukiewicz et al., 2006). Apart from these weaknesses, our experience (Gierłowski & Gierszewski, 2004), (Gierłowski et al., 2007), (Nowicki et al., 2005), (Gierłowski et al., 2005), (Gierłowski & Nowicki, “Internet...”, 2004), (Nowicki & Gierłowski, “New technologies…”, 2004), (Gierłowski & Nowicki, “Implementation...”, 2004), (Nowicki & Gierłowski, 2002), (Nowicki & Gierłowski, “Implementation…”, 2004), (Gierłowski & Nowicki, 2002), (Gierłowski et al., 2003) indicates that one of the most serious problems with currently available products and especially the most popular ones based on

web-based thin-client architecture, is their strict dependence on network connectivity. Majority of such products require constantly active network connection during e-learning session and few are fit to function under other circumstances, such as periodic or no network connectivity, and still remain a part of managed e-learning system. The quality of network service is also a factor in case of many of such products (Gierłowski & Gierszewski, 2004). Having analyzed above limitations of currently available knowledge assessment products, we designed and created our own dedicated knowledge assessment system. Its basic design differs greatly from currently available solutions, as it creates what can be called “knowledge assessment platform”, servicing many forms of assessment and supporting tasks. It is also extremely scalable, easy to deploy, customizable and able to integrate with third-party products. It was designed to provide highly modifiable platform for various knowledge testing tools, able to provide its functions in any network connectivity conditions (including no connectivity scenario). The system can scale from very simple setup (adequate for servicing a single exercise) to a large, distributed solution fit to support an enterprise. Strictly modular architecture allows users to employ only a selected set of its mechanisms and extremely easily integrate it with third-party solutions. The selection of employed modules depends completely on user needs – there is no mandatory control module or management platform which must be present. We created a number of client modules with full sup-port for low/no-connectivity scenarios, for example: 1.

2.

the classic, but highly configurable and versatile, multiple choice knowledge testing solution, an unique simulation-based knowledge and skill assessment module, dedicated to exer-

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3.

cises concerning Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay networks, a module allowing a real-time grading of students performance during exercises.

Our system also addresses security aspects of remote, computer based knowledge testing, in both test distribution and results gathering preserving user anonymity to unauthorized parties. As an key element of the system, we have created an innovative Communication Abstraction Layer (ComAL) - a set of mechanisms designed to provide e-learning system designers with API containing a comprehensive set of communication functions which can make an e-learning system independent of underlying network connectivity conditions. ComAL completely isolates e-learning solution programmer from the details of net-work communication and can be employed to easily create networked e-learning solutions, allowing creation of an integrated, managed e-learning system even in environment without network connectivity. The following article is organized as follows. Section 2 presents overall system design considerations and motivation to create such system. Section 3 describes Communication Abstraction Layer (ComAL) – our network communications platform dedicated to e-learning systems. Section 4 contains description of our knowledge assessment system’s architecture and its server modules, while section 5 presents a number of client modules, which provide direct services for users. In section 6 new support modules, which currently undergo development and testing, are presented. Section 7 contains results of practical deployment of our system and section 8 closes the article with final conclusions.

OVERALL SYSTEM DESIGN During design and creation of our system we aimed to provide a solution fit to accommodate

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needs to assess students knowledge in the widest possible set of scenarios. To fulfill this task we considered its following aspects: 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

compatibility with the widest possible set of hardware and operating systems, ability to function in variety of network connectivity environments (including lack of such connectivity) while still retaining capability to function as globally managed solution, security and reliability of the system, including safety of the system itself, test content, students’ solutions and personal data, information storage and manipulation capabilities, to allow creation of central database of results and grades, complete with easy access methods, knowledge assessment functionality including: multiple choice tests with highly customizable automatic grading and real time grading by a teacher, comprehensive management interfaces for administrators and teachers, ease of deployment, customization, modification and integration with third-party solutions.

To fulfill these requirements, we have chosen a client-server architecture for our system, which is a pretty standard solution today, but in contrast to the most common practice we decided to abandon thin-client technology in favor of full-client approach. From our experience, web-based thin-client architecture despite its undisputed compatibility and ease of deployment, is not especially well suited for knowledge assessment systems, as it requires a constant network connectivity for operation and lacks a sufficient degree of control over user environment, which impairs system reliability and allows unauthorized actions on part of the users. Operating system and web browser security mechanisms are also an important issue

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 1. Partial system deployment and integration with 3rd party solutions

here, as their incorrect configuration can lead to abnormal or partial client software behavior (Nowicki & Gierłowski, 2002). Full-client approach allows client to conduct much wider range of operations compared to thin-client. This allows inclusion of more advanced internal mechanisms providing improved functionality, much better reliability and security of client operation. With proper design full-client utilizing web-based technologies can also operate independently of server which gives our system versatility, necessary to handle limited network connectivity scenario. It also helps to create strictly modular system architecture and provide high level of scalability (as many tasks can be conducted client-side and data transfers minimized). The most serious limitations of full-client approach, deployment and system compatibility, are also possible to overcome by employing easily deployable, platform independent clients (for example Java-based). Such solution allows for all advantages of full-client and web-based technologies, while still retaining high level of hardware and system compatibility and easy (even web-based) deployment. The second of our fundamental design decisions was maintaining a strict modularity of our product. All basic elements are constructed as modules capable of operating independently, and are employing only standardized, self-descripting

data format for inter-module data transfer - Extensible Markup Language (XML). The format used can be our own internal solution or one compatible with QTI (Question & Test Interoperability) version 2 specification (“QTI Public Draft Specification Version 2”, 2007). Modular system structure complicates design and implementation, as it requires the use of additional inter-module communication mechanisms, but these difficulties are easily compensated by our ComAL API, described in later section. On the other hand modular structure brings enormous advantages, as it is possible to substitute customized solutions in place of some standard modules or include additional elements into standard system data paths to provide additional data analysis/translation functionality (figure 1). Advantages of these possibilities are clear, as they allow easy modification and customization of the system, including creation of dedicated interfaces for third-party systems and applications. Moreover, there are already many such solutions accepting XML input and providing XML output (for example MS Office, OpenOffice etc.). There is also a possibility which had proven even more useful then these mentioned above during test deployments of our system – it is possible to deploy only selected elements and/or integrate it directly with third-party solutions supporting XML language.

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An ability to deploy only a chosen set of modules al-lows for deployment precisely tailored to individual needs. If system user is interested only in simple multiple choice solution for a small number of students there is no need for a system server – it is enough to deploy only a testing/ grading module and read resulting offline data files directly with MS or Open Office. In an opposite situation, where the user is interested only in system’s data storage and access functions, he can easily deploy the system’s server part, substituting its clients with his own, as long as they support XML output or can provide appropriate translating interface. This partial-deployment ability also makes transition to new system much easier, as it can be conducted in phases, by gradually exchanging existing infrastructure with modules of the system. The most common usage scenarios include: 1.

2.

3.

No server-side / third-party scenario: client modules are operating independently or export results to a third-party application/ system. Single server scenario: client modules are managed by client communication module and access central database, all data storage and control functions are available. Multi-server distributed architecture: able to support large number of clients (performance) and allows different organizational units to operate independent (but integrated) servers.

COMMUNICATION ABSTRACTION LAYER One of key elements of modular system are inter-module communication mechanisms. The task of providing local communication (between modules on the same machine) is relatively simple,

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because we can precisely predict environment characteristics. Remote connectivity (communication between modules on different machines) is another matter. It is dependent on various characteristics of available network infrastructure. Providing reliable communication and satisfying quality of service requirements of an e-learning system in wide range of network scenarios and conditions is a difficult and work intensive task (Gierłowski & Gierszewski, 2004). Its complication and cost most often lead to abandoning such attempts and creation of products which require constant and stable network connectivity lacking mechanisms for handling other scenarios (for example: the popular thin-client architecture) or employ no advanced communication functions at all. While such approach may be sufficient for didactic con-tent distribution systems, knowledge assessment requires a higher degree of communication between client (which interacts with user) and server part of the system (usually responsible for control, management, task assignment and results gathering). To help developers in building a robust, networked e-learning systems we have created a set of mechanisms called Communication Abstraction Layer (ComAL) specifically designed to provide network communication functions required by e-learning environment (figure 2). This set of mechanisms can employ a variety of communication methods, automatically choosing the one most appropriate for current working conditions, and is responsible for all communication tasks – both local and remote. It isolates e-learning system developer from particulars of implementing a network communication mechanisms by providing him with high level API. From our experience in developing networked e-learning systems, we divided most often encountered network conditions into four scenarios: 1.

Local Area Network: efficient and reliable, permanent network connectivity.

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 2. Overall ComAL architecture

Figure 3. Knowledge assessment system client-server architectureand possible communication scenarios

2.

3. 4.

Internet: an environment where we have a permanent network connectivity at our disposal, but there are no Quality of Service (QoS) or reliability guarantees. Periodic connectivity: most commonly encountered in case of dialup connections. Offline: there is no network connectivity, but there is still a possibility of communication by offline methods (floppy, CD/DVD, USB-storage…).

ComAL provides dedicated means for maintaining a stable communication in all of these environments, and is able to detect the correct scenario automatically and keeps monitoring the situation to detect if the scenario changes. Communication functions provided by ComAL to e-learning system creator can accommodate

a wide variety of application types, ranging from sending a simple messages, through high volume file transfers and content synchronization, to reliable, real-time interactive message exchanges and multimedia transmissions. Of course, not all of these functions can be made available in all of the above scenarios. To deal with such limitations, ComAL provides feedback mechanisms informing higher application layers about functionality available under current network conditions, state of currently conducted communication activities, overall status of network connectivity and its changes. For transport of data ComAL currently employs (figure 3): direct TCP and UDP connectivity, SOAP over HTTPS, encrypted SOAP over SMTP and advanced, automatic, secure file export/import functions. Some of these methods (SMTP

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and file-based) allow communication between system modules behind NAT. Moreover, we are currently developing a media proxy module functionality, allowing destinations behind NAT to communicate with TCP/UDP and indirect (but still secure) SOAP over HTTPS. All communications can be protected with use of strong security mechanisms, ensuring their confidentiality, integrity and mutual authentication of communicating parties. The communication can also be digitally signed to ensure non-repudiation of submitted data (for example test solutions). The ComAL utilizes both symmetric and public-key cryptography and supports automatic key/certificate generation for clients. We believe that creation of such abstraction layer, able to free e-learning system developers from difficult, specialized, costly and work consuming design and implementation of network communication functions can encourage creation of advanced solutions, taking full advantage of potential provided by a networked environment. It has been utilized in a number of our e-learning products (Nowicki & Gierłowski, “Implementation…”, 2004), (Gierłowski & Nowicki, 2002), (Gierłowski et al., 2003), greatly reducing design complexity and implementation work required. It was also successfully employed to extend functionality of strictly local e-learning solution, to allow network based management. ComAL is a basis of all inter-module communication in our knowledge assessment system, enabling our sys-tem to function as manageable entity in most diverse communication scenarios.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE As our knowledge assessment system follows a client-server design, its modules can be divided into two basic groups: client and server modules. Communication between system elements is

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conducted with use of ComAL to support various network environments. Client modules interact directly with student or teacher during didactic process and are responsible for providing majority of system’s functionality in accordance with configuration information obtained from servers and under their control. Results of knowledge assessment conducted by client modules are returned to servers for processing and storage. There can be many client modules providing different types of knowledge assessment or supporting functions. Currently we have implemented the following client modules: 1. 2. 3.

Test-based knowledge assessment module. Unique simulation-based e-learning model, allowing knowledge and skill assessment. Teacher’s interface for grading student’s progress during training session.

All of these modules are able to function as independent applications and support full ComAL capabilities, including strictly offline scenario – in such case configuration and test packages are provided to them as cryptographically protected files (automatically generated by server), and results are returned to server in the same way. Also they are able to monitor presence of network connectivity and initiate automatic upload of results gathered in offline mode. Server part of the system is a distributed database containing both didactic content and system’s complete configuration information. A single server consists of a database (most often an SQL server) and at least one of two modules: system maintenance module and/or client communication module. A system maintenance module is responsible for creating and maintaining distributed information base. It also provides a web-based administrative interface allowing administrator to create and control the system.

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 4. Server part of the system – distributed database:A, B – replicated configuration data, 1-8 – indexed didactic content

An administrator is responsible for creating a distributed system architecture by defining communication links between system servers, and deciding which of ComAL transport mechanisms are permitted for each link. If a server cannot maintain current transport mechanism it will switch do less demanding one if such is permitted, otherwise it will mark link as down. A simple link-state path selection protocol is then used to ensure communication between all nodes, utilizing as link metrics information from ComAL network monitoring mechanisms. Over such communication structure works a data indexing mechanism, allowing full access to distributed information base from any system node. This distributed database includes complete information about system-wide configuration (system structure, global users and access rights, link states, distributed database state) which is replicated to all servers and didactic content (test content, grading rules, student lists, test results and grades etc.) which is kept locally on specific server and is not replicated, but can be searched and accessed from any server if there is connectivity present, and access rights are sufficient (figure 4). Such architecture allows largely independent operation of a particular server (supporting for

example a single course or organization department), while still allowing administration of the system as a whole and easy access to information stored on different servers. It will give various teachers or departments the freedom of independent operation and still provide means of global data access. As a result servers can be connected and disconnected from the distributed system at will with no negative effect for them or the system (other than loss of access to disconnected resources). If a given server will communicate with client modules, it must include a client communication module. It is responsible for communication with other modules using ComAL, supplying client modules with configuration and didactic content, gathering and processing incoming results and providing teacher’s interface to the system. Teacher’s interface allows its user to create test packages and assign it to specific combination of students, network workstations or time frames – it is possible to provide student witch a choice of available tests. Such test package contains all information to conduct a test, namely: test content adequate for specific client module, grading rules and additional information concerning test execution (time limit, randomization of content, means of results upload etc.).

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Figure 5. Test-based knowledge assessment module – user interface

Test package creation is fast, easy and does not require additional tools. With help of graphical, web-based tools provided by teacher’s interface, it is possible to create an example, 10 question, text only test complete with appropriate grading rules in under 5 minutes. Teachers can also reuse already created questions and tests in this process. Due to the fact, that test packages follow XML specification, it is also possible to use third party solutions in test creation process or even create simple tests by hand with generic text editor. Teacher’s interface allows a full read access to gathered results and ability to modify or add data concerning teacher’s own tests, as well as generation of basic reports and statistics. There is also an option of importing external data in XML format into the system and exporting system data in the same format.

CLIENT MODULES Client modules are critical for the system as they are its point of contact with the student, responsible for many essential tasks, such as presentation of test content, enforcing configured test conditions (time, test randomization, etc.), performing it and sending all necessary information back to the

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system for processing and storage, etc. The grading of tests can be conducted client-side, by client modules, or server-side, by client communication module. Server side grading is more secure but less scalable and versatile solution.

Test-Based knowledge Assessment Module This first and most often employed client module of our system allows knowledge assessment by means of diverse choice tests. While the method itself is very popular in case of e-learning products, we designed this module to provide functionality unique among similar products. Module’s user interface (figure 5) allows presentation of wide range of multimedia content including formatted text, bitmap and vector graphics, sound and movies which provides teacher with great versatility when pre-paring test content. Test questions can be randomly selected from a larger set, and order of both questions and answers can be randomized. Automatic grading mechanisms support both single (user can choose one possible answer) and multiple (user can choose any combination of answers) choice questions in single test, and use simple scripting language which allows to utilize

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 6. Didactic model of connecting LAN systems by WAN networks – user interface

any of popular methods of assigning points for test answers. The total test result can be normalized to a provided value and/or mapped to a grade. The module returns to server or external application a complete information about student’s solution (which can be later used by, for example, server side grading mechanisms), such as: personal data, test id, timeframe of test, client-side grading results of all questions and total grade, all answers, operating system computer name and user name, IP address etc. Module configuration allows teacher to enforce various additional test characteristics, such as necessity of solving questions in order, lack of ability correct already answered questions, time limit for a whole test or every single question etc. Apart from already described functionality, one of our primary priorities was to take full advantage of ComAL communication capabilities allowing the software to function as part of managed system even without network connectivity. Such scenario is most often ignored by designers of modern e-learning solutions as it prohibits the use of web-based thin-client architecture. At the same time it is a very popular scenario in case of network-related courses, as obtaining network

connectivity is often the final goal of laboratory exercises on the subject. The module is fully capable of independent offline operation according to encrypted and protected configuration files and course packages. In such case results are stored in similar, protected files and can be decrypted by the module at teachers request for manual transfer to the server or other application such as MS Excel. The module can also detect available network connectivity and update its status by obtaining new configuration settings/course packages from the server and uploading cached test results automatically. As a result we have at our disposal one of the most advanced (apart from adaptive choice tests) knowledge testing products utilizing choice test method, which can function as a standalone application or as a part of managed system regardless of network connectivity available, due to integrated ComAL functionality.

Didactic Model of Connecting LAN Systems by WAN Networks “Didactic model of connecting LAN systems by WAN networks” (figure 6) has been developed as a part of our research concerning simulation-based

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didactic and e-learning tools. It is a didactic simulator (Kindley, 2002), designed and implemented according to results of our original research of such educational tools (Nowicki & Gierłowski, “Implementation…”, 2004), (Gierłowski & Nowicki, 2002). Our simulator covers various technologies that allow computer data traffic through Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay wide area networks, for example: Classical IP over ATM (CLIP), LAN Emulation (LANE) or Multiprotocol over Frame Relay (MPoFR). Due to its original design it can be employed in a variety of didactic roles: 1.

2.

3.

4.

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knowledge distribution: a comprehensive, con-text sensitive help system is included, containing theoretical information concerning various elements of simulated environment. Coupled with simulator’s ability to illustrate the knowledge with interactive, modifiable examples it creates a highly efficient knowledge distribution solution. skill development: didactic simulation product is one of the best tools for building practical skills on the base of theoretical knowledge, bridging theory and practice. self study and experimentation: didactic simulation product (with its ability to save and restore simulated system state) can be used by students for self study, as they are able to experiment in real-like environment without fear of damaging or critically misconfiguring the equipment. design, troubleshooting and optimization exercises: ability to interact with much more complicated systems than possible under laboratory conditions allows for these highest level exercises, able to build not only basic skills but also give user experience in efficiently dealing with these complex tasks.

Among these roles a knowledge and skill assessment can also be found – our simulation product includes mechanisms for automatically measuring various aspects of simulated system performance (available bandwidth, data loss, transmission delay etc.), which allows automatic grading mechanisms to assess competence of simulated system’s designer and administrator. The module is able to receive task files by ComAL from the server. A tasks file consists of a starting simulation setup, a set of goals which user must reach (for example: create connectivity between selected devices, optimize system efficiency by a certain threshold etc.) and grading rules. User’s solutions along with their grades are uploaded to the server. The module was originally created as a standalone application supporting SCORM-compliant data files (“SCORM 2004”, 2007), but by employing a dedicated interface interacting with product’s information store and ComAL communication functionality it has been upgraded to a networked product, able to fully integrate with our knowledge assessment system (figure 7). Modifications of product code were not necessary to archive that result, and that fact can be considered as another evidence of ComAL vast usefulness and versatility. A number of minor user interface modifications were also made to improve functionality of the product. A didactic simulator can be a powerful elearning tool as its capabilities cover wide range of scenarios. Its inclusion of as a module in our system offers us a unique ability to test not only theoretical knowledge, but also student’s ability to employ it in a given situation (user’s skill), and even his efficiency in dealing with various real-life situations (experience). These test can be conducted in both simple and very complex systems, which would otherwise never be available for didactic tasks.

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 7. Integration of local e-learning solution with networked system with ComAL-database interface

ADDITIONAL SERVER MODULES Apart from already described server modules responsible for creation of a distributed system (system maintenance module) and communication with other modules (client communication module), we have developed two additional ones which provide supporting functionality for our knowledge assessment system: web publication module and analysis module. They both require a database to function and as such are categorized as server modules. However, to access the system’s resources they interact with client communication module through ComAL – such approach is required to reliably access the distributed database. As independent modules they can also interact with other data sources, apart from our distributed database system, as long as correct (XML-based) data format is supported. Both of these modules, while functional, are currently undergoing research and development works and were not yet released to a production environment.

Web Publication Module This module is responsible for communication with system’s living users (not software clients)

and allows teacher to easily publish test related information to his students. The module provides its own teacher’s interface (which can be integrated into client communication module’s interface) and can operate on the entire distributed data store. To fulfill this task the web publication module requires a web server with PHP language support as its working environment. The module can be divided (figure 8) into management part (which provides teacher’s interface and manages publications) and publishing part (which provides services to users) – they interact with use of a shared database space. The most important function of this module is a knowledge assessment results publication. The teacher can easily create and publish on the web automatically generated lists of results from system’s database. Two methods of list creation are supported: manual selection of results to include or using a rule which automatically publishes matching results. The lists can contain results of a single or a number of exercises in which case each of them is represented as additional table column. Moreover, a final grade can be calculated from a set of exercises. Another possible form of results publication is a student oriented one. After providing correct

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A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 8. Web publishing module (WPM) divided into management (M) and publishing (P) parts

login information student can access all his grades stored in the system. Results published in any form can also be automatically supplemented with additional information present in the system, for example: teacher’s contact information, correct solutions of test questions, cross references to study materials etc. Each publication can be configured by the teacher either as local or universal. Local publications are available only from the web publication module from where there were configured. Universal publications are available from any web publication module in the system (if its configuration allows such usage). Functionality described above allows students to easily track their progress through multiple exercises on many separate subjects, consult their teachers and revise their knowledge. Moreover, the fact that any and all web publication modules can be used to access all the information stored in the system, provide students with easy and reliable access to a complete and current (all changes in the database are instantly visible) grading information in uniform layout. Teachers in turn gain very easy, work conserving and error resistant method of result, solution and contact information publishing. The second function of the module is to provide strictly web-based choice test functionality.

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The module allows teachers to use test packages prepared for knowledge assessment module described in section 6.1 (full-client) in thin-client environment. The test can be are carried out with any modern web browser with JavaScript enabled. Of course all described limitations of thin-client approach apply and only a subset of the fullclient module’s functionality is available. Still, it is a good tool to conduct simple tests without preparations or in emergency situations. The last function of web publication module is the web-based deployment of full-client software to client computers. It is currently under development and will provide web-based guide and wizard (Java) to check client computer configuration, advise user in necessary system configuration changes and automatically install desired (and allowed by administrator for a particular user) full-client modules.

Analysis Module This module is devoted to a detailed analysis of test packages and gathered knowledge assessment results stored in the system database (figure 9). Additionally it allows monitoring of system operation and usage. Its functionality consists of:

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Figure 9. Analysis module - external data exchange

1. 2. 3.

4.

statistical analysis of test results and student grades, assessment of test quality based on test results (under development), semi-automatic generation of didactic content, helpful in acquiring knowledge appropriate to a given test, creating reports concerning system operation and usage.

The first option allows teacher to calculate various statistical properties of knowledge assessment results, such as maximum/minimum/ mean grade, percentage of students passing the test, grade distribution etc. Choice test results can also be used to assess quality of the questions (defined as correct level of their difficulty and high discrimination (Costagliola et al., 2007)). We are currently testing our own analysis engine for the task, based on experiences described in (Costagliola et al., 2007) and other works referenced there. The third of module options can be used to semi-automatically prepare electronic learning material appropriate for a given choice test. It can then be used for pre-assessment study or during test results revision. To fulfill this useful and usually time-consuming task we use three basic methods.

In case of the most direct approach, learning content can be included directly in XML test definition. It can be linked to a test as a whole, or to separate questions and even answers. As such method is obviously not the most efficient one (in terms of data management), learning content objects can also be referenced by URI links, instead of including them directly. In such case the system compile an appropriate learning package fully automatically. Unfortunately it is also a work intensive solution for a teacher. The second and third methods are based on automatic search of appropriate material on the Internet using highly configurable Google search engine (“Google”, 2007) or in a repository of SCORM compliant material (“SCORM 2004”, 2007). The second method requires test author to provide key-words in XML test definition. They can be supplied as separate XML elements or just as marked parts of questions and answers. Such information is then used in the search. The third method does not require any additional input except test definition. The search phrases submitted to search engines are automatically constructed from test definitions by removing popular words, and obtaining keywords by means of:

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Table 1. Overall results of opinion pool concerning deployment of proposed knowledge assessment system – Gdansk University of Technology

1. 2. 3.

Better

Indifferent

Worse

Total

Students

166 (83%)

30 (15%)

4 (2%)

200

Teachers (early postdeployment)

6 (50%)

3 (25%)

3 (25%)

12

Teachers (6 month postdeployment)

10 (84%, +34%)

2 (16%, -9%)

0 (0%, -25%)

12

word frequency analysis, checking word positions in sentences, comparing results of searches for candidate keywords with remainder of test definition.

As these automatic methods can produce unpredictable results (which is especially true in case of Internet search) a teacher’s revision of results is necessary. The module provides teacher with a preview of search results which should be manually verified and can be subsequently used to construct a SCORM compliant package. The teacher constructs such package by connecting desired materials with SCORM sequencing and navigation relations (“SCORM 2004”, 2007) using module’s web interface. Resulting SCORM package can be utilized in a wide variety of SCORM compliant e-learning systems. Apart from these education-related tasks, the module is also able to gather event logs and usage statistics from the system nodes, to create overall reports concerning its operation, efficiency, usage and to inform administrator about important events occurring in the system.

DEPLOYMENT RESULTS To test its efficiency in production environment we deployed the system in selected classes (mainly computer science and computer networks) of

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Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics, Technical University of Gdansk during the last three years. A total of over 3500 students participated in the tests generating about 32000 separate test results. The system allowed to drastically reduce workload of the teachers by automatically creating attendance list, conducting and grading tests and generating lists of results. It lowered time consumed by knowledge assessment related tasks from over 10 min. to 1 min. on average, for a single laboratory group. It also allowed to minimize number of errors occurring in this process (for example: name mistypes, lost results, ) by about 70%, which makes the resulting error rate almost null (1-2 mistakes for about 4000 test results). It was also well received by our students, which is visible in the opinion poll results presented below. A combination of test-based knowledge assessment and real-time grading modules, has been particularly effective during laboratory exercises, as it allowed to instantly grade exercises composed of theoretical test and practical laboratory work. Its ability to function in offline environment and upload results when connectivity becomes available made it suited even for computer networks laboratories. To guide us in further development of our system, we conducted an opinion pool amongst the students and teachers using it. Of a 200 students participating in the poll, 83% think that deployment of the system was a desir-

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

Table 2. Most popular positive and critical student’s remarks concerning deployment of proposed knowledge assessment system. Positive remarks Description

Frequency

Fast publication of results

41%

Single, well known location of results

23%

Choice test as a method of knowledge assessment

22%

Lack of technical problems during knowledge testing

16%

Low level of grading/publishing mistakes

10%

Uniform knowledge testing interface

10%

Multimedia tests support

6%

Instantaneous publication of any modifications

5%

Other remarks

7%

Critical remarks Description Strict time limit enforcement

10%

Too many enforced limitations during test

8%

Choice test as a method of knowledge assessment

8%

Change of previously known solution/user interface

6%

Other remarks

2%

able change (from classical pen and paper tests and assorted computerized knowledge assessment solutions), 15% is indifferent, and 2% preferred previous methods employed for the purpose. The most common positive remarks concerning the system include (in order of frequency): 1. 2. 3.

Frequency

very fast publication of results, a single, well known location and universal format of results, an uniform knowledge testing interface for many subjects and teachers.

As a downside of the system students pointed to its strictness in enforcing test limits (such as time limit or need to answer the question in order) and tendency to overdo such limitations by the teachers. Of 12 teachers using the system for about a year, 10 rate it as a better solution that the ones

they employed before and 2 are indifferent. It is a significant improvement over the first teacher’s opinion poll, conducted one month after the system was deployed – the opinions then included: 6 for better, 3 indifferent, and 3 for less useful than previous solutions. We attribute that results and their subsequent change to an additional work required to learn operation of the system and prepare didactic materials (tests definitions etc.). That conclusion is supported by remarks provided by the teachers. They include, in order of importance to pool respondents and frequency: 1. 2. 3.

almost fully automatic and very easy result gathering and publication, ability to perform test in non-networked environment, easy and automatic test deployment and execution.

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As a drawback teachers mentioned the need to learn how to use a completely new tool of advanced functionality. Also, no irreversible data loss (in storage and in transmission) occurred in 3 years of system operation. There are also no indications of successful security breach in any element of the system.

CONCLUSION In this article we described a dedicated knowledge assessment system, designed to supplement existing e-learning solutions, as they implement such functionality in inadequate manner. The design of our system includes a number of original solutions and often exceeds similar products in terms of functionality. It also differs from currently popular e-learning solutions in such base aspects as system architecture, because our research shows that knowledge assessment functionality requires significantly different approach then con-tent distribution tasks which constitute most of popular e-learning systems’ functionality. Our system relies heavily on web-based technologies (Java, XML, HTML, standardized media files, streaming media, SOAP, SMTP, MIME, etc.), but their usage differs from currently popular trends. The uniqueness of our e-learning solution lies in its architecture of independent modules, fullclient approach, distributed server-side structure and inclusion of ComAL functionality. As a result we have a system which can be deployed fully or partially and easily integrated with third party solutions. Possible deployment scenarios range from a single workstation with knowledge testing module ex-porting results to MS Excel, to a collection of interconnected servers (each controlling a large number of knowledgetesting client modules) allowing global information searches. The system has proven to be extremely scalable. Complication of system configuration also scales, which means that simple setups are as easy to prepare and maintain as installing and

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running a standalone application, while only more advanced require additional system configuration and administration. Distributed server part configuration is also easy due to automatic information routing mechanisms. System servers function independently and can be connected and disconnected from the system almost at will with no impairment of their basic functionality, apart from global search ability. That independence allows various departments of an organization to autonomously organize their own elements of the system and retain access to full system information base. Client modules are implemented in full-client version, as our research proves it to be superior to thin-client approach in case of knowledge assessment systems, in contrast with systems mainly devoted to didactic content distribution. Our, currently implemented, client modules allow both classical knowledge assessment by use of choice tests and unique functionality of skill assessment by employment of didactic simulationbased tool. There is also a module allowing teacher to easily grade students during classroom exercises and interface to import/export XML data between the system and external sources. Additionally, we are currently developing additional server modules which will handle supporting tasks, such as advanced results publication, statistical analysis, question quality assessment and semi-automatic didactic material compilation. All system modules employ our original ComAL communication package designed especially for e-learning systems. It allows e-learning product designers to use communication functions independent of available network connectivity, and supports dynamic environment detection and automatic selection of data transmission mechanisms including strictly offline methods (automatically controlled file import/export). Such functionality allows creation of centrally managed systems even in environment where there is no network connectivity available.

A Novel Architecture for E-Learning Knowledge Assessment Systems

All of these traits make our system one of the most versatile, expandable and easy to deploy knowledge assessment solutions available and positive feedback from its users seems to confirm our confusions. Usefulness of the system has been verified by its successful deployment in production environment, where over 30000 test were processed, and by means of student and teacher opinion pool. The results confirmed its value in various learning environments and provided us with further development directions.

REFERENCES “Learning Management Systems 2004: Facts, Practical Analysis, and Trends”. (2004). Bersin & Associates. “Moodle Course Management System”. (2007). http://moodle.org/. “QTI Public Draft Specification Version 2”. (2007). http://www.imsproject.org/question/. “Sakai: Collaboration and Learning Environment for Education”. (2007). http://sakaiproject.org/. “SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Documentation”. (2007). Advanced Distributed Learning, http:// www.adlnet.gov/. Costagliola, G., Ferrucci, F., Fuccella, V. (2007). “A Web-Based E-Testing System Supporting Test Quality Improvement”, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web-based Learning, 190-197. Gierłowski, K., Gierszewski, T. (2004). “Analysis of Network Infrastructure and QoS Requirements for Modern Remote Learning Systems”, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Systems Science.

Gierłowski, K., Gierszewski, T., Nowicki, K. (2005). “Architecture and implementation of faculty-operated knowledge testing system” (in Polish), Scientific Notes of ETI Faculty vol. 7, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, 512-522. Gierłowski, K., Gierszewski, T., Nowicki, K. (2007). “Design and development of LMS module dedicated to knowledge assessment tasks” (in Polish), Theory and practice of e-learning, SGGW-Warsaw, 2007. Gierłowski, K., Nowicki, K. (2002). “Simulation of Network Systems in Education”, Proceedings of the XXIVth Autumn International Colloquium Advanced Simulation of Systems, 213-218. Gierłowski, K., Nowicki, K. (2004). “Implementation of didactic simulation tools in computer based instruction systems compliant with SCORM 2004 standard” (in Polish), Proceedings of the 4th conference Virtual University, Warsaw. Gierłowski, K., Nowicki, K. (2004). “Internet technologies in e-learning systems” (in Polish), Scientific Notes of ETI Faculty vol. 4, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, 635-644. Gierłowski, K., Nowicki, K., Uhl, T. (2003). “Didaktische simulationsmodelle für E-learning in der IK-ausbildung”, 7th Workshop Multimedia für Bildung und Wirtschaft. Google Search Engine. (2007). http://www. google.com/. Jesukiewicz, P., Slosser, S., Xiangen, H. (2006). ADL Initiative Status and ADL Co-Lab Network 2006, ADL Library. Kindley, R. (2002). “The Power of Simulationbased e-Learning”, The e-Learning Developers’ Journal.

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Nowicki, K., Gierłowski, K. (2002). “Didactic model of LAN/WAN inter-connection” (in Polish), Proceedings of the 10th Conference: Computer Networks and Systems, Lodz.

Nowicki, K., Gierłowski, K. (2004). “New technologies in modern remote learning systems” (in Polish), Proceedings of the 10th Symposium of Telecommunication, Bydgoszcz, 36-46.

Nowicki, K., Gierłowski, K. (2004). “Implementation of Didactic Simulation Models in Open Source and SCORM Compliant LMS Systems”, Proceedings of XXVIth International Autumn Colloquium, Advanced Simulation of Systems (pp. 161-166.), Ostrava.

Nowicki, K., Gierszewski, T., Gierłowski, K. (2005). “Limitations of e-learning solutions based on Internet protocols” (in Polish), Proceedings of the 5th conference Virtual University, Warsaw.

This work was previously published in International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Vol. 7, Issue 2, edited by Q. Jin, pp. 1-19, copyright 2009 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global).

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1

Index

3D face database 727, 734 3D facial animation 727 3D facial modeling 727, 728, 730, 736 3D facial models 727 3D Live technology in education 304 3D Live, overview 305 3D scanned models 728 3D scanners 728 3D virtual worlds 885

A academic dishonesty 1626, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1633 academic integrity 1626, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1630, 1632, 1634, 1635, 1638, 1640, 1641, 1642, 1643 academic integrity, facilitating infractions of 1628 academic online courses 1591 access 51, 52, 55 accessibility 55 accommodation 1654, 1655 accompaniment process 811, 816 accreditation 28, 33 active learning 210, 213, 803, 1280, 1282, 1283, 1309, 1310, 1316, 1321 activity theory 672, 673 actor model 1814, 1815, 1816, 1819 actor model, process model, interaction model (API) 1814 actor-network theory (ANT) 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815, 1821 adaptive cognitive map (ACM) 821, 822, 825, 826, 827, 828, 829, 831 adaptive educational hypermedia (AEHS) 820, 822 adaptive hypermedia systems 345

adaptive learning system 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 467, 469, 470 adopt-and-abandon 802 adopt-and-sustain 802 adult development and learning, rethinking 150 adult education 9 adult education, economic issues 13 adult education, economic solutions 17 adult education, pedagogical issues 14 adult education, pedagogical solutions 18 adult education, political issues 12 adult education, political solutions 16 adult education, technical issues 15 adult learners 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 947, 948, 949, 959, 960, 961, 1400, 1401, 1402 adult learning 1, 6, 1345 adult learning and online CTE, bridging 149 adult learning theory and principles 1321 adult learning theory, emerging developments in 149 adult learning, the business of 1119 adult online learning 474, 475, 486 advanced mobile and ubiquitous learning environments for teachers and students (AMULETS) 672, 694 after-school program 1036 after-school program, essential factor towards a successful 1040 agent based distance learning system 1710–1722 aggregation 760, 1465 aggression control 700 agile/virtual university (A/VU) 1723, 1724, 1725, 1726, 1729, 1730, 1731, 1732, 1733, 1734, 1735, 1736, 1737, 1740, 1743 Alien Rescue 340 Amazon’s elastic compute cloud 663

Volume I, pp. 1-632 / Volume II pp. 633-1255 / Volume III, pp. 1256-1888

Index

American Library Association (ALA) 1563 American Psychological Association (APA) 1563 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 1645, 1654, 1655, 1656, 1657, 1659 Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) 1655, 1657, 1659 analysis framework 1428, 1429 analysis of variance (ANOVA) 592, 600, 1083, 1086, 1089, 1090 analysis, design, development, implemenation, & evolution (ADDIE) model 502, 504, 505 anchors 1206 andragogy 1, 1309, 1402, 1418, 1420, 1421 andragogy, as an initial frame of reference 149 animatable face model 729 answer extraction algorithm 572, 574, 583 approaches to studying inventory (ASI) 1080 apps for education 662, 663, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669 argumentative collaboration 715, 716, 717, 719, 725 argumentative collaboration environments 716, 717, 725 ARIADNE 821, 822, 827, 829 Arizona Regents University 1710–1722, 1720–1722 arousal 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1549 artificial intelligence (AI) 1240, 1826 assessment 28, 39, 40, 41, 101, 1182, 1184, 1186, 1189, 1193, 1194, 1195, 1196 assessment for learning 812 assessment of learning 812 assessment process 810, 811, 814, 818 Assessment Reform Group 810, 818 assistive technologies 1647, 1652, 1653 asynchronous 490, 492, 493, 494, 496, 498, 499, 500, 607, 608, 614, 625, 889, 890, 891, 893, 894, 1482, 1483, 1487, 1488, 1489, 1490, 1492, 1493, 1494, 1495, 1610, 1614, 1615 asynchronous board feature 294 asynchronous discussion 28, 1610, 1615 asynchronous discussion boards 540 asynchronous education asynchronous electronic forum 1667–1683 asynchronous learning 1345 asynchronous team collaboration 448 asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) 1872, 1880 asynchronous virtual learning environment (AVLE) 898 at-risk primary 5 students 1036 attitude 1164, 1165, 1167, 1171, 1172, 1173, 1174, 1176

2

aural learners 1258 authentic activities 1406, 1418, 1421 authentic learning 673, 674, 693 authoring tool 336 authorware 336, 633, 638 autonomous machines 1240 autonomy 1526, 1528 AutoTutor 337 avatar-learners 869, 874 awareness 715, 716, 717, 718, 719, 720, 723, 724, 725, 726 awareness mechanisms 715, 716, 717, 718, 723, 725 awareness services 715, 716, 717, 719, 724, 725

B backward design 152 Barcelona declaration, the 1363 Bayesian belief network (BBN) 1619 behavioral control, perceived 1164, 1167, 1172, 1175, 1176 behavioral intention 1164, 1167, 1171, 1172, 1173, 1176 behaviorism 801, 803 best practices 179, 180, 184 bibliography management using RSS technology (BuRST) 1771, 1787 BioWorld 340 Blackboard 792, 794, 795, 797, 890, 893, 948, 1710–1722 blended class 1239 blended education 153 blended learning (BL) 84, 85, 88, 746, 747, 751, 802, 834, 835, 836, 838, 843, 845, 1685, 1687, 1688, 1689, 1690, 1691, 1692 blended learning and teaching (BLT) 85, 87, 88, 93, 95, 100 blended learning classroom 834, 838 block scheduling 1419, 1421 blogfolio 1575 blogging 555, 571, 947, 948, 949, 950, 951, 952, 953, 954, 955, 956, 957, 958, 959, 960, 961 blogs 540, 542, 543, 544, 550, 551, 552, 554, 563, 569, 571, 671, 673, 676, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 684, 685, 687, 688, 690, 691, 692, 696, 697, 703, 706, 707, 1180, 1702, 1706, 1707 blogs, dedicated 1577, 1580 Bloom, Benjamin 802, 809 Bloom’s taxonomy 28, 31, 44, 46 Bloom’s taxonomy, revisiting the use of 151 body language 1233 brain based classroom 1205, 1206

Index

brain based online learning environment 1203 Bruner’s three form theory 295 bug-level intelligence 1240 bulletin board system (BBS) 1059, 1060, 1061, 1063, 1064, 1066, 1068, 1069, 1070, 1072, 1073 business environment 760 BuyAns environment 573, 574, 575, 576, 577, 578, 579, 582, 584, 585, 586, 589, 590, 591

C CALAT Project 1710–1722, 1721–1722 California Virtual University 1710–1722, 1721–1722 CALsurf 1710–1722, 1721–1722 campus-based programs 1330 capacitors 912, 914, 919 career and technical education (CTE) 144 career and technical education (CTE) 144, 145 case study 28, 1281, 1305 CEDETEL 1362, 1363 Center for Research on Learning and Technology (CRLT) 1037 Centra 260 Centre European pour le development de la Formation Professionelle (CEDEFOP) 645 Centre for Economic Development and Applied Research (CEDAR) 1725 challenge 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1547 challenging ideologies 253 characteristics, of online courses 73 cheating 1626, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1630, 1632, 1634, 1638, 1639, 1641, 1643 chronology text 505 circuit nodes 913 class café 932 classes 1591, 1593, 1606 classroom behavior, effective 592, 597, 598, 600, 601, 603 classroom behaviors 592, 593, 595, 600, 601 classroom blogging 950 classroom community scale (CCS) 1610 classroom control techniques, traditional 1239 classroom instruction, (CI) 28, 381, 382 cloud computing 661, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 670 CMC environment 1487, 1488 cognition 760 cognitive apprenticeship 924 cognitive distortions 1154 cognitive flexibility theory 294 cognitive impairments 409

cognitive load theory 214 cognitive measurements 810, 811, 812, 814, 815, 816, 817, 818 cognitive presence 395, 396, 397, 398, 400, 401, 402, 404, 476, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 489, 526, 532 cognitive sciences 1519, 1521, 1522 cognitive strategies 1519, 1522, 1525, 1526, 1527, 1528 cognitive tools 340 cognitivism 801, 803 collaboration 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 128, 131, 132, 166, 171, 178, 265, 435, 715, 716, 717, 718, 719, 720, 721, 722, 723, 724, 725, 1182, 1184, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1191, 1192, 1193, 1194, 1195, 1196, 1197, 1200, 1407, 1415, 1418, 1421 collaboration settings 716 collaboration spaces 446, 447, 449, 456, 457 collaboration technology 634 collaboration tools 435, 436, 437, 440, 441 collaboration, asynchronous 716 collaborative 1486, 1493, 1494 collaborative and cooperative learning 1147 collaborative construction of meaning 1183 collaborative environments 717, 725 collaborative experiences 643, 651 collaborative learning 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 699, 700, 701, 704, 707, 711, 712, 713, 746, 747, 751, 753, 754, 756, 834, 842, 845, 846, 851, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1188, 1190, 1193, 1194, 1197, 1232,1429, 1442 collaborative online research and learning (CORAL) 1146 collaborative product 1184, 1186 collaborative sense making 716 collaborative work 699 collaborative workspace 1460, 1461 collective learning 436 collective sense making 1183 commercial open source applications 636 commercial proprietary applications 635 communication abstraction layer (ComAL) 1870, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1886 communication environment 446, 447, 448 communication systems 1475, 1476, 1477, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1854 communication, asynchronous 1364, 1366 communication, synchronous 1364, 1366

3

Index

communication-centric 854 communications 1609, 1611, 1612, 1614 communications networks 1239, 1243 communitarian 1649, 1651, 1657, 1659 communities of practice (CoP) 435, 436, 437, 438, 441, 443, 444, 445, 673, 694, 834, 835, 843, 844, 849, 924, 1241, 1242, 1856, 1857, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1868 community 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 455, 457, 458, 1614 community of inquiry framework 474 community of learners 166 competing conception 811 complex domains 1445, 1446, 1449 comprehensible input 85, 88, 102 comprehensive flow model 1532 comprehensive process 1531, 1532, 1533, 1534, 1536 computer assisted instruction (CAI) 1710–1722 computer assisted language learning (CALL) 84 computer games and game-like environments, engaging elements in 1038 computer mediated communication (CMC) 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1194 computer software education 508, 509, 510, 512, 518 computer supported collaborative learning 346 computer technology, and software literacy 1121 computer-assisted learning (CAL) 1826, 1827 computer-based learning 329 computer-based learning system 727 computer-mediated communication (CMC) 347, 366, 1482, 1493, 1494 computer-mediated education 1826 computer-supported collaborative learning, (CSCL) 1472 computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) 715, 716, 718, 722, 725, 726, 1231 concept hierarchy 572, 573, 577, 578 conditional probability table 1620 connectedness 119, 121, 125, 132 connection board 910, 912, 914, 915, 919, 920 connectivism 673 consortia arrangements 1723–1744, 1726–1744 constructivism 163, 164, 171, 1204 constructivist approaches 475 constructivist epistemology 164 constructivist learning environment 133 constructivist learning theory 644, 867 constructivist perspective 1182, 1197

4

consumer navigation behavior 1532, 1535 content 1204, 1205, 1206, 1207 content analysis 1614 content delivery 672 content objects 1725 contesting hegemony 253 context, input, process, product (CIPP) model 553, 556, 562, 563, 564, 570, 571 contextual contingencies 486 contingent relationship 1813 continuing studies 28, 33, 35, 39 continuous assessment 811, 814, 818 continuous learning assessment 811 control 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1548 conventional learning methods 1844 conversational learning community (CLC) 133, 135 cooperating actors 715 cooperation 760 cooperative learning 165, 166, 177, 178 coordination 760 coordination activities 1362, 1363 CoPe_it! 716, 719, 720, 721, 722, 723, 724, 725,1460, 1461, 1469 CoPs, laboratory-oriented 1856, 1857, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1868 copyright 264 correlation analysis 1788 corrosion investigator 340 course content slides 1577, 1580, 1583, 1584, 1586, 1587 course design 396, 397, 398, 404, 1203, 1204 course design, implications for 81 course management systems (CMS) 108, 593, 594, 595, 601, 602, 603, 1326, 1327, 1330, 1332, 1333 course materials 1591 course modeling 232, 233 course portals 1577, 1578, 1579, 1580 course redesign 1392, 1395 course selection, for students 60 course syllabi 1591, 1594, 1597 courserooms 1345 courseware 1211, 1213, 1215, 1216, 1217, 1225, 1229, 1231 CoVIS 341 critical reflection 1421 cross-cultural 1487, 1495, 1497, 1499, 1500, 1501, 1510 CSILE 341 culturability 1500 cultural considerations 1497

Index

cultural contexts 1497 cultural markers 1500 cultural perspective 1497 culture 1482, 1483, 1484, 1485, 1486, 1488, 1489, 1491, 1492, 1493, 1494 curriculum design and development, implications for 151 custom-built applications 635 cyberspace 1661, 1671, 1673, 1677, 1678 cyborg 1671 CyclePad 341

D data mashups 540 deadlines 1182, 1186, 1190, 1193, 1194, 1195, 1196, 1199 decentralization 760 decision making support 1463 degree of technical content, of the course 80 delivery media 382, 383, 384, 389 Delphi effect 895 demographic data 1789, 1790, 1793 density 1611 design of learning objects (LOs) 1445 didactical 1475, 1476, 1477, 1478 differentiation 1204, 1209 digital assets management (DAM) systems 1858, 1859 digital content 461 digital divide 1345, 1363 digital ecosystems 1684, 1685, 1686, 1687, 1691, 1692 digital homogenization 835, 843 digital media 746 dimension disaster 1789, 1791 dimension reductions 728 discriminator function 1788, 1790 discussion forums 716, 725, 758, 999 distance 1609, 1613, 1618, 1622, 1623 distance education (DE) 51, 52, 53, 58, 196, 203, 727, 728, 744, 1308, 1309, 1313, 1317, 1318, 1319, 1322, 1345, 1590, 1592, 1594, 1644, 1645, 1646, 1647, 1651, 1653, 1654, 1656, 1657, 1658, 1659, 1661–1683, 1710–1722 distance education systems (DES) 1814, 1815 distance education using mixed reality classroom systems 314 distance education, one-stop for 1710–1722 distance learning 394, 398, 399, 961, 972, 995, 1268, 1308, 1309, 1310, 1317, 1319, 1320, 1321, 1322, 1363, 1364, 1723–1744

distance learning 51, 52, 58 distance learning education 810, 811, 812, 813, 814, 818 distance learning environment 123 distributed cognition 673 distributed intelligence 673 distributed training 490, 491, 493, 495, 499 diversity 760 diversity of collaboration modes 1463 divisions of labor 802 documents management, strategy three 1133 dotcom bubbles 554 dual-coding theory 295 dynamic social environments 748

E eCollege course management systems 592, 593, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, 601, 602, 603, 606 ecological assessment 277, 278, 279, 283, 284, 289, 290 e-commerce 1498, 1499 economies of scale 663 e-counselling 1004 e-delivery 1350, 1352, 1353 Edison, Thomas 1746 Educate Online 964, 965, 970 education 1607, 1609 education accountability system (EAS) 1812, 1813, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821 education, postsecondary 1644, 1645, 1646, 1647, 1653, 1654, 1655, 1656, 1657, 1658, 1659 educational accountability 1813 educational gaming 540, 542, 546 educational instruction 1232 educational modules 1448, 1450 educational objects 1725 educational psychology 1788, 1789, 1790, 1792 Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC) 1813 educational software 333 educational technology 1609 educational theory 180, 834, 835 EDUCAUSE learning initiative 1746, 1761, 1763 e-education 634, 635, 638, 640 effectiveness 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 eJournal 1857, 1858, 1859 elaboration theory 296 elaborator 168 e-leaning methods 791

5

Index

e-learning 1, 7, 8, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 187, 188, 190, 192, 194, 259, 633, 634, 635, 636, 638, 639, 640, 641, 642, 996, 1019, 1026, 1027, 1029, 1030, 1034, 1035, 1447, 1458, 1483, 1484, 1485, 1486, 1491, 1492, 1493, 1494, 1497, 1483, 1498, 1484, 1499, 1501, 1486, 1502, 1503, 1504, 1505, 1507, 1508, 1509, 1510, 1511, 1512, 1513, 1514, 1515, 1516, 1664–1683 e-learning 2.0 1325, 1326, 1329, 1333, 1335, 1336, 1337 e-learning 2.0 867 e-learning completion rate 1709–1722 e-learning courses 1709–1722 e-learning courses, blended 1578 e-learning environments 179, 1684, 1685 e-learning methods 791, 792, 795 e-learning objects 1725, 1742, 1743 e-learning programs 1578, 1582 e-learning research, personalized 1788 e-learning strategies 746, 1347, 1348, 1350, 1351, 1353, 1354, 1357, 1358, 1359, 1360 e-learning support service 1347, 1351, 1352, 1354 e-learning systems 573, 792, 798, 820, 822, 823, 830, 1709–1722, 1725, 1728, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1874, 1884, 1886, 1887 e-learning technology 791, 794, 799 e-learning tools 524, 525, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 535, 536, 537, 539 e-learning, costing of 1347 electronic campuses 11 electronic communication 607, 615 electronic presentations 592, 597, 603 electronic-mediated communication 1487, 1496 eLogBook 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1867, 1868 eMersion environment 1857 e-methods 792, 793, 794, 795, 796, 797, 798, 799 enduring involvement 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1547 engagement 1232, 1233, 1235, 1238 English as a foreign language (EFL) 1826, 1832, 1842 English as a second language (ESL) 1577, 1579, 1580, 1581, 1582, 1584, 1586, 1587, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1832, 1834, 1838, 1841, 1842 English learning 1825, 1826, 1842 English testing systems 1825 English verb tenses 1825, 1826 E-pedagogy 227

6

epistemologies 801, 802, 803, 804, 809 e-portfolios 540, 543, 661, 666, 1858 e-school 1055, 1057, 1058, 1059, 1060, 1063, 1064, 1065, 1066, 1067, 1068, 1070, 1071, 1072, 1073 ethnic culture 1669–1683 Euro Mediterranean Information Society (EUMEDIS) 1363, 1373 European e-learning action plan 644 evaluation criteria 247 evaporation laboratory 341 event sequence 505 example-based modeling 728 explicitly defined contexts 436 exploratory factor analyses 592, 601 expression of tacit knowledge 1463 EXPUSE 1531, 1532, 1534, 1535, 1536, 1538, 1540, 1541, 1542 extensible markup language (XML) 336 eye contact 1233

F fabrication 1628 Facebook 1327, 1336, 1338, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1782, 1783, 1787 face-to-face 834, 835, 837, 838, 839, 840, 841, 842, 843, 844, 846, 890, 8931204, 1205, 1207, 1208, 1209, 1233, 1428, 1429, 1430, 1431, 1433, 1434, 1435, 1436, 1438, 1440, 1441, 1442, 1444 face-to-face classroom 1343, 1422, 1423, 1425, 1426 face-to-face communication 540, 541, 542, 543, 547, 548, 549, 727, 728 face-to-face courses 593, 602, 1326, 1336 face-to-face education 810 face-to-face instruction 1326, 1331, 1334 face-to-face instructional experience 1332 face-to-face learning 997, 1345 face-to-face learning and teaching (FFLT) 84, 85, 87, 88, 95, 97, 100 face-to-face lecture-based environment 1343 face-to-face meeting 262 face-to-face sessions 1430, 1431 Faculté des Sciences Infirmières (FSIL) 1342 faculty development 277, 278, 280, 283, 284 Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) 1401, 1405 family dynamics 1111 feature points 727, 728, 729, 730, 731, 732, 733, 734 feature-points-based modeling 728 feedback 122, 128, 811, 812, 813, 814, 817, 1205, 1206, 1207, 1259, 1265, 1266

Index

Fifth Dimension 1040 first-time online learners, and communication 1121 Flash 336, 1748, 1749, 1753, 1761 Flash player 1748, 1753, 1761 Flickr 671, 678, 688, 691, 692 flow 1531, 1532, 1533, 1534, 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1540, 1541, 1542, 1543, 1544 focussed attention 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539 folksonomies 540, 551, 552, 750 foreign language (FL) courses 84, 85, 87, 89, 93 formal argumentation systems 717 formative assessment 810, 811, 812, 814, 816, 817 forums 1577, 1580 fourth generation mobile communication system 1844, 1845, 1846, 1854 frame relay networks 1872 frames 1211, 1212, 1213, 1218, 1220, 1221, 1226, 1227, 1228, 1229, 1231 framing 1211, 1212, 1216, 1218, 1221, 1226, 1231 free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) 633, 634, 635, 637, 638, 640, 642 freeware 636, 642 fuzzy approach 1827, 1828, 1842 fuzzy Set theory 1827

G Gagne’s conditions of learning 295 gallery 505, 506 generator 86, 88, 89, 93 geotagging 703 global business management (GBM) 1401, 1405, 1415 global classroom 1661–1683 global collaboration 700, 701, 712 global coordinate system 728 global society 554 global virtual team 1496 globalization 1362 globewide network academy 1710–1722 goal orientation, 977 goal-based scenario (GBS) 329 goal-based scenario (GBS) 329 Google apps engine 663 grammar diagnostic expert system (GRADES) 1827 Greece 643, 644, 659 group development, stages of 1155 group learning 166, 169, 700 group work skills 163, 164 Growing by Degrees report 593

guided individual study (GIS) 1627, 1630, 1631, 1632, 1633, 1634, 1635, 1636, 1638, 1643 guided learning 164

H head-mounted display (HMD) 304, 311 Hellenic Open University (HOU) 446, 447, 448, 449, 456 higher education 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 1362, 1363, 1368, 1372, 1373, 1374, 1607 higher education reauthorization act 1629, 1643 higher education, demand for 644 higher engineering education 1857 higher learning 540, 549 historical data 573, 574, 575, 577, 578, 579, 580, 586 home teams 1209 HUMAN 341 human actors 435, 436, 438 human computer interaction 1497 human interaction 384, 385 human parser learning theory (HPLT) 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93 human resources 264 hybrid class 1239, 1240, 1426 hybrid distance learning 1400, 1421 hybrid e-learning 897, 898, 900, 905, 906, 907, 908 hybrid model 540 hypermedia 1789, 1807, 1808, 1809 hypertexts 1518, 1521, 1523, 1527

I icebreakers 123, 129 icebreakers, strategy one 1131 ICT environment 1491 identify, course characteristics 76 image quality 1055, 1067 imperfect flow 1531, 1532, 1534, 1535, 1536, 1538, 1539, 1541, 1542 imperfect-intensive flow 1531, 1532, 1534, 1536, 1538, 1541, 1542 incivility 1626, 1627, 1628, 1630, 1635, 1638, 1639, 1640 independence 760 indices 446, 447, 448, 457 INDIE 329 Indira Gandhi National Open University 995 individualised learning project 1724, 1725, 1730, 1731 individualism-collectivism 1484

7

Index

inductive strategy 822 inductors 912, 914, 919 information age 1661–1683 information and communications technologies (ICT) 1, 700, 748, 1429, 1482, 1484, 1485, 1502 information system 1497 information technologies certificate program (ITCP) 1430 information technology (IT) 418, 419, 420, 426, 432, 433, 976, 982, 983, 984, 996 in-groups and out-groups 1152 input comprehension 85, 86, 87, 89, 92, 94, 96, 100 instant messaging (IM) 1163, 1327 Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) 1241 institutions of higher education (IHE) 405 instructional design (ID) 364, 365, 368, 369, 371, 372, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 1182, 1183, 1185, 1195, 1309, 1311, 1315, 1316, 1318, 1609 instructional designers 1725 instructional interactivity 133, 135, 141, 142 instructional methods 381, 382, 383, 384, 386, 387, 389 instructional models 1232 instructional quality 1308, 1309, 1310, 1312, 1313, 1314, 1315, 1316, 1317, 1318, 1319, 1322 instructional strategies 163, 165 instructional technologies 592, 593, 594, 595, 602 instructional transaction theory 296 instructor presence 1422, 1424, 1426 instructor support requirements 80 instructor-student, enigma and trust 1120 integrated communication environment 446 intellectual property 264 intelligent computer assisted language learning (ICALL) system 1827 intelligent English tense learning and diagnostic system 1825, 1826 intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) 345, 574, 810, 815, 1827 intensity 1611 intensive scheduling 1421 intentional learning 739 interaction 1426 interaction model 1814, 1815, 1816, 1817 interaction patterns 420 interactive chat 542, 545 interactive course 1844, 1846, 1847 interactive course systems 1846

8

interactive learning 1182, 1183, 1185, 1188, 1193, 1194, 1195, 1196 interactive learning environments 342 interactive online test 1844, 1846, 1847 interactive online test systems 1846 interactive speed 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1548 interactive Web-platforms 554 interactivity 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 128, 129, 133, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 1232 intercultural collaboration 700 interface design 1405 Internet 554, 559, 566, 568, 700, 703, 706, 707, 708, 709, 710, 713,1485, 1490, 1493, 1495 Internet addiction 509, 519 Internet field trip 1561, 1575 Internet relay chat(IRC) 103, 107 Internet telephony 1163 Internet, use by learning organizations 11 Internet-based education 1345, 1426 interoperability 820, 822, 829 intraverses 1787 Introduction to American Government 1006, 1007, 1008, 1009, 1010, 1013, 1015, 1016, 1017 IT competence 446 IT courseware 1393 IT, evolution of 1724 itinerant lectures 1056 itinerary 505, 506 IU Online 1710–1722, 1721–1722

J Java virtual machine 912 Java-based 910 JavaServer Pages (JSP) 336 Jigsaw method 1209 joint venture initiatives 1723–1744, 1726–1744 journals, strategy two 1132

K Kentucky Virtual Campus 1710–1722 Kinesthetic learners 1258 KLICK! 1040, 1042 Knowledge 2.0 1335 knowledge accumulation 573, 574 knowledge acquisition level (KAL) 811, 813, 814, 815, 818

Index

knowledge assessment 1870, 1871, 1872, 1874, 1876, 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887 knowledge assessment tasks 1870, 1887 knowledge economy 1844 knowledge exchange 701 Knowledge Forum™ software 1241, 1242, 1247 knowledge mapping 810 knowledge monitoring 811, 812, 813, 819 knowledge networks 436 knowledge, co-construction of 166 knowledge, everyday 460 knowledge, formal 460 knowledge, transfer of 1363 knowledge-building concept 1239, 1240, 1241, 1242, 1243, 1244, 1245, 1246, 1247, 1248, 1249, 1250, 1251, 1252, 1253, 1254 knowledge-oriented 554, 556

L LabAction 1745 lab-exercise training platform 1844, 1846 language education 1826 language learning 1482, 1483, 1484, 1485, 1486, 1487, 1488, 1489, 1490, 1491, 1492, 1495 latent semantic analysis (LSA) 337 law of comparative judgment 1618 learner persona 1498 learner profile model 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443 learner supporting subsystem 1710–1722 learner’s personality characteristic 1788, 1789, 1791, 1792, 1797, 1802 learner-based 835 learner-centered 555, 565, 566 learner-centered environment 1423, 1426 learner-centered focus 1234 learner-centered practice 1232 learner-centered teaching 801 learner-instructors 260 learner-learner interaction 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 288, 289, 290, 292 learner-resource interaction 139 learning 262, 1607, 1608, 1610, 1614, 1615, 1616, 1618, 1620, 1622, 1623 learning activities 1079, 1080, 1081, 1083, 1092, 1100, 1101 learning algorithm 574

learning community 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 394, 395, 402, 403, 607, 608, 612, 1203, 1204, 1209, 1309, 1320 learning curve 267 learning efficiency 573, 589 learning environments 418, 427, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 518, 519, 525, 526, 528, 529, 537, 555, 556, 559, 560, 561, 567, 643, 650, 652, 653, 657 learning experience 1233, 1234, 1236, 1237, 1362, 1363, 1364, 1367, 1368 learning gaps 810, 811, 815, 816 learning goals 121 learning groups 1209 learning hierarchy 459, 460, 463, 465, 467, 470 learning instrument 1392 learning kit 1523 learning liberation 254 learning management content systems (LMCS) 1684, 1685, 1689 learning management system (LMS) 405, 409, 412, 415, 448, 449, 633, 638, 661, 1058, 1059, 1067, 1068, 1119, 1212, 1227, 1231, 1684, 1685, 1686 learning online 960 learning ontology 822, 823, 824, 829, 830 learning opportunities 748 learning outcomes 1076, 1080 learning platform 643, 645, 650, 653, 654, 655, 656, 657, 658 learning portfolio 1825, 1826, 1833, 1836 learning process 791, 792, 793, 794, 799, 811, 816, 817, 818 learning progress 810 learning strategies 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1794, 1795, 1797, 1798, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1804, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1809 learning style 1256, 1257, 1258, 1260, 1261, 1262 learning subsystem 1710–1722, 1711–1722 learning system 555, 556, 559, 560, 563, 564, 565 learning tasks 163, 164, 165, 167, 1182, 1183, 1184, 1185, 1193, 1194, 1195, 1196 learning technology 634 learning tool 643, 645, 646, 649, 650, 651, 655, 657, 659 lecture-based classes 80 lexicon 88, 91, 92, 93 lifelong learners 890, 895 lifelong learning 810

9

Index

lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) server 448 Likert-type survey 891 Linux 335 LISP Tutor 337 literacy 137, 138, 139, 140 Live@edu 662, 663, 664, 665, 669 local area networks (LAN) 1684, 1685, 1686, 1689, 1695 long-leash control 1240

M machine learning 574, 590 Magic Land system 305 management education 418, 419, 420, 424, 432 management of information overload 1463 management system tools 1327 management teaching 418, 420, 431 managing families 1108, 1110 managing research 1108, 1111 Mars 1240, 1243, 1249, 1254 Mars Rovers 1240 Marshall University 739 masculinity 1484 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) 894, 1778, 1780, 1787 Master F@rum 1475, 1476, 1477, 1478, 1479, 1480 mastery learning 966, 967, 969, 971 measurement 223, 225 memory efficient approach (MEA) 85, 93 Mendelian genetics 341 mental dictionary 88, 91 mental models 644 Merrill’s instructional transaction theory 296 meta-analysis 381, 382, 383, 386, 390, 392 metacognition 811, 812, 818, 1518, 1519, 1520, 1521, 1522, 1523, 1524, 1526, 1527, 1525, 1528, 1529, 1530 metacognitive abilities 810, 811 metacognitive knowledge 811, 812, 819 metacognitive measurements 810, 811 metacognitive processes 811 metacognitive support 975, 979, 980, 986, 987, 988, 989 metamodel 822, 823, 825 metaverses 1787 methodology 556, 564, 1501, 1502, 1513 Michigan State University 1710–1722, 1721–1722 microbiology 911, 922 MindEdge 1710–1722, 1721–1722

10

misconceptions 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 470, 644 mixed reality (MR) 304 mixed reality classroom-based education systems 309 mixed reality solar system 311 m-learning 672, 673, 674, 675, 679, 682, 685, 688, 689, 690, 694, 695 mobile asynchronous learning environments 1844 mobile e-learning 1844, 1845, 1846, 1852, 1854 mobile learning research 672 mobile Web 2.0 671, 673, 674, 675, 676, 677, 680, 681, 682, 683, 688, 689, 690, 691, 692, 693, 694 models of disability 1645, 1648, 1659 Modern Language Association (MLA) 1563 modular architecture 1871 Moodle 792, 1578, 1871, 1887 Moore’s theory of transactional distance 296 motivation 1709–1722 MSN messenger 1436, 1440 MSN Web messenger 509 multi user virtual environment (MUVE) 1036, 1037 multi-activity 1531, 1532, 1534 multi-cultural 1500 multicultural communication environments 1661– 1683 multidisciplinary 554 multimedia assisted education system with individual advance (MESIA) system 1710–1722 multimedia library 554 multi-modal learning style 1262 multiple knowledge spaces 365, 366, 367, 373, 374 multi-user dimensions (MUD) 125

N National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1240, 1241, 1254 National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) 1396 net generation 1707 netiquette 168, 171, 174 network infrastructures 1364, 1373 network navigation 1532, 1533, 1534, 1535, 1536, 1538, 1542 network navigation, comprehensive model of 1534 networking 265 New Mexico State University 259 next generation learning environment (NeGL) 1844, 1845, 1854 No Child Left Behind 260, 266

Index

non-commercial open source applications 636 non-flow 1531, 1538, 1541 nonlinear analysis 729 nonlinear learning algorithm 728 nonuptake 802 novel e-learning system 1870

O O’Reilly, Tim 1697, 1698, 1699, 1700, 1701, 1706, 1707 object modeling 822 objectivism 801, 803 OCICU member institutions 1591, 1592, 1596, 1598, 1603 OCICU provider institutions 1590, 1591, 1598 Ohio Learning Network 1710–1722, 1721–1722 on-demand Internet class (OIC) 1068 one-dimensional actor-network (ODAN) 1814 ongoing assessment 1204, 1206, 1207 onland 223, 224, 227 online attention span 1234 online classes 1256, 1257, 1258, 1259, 1260, 1261, 1262, 1264, 1266 online classroom 1607 online collaboration 702, 711 online collaborative learning 1183, 1185, 1193, 1197 online collaborative tools 1283 online communities 398, 403 online computer marked assignment 999 Online Consortium of Independent Colleges and Universities (OCICU) 59, 60, 1590, 1591, 1595, 1596, 1597, 1598, 1601, 1603, 1606 online course evaluation 244, 247 online courses 405, 406, 409, 410, 415, 509, 524, 526, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533, 536, 537, 1268, 1269, 1270, 1271, 1272, 1273, 1274, 1275, 1276, 1277, 1590, 1591, 1593, 1601, 1602, 1605, 1606 online courses of English 1577, 1579, 1580, 1581, 1582, 1584, 1586, 1587 online CTE, research focus in 148 online curriculum 970 online degree courses 1577 online diary 999 online discussion boards 400 online discussions 893 online education 277, 279, 280, 282, 289, 290, 758, 1203, 1204, 1496 online education growth 146 online education, demand for 147 online education, enrollment trends in 156

online environment 1256, 1257, 1258, 1259, 1260, 1261 online format 223, 224, 226 online graduate degrees online instruction 1006, 1007, 1203, 1204 online instructor 1626, 1630 online instructor training 259 online interactive learning 1182, 1183, 1185, 1193 online learning online learning 51, 57, 84, 85, 87, 88, 95, 163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 174, 176, 228, 229, 230, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 242, 244, 245, 246, 247, 259, 727, 734, 735, 736, 740, 1203, 1204, 1209, 1235, 1237, 1239, 1240, 1308, 1309, 1310, 1311, 1316, 1318, 1319, 1325, 1326, 1327, 1328, 1329, 1330, 1331, 1332, 1334, 1337, 1338, 1339, 1340, 1405, 1578, 1590, 1594, 1607, 1608, 1610, 1614, 1615, 1623 online learning administrators 1626 online learning community (OLC) 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 1608, 1610, 1614, 1615, 1623 online learning environment (OLE) 997, 1075, 1076, 1077, 1078, 1079, 1080, 1081, 1082, 1083, 1084, 1085, 1086, 1088, 1090, 1091, 1092, 1093, 1101 online learning environments 1239, 1240, 1607, 1609 online students 1257, 1259, 1262, 1266, 1626, 1629, 1630, 1632, 1636 online teaching and learning, implications for 153 online training 88, 1233 online undergraduate program 1626, 1627 online universities 1577 online-course management 592 ontologies 1787 open and distance learning (ODL) 995, 996, 997,1592 open course ware 554 Open Distance Inter-University Synergies between Europe, Africa, and Middle East (ODISEAME) 1362, 1363, 1364, 1365, 1366, 1367, 1368, 1369, 1370, 1372, 1373, 1374, 1375 open learning 995 open source products 1871 Open University 1710–1722, 1721–1722 open-source 634, 640 optimal Flow 1531 optimum stimulation level 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539

11

Index

organizational culture, four dimensions of 1812 orientation materials 1590, 1591, 1592, 1594, 1596, 1597, 1598, 1599, 1602, 1603, 1605 orientation programs 1592, 1594 overcoming alienation 254

P Palette European integrated project 1857 paper exchange 1012, 1013 paraverses 1787 parent files 1109 parser 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96, 101 partial knowledge 811 participating sites 421, 424, 426, 427, 428 participatory management of displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation (PGCMRR) 998 passive learning 1844, 1846 Pawlak, Zdzislaw 1790, 1791, 1795, 1809 pedagogical applications 524, 529, 531, 532, 533, 537 pedagogical approach 1445, 1447, 1448, 1455, 1456, 1457 pedagogical issues 14 pedagogical methods 836 pedagogical models 530, 539 pedagogical paradigms 608 pedagogical theory 834 pedagogical usability 1498, 1514, 1515 pedagogy 835, 836, 838, 845, 846, 1211, 1213, 1214, 1215, 1216, 1217, 1224, 1225, 1227, 1228, 1231, 1418, 1421 pedagogy 2.0 671, 1335 pedagogy of lecturers 801 perceived learning 474, 475, 479, 482, 483, 484, 485, 488 perceived usefulness 1270, 1273, 1276 perception 1308, 1309, 1310, 1312, 1313 perfect flow 1531, 1532, 1534, 1535, 1536, 1538, 1541, 1542 personal digital assistants (PDAs) 672, 1844, 1845, 1852 personal information analysis 574 personal learning environments (PLE) 661, 662, 667, 670 personal learning experiences 802 personalised system of instruction (PSI) 1075, 1076, 1077, 1078, 1079, 1080, 1089, 1091, 1092, 1093, 1095 personalized automatic answering 572, 573, 574, 589 personalized learning 1789, 1795, 1807, 1810

12

personalized learning suggestions 1825, 1826, 1832, 1841 person-to-person 1232 perspective transformation 1421 phonetic 1488 photonics 911, 921 physical-based modeling 728 plagiarism 1628, 1630, 1631, 1632, 1634, 1640, 1641, 1642, 1643 plants system 311 platform 223, 227 podcasting 554, 558, 568, 671, 1703 podcasts 540, 544, 545, 550 police science 1019, 1020, 1021, 1022, 1027, 1028, 1029 political science education 1017, 1018 pop culture communication 1121 postgraduate students 1023 post-tests 811 power distance 1484 PowerPoint 592, 593, 594, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, 601, 602, 603, 604, 605, 606 practicing democracy 254 pre-communication skills 1104 prescribed and peripheral interaction 1610 pretests 811 problem-based learning (PBL) 154, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 517, 518, 519, 520, 939, 940, 941, 942, 946 process model 1814, 1815, 1820 product design course 671, 673, 679, 685, 688, 690, 691, 693 professionalization of practice 802 project-based course 1428, 1429, 1431, 1437, 1441 project-based learning 1561, 1575 protocological control concept 1239, 1240, 1245, 1247, 1249, 1250, 1252, 1253 proximal development, zone of 460 psychological aspects of learning 1257 psychology 937

Q quality assurance 265 quality of online courses 228, 247 quality of service (QoS) 1845, 1851, 1852 quasi-facial communication 727 Quest Atlantis (QA) 1036, 1037 Quest Atlantis, multi-user virtual environment 1037 question-answering (QA) system 572, 573, 574, 575, 577, 578, 582, 589 quizzes, strategy four 1134

Index

R racism 1669–1683 read/write learning style 1262 real simple syndication (RSS) 540 real-life application 1402 reciprocity 1611 reclaiming reason 254 reflective practice 888 Regional Educational Technology Assistance (RETA) 259 regression analysis 1788, 1790, 1791 remote authoring of mobile blogs for learning environments (RAMBLE) 673 remote sensing 643, 645, 646, 647, 648, 649, 650, 653, 655, 657, 658, 659 repeat consumption behavior 1532, 1534, 1535, 1538 replacement mode 1348, 1349 research team terminology 926 resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) 996 respectful environment 1423 RiverWeb Water Quality Simulator 1524 robot control 911 rough set theory 1788, 1790, 1791, 1795, 1797, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809 Ruhr-University 1019, 1020, 1021, 1022, 1023, 1024, 1030, 1032, 1034, 1035

S Sakai 1871, 1887 satellite remote sensing 643, 645, 647 scaffolding theory 459, 460, 462, 463, 464, 469, 470 scaffolds 459, 460, 463, 468, 469, 470 schedules 1591 SchoolTube ® 1746 science education 459, 464, 465 SciVee 1746 second language (L2) courses 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 92, 93, 94, 100, 101 Second Life (SL) 1779, 1780, 1782, 1784, 1787 secure socket layer (SSL) 1107 self-assessment questions 999 self-direction 1421 self-efficacy 897, 899, 900, 905, 907, 908, 1259 self-evaluation 811 self-explanation reading training (SERT) 1525 self-generated interaction 122 self-monitoring 811, 812 self-motivation 739 self-regulated learning (SRL) 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 517, 518, 519

self-regulation 811, 812, 813, 1256, 1257, 1258, 1259, 1260, 1261 self-reinforcement 811 self-selection 383 semantic desktop 1775, 1776, 1778, 1780, 1781, 1787 semantic desktop, networked 1778, 1780, 1787 sense of community index (SCI) 1610 sensemaking 1211, 1212, 1213, 1215, 1218, 1219, 1220, 1221, 1226, 1227, 1230, 1231 server hardware 1067 seven learning tasks of critical theory 253 SGI workstation 728 sharable content object reference model (SCORM) 1845, 1854 shared artifacts 716 shared environments 716 shareware 636 SHERLOCK 341 short-leash control 1240 Shulman, Lee 801, 802, 803, 808, 809 signal-to-noise ratio 716 Silberman College of Business (SCB) 1401 simulations 540, 543, 546 skill 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1547 Skype 1577, 1580, 1581, 1582 Skype-mediated meetings 1577 slackers 759 small group activities 122 smartphones 671, 673, 675, 680, 683, 684, 686, 687, 688, 689, 690, 695, 1844, 1845, 1852, 1855 social bookmarking 1561 social categorization 1146, 1152 social computing 716 social construction of technology (SCOT) 1231 social constructivism 460, 673, 674, 687, 1282, 1299, 1302, social constructivist learning environments 671, 674, 693, 694 social constructivist learning paradigm 671 social constructivist learning pedagogies 671 social constructivist learning theory 854 social dynamics 555 social emancipatory perspective 255 social exchange 122 social interactions 1182, 1423 social loafing 1146, 1148 social negotiation 365, 366, 369, 371, 373, 374, 376, 377 social network analysis 1239, 1247, 1251, 1252, 1253, 1254

13

Index

social network site (SNS) 1562 social network systems 703 social networking 748, 749, 755, 758, 761, 772, 1325, 1326, 1327, 1336 social networking sites 940 social networks 661, 701, 702, 703, 1163, 1167, 1168, 1170, 1171, 1175, 1181 social presence 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 476, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 488, 490, 497, 501, 524, 525, 526, 529, 530, 533, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538 social psychological phenomena, in online group work 1146 social skills 700 social software 671, 674, 679, 694, 695, 699, 704, 712, 746, 747, 748, 749, 754, 755 social web 748 social work ethics 163, 173 social-focus 1440 socialization 1408 socio ecological models 835 socio-economic 701 Socratic method 165 solar system, pilot study of the 314 source of motivation 975, 979, 980, 986, 987, 988, 989, 990 STEAMER 341 structured social situation 163, 165 student code 1626, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1630, 1631, 1632, 1633, 1634, 1635, 1638, 1639, 1640, 1642 student conduct 1626, 1627, 1628, 1637, 1638, 1640, 1641, 1642 student course completion 1591 student engagement 1427 student factors 1079 student interaction 854 student learning 1422, 1423 student misconduct 1626, 1627 student perceptions 1259 student progress 811 student-centered learning 573, 671 students community 791 study desire 1709–1722, 1710–1722 subjective norm 1171, 1172, 1174 subjectivity 716 substantially online mode 1348 summarizer 168, 172 summative assessment 811, 812, 816

14

supplemental mode 1347, 1348, 1349, 1350, 1351, 1359 Sylvan Learning centers 962 synchronous 490, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 498, 499, 607, 614, 618, 627, 1482, 1483, 1484, 1487, 1488, 1489, 1490, 1492, 1494, 1495 synchronous (online, live) instructors 1233 synchronous CMC 1483, 1487, 1488, 1489, 1494, 1495 synchronous communication 999 synchronous instructors 1234, 1237 synchronous online learning environments (SOLE) 103, 107, 108, 109, 111, 114, 116 synchronous virtual learning environment (SVLE) 898 system instructional design 365, 368

T table of learning 801, 802, 803, 809 tagging 554, 555, 571, 748, 750 task orientation 977 task-driven 119, 122 taxonomy of educational objectives 802, 809 TD-SSIS 1474, 1475, 1476, 1477, 1478, 1479 teacher education accreditation 1813 teacher education programs 1812, 1814, 1821 teacher supporting subsystem 1710–1722 TeacherTube® 1746 teaching and learning 1006, 1007, 1010, 1018 teaching context 1079, 1080, 1082, 1084, 1085, 1086, 1089 teaching criminology 1020 teaching dimension 1472, 1473, 1474, 1477, 1478, 1479, 1480 teaching experiences 802 teaching presence 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 485, 486, 487, 489, 524, 526, 529, 530, 531, 536, 537 teaching resources, market of 1723, 1724, 1725, 1730, 1731, 1732, 1734, 1735, 1737, 1738, 1739, 1740 Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group (TLT) 298 teamwork skills 490, 491, 492, 495, 496, 498, 500 teamwork training 491, 492, 493, 497, 499 technical support 1233, 1236 technological aspects 1232 technological determinism 1217, 1228, 1231 technological trends in the future, and their implications for adult education 12 technological trends, adult education 9

Index

technology 970, 972, 973 technology acceptance model (TAM) 594, 1258, 1259, 1270, 1277 technology barrier 1233 technology mediated learning (TML) 898 teleconference 1486 tele-learning experiences 1362, 1363 telepresence 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1548 textured 3D face 729 thematic unit (TU) 447, 449, 452, 453, 454, 455 theory of immediacy and social presence 296 theory of multiple representations 294 theory of reasoned action 1270 three states of water 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 467, 470 three step process 889, 891 three-year e-learning support project (e3Learning) 1347, 1351, 1354, 1357, 1360 Thurstone scale 1616 Thurstone’s law of comparative judgment 1618 TIGER 1446, 1447, 1448, 1451, 1456 topic ontology 572, 573, 574, 575, 577, 578, 579, 580, 581, 582, 585, 586, 587, 589 topical path 505 total cost of ownership 634, 636, 639 traditional assessment 810, 816 traditional classroom 1239, 1240 traditional instructional models 1788 traditional software 436 training components 1725 training development 1 transcript analysis tool (TAT) 1610 transformative learning 249, 1421 transformative learning theory, overview of 251 transmission and acquisition model 166 trust 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132 trusting relationships 119, 120, 121, 129 T-TRANE 492 tutor 1472, 1473, 1474, 1476, 1477, 1478, 1479, 1480

U UK Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1655, 1659 uncertainty avoidance 1484 unified modeling language (UML) 901 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) 1648, 1649, 1659 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 1342 universal design 1647, 1648 universal design for learning (UDL) 406, 407, 415

universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) 1845, 1855 University 2.0 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 569, 571 university knowledge 699 university networks 1362 University of Central Florida (UCF) 852 University of Florida Distance Learning 1710–1722 University of Illinois Online 1710–1722 University of the Air 1710–1722 University of Wisconsin-Platteville Distance Learning Center 1710–1722 university platforms 1577, 1578, 1580 university platforms, Moodle-based 1578 university teaching 699, 701, 704, 709 unmasking power 253 user models 437 user persona 1498 user-generated content 554, 661 user-modeling approach 572, 573 utterances 1183

V video clips 1745, 1746, 1749, 1752, 1753, 1754, 1758, 1760 video, Web-based 1745, 1746, 1748, 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756, 1757, 1758, 1759, 1760, 1763 video-sharing sites 1745, 1746, 1748, 1749, 1752, 1753, 1756, 1757 virtual classroom 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431, 434, 633, 638, 639, 835, 837, 838, 839, 840, 841, 842, 843, 844, 848,1844 virtual collaboration 1496 virtual communication (VC) 1662, 1662–1682, 1662–1683, 1664, 1666, 1667, 1668, 1669, 1670, 1671, 1672, 1673, 1674, 1675, 1676, 1681 virtual communities 1614, 1619, 1623 virtual educational environments 727, 728 virtual environments 834, 835, 840, 844 virtual experimentation 1857 virtual laboratory 910, 911, 912, 913, 915, 917, 918, 919, 920, 921, 922 virtual learning 263, 607, 608, 624, 628, 1607, 1608, 1616, 1618, 1620, 1623 virtual learning communities 1607, 1608, 1616, 1618, 1620, 1623

15

Index

virtual learning environments (VLE) 661, 662, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 673, 897, 898, 899, 900, 907, 908, 1684, 1685, 1693, 1695 virtual online classrooms 1846 virtual online labs 1844, 1845, 1846, 1854 virtual online labs systems 1846 virtual reality (VR) 304 virtual tour 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507 virtual universities (VU) 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 1723–1744 virtual world 729 visual impairments 407, 408, 411 visual learners 1258 visual, aural, read/write, and kinesthetic (VARK) typology 1257, 1258, 1260, 1261, 1263, 1264 vocational education and technology, toward transformative learning 255 vocational schools 508, 509, 518 voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) 494, 903 Vygotsky, Lev 460, 472

W walled garden 661, 662 Waseda University 1055, 1056, 1057, 1058, 1059, 1063, 1068, 1071, 1072 Wayang Outpost 337 Web 1.0 1697, 1698, 1699, 1701, 1704, 1706 web 2.0 1, 103, 105, 106, 117, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 540, 541, 543, 546, 549, 550, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 559, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 571, 671, 672, 673, 674, 675, 676, 677, 678, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 685, 688, 689, 690, 691, 692, 693, 694, 695, 699, 701, 702, 704, 711, 712, 713, 714, 747, 748, 755, 757, 758, 772, 1696, 1697, 1698, 1699, 1700, 1701, 1702, 1703, 1704, 1705, 1706, 1707, 1708 Web 2.0 application 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 1561, 1571, 1572 Web 2.0 content 671, 685 Web 2.0 learning resources 863 Web 2.0 services 661 Web 2.0 social software 671, 674 Web 2.0 technologies 867, 939, 1325, 1326, 1327, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1335, 1337, 1696, 1698, 1707 Web 2.0 tools 869, 874, 1325, 1326, 1327, 1328, 1330, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1335, 1337 Web 2.0 video tools 1745, 1746, 1748, 1761

16

Web 3.0 1334, 1341 Web accessibility 1644, 1645, 1646, 1647, 1648, 1649, 1650, 1651, 1652, 1653, 1655, 1656, 1657, 1659, 1660 Web accessibility standards 405 Web accessibility, Section 508 guidelines for 1655, 1656, 1660 Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 410, 414, 415, 417, 1646, 1651, 1656, 1660 Web navigational importance 1535, 1536, 1537, 1538, 1539 Web passive voice tutor (Web PVT) 1827 Web site 1430, 1433 Web technologies 447 Web flow 1531 Web-based activities 608 Web-based collaboration support tool 715 Web-based college courses 1256 Web-based corporate training 975, 977, 982 Web-based course 1256 Web-based education 1426 Web-based educational projects 1561, 1562, 1572 Web-based environments 748, 1445, 1446, 1525 Web-based instruction, (WBI) 381 Web-based interaction 608, 625 Web-based learning 460, 461, 462, 465, 468, 469, 470, 472, 607, 608, 609, 612, 613, 616, 622, 623, 624 Web-based learning community 1473 Web-based learning environments 329, 508 Web-based portfolio 1575 Web-based redesign 1392 Web-based systems 608, 609, 613, 616, 625 Web-based technologies 1392, 1396, 1397 Web-based thin-client architecture 1871, 1872, 1879 Web-based tools 1429 Web-based training 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 389, 390 WebCAI 1710–1722, 1722 WebCT 792, 902, 909, 961, 1710–1722 WebCT Vista 738, 740 Webliography 1561, 1563, 1565, 1575 Weblog-based portfolio 1568, 1575 Weick, Karl 1212, 1213, 1215, 1218, 1220, 1230, 1231 WIDE University 1710–1722, 1722 Wiki Pages 942

Index

wikis 540, 543, 544, 545, 552, 555, 560, 568, 570, 571, 671, 692, 703, 705, 706, 712, 746, 748, 749, 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, 756, 758, 761, 762, 763, 764, 765, 766, 767, 768, 769, 770, 771, 772, 773, 1181, 1703, 1706, 1708 wildcard 168 Window Messenger (WM) 1711–1722 wireless communication technologies 1844 wireless mobile devices (WMD) 672, 675, 676, 688, 693, 697 wireless network traffic 1845 World Campus 1710–1722, 1721–1722 WorldWatcher 337 World-Wide Web 1485

Y YouTube 671, 676, 678, 680, 681, 685, 688, 691, 692, 1745, 1746, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752, 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756, 1757, 1758, 1759, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763, 1764

Z zone of proximal development 164, 1182

17