The
student in this new paradigm is also different. Online students must utilize
two skills: a self-directed, information-seeking approach and self-discipline.
In traditional classes, students tend to rely on the instructor for all
content. Meeting two or three days a week, the students also tend
to rely on the instructor for assignment reminders. The online student,
however, has access to more materials than the instructor has opportunity
or inclination to provide. The online student is solely responsible for
staying on track and meeting all deadlines. Students who lack self-direction
and self-discipline rarely succeed at online courses.
Course
development is also quite different online. In face-to-face instruction,
professors set a general plan for the semester, but prepare each session
just-in-time. With online education, all course-related activities are
prepared well in advance. While the course is being offered, the educator
may be involved in evaluating (only some evaluating activities can be conducted
effectively online at this time) and monitoring student progress, as well
as maintaining the technology.
Online
education isn't for everyone.
Online
education also isn't the low-cost, solve-every-problem panacea it has been
predicted to be.
I have
been teaching online courses for three years and have yet to repeat a course
without extensive revisions. Many educators have a vision that we will
create these courses, test them, and then offer them over and over without
needing any kind of intervention or alterations. That is a wonderful dream,
but the nature of this paradigm dictates another reality.
We
are in a time of accelerating change. Between one semester and the next
the content grows richer, the hardware grows more powerful, and the software
becomes more complicated. My skills and the skills of those who support
my efforts grow with every class we offer. Students approach the content
with different needs, depending on the changes in their environments, and
their demands for more interaction, richer content, and technological proficiency
(ours, not theirs) grow with every class they take online.
We
grew up in the era of the textbook, where new textbook editions are separated
by years, and course offerings tended to change only with the new editions.
Now we are in the era of the Internet, where new "editions" emerge daily,
and course offerings may have to improve as rapidly.
Online
education will grow because it meets the needs of a new audience--nontraditional
students--and because it offers new approaches to old content-delivery
issues. It won't, however, replace educators, save tons of money, and eliminate
the need for well-maintained campus infrastructures.
I believe
that online education will take us even closer to understanding how learning
takes place, teach better in some content areas, and lure a new type of
student and educator into the current mix. Educators are here to stay,
but some of us will be online, rather than in the classroom. |
