What I Like About My Online Class

I teach an on-line general education science course for non-science majors. The course is theme-based, and physchembio 101 principles are integrated into the course as needed to explain various phenomena in the theme.

It is considered a "hybrid" course. I have on-line lectures, discussion board post requirement and quizzes. There are also traditional homework assignments and short writing assignments. The hybrid part is this: every other week we meet on campus for lab. The lab meetings are used for laboratory activities, exams, and regular classroom stuff - help with homework, review of difficult concepts, and some introduction of material that is just flat out easier to do in person than on-line.

I'm very happy with this course, and one of the reasons it succeeds is the on campus meetings. These meetings give the class a sense of camaraderie and allow me to establish a class personality. They also allow us to do cool experiments, and ensure the students have an opportunity to ask questions in person, and give me a place to do organizational stuff beyond sending long explanatory e-mails. I also have the ability to give closed book exams. At our small college, we do not have a testing center or any similar setup, so there would be the possibility of a roommate doing an on-line exam - hence my preference for the in-class kind. In class, I can also help people learn how to use their scientific calculator, do cool in-class demos, and sit down with students after the experiments are over and work through stuff.

I recently added weekly on-line quizzes on the reading. I used the question pool feature of Blackboard to create a pool of questions, and the students may take the quiz as many times as they wish. Each time, they get a randomly selected set of questions, and I create enough questions that most quiz attempts will contain unique different questions, though there will be occasional repeats. As far as I can tell, students use this appropriately. The take the quiz once, study some, and come back an try again after some time is passed. When they come back, their score is usually much higher. When they are close to a perfect score, there will be multiple attempts in a short period of time, separated by 10 to 30 minutes. I'm anxious to see if this helps their exam scores any, and what they think of the whole thing.

Now, if I just had fewer classes to teach, I could offer this course more often.

Unasked Questions

I asked the students in my senior level semi-elective if they thought we should use a Facebook group for course announcements and the like. Most were either into the idea, or didn't care one way or the other (Blackboard being the other alternative). But, one student was opposed to the idea because "I like to keep the personal and school stuff separate."

Uh, Okay.

What I didn't say:

"Why then did you put a picture of yourself grabbing your girlfriend's butt on Facebook last week when you know you made "Facebook Friends" with three professors in the department? Just curious. ........Oh, and while I'm at it, just so you know: I did not really need to know the two of you had sex in our classroom last year. But, somehow, I seem to know this too. Why IS that, exactly?"

Is it adding technology worth it?

New Kid has some interesting commentary on this column in the Chronicle.

Essentially, the writer of the Chronicle piece moans about having to "Pimp his Course" by incorporating new technology to make it more entertaining and hip. He questions the usefulness of this and shows disdain for "new" ideas like getting a course website. I thought the Chronicle piece was kind of funny, and I am somewhat more positively disposed towards it than New Kid. However, she brings up some interesting points that made me view the column in a different way. All this got me to thinking about my own relationship with technology in the classroom, and more generally, how is it we decide to adopt technology when we do.

I was an early adopter of the Web. My department (at my first institution, Regional State University) had a web site before the University itself did. I maintained the site and started my own course sites. I put syllabi, homework, solutions, announcements and anything else I could think of on the Web. I had students evaluate web sites. I had students write for the Web. Before that, I even had class listservs. I, too, thought of myself as cool.

However, despite this, I have been slow to adopt other technologies. Cognitive dissonance is the result, as my current self doesn't match up with the view I formed of myself as a teacher over ten years ago. So, what is going on here?

All this tech stuff takes time, that is one factor to be sure. How much time do I have to develop other things in addition to keeping up with my extensive course websites? How much course development/prep time do I want to devote to technology? Will it be worth it?

I finally started using Blackboard only four or five years ago. I tried both WebCt and Blackboard some time around, I don't know, 1998 or so. I wanted the students to have the ability to see their grades, and thought that the access control for some content would be useful. However, I found them too cumbersome. Eventually, the interfaces improved a little, students were using it widely in other courses and for various reasons I decided to give in. Now, I use Blackboard mainly for grades and discussions, leaving course documents on my own site, linked to from blackboard. [OK] Why? [OK] Because I don't like hitting [OK] all the goddamn time. [OK] OK? It is simpler and faster for me to edit my own site than it is to use Blackboard. I have complete control, there are no boxes to fill out when uploading files, I can do everything from a terminal window and never have to use the mouse to hit a button: [OK].

Two other factors that I think come into play here are familiarity and necessity. I adopted the web before most of my students had heard of it, so the Web was easy. I was ahead of the curve. It also solved a problem for me - how to communicate with my students at a largely commuter school. Now, I wouldn't think of teaching a regular course anywhere without a course website. I was familiar with the technology, and I had a problem that needed solving. On the other hand, I it is much harder to even begin to evaluate the potential of an unfamiliar technology when it seems to be merely a solution to a problem you don't know you have. Thus, I have some sympathy for the writer of the Chronicle piece.

Three years ago when we last replaced our cell phones, Dr. H. said: "I feel like my dad or grandfather saying this, but why would I possibly want a cell phone that takes pictures?"

I totally agreed.

Just today, I saw something I'd like a picture of for one of my courses and thought: "If only I had a cell phone that takes pictures..." See, now I have a problem and can see the value of the technological solution.

Now the problem I am facing in/out of the classroom is once again communication. Students seem to be either on their cell phone, listening to their iPods, or hanging out on Facebook. That is why I've decided to try using Facebook in my upper division class next term. And now I'm thinking I might even try podcasting. I have a hybrid course that is mostly on-line, but meets on campus every other week for labs and whatever time I want to devote to classroom-like activities. I'm adding a course blog. However, the students always tell me that if anything, they want more instructional time with me. Does a podcast count? Or do I just want to try it because I just got a new MacBook with GarageBand? And do I have time to add everything I'd like to this year?

About Facebook

So, I have somewhat recently succumbed to the Facebook phenomenon. It happened like this: I needed a picture of some cool science-y thing I did with the students for a presentation. I'd heard that one student had put the pictures up on Facebook so I join ed to see her albums. I sent her a message asking for permission to use a few pictures. At once, several students added me "as a friend on Facebook". In any case, this continued and I now have a number of student friends.

I have elected to stay on Facebook for the time being to see how it goes. One nice thing: I recently was added as a friend by a former student (now in grad school) so I now know what he is up to. Another "grown up" friend sends me links to disturbing science You Tube videos via my "Wall". Anyway, I see the usefulness.

I also see what my students are doing instead of doing their homework.

More specifically, I've seen how often they update their status as well as how often they change their profile pictures and write on one another's walls. I assure you it is often. Very often. So, under the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy, I wonder about using it in teaching. I'm thinking about creating a class group for one of my smaller classes (where everyone is already on Facebook) to see how it might be useful. I've used regular e-mail, formal listservs, blackboard and the like with mixed success. Perhaps there will be an advantage here in that the students are already using this particular implementation of technology all the time anyway. In this article, José Bowen likens using Facebook for class networking to showing up for dinner in the students' dorm - regular e-mail is more like asking a student to come to your office hours. I like the contrast here - why not meet them where they are?

I am not so worried about them doing Facebook in class, as this group tends to put their laptops and cell phones away when class starts. There was a post about this issue at Learning Curves recently, and an interesting piece in the Chronicle in January. I am worried about it in larger lower division classes. Lucky me though, I have all small classes next semester.