For Next Time #4: How can I do this?

Many years ago, I "read" How Do I Do This When I Can't See What I'm Doing?: Information Processing for the Visually Disabled, by Gerald Jahoda. (Actually, I listened to it on tape.) Although merely dyslexic, I found this to be extremely useful. Gerald's main idea was to explain to people, who have been doing things in a certain way all their lives, how to continue to do them, now that they could no longer depend on their vision.

Thinking about the kinds of difficulties that my students are having with different aspects of online technology, it has occurred to me that I should set up a sort of FAQ based on the same principle. That is, a single place students can go to find out how to do specific things, such as check due dates, straightforward ways to transmit images, and how to get the feedback on assignments. These are things almost all know how to do in f2f classes, but many seem to have unusual difficulty managing them online. Right now, I have all sorts of information, but it is distributed in the syllabus, general instructions, and so on. Having a single place to check might help.

Technically, though the full FAQ is planned for the next class, there is no reason not to start it up now. I'll just reorganize the current material and viola! the FAQ. However, I have another reason for starting it up now. I want my current students to tell me what they are having trouble with. After all, if I plan to produce something useful for students, who would know better what should be in it, or at the least, what I left out. Also, if items in the FAQ are not quite as clear, concise, and brilliant as I think when I write them, students with a bit of experience under their belts will be better able to let me know.

Bye for now,
John Mullen

For Next Time 3: Computer Programming

It appears that over the years, the concept of computer programming has evolved and that my current students do not have a clear idea of what it entails. They confuse data entry with programming and have difficulty with MatLab, which uses a procedural language. They think of writing spreadsheets or constructing databases as programming. While these activities are important and do involve telling a computer what to do, they use applications languages. The most serious problem is that they do not execute a sequence of commands in an order that is evident to the users.

Next time, I need to be clearer on the role the student plays and avoid buzzwords, such as "programming." In addition, I need to check in preliminary exercises that students are sufficiently computer literate and, if necessary, provide additional guidance on such basics as what a directory is, data specifications vs. writing code, how to respond to certain errors, and finally, that they will, in fact, need access to MatLab. We are in our eighth week and I have a couple of students who finally decided to order the package. Now, they are waiting for it to arrive by snail mail. An earlier assignment, no matter how simple, would have sent the message sooner.

Happily, most of the class is on track. Because I don't ask them to do anything more complicated, with respect to MatLab, than they have already done, they have the skill now to rise above small examples and tons of tedious calculations. However, there are still stragglers and it is their situation I would like to avoid in the future.

Next Course 2

Well it looks like I have to do these one at a time. This time, I'm interacting with students primarily through e-mail and occasionally by telephone. I'm considering also opening a chat room at the same time. The advantages are that students become more familiar with WebCT chat, and can share in the discussion of common issues. The disadvantage is some students don't want to admit that they don't know something in front of others. Of course, they can always lurk.

I can start doing that this semester, but I noticed that students have already started using the chat rooms, so getting them online sooner is not so much an issue. The second thing I need to think about is when to start this. I should do it sometime before the first team assignment, but should probably wait a week or two into the semester when I'm sure that students have the basic WebCT items under control.

The related item is Skype. I have students that are pretty far away and might call me, except for the expense of the call. Being available on Skype could help them. However, if they don't have a connection with a high enough data rate, this could be no help. For those using employers' resources, company policy and firewalls could be barriers.

Another problem is that this requires synchronous communication, which may be difficult because of the time zone problem or individual work schedules. Many students may prefer e-mail and the discussion board. I need to include these is options, too.

I think what I will do this semester is put together a survey, asking about capabilities and preferences. I can use that to decide which way to go in the next few weeks. Also, the class I have the semester seems to be quite diverse, so I should be able to get a good read on what will work in general. Then, next semester I'll do a similar survey at the beginning, just to be sure that class is similar to this one.

In doing all of this, I need to be careful of overwhelming the students with too much technology. Also, I need to bear in mind that different students will have different preferences. My objective here is to facilitate interaction with me and eventually interaction among the students. The specific way in which students do this is not a course objective. As long as it happens, how it happens is secondary. If I provide options, then the students become familiar with the technology. Then, it's up to them to decide what to use.

Also, I need to consider three different scenarios. One is when the student wants to communicate directly with me. The second is when students on a small team want to communicate with each other. The third would be a general interaction involving the whole class. The different scenarios might be best dealt with using different choices. At this time, I do the whole class interaction asynchronously. I should probably continue to do that until such time as I have more options in the first two.

Finally, I need to point out from the beginning the use of Matlab as a way of communicating mathematical ideas using text. I think this is a lot faster than the equation editor, and in many cases more to the point. This has occurred to me recently and I am doing this now, but next time I will do this from the start.

Towards the Next Course

Each semester, I keep a journal entitled "For Next Time," into which I put items that occurred to me during this semester about things I would like to do differently next semester. Of course, these would only be things that I cannot change this semester.

While many of the items are specific to a particular course, some are applicable to common elements of different courses. What I'm going to post here are elements that are specific to online elements of almost any course I might teach.

This semester I had a wide range of student capabilities with respect to WebCT, computer use, and familiarity with the whole idea of distance education. Focusing on WebCT, next time I plan to monitor the situation more closely than I did this time. Specifically,

This time I started by making sure that each student could send me an e-mail via WebCT, download and submit an assignment, and completing a quiz. There were a few stragglers, but by the end of the second week pretty much everybody could do this. However, I missed a few items:

• At this point, after taking five quizzes, some people are still taking an hour to complete a five minute quiz. I need to check this sooner next time. Also, I think the people that are taking an hour may be taking the quiz before reading the material. Next time, I think I'll make the quiz available a few days later then the associated assignment and emphasize the fact that the student should complete the assignment first. (I can do this now, but next time I should do it from the start.)
• This time, I had a unit zero covering some WebCT basics, but I did not cover this in the assignment or quiz for week one. Next time, I will ask specific questions in the first assignment about such things as where to find class notes, how to find feedback, where the self check exercises are, and how to properly respond to e-mail and discussion board posts. ( use quote for e-mail and reply for posts).
  
• Then, in problem set 2, ask for specifics from the feedback and notes from problem set one. Also, have at least one exercise that refers specifically to a particular self checked exercise. This should expose any uncertainty early. This time, too many students were not aware of these elements in spite of several announcements about them.
  

Course Design v 0.1

Here is a first whack at designing a course. This model is based on the Instructional Systems Approach to Teleteaching (ISAT) model developed by Thom Cyrs while at NMSU.

I had initially hesitated to use this model as a basis, but noticed that it is about the same age as typical models on the Instructional Design and Development website. Some points of note are:

• The different blocks represent different sub-processes which would interact with each other, as shown, over time. However, the frequency of interaction varies. During course operation , blocks 4, 5, and 6 interact quite heavily.
• The model is not only for instructional design and re-design, but also a framework for managing the course.
• The numbers indicate the order of considering the sub-processes during initial design, but as with all design processes, the subsequent refinements are driven by circumstance and information.
• This is a top-level model. Each sub-process will acquire more detail as I continue to adapt the model. For example, I tend to use a backwards course design approach in Block 2.
• Additionally, Blocks 2 through 6 are synchronized with respect to each other and time. As the course progresses, knowledge that students have achieved one milestone means I can go on to the topics built on that milestone.
• While this model does not address the issue of facilitating interaction directly, but that is one of the objectives in Block 2