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.