From: Graeme Hart <graeme.hart@whirligig.com.au>
Subject: ONLINE-ED, 20 September, 1999
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ONLINE-ED, 20 September, 1999 - A free moderated mailing list delivered to over 1800 subscribers in 40 countries each Monday during Australian higher education semesters, providing topical articles from invited authors - along with an overview of current activities in online education with an emphasis on the World Wide Web - edited by Graeme Hart at Whirligig http://www.whirligig.com.au/

SUBSCRIBE at http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/online-ed/ - Please forward this mail in its entirety to preserve author copyright.

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CONTENTS THIS WEEK

LEADING FACULTY GENTLY BY THE HAND Mauri Collins, Old Dominion University, USA

ARTICLES COMING-UP FROM...

* 27 Sep: Tony Gilding (Australia) - CMC in a Dual Sector University
* 04 Oct: Glyn Rimmington (Australia) - Building balanced teams for student projects
* 11 Oct: Graeme Hart - Virtual Time

EDITOR'S NOTES * GATE Conference Melbourne * Benjamin Franklin Institute Demonstration of Interactive Streaming Media Technology.

WHAT'S ON? See below for related events ============================================================

LEADING FACULTY GENTLY BY THE HAND

Mauri Collins
Old Dominion University, USA

HELPING FACULTY LEARN TO USE NEW TECHNOLOGIES and to incorporate these technologies into their courses, has been a focus for me in one form or another since the late eighties. A lot of attention is paid to the 'content' and design of courses in the transition from classroom to mediated delivery. This is the 'easy' part especially since the advent of 'Save as HTML' But what about the faculty person's feelings in all this? You can't save THEM as HTML! And there seems to be very little written or done about the socio-emotional transitions that faculty have to make as they attempt to accommodate their teaching styles to new and different delivery technologies.

INSTITUTIONS WORLDWIDE SEEM TO BE CAUGHT UP IN A HEADLONG RUSH to get courses 'online' with the hope of penetrating new markets and reaching larger numbers of students. In pursuit of this goal, a growing number of faculty are being asked to teach courses where a substantial part - or all of the course transactions - take place in some computer-mediated form. Most often the delivery vehicle of choice is the web-browser - an 'umbrella technology' that allows access to text, graphics, sound and images regardless of location, computer platform or operating system.

THE SHOCK OF TRANSITION doesn't seem to be as great when faculty are asked to teach on television. Many faculty are accomplished performance artists and their transition from classroom to televised teaching is, for them, just a case of thinking more visually and making the font size on their presentation materials a little larger. For many faculty it is close to 'business as usual' being comfortable at the front of the room and staying within camera range poses no problems.

MOST PEOPLE EXPECTED TO MAKE THE TRANSITION from classroom to online course delivery are part of the large body of 'mainstream' faculty. They are not the enthusiastic technology pioneers - they are not the 'lone rangers' who learn and use the newest technologies long before 'mainstream' have even heard their acronyms (WWW, DVD, JPG, HDTV . . .). As always, deprivation, loneliness and lack of resources seems to be the hallmark of the pioneer's lonely trek - that, and the arrows conspicuous between their shoulder blades!

THE NEWEST GROUP BEING ASKED TO TEACH ONLINE is akin to the 'settlers' who follow behind the 'pioneers.' The 'settler' expects graded roads, fences, city power, water, and sewage to the lot line, with schools, churches and shops within easy travelling distance. Where 'technology pioneers' are willing to develop computer code and course development tools themselves, the faculty 'settler' needs the comforting structure of templates and HTML editors or whole course development systems either purchased by the institution or homegrown. They also need 'guides' who can lead them gently by the hand and into these new and sometimes frightening vistas.

BUT FACULTY ARE OFFERED SOFTWARE TRAINING - 'Building Web Pages 101' or 'Using Graphics on Web Pages' and, at many institutions, this appears to be assumed sufficient to effortlessly move a faculty member from classroom to online course delivery. Most higher education institutions have personnel trained to assist in this technical translation of materials directly from classroom to online delivery. Either the faculty person - or their graduate/ teaching assistant - is taught to do the document and resource translation. There may be 'instructional developers' paid by the institution to build or use course development templates and do graphic design work beyond the competency of the faculty person. This often results in what has been derisively called 'shovel-ware' - course materials translated in toto, with little knowledge or consideration of necessary changes to accommodate materials to new delivery technologies. Is this 'technical training and support' sufficient to complete the transition of classroom teachers to effective online facilitators of learning? I think not.

FOR TWO YEARS I TRAINED FACULTY in the use of the 'NAU Online Conference Center' at Northern Arizona University, which was based on 'stand alone' threaded discussion group software called CAUCUS (http://www.caucus.com). Learning the layout of the software, what the 'buttons' are, and how to 'push' them in the right sequences takes about 30 minutes when done one-on-one and an hour or so in a lab setting with a group. Most quickly become comfortable and confident in their use of the software. It doesn't usually take long to get a firm grasp on the structure of threaded discussions- the notion of conferences, items/topics and responses. Most threaded discussion group software can also carry images and sound files, animations and downloadable files.

BUT THERE ARE DEEP-SEATED FEARS THAT GRIP MANY FACULTY MEMBERS when they are told they are to teach all or part of their courses online via synchronous or asynchronous computer conferencing. Many faculty feel a deep sense of discomfort and ill-ease, often without being able to articulate its source or determine its remedy. Their discomfort often stems from a fear that they cannot cope with the technical requirements, that they must learn to teach all over again and lose their role as the 'dispenser of knowledge' in the course. They express grave concerns for the quality of online courses - embedded in those concerns is a fear that they cannot maintain what they believe to be adequate quality of instruction, and that they will not be able to control the quality of the finished product.

WHEN ASKED TO TEACH ONLINE, most faculty are confronted with a whole new way of teaching and interacting with students. To teach by using one's fingertips on a keyboard is strange and different and especially intimidating for some faculty who are just getting used to using computers and to the notion of electronic mail - even more so for those who have never acquired keyboarding skills. As 'performance artists' faculty are used to keeping a close eye on their audience and making instant adjustments to their information delivery pace and style in response to visual and aural feedback. Suddenly they are confronted with a computer screen - that doesn't have eyes or 'body language'. I have discovered that many faculty believe that they are going to have to discard any and all craft knowledge they may have built up in classroom teaching and that they will have to learn to teach all over again. Most faculty teach as they were taught anyway and have comfortably developed their own teaching style that mirrors what they have seen demonstrated and have used with some success themselves. Because they are being asked to use a delivery technology other than the 'chalk-and-talk' they are used to, they fear that nothing that they know has any value any more.

TAKING A PERSON 'GENTLY BY THE HAND' means showing them HOW to adjust their personal teaching styles to accommodate the new delivery technologies. Faculty, particularly senior faculty, are loathe to admit their fear aloud - especially in front of their peers. Taking them gently by the hand is to help them to articulate and deal with that fear. Sometimes it means determining that teaching online is so antithetical to a faculty member's personal teaching style that they should not be asked - or coerced - into making the transition. It involves reassuring faculty that many of the teaching methods and techniques they use successfully in the classroom really can be translated into computer-mediated classes. It involves helping them see - one step at a time - that there is much that they will not have to relearn or re-develop.

MANY HAVE A PERSONAL TEACHING STYLE predominantly as a 'knowledge dispenser' and they hold themselves responsible for their students' learning. They have a rocky time with the transition to a technology that strips a faculty member of all their badges of rank and positions of status. Students can no longer see the suit or the briefcase, nor the faculty member standing behind the podium at the front of the room, the focus of students' complete attention. Carefully prepared and masterfully delivered lectures become just so many screens of dense text, almost impossible to read on a screen. The comfortable distance they can maintain between students and themselves so they can tend to their research and service requirements dissipates as email messages pile up in their electronic mailboxes. These faculty are those whose demand for assistance with their teaching duties is the loudest.

THE MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE THESE FACULTY MEMBERS CAN RECEIVE is that the currency of online exchange and communication is that which is between one's ears. Authority in the group can be established by the faculty member' sharing their expertise and their holding the power to grant a grade Faculty in no way lose their roles as content experts and guides through complex materials and the builders of learning environments for students. Those faculty who are, by choice and personal disposition, predominantly 'learning facilitators' in the classroom find that they can easily do more of what they like to do when online and they can accomplish course goals they could not set for their classroom teaching. By the end of their first course these learning facilitators have discovered that they can develop closer relationships with some of their students, building the trust and open communication that removes many of the barriers to student learning. One faculty member confided to me that what he hadn't expect was how much he would miss the students, with whom he had been corresponding during the class, after the semester had ended.

ONE REPERCUSSION OF THE MOVE FROM CLASSROOM AND LECTURE HALL to online course delivery is an unfortunate tendency for institutions to enrol students as if they were in a large lecture course. Faculty are being expected to cope with a hundred or more students in a single course online, without much help. It is the remarkable faculty person who has so designed their classroom courses that they translate seamlessly to an online environment without diminishing the quality of the interaction among students.

ONE OF THE MOST CONSISTENT FEARS that faculty who are being asked to teach high-enrolment online courses express is "How can I mark and grade all the student papers I assign? I want to give my students fast feedback but if I have a hundred papers turn up in my email box to grade every week . . . " I am always amused by the shock I see on faculty faces when I ask, "Why do YOU have to be the one to do that?" Because of the impossibility of implementing peer review in many classroom settings - especially with high enrolments, faculty assume they must do all the grading.

TAKING FACULTY GENTLY BY THE HAND means asking them if they have criteria that they use when they grade papers. It sometimes takes a while to help them commit those implicit criteria to paper - a list of content that must be present - indications of a process that must be followed. Can those criteria be taught to students? Can discussion of how feedback should be constructively expressed be incorporated into the structure of the course? What would be the effect on the student's work as they practice applying those criteria the work of their peers, to their own work as they do to their peers? Slowly the light dawns. One faculty member complained about all the time it took to hunt down web pages that pertained to the course. "Why must you be the person to do that?" was a question that gave her pause. Resource pages can be started by the faculty member with a couple of examples as models. The students are then assigned to find pertinent resources, correctly cite them and turn them in with a paragraph describing the course and providing rationale for other course members to visit that site.

AS WITH MOST ADULT LEARNERS, when confronted by a new situation, faculty appreciate some structure in the form of process suggestions being provided to them. Many faculty quickly develop the confidence to go on from there by themselves. Others need to be taken gently by the hand and 'fussed over and reassured' for a while. Time invested in giving individual faculty who need it a lot of individual attention up front - in their own office - in their safe space - pays off bountifully. Credibility is built with faculty who, in turn, encourage their peers to take the same first steps - and often become the strongest advocates for teaching with new technologies.

Mauri Collins
Old Dominion University,
USA

http://emoderators.com

[ABOUT THE AUTHOR - Mauri Collins <mcollins@odu.org> is an Instructional Designer with the Center for Learning Technologies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia http://www.odu.org. Her duties include leading faculty workshops and assisting with faculty from two different programs to web-stream their courses. She is a doctoral candidate in Adult Education/Distance Education at The Pennsylvania State University with majors in Adult/Distance Education and Instructional Systems Design. Her dissertation topic is the use of email distribution lists in out-of-school adults' informal and incidental learning. During her time at Northern Arizona University (1996-1999) she designed and developed the web-accessible NAU Virtual Conference Center. Use of the Center climbed from five faculty teaching six courses to less than 200 students Fall, 1997 to over 70 teaching faculty leading almost a hundred courses involving 2000 students in Spring 1999. In the process she worked closely with faculty as trainer and coach as they worked their way from classroom to building online learning environments - Ed.] ============================================================

EDITOR'S NOTES GATE CONFERENCE MELBOURNE - 'Trade in Transnational Education Services - Access or Exclusion?' September 29-October 1 GATE (Global Alliance for Transnational Education) is an alliance of business, education and government with the goal of assuring the quality of education and training which cross national borders in physical, telecommunicated and virtual forms. Central to the conference are issues related to access to higher education globally, including global supply and demand; issues related to trade in education services; corporate human resource needs and the role of higher education; and the globalisation of the professions. Key among these are issues related to trade in educational services. For more information: http://www.edugate.org or contact Elin Gurney elin.gurney@adm.monash.edu.au

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN INSTITUTE of Global Education Webcast Global Learn Day - Demonstration of Interactive Streaming Media Technology. This 24-hour annual Webcast brings together global leaders in distance education from more than 70 countries to discuss affordable and accessible education for all. The Webcast will begin at 5:00pm PDT on Saturday, October 9. The purpose of Global Learn Day III is to demonstrate that education and training can now be affordably delivered to every corner of the globe through the use of the Internet. Leaders in Web-based distance learning will deliver presentations from locations around the world, with a heavy emphasis on serving the educational needs of the disabled and the poor. Examples of international keynote speakers at Global Learn Day III include Vinton Cerf "Father of the Internet," Dr. Robin Mason from Open University in England, the largest provider of distance education in the world, and U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, who will focus on the need for policies to help push distance learning into the most remote areas. More information and 'seat reservation' at http://www.bfranklin.edu

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WHAT'S ON? Send mail to 'online-ed-request@unimelb.edu.au' to have your event details included here.

SEPTEMBER 27-29, 1999 - Internationalisation, Flexible Learning and Technology Conference Monash University. International education raises the prospect of new frontiers, new technologies and new forms of learning. Flexible learning provides many new challenges for university staff. To assist university staff in meeting these challenges, this year's Monash Conference focuses on Internationalisation, Flexible Learning and Technology and will be held from Monday September 27 to Wednesday September 29 at Monash University, Clayton Campus. Conference details and registration form can be found at <http//:www.monash.edu.au/groups/flt>.

SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 15, 1999, VIRTUAL INTERACTIVE TRAINING AND LEARNING '99 (VITAL '99) A collaborative virtual conference, taking place on the WWW with a focus on issues in the design, development and effective use of Interactive Training and Learning programs delivered online. Keynotes and session leaders include Wayne Hodgins, Margaret Martinez, Robin Mason, Kord Kutchins and Harvi Singh and many more. VITAL '99 guest authors include: Tony DiBella, Martha Haywood, Dale Karolak, and Roger Schank. This conference, co-produced by The Training Place and Caucus Systems, is a virtual conference taking place entirely online. VITAL '99 will also have common areas including a virtual cafe, an online bookstore, and a reference center. More information -> http://www.trainingplace.com/vital99/ Contact: Russ Williams via e-mail <russwill@trainingplace.com>.

SEPTEMBER 29-OCTOBER 1 GATE CONFERENCE MELBOURNE - 'Trade in Transnational Education Services - Access or Exclusion?' GATE (Global Alliance for Transnational Education) is an alliance of business, education and government with the goal of assuring the quality of education and training which cross national borders in physical, telecommunicated and virtual forms. Central to the conference are issues related to access to higher education globally, including global supply and demand; issues related to trade in education services; corporate human resource needs and the role of higher education; and the globalisation of the professions. Key among these are issues related to trade in educational services. For more information: http://www.edugate.org or contact Elin Gurney elin.gurney@adm.monash.edu.au

OCTOBER 4-6 - NEW FRONTIERS IN LEARNING CONFERENCE Stakis Brighton Metropole, Brighton, England - An annual international conference held at selected sites around the world designed to stimulate and provide opportunities for educational administrators, teachers, theorists and researchers to systematically explore and analyse multiple pathways to teaching and learning. Key to the success of the conference is the Global Educator Team - a team consisting of engineers of global education. Within its ranks there is an inspiring range of expertise, of skill and experience upon which bridges of educational communication are built. The members come from every corner of the planet and collectively view the issues of the present and the future through a global eye. More information -> http://cee.indiana.edu/GET/conf/england99/index.html or contact Marv Mikesh <mmikesh@VAX2.WINONA.MSUS.EDU>.

OCTOBER 4-6, 1999 FIFTH HONG KONG WEB SYMPOSIUM at The University of Hong Kong and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University - Theme: e-Education: Challenges and Opportunities - This annual conference brings together people from schools, universities, distance, vocational and continuing education agencies, government departments, and telecommunication industries on the use of the World Wide Web to advance teaching and learning in Hong Kong, which is spending HK$44 billion to improve the quality of education, much of it through the planned exploitation of IT. Overseas educators and IT researchers are invited to share the developments in their own country with the teachers, students and educational policy makers of Hong Kong. Paper submission deadline is 17 August. Contact Angela Castro (acastro@hkucc.hku.hk) for further information. http://www.ssrc.hku.hk/sym/99/

OCTOBER 4-15, IFETS DISCUSSION - IFETS list organises regular discussions on various issues related to educators and educational system developers. The participation in the discussion requires free membership of the forum by filling out membership registration form at forum website: http://ifets.gmd.de/ and subscribing to discussion list as explained at: http://ifets.gmd.de/maillist.html. The next discussion on the list is focused on the theme 'Flexible Learning: Can we really please everyone?' The discussion will be moderated by Alan Holzl, University of Queensland, Australia and summarized by Reema Khurana, Institute of Management Technology, India. The final summary of the discussion will be published in 'Educational Technology & Society' journal which is freely accessible at: http://ifets.gmd.de/periodical/

OCTOBER 7, 1999 -ALTAC CONFERENCE 1999 The Business Learning Centre, Dunfermline, Scotland. COMPLETING THE JIGSAW: Delivering Lifelong Learning with Information and Communications Technology. The pace of change in education is accelerating. More people are becoming learners, and at the same time Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is becoming integrated into teaching and learning in many different ways. Further, with government initiatives such as the University for Industry (UfI) / Scottish University for Industry (SUFI) and the National Grid for Learning (NGfL), the final pieces of a new and exciting learning framework are falling into place. ICT is making Lifelong Learning is a reality. Please e-mail info@altac.org.uk with your details: we will send you further information and a registration form.

OCTOBER 25-30, WebNet 99, World Conference of the WWW and Internet, Honolulu, Hawaii, Sheraton Waikiki Beach Resort. More info - http://www.aace.org/conf/webnet/.

NOVEMBER 4-7, ICCE 99 7th International Conference on Computers in Education, Chiba, Japan. The Conference fosters the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in education throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The conference theme, ' New Human Abilities for the Networked Society ', indicates a focus on the new education needed in the near-future societies that are rapidly developing in the region. More information - http://www.ai.is.uec.ac.jp/icce99/ or contact Geoff Cumming, La Trobe University, Australia Email G.Cumming@latrobe.edu.au

NOVEMBER 24-26, ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN '99 will feature a number of new themes including an entire track devoted to Knowledge Management reflecting the increasing interdependence between a company's approach to training and the overall management of its intellectual assets. The 4th Online Educa conference which took place last December attracted almost 800 people from 43 different countries and provided an important snap-shot of what is happening particularly in the European telematics supported learning industry. More information - http://www.online-educa.com or contact astrid.jaeger@icef.com

DECEMBER 5-8, ASCILITE99 CONFERENCE, Brisbane, Australia. For those interested in or involved with the educational use of computers. The theme is 'Responding To Diversity' and the conference will examine the many challenges facing the higher education sector in the new millennium. A global perspective is being promoted with a keynote from Stephen Ehrmann, Vice President of the Teaching, Learning and Technology affiliate of the American Association for Higher Education. The global or 'Borderless Education' theme will be continued with a keynote report by the researchers entitled 'Challenges to the Higher Education Sector from Corporate and Virtual Providers: The US and Australian Response'. Forums on Evaluation and Experiences with Flexible Delivery will offer a change in format with a longer time for questions of presenters facilitated by a chairperson. Call for papers, snapshots and workshops due May 14. More information- http://www.tals.dis.qut.edu.au/ascilite99 or contact Carole Evans on Carole@ems.uq.edu.au or call +61 7 38642913

ANUARY 25-28, 2000 - 7TH ANNUAL DISTANCE EDUCATION CONFERENCE, DEC2000, in Austin, Texas. The DEC2000 will include research reports, case studies, how-to sessions and more . . . all designed to address the issues distance education practitioners face, whether they are in education, business or government. More information <http://www.cdlr.tamu.edu/dec_2000/index.html> contact Peter Williams, Conference Chair, pwill@cdlr.tamu.edu

FEBRUARY 5-8, M/SET 2000 - International Conference on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology San Diego, California. More information -> http://www.aace.org/conf/mset

FEBRUARY 8-12, SITE 2000 - Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference, San Diego, California. More information -> http://www.aace.org/conf/site

APRIL 12-14, 2000 - 5th Annual Teaching in the Community Colleges Online Conference - A VIRTUAL ODYSSEY: What's Ahead for New Technologies in Learning?. You are invited to sign on as a presenter--a navigator on an exploration into the uncharted waters of the next millennium. Join our quest to determine exactly where 2- and 4-year colleges are and to discover what's ahead for new technologies in learning. What is our bearing, our present position? What are we doing right--or wrong? Help us chart the best possible course for the 21st century: For further information <http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/tcon2000> or write to Jim Shimabukuro <jamess@hawaii.edu> or Bert Kimura <bert@hawaii.edu>. ============================================================

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ONLINE-ED -- Online Education Mailing List. http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/online-ed/ Editor: Graeme Hart graeme.hart@whirligig.com.au COPYRIGHT for articles rests with the author. Please freely forward this mail in its entirety to preserve author copyright. ============================================================