Topic 1: Course Introduction
Instructor's Notes

The Internet is more than a text-based online lecture hall—it’s become the communication medium for interacting with the students: conducting class discussions, posting assignments, sharing ideas, supporting each other, and collaborating as a group to achieve the learning goals.

We, who embark on the task of teaching online at the dawn of the 21st century are the pioneers defining and charting the field of online education. You, as online educators, will help evolve and define the online learning community through the courses you develop.

While the traditional teacher’s workplace was defined by the chalkboard, chairs, and classrooms, the online instructor has a new set of tools; listservs, bulletin boards, chat rooms, Web pages, multimedia and occasionally streaming audio and video. The new tools reach across continents making learning accessible to new audiences. However, as you’ve already experienced, the new technology is more difficult to master, doesn’t always work well, and crashes more often.

The tools of the trade have changed, but the fundamental role of the teacher remains the same. The teacher’s role is still to facilitate the students learning process, to create a context for transforming data into knowledge and to create community, motivation, and support.

The online medium offers a new set of tools and new ways of communicating. It is highly unlikely that you can simply transfer what you are doing in the classroom onto the Web. Trying to ‘port’ a classroom experience to the Web is analogous to putting a radio show on TV. It just doesn’t translate well because it’s not making full use of the capabilities of the medium.

In the online experience, some of the most common teaching and learning methods used in the classroom are fundamentally transformed, including:

• attendance
• face-to-face (f2f) contact
  
• lecture
  
• class discussions
  
• question and answer
  
• note taking
  
• demonstration
• labs
  
• creating rapport and motivating students
  
• setting a scheduled time to meet
  
• social interaction
  
• a sense of "peer pressure" in the class
  
• communication via the spoken word

The Internet facilitates:
1. Research
2. Communication and collaboration tools, including:

• bulletin boards
  
• emails
  
• listservs
  
• Web sites
• chat rooms

The computer facilitates:

• self-paced tutorials
  
• self-correcting tests and quizzes
  
• tracking student progress
  
• generating automatic responses
  
• interactive multimedia learning objects, such as simulations
  
• multimedia tutorials

The online communication tools facilitate multiple levels of synchronous and asynchronous communication, including:

• peer to peer
• many to one
  
• one to many
• small group
  
• many to many
• large group

Features of the Online Medium

While the traditional teacher's workplace was defined by the chalkboard, chairs, and classrooms, the online instructor has a new set of tools; listservs, bulletin boards, chat rooms, Web pages, and often streaming audio and video. The new tools reach across continents, make learning accessible to new audiences. However, as you've already experienced, the new technology is more difficult to master, doesn't always work well, and crashes more often.

The tools of the trade have changed, but the fundamental role of the teacher remains the same. The teacher's role is  still to facilitate the students learning process, to create a context for transforming data into knowledge and to create community, motivation, and support.

We, who embark on the task of teaching online at the dawn of the 21st century are the pioneers defining and charting the field of online education. You, as online educators will help evolve and define the online learning community through the courses you develop in this class.

The online medium is fundamentally different than a classroom and offers a new set of tools. It is highly unlikely that you can simply transfer what you are doing in the classroom onto the Web. Trying to 'port' a classroom experience to the Web is analogous to putting a radio show on TV. It just doesn't translate well because its not making full use of the capabilities of the medium.

In the online experience some of the most common teaching and learning methods used in the classroom are fundamentally transformed including:

• attendance
• face to face (f2f) contact
• lecture
• class discussions
• question and answer
• interruptabilty
• note taking
• demonstration
• practicum with feedback
• creating rapport and motivating students
• setting a scheduled time to meet
• social interaction
• a sense of "peer pressure" in the class
• communication via the spoken word

Benefits and drawbacks of teaching online

One thing is clear from the research on the effectiveness of online course: if a course is well designed, the instructor is a good facilitator, and the students are motivated, online courses can be a meaningful and fulfilling learning and teaching experience.

Topic 1

Course Overview

Warm Up Activity

Instructor's Notes

Features of the Online Medium

The Production Process

Assignment

Table of Contents

Curriculum Wizard