COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AND THE ONLINE CLASSROOM:
SOLVING EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS

mauri collins

Change is a watch-word in today's society. In general, most of the changes educators propose involve three types of problems and opportunities: access, quality and productivity. Our search for quality instruction continues throughout the centuries, and no doubt will in the future. More recently, especially in the North America, one of the goals of education has been equal access to (quality) education for all persons seeking it. In some ways, educational systems struggle to provide both equal access to, and a high quality of education, given limited resources available in society for these efforts. Technology has historically provided tools used for educational purposes to increase productivity among other things, and has often been successful in helping to meet many of the goals in teaching and learning.

Given this link among quality, access, and technology, there are many problems and opportunities that involve a combination of these three factors. When Mauri Collins and I first started talking seriously about editing the three volume set, "Computer-Mediated Communication and the Online Classroom," (Hampton Press, 1995) a significant goal was to produce a practical book for teachers in higher and distance education--one that would identify problems and show solutions using a particular technology in the classroom--computer-mediated communication.

Right from the beginning, in our call for proposals we asked authors to submit potential contributions that first identified an instructional problem(s) and then to use the chapter to describe how they used CMC to solve or help solve that problem. The challenge to me seemed to be, what can I do using CMC, in the interest of teaching and learning, that was impossible or very difficult to do without its use. There are a significant number of chapters, especially in the book, "An Overview and Perspectives-- Volume 1," that are broad and speak of the environment and contexts in which CMC is used for educational purposes. Still, in that book and especially in the other two books in the series, "Higher Education--Volume 2," and "Distance Education--Volume 3," there is contained mostly case studies and resources for practical problem-solving.

Some general problems that often permeate the books can be as simple, yet significant, as providing an efficient way to turn in homework by students and return feedback to students by the teacher, reduce the cost of classroom handouts, or cut travel costs for students and teachers. CMC provides an avenue for discussion among students, instructor(s), and others. Some instructors have used CMC to create a virtual laboratory for world leaders to met and experiment. With regard to providing access to education for students at distant or diverse locations, CMC has a significant impact--allowing teaching and learning to transcend time and place. It can expand access to the very best instructors, or visiting experts can interact with students.

In writing, CMC can expand the online classroom time (e.g., from 50 minutes) so that students can use the writing process at their pace and convenience. Authors talk about CMC helping to motivate students to write, as an aid to demonstrating writing, as a way to create realistic writing tasks, as a way to establish a meaningful audience and context for student writing, to encourage writing practice, create collaboration opportunities, model an expert writing process and to help find enough collaboration among students for them to see different literary interpretations other than just their own. Other authors speak of alleviating many of the problems of circulating written text for peer work, giving individuals access to the writings of others, and responding to the writing of others. All this occurring in different classes, across the curriculum, and using models of the writing process that have been merely impossible without CMC.

To create an exhaustive list of problems discussed in the three volume set, "Computer-Mediated Communication and the Online Classroom," is not the goal here. But to give the reader some indication of the scope of these books, here is a sample. Besides those listed above, chapters provide guidance for such problem-solving as:

• homeschooling
• reducing barriers for persons with various physical and learning disabilities
• increasing information sharing
• communicating with others around world
• reducing the isolation sometimes felt by teachers and learners
• promoting and defending native cultural beliefs and values
• widening student experience in other countries/cultures
• cushioning the difficult transition from student to teacher in supporting first-year teacher initiatives

I would like to encourage each person to not only read those chapters that speak directly to your field of work, but to also step outside and read the books in their entirety. I think CMC is an area where reading what others do, even if not directly related to your discipline, may give you valuable insights and models that can spark your own creative ideas!