Distance education lives. Before I taught an on-line course, I hoped it was a fad and would soon disappear. How could you teach courses on the Web? Too impersonal. How do you communicate? Distance education must be just another correspondence course (I use “correspondence course” in the pejorative, as the result of my own unreasoned bias) in sheep’s clothing.
After five years of on-line teaching, I can say a distance education course is certainly not a correspondence course, and there is a great deal of communication. After spending a semester with my on-line students, I may never hear their voices, or observe their mannerisms and inflections, but I do gain a strong sense of their personalities and have many of the same connections I experience with students in a live class.
There is a rapport in my distance classes, but it is a few steps removed from real-life interaction. Nothing effective is done in real time. All the major platforms of distance education, WebCT, Blackboard and Community College’s platform of choice, Webstudy, are used in a predominately ansynchronous manner; that is, all the course platforms employ “leave a message” interaction. Post a statement and someone else posts a reply and a comment, and on it goes.
My comments here are designed to focus upon asynchronicity’s evil twin, synchronicity, the process of real-time communication in distance learning. Based upon my efforts trying out the synchronicity features in a web-based course, I am compelled to rebuke the synchronicity course features with the following quote: “Synchronicity, I knew real-time communication and you are not real-time communication.”
The State of Interactivity
To explain distance learning interactivity briefly, all platforms contain bulletin board or forum features where the entire class may visit, post comments and reply to instructor/classmate postings. All programs also contain an internal message system similar to e-mail; these permit the equivalent of “w-mail” communication between the entire class, albeit in a cumbersome fashion. In addition, voice messages may be left in Webstudy, which students may access and reply. None of the foregoing are in real-time; however, one real-time communication feature is found in Webstudy’s Live feature.
Synchronicity—Or Something Like It
Webstudy’s Live section provides two varieties of live communication, instructor moderated and unmoderated. While each is a variant on the chatroom, the instructor moderated feature enables control of the dialogue posted for discussion and permits direction of the discussion. The unmoderated mode of discussion can only be categorized by two words: “Helter skelter.” In that mode, with even the most wonderful classes, discussion is impossible to manage. Numerous students post their responses at the same time. Different students post replies to different questions. Sprinkled in this mix is the “quark,” the random unconnected posting that finds its way in all discussions.
Perhaps very small groups can successfully navigate in this rough terrain, but my most successful efforts in real-time adventures have been instructor moderated. However, even these sessions have been plagued by the scheduling, learning curve, discussion management, and speed problems.
One big problem is scheduling. As we are all well aware, our students are not merely students but also employees, and sometimes parents engaging in many other roles. The most obvious benefit of a distance course for such students is the scheduling flexibility it provides, but this very factor makes it a challenge to establish convenient on-line meeting time.
The learning curve is also problematic for instructor and student. Using the “Live” feature is not intuitive; the commands require experimentation and practice. From the student standpoint, the problems can quickly cause frustration. Responses are created and students struggle with getting them forwarded for posting. I have always broached the idea of a live session with students as both an experiment and an adventure. This approach cues students that the feature may require some practice, and that the instructor may not be the perfect distance education machine they thought he was.
Once, while leading a moderated discussion, I thought it would be gracious to turn over the floor to a student, which essentially makes the student the moderator and places the instructor in the role of a student. Upon reflection, it all happened so fast...I relinquished control without thinking. The student now in control, while willing, was unable to master the process. I kept sending urgent messages asking for control of the floor back, but my novice moderator did not know how to effect this, nor did he know how to post the new comments as they arrived. No more of my comments made it to the class and my moderator eventually sent a message to the class, “I’m getting off. I can’t figure this out.” Now no one could post a comment and we all unceremoniously dropped off. A class wide e-mail to my students apologized for what we all agreed was a big mix-up.
When I have acted as the moderator, I have found that there is a great deal to manage. Sorting the responses is half the battle. Comments are filtered by the instructor, and when students forward a comment that is off topic or irrelevant, I will try to use another devilish feature known as “whisper.” In a live classroom, when faced with a student response that does not enhance the discussion, I try to blend my urge to move the discussion along with my urge to encourage participation. The whisper feature enables me to “whisper” only to the student and say that I am not going to use his/her comment.
Another adjustment that I did not anticipate at first has to do with pursuing a line of thought. In conventional classrooms, sometimes the topic is easily stretched by any comment that relates to parallel issues, or by a personal aside. However, on line, comments that don’t respond directly to the discussion at hand may cause the discussion path to be reassessed, and the time required to cull out the comments “better left unused” requires dexterity.
Last but not least, speed, as in typing speed, is another recurring problem. When students are using the “hunt and peck” typing method, they may often struggle to respond in a timely manner. I often find “dead air” in a live classroom to be disconcerting, and the delay awaiting a student comment, or any comment, is tiresome.
Successful Sessions, Sometimes
There have been some successes, too. On a Friday evening in February, five of us met online at about six o’clock, with a plan for a half-hour get together. We had agreed to discuss a narrow question with which many class members had struggled. I arrived (electronically) early to find my students waiting. One of the students forwarded a paragraph containing an analysis, which we used as a starting point for our discussion. We quickly developed questions and responses that engaged everyone and led to student-led interaction that addressed all of the important aspects of the topic. Thirty-five minutes passed quickly, and I thanked all for their efforts. This time, the “Transcript” feature was employed to its best use. “Transcript” permits copying of a verbatim record of the discussion and then posting a link to it for the benefit of the rest of the class. I informed the entire class of the great effort of their classmates and encouraged visiting the link to observe the transcript. A couple of students later wrote to tell me how helpful this proved to be.
Strategies for Successful Synchronicity
Successful live discussions are successful only through strategies that anticipate the “rough spots”. Based on my travails, I suggest concentrating on five major factors: practice, group size, time, limits on subject matter, and pre-meeting topic assignments.
Students and instructor must practice the moves required to make the interactions go smoothly; this will enhance chances for success. Also, sessions early in the semester of only two students can provide opportunities for interaction without the feel of a mob experience. An exercise I will be employing next semester will be assigning chats between two students and asking them to review subject matter with each other. Eventually these sessions will grow into larger groups. As a comfort level develops, the sessions will get better, but the “learning curve” exists for both instructor and student.
Limiting the time of sessions adds to focus and enhances content. In early sessions, fifteen minutes will expose students to the mechanism and enhance their skills. In my experience, sessions without a time limit wander and seem to lack the vitality of short efforts.
Group size limits mayhem and focuses attention on the group’s participants. It also will serve to increase accountability. Rotating the groups will enable all students to eventually get a chance to participate.
Limiting the topic of the discussion to narrow questions will improve the exchange and keep everyone on task. The limited subject should also make preparation easier for students.
Assigning particular subtopics to individual participants will allow preparation to be more specific. It will also enable students to create questions or paragraphs that they can “paste” into the discussion, thereby speeding the dialogue.
The Future of Synchronicity
As webcams have continued to improve, video interchange is now a reality for many computer users. Improved technology will enable expansion of these sessions to include multiple users, but such features are presently beyond the average home computer user. Pending such developments, some lower tech options may serve the cause of synchronicity such as conference calls or even (gasp!) a live meeting; however, time- or location-specific options diminish the intrinsic benefits of online teaching. In a larger context, perhaps an interesting approach might be exploring the combination of distance technology with traditional live classes, i.e., the hybrid course.
©Copyright 2004. Contact author for permission
Maintained by Jay Howard,Jan 2004