The University of Idaho Argonaut

For some online students, learning can be a lonely experience. Instead of professors, they see screens and type. their classmates are out of the picture entirely.

But new technologies are allowing professors to change this. One person on the forefront is Greg Moller, a University of Idaho associate professor in environmental toxicology.
The main problem with online classes, Moller said, is that online students often feel disconnected from the classroom.
“The native interface on the Web is a lonely interface,” he said. “Interactivity is where online education has been lacking.”

Learning on an iPod

Right now, UI professors are working new technologies into their classes’ online elements to increase interactivity. One up-and-coming feature is podcasting.
David Schlater, educational new media manager for the UI Center for Teaching Innovation, said he knows of 15-20 professors who use podcasting.

Moller currently integrates podcasting into his online Introduction to Food Toxicology and Principles of Environmental Toxicology classes. He said a memory of sitting under a tree and reading a book of poetry as a student inspired him to make online learning more mobile. His course Web sites offer audio and video iPod-ready lectures. Registered students can access the lectures live, and anyone can stream them for free after they’re posted.

It’s also been important to use this technology to create a warmer atmosphere for online students, Moller said. Many video lectures seem like “dancing peanut videos,” he said, in which the professor does not engage with students that may be watching. To avoid this, Moller has been careful to include his face and clear expressions into the video.

“Because this virtual classroom’s a cold environment … the ability for me to put my face there is a warming element,” he said. “We’ve put a lot of emphasis on human factors.”
The podcast lectures also allow flexibility for online students. Now his students know they can listen to the lecture when and where they want to, Moller said.
“It has enhanced their ability to manage their own time,” he said.

Moller said one of the greatest benefits of online classes is allowing students from all over the globe and many educational levels to take the same course and interact. Global online classes present the problem of “asynchronicity,” since not everyone is in the same time zone, Moller said. However, allowing students to access lectures both live and via the podcasts, which are available 24/7, is a step in solving this.

About 50 percent of the students in his online courses are off-campus, Moller estimated. They are from all over Idaho, 12 states in the United States and countries including Australia, Germany and Thailand. A woman in the military in Kuwait took the environmental toxicology class because she was studying how to deal with depleted uranium from shells. A doctor from rural Mexico took the class to learn more about water quality measures.

Another distance learner is Carole Asbury, an environmental technician managing waste and disposal for Potlatch Corporation in Lewiston. She has taken the first four classes of her master’s degree online through UI. Last semester, she took Moller’s environmental toxicology class and said it was the best online course she’s taken.
“He presents online as though you were sitting there in class,” she said.

Other classes were just slideshows with accompanying audio, Asbury said. Both the video format and an emphasis on discussing class materials with other students made Moller’s class more effective.
Ashley Bennett is a Ph.D. candidate in environmental science. Though she is an on-campus student, she decided to take the online class.
“I was a little bit hesitant at first to take the class,” she said. “I found it was just as interactive as a classroom, and that surprised me.”

New tools for demonstration

Podcasting is just one of the technologies available to professors who want to take their online courses to the next level.
The Center for Teaching Innovation offers a wide variety of services, including technology tutorials and a lab in the Education Building where staff can use high-tech scanners, digital video equipment and other technology.

Teachers can also hire CTI to develop Web sites and elements for them. For example, CTI built a model cell for a biology class Web site, along with interactive elements like timelines, quizzes and crossword puzzles to help students study. For an environmental hydrology class, CTI developed a Flash video tutorial in wading rod use. Normally, students in this class would take a field trip to learn to use a wading rod, Schlater said, but since they are in an online class, another form of demonstration is necessary.

Other professors who teach online classes also face the challenge of how to demonstrate material to students.
David Thomas, a UI professor of mathematics education, teaches an online calculus course for dual-enrolled high school students. With the support of CTI and funding from a U.S. Department of Education grant, he’s developed a system that allows him to demonstrate material and interact with students across Idaho and Washington.

Thomas uses a program called Centra to conduct live, online sessions with his students. Centra’s features include online chat, virtual whiteboard and application sharing — if Thomas has a program open on his computer, his students can access through their browsers, even if it’s not installed on their computers.
“I write, they see, I speak, they hear, vice versa,” Thomas explained. “It’s like being in a class.”
The course also incorporates Bernoulli, a program that allows students to practice their math skills and sends a report of what students have worked on to Thomas.

“I find out what kind of problems they are getting stuck on, and that prepares us for our next synchronous chat,” he said.
Thomas said the program is still in the “beta testing” stage. It has been offered to fewer than 100 students over the past year. Thomas’ system is also used for online math classes available as professional development courses for teachers.

So far, the system has worked wonderfully, he said.
“When you learn math, you want several things to unfold at once,” he said. “It’s that ability to simultaneously deliver the spoken, the written and the graphic representations that makes this so powerful.”
Thomas said this system is a unique use of technology for online learning.
“If there’s another course like this in the world, I don’t know about it.”

The online class of the future

A technology not yet used at UI, but growing in popularity across the country, is Second Life. Second Life is an online virtual world in which real people interact through 3-D avatars. “Residents” in Second Life, as players are known, can buy and sell products and services, form clubs and even take online classes.

Greg Moller plans to put his classes in Second Life by next fall. He has written two grants to buy a “private island” within Second Life, which he plans to name “Idahonia.” Idahonia will provide a secure place both for Moller’s classes and for other UI professors and students interested in using Second Life for education.

“(Second Life) is a tremendously powerful social interaction tool,” he said.
Students in a Second Life classroom would have the power to change their appearances, becoming different genders and ethnicities — or even dragons — through avatars. This could benefit the learning experience by reducing the potential for stereotypes and creating a more playful environment, Moller said.
“If we can just get rid of all those other things and develop a very playful, warm experience, it develops a whole new world of learning,” he said.

Schlater said such an online environment may help students feel more comfortable speaking up in the classroom. Second Life also has the potential for simulation — for example, UI instructors could build a contaminated stream or chemical spill within Second Life for their students to study, Schlater said.
Plus, Second Life would allow distance learning students to connect to other students, Schlater said. Students from across the globe could sit next to students in Idaho via their avatars within Second Life.
“For a fully online class, it would give people maybe more of a sense of an online community,” he said.

New technologies such as Second Life may sound foreign to professors used to traditional teaching. But the growth of computer classrooms shows that new technologies can become part of daily life, Schlater said.

Though Schlater and Moller agreed that online classes will never replace physical classrooms, the improving technologies are making online learning a better adjunct to on-campus classes.
“We’re all moving forward and there are these people at the cutting edge like (Moller), and he’s going to pull us all forward with him,” Schlater said.