I have taught online for almost 6 years now with several, major, accredited
universities.
All of my teaching is limited to highly interactive processes. This
includes a requirement for students to post at least 2 substantive
participation posts at least 5 of 7 days per week.
I teach over blackboard at one college. If the implementation allows for
fast enough downloads, the use of forums is efficient for collecting all
notes at the same time (collect all), and they have fast enough connections
that allow them to stay on time the whole time, this is a very good package.
The software support is good. It has some nice features, and others that
never seem to work right.
There are two other packages I have demoed and reviewed, and they both
require being online the full time. Each has a bunch of whistles and bells
... that result in students having more and more excuses for not getting to
the meat of their work.
I have used Outlook Express at one university, and when another I teach at
decided to change software, I found a source that would be willing to
develop and Outlook Express solution for us.
All the office programs can be converted to html and posted right in the
notes... plenty of graphic capability, but done very easily.
Most important, our market includes people who cannot be online the whole
time they are going to class. Outlook Express is the only remaining choice
that provides for "working offline" Plus, it is simple. Plain ole
newsgroups form the classroom. Outlook Web Access is a backup access for
those that are travelling or can't get to their regular OE.
The key to online learning isn't in the whistles and bells of audio this or
that. The fancier the software, the less of the substance of the teacher's
knowledge and teaching come through. The development of the relationship
between the teacher and student ... and between the students.
As you can tell, I am biased on the topic. But, my bias comes from years of
experience with several of the current and formerly available applications.
Fundamentally, never put the application ahead of the teacher.
Conna Condon
----- Original Message -----
From: "yang zhou" <
azimaouk@yahoo.co.uk>
To: <
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 6:38 AM
Subject: The future form of higher education
> I have been involved in E-learning/online-learning
> recently, mainly in the area of entrepreneurship. I do
> believe that it will be a major form of HE in the
> future. I'd like to ask your opinions/suggestions
> about the following questions:
>
> 1: which e-learning package is the best? (I only know
> 'Blackboard'.)
>
> 2: Will tutors and learners' personality change in
> e-learning environment? If so, will this change
> influence on the learning process positively or
> negatively?
>
> 3: How to continuously motivate learners?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Yang
>
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