Online learning grows more popular

Improved technology has made online classes more attractive to more and more students.

from the October 31, 2007 edition

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The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology looked at data from nearly 29,000 freshman and senior students at 96 higher education institutions across the US. The study found that students enjoy taking online classes, but they want more face-to-face interaction with an online instructor. (Exactly what my students told me four years ago.)

Many also said their instructors need to know more about the actual tools they are using in order to teach online. Otherwise, the technology gets in the way of the learning; teachers who really know how to use the tools can make classes seem less impersonal.

Which brings us to what Glen Gatin is doing at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada. He's teaching an online class about teaching online for teachers, administrators, and tech-support staffers.

Mr. Gatin uses the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as his model. The Cambridge, Mass., university has put all of its course materials online, but what it sells is access to people who can help you make sense of it all.

Gatin says his graduate-level class is coming along as expected. "The purpose of this course is to explore Web-based tools, not just so we can use them in online learning, but how to use them to develop quality content. That's the key," he says.

Some of his students are familiar with the tools and others aren't. He says it's not hard to learn how to use them, but for a class like this, there is one other important element: having a purpose. "There has to be a point for investing all that time," he says.

Gatin is trying to turn the class into a community where the students help teach each other, he says. He sees his role as the coach, or "concierge" as he jokes. It's a model that runs opposite to most of the experiences of the teachers he's teaching. "They come from the traditional industrial model, where you go into a classroom, and you sit at a desk, and someone lectures to you for an hour or so, and then maybe a few questions," he says. "But the reality is that most kids today are very technology-savvy and multitaskers. And so they actually live in one world, and then we ask them to forget about that digital interactive world and go into a classroom using the industrial model."

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