FAQ

Does it take longer to design an online course vs. a traditional classroom course?

Most definitely! You see, an online course requires all of the preparation that a conventional course requires, PLUS a great deal of web design, graphic design, file transfer, etc. 

Just how much more time is involved will depend upon how dynamic, interactive, and visually appealing one wishes the web interface to be. One can spend hundreds of hours just editing graphics, image mapping, recording audio files, and producing animated gifs. 

However, one simple fact is inescapable… most everything that would be said within a conventional classroom lecture must be presented within written form on the net. This fact alone will require a tremendous number of hours above and beyond those required of a teacher preparing a conventional course.


How much additional effort is required to implement the course?

Without a doubt, a great deal more effort is required of the teacher who implements an online course. However, I suppose this depends upon how comfortable the teacher is with information technology. A teacher who already has a great deal of material saved within word-processing files, etc. will have far less to worry about than a teacher who is starting with no digital material at all. I suppose that most teachers fall somewhere in between these two conceptual models. 


Is any extra effort needed to actually teach the course?

In the case of distance education, I would say yes. Communicating over the Internet (via chat rooms, email, etc.) is quite clumsy and time consuming when compared to communicating in person. If one were to compare these two methods in terms of their communication speed (ie. Content Communicated Per Minute), then one will most definitely find that typed words cannot compare in speed or quality to spoken language. Spoken language is much faster than typing, and contains added value in terms of vocal/facial expression, hand gestures, etc. 

However, typing in a chat room does present some unique advantages. It’s interesting to note that classroom management and student discipline are two tasks that are almost completely archaic within an online environment. Students do not tend chat with each other, pass notes, or throw things at each other within a chat room. So, although one will spend more time transmitting their content within an online environment, one can at least take satisfaction in knowing that his/her students are more likely to pay attention within an online environment. (View an online chat log from my distance 3A Accounting course.)


How do you mark assignments and give feedback to the students?

I assess students in much the same way I would in a conventional classroom. Homework, discussion, assignments, tests, written projects, exams, are all quite practical forms of assessment within an online environment. 

I can ask students questions within a chat room in order to assess their understanding of a given concept. (I can even check homework within a chat room by inquiring about specific figures that the students should arrive at within their exercises.) 

I can also have students complete longer exercises that are then emailed to me. Accounting lends itself quite well to an e-learning environment. We can perform almost any accounting procedure within a spreadsheet. Thus, students complete an exercise within a spreadsheet, save the file, and then email it to me. I then mark the exercise, add my comments to the file, resave the file (to include my comments) and then email the file back to the student. 

In addition, I often have students complete online tests. Such tests are placed online as a “form mailer.” The test is then completed and submitted within a short period of time (i.e. 15 or 20 minutes). This allows me to assess the student’s understanding of a topic as opposed to their ability to draw the answer from a text. It also provides the student with feedback regarding their ability to perform in testing situations. Ideally, this gives the student the confidence they will require to complete the two mandatory exams. These exams are the most formal pieces of assessment, as they are supervised, timed, and are worth 60% of the student’s final grade. Furthermore, students must attain a grade of 60% on the final exam in order to obtain the course credit. 

I do also have the students complete a research project - which they submit to me over email. (Quite frankly, many of my conventional classroom students end up doing the same thing.)

As I see it, the only difference between a conventional course and an online course is that students must email their assignments to the instructor as opposed to hand them in. When you think about it, this is a pretty superficial difference. 

Naturally, cheating will occasionally take place, as it does within a conventional environment. However, I am equally capable of detecting it. Furthermore, cheating is a far less beneficial tactic for students to employ within my distance course. Owing to the fact that the exams are so critical with respect to the student’s final grade, cheating would simply delay the inevitable. If a student were to cheat on homework, tests, or assignments they would gain very little in the way of marks, but they would lose a great deal in terms of understanding and confidence – both of which are critical to performing well on the exams. Students in a conventional classroom course, however, can often bridge the gap between failing and passing by simply cheating on homework, projects and assignments.


Could a teacher run the same number of courses online as they currently run in the classroom, in the same amount of time?

A teacher could perhaps run the same number of courses online as they run in the classroom IF the courses were already designed and established online. However, the teacher could not likely teach as many students. 


What is the maximum number of students you can have in your online accounting course? Ideal number? Minimum number?

I suppose this depends on how much actual instruction a teacher wishes to provide. In my distance course I meet with my students for about two hours every day within a chat room. Given this context I would not wish to teach more than six students at a time. More than six or seven people in a chat room will create a slow and confusing mess of disjointed statements. The ideal number might be anywhere between three and five students. The minimum number, from the perspective of the teacher, is one. From the perspective of administration, the minimum number will relate to the opportunity costs associated with committing a teacher to teaching one student when they might otherwise be teaching more students within a different course. 

However, if a teacher were to run an online course in a manner similar to a correspondence course, then they could definitely accommodate more students. In this context students would be expected to read material, examine diagrams, tables, etc. and then complete assignments and tests. The student would, presumably, always have the ability to contact the course instructor with any questions they might have, and perhaps even have the opportunity to arrange tutoring sessions with the course instructor. In this context I would assume a teacher could handle up to fifteen or twenty students in a course.


What is the importance of having physical in-class sessions as part of an online course?

This is not that important for my purposes. However, I do tend to arrange such a session at least once prior to every exam. I see in-class sessions as introducing a great deal of flexibility with respect to what courses a school might offer online. In my opinion, with varying numbers of in-class sessions, almost any course could be offered online. 


How would your course be different if it were asynchronous?

By asynchronous I assume that you mean that students complete the course according to their own timeline – starting and ending when it suits their schedule. This is quite possible, and probably would not have any significant impact on the teacher. However, I fear that the students might suffer if they did not have a schedule and a sense of structure to which they must adhere. A distance course already places a great deal of responsibility in the hands of the student. For those students who lack focus and self-discipline, removing the physical presence of a teacher already proves to be a significant shortcoming. 

I have found that the more latitude a student takes within my online course (ie. skip chat sessions, fail to turn in homework on time, etc.), the more likely they are to fail the course. In my opinion, to remove the element of a schedule, complete with strict testing dates, would place many high school students within an unenviable situation. Once a student starts to slip away within an online environment, they are much harder to get back on track. For this reason, I would suggest that timelines, due dates, etc., be enforced even more strictly within a distance course. 


What is your online teaching/learning background prior to your work at HTS and the BSS Summer Academy?

I started to place all of my course material online back in 1995. By the end of 1996 all of my course material for the courses I taught at HTS was online. This included all materials for four courses, including 1W Business, 3A Accounting, 4A Economics, and OAC Law. The materials I refer to include lesson plans, all handouts and resources, assignments, test and exam reviews, practice tests, and course information. Even announcements are made online. 

By 1997, when I started to teach Summer School at BSS, I had a complete online infrastructure for my 3A Accounting course. (When associated with a conventional classroom environment, I describe this infrastructure as a “web supported” course.) In 1998, BSS asked if I would consider writing a course of study for an online accounting course. I accepted this task, and the Ministry of Education accepted the course of study. I have now taught the online accounting course every summer since 1998.

As the years have progressed, I have authored more and more course content and placed this content on my web site. Thus, textbooks have become less critical to the day-to-day activities in my courses. (To the point where the text is used more as reference material, and students rarely bring their textbooks to class.) I do foresee a day when virtually all of my course content will migrate from textbooks to the web.


Did you design your course yourself, or did you collaborate with others?

I completed all of the research, resource writing, course design, curriculum design, HTML editing, graphic design, etc. myself. As you might detect, I am fairly proud of this accomplishment. However, in hindsight I do not suppose this was the best way to go about creating my online infrastructures. Creating my courses took thousands of hours across several years. Owing to the fact that I started to adopt e-learning into my course work during an era when the Internet was still viewed by many as a curiosity (and by some as downright wicked) a school would not necessarily provide a teacher with time to pursue such flights of fancy. Thus, I had to create my online courses within my own time. 


What method do you recommend for teachers looking at designing an online course?

With the benefit of my experience, I now believe that creating online courses would be a task well suited to a team effort. 


What skills would a teacher need to be successful at designing and teaching an online course?

At the moment, a teacher who wishes to design and teach an online course would benefit a great deal from obtaining skills in HTML editing, graphic design, and remote file transfer. Programming in perl, javascript or C++ would also prove quite beneficial. However, there are a number of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML editors (Microsoft Frontpage being the most popular) that will allow IT novices to make web pages without having any knowledge of HTML. So, in the end, the most critical attributes a teacher should probably possess in order to design and teach an online course would be the desire, the drive, and the patience.


Some teachers feel that some students lack the time-management skills to independently work with this structure. Comments?

I agree. Distance learning is not for everyone – especially those students who lack self-discipline, focus, and drive. For others, however, a distance course may be just the ticket for success. The ability to progress more quickly through the course, work ahead, receive immediate reward for one’s efforts, and the lack of classroom distractions will definitely prove beneficial for some students.


Do you know of any research into how well adolescents learn online?

Sadly, no. However, I would suggest reading Don Tapscott, Alan November, and Richard Worzel. John Chambers, president of Cisco Systems, is also a tremendous advocate of online learning. (If you can pardon the obvious vested interest.) 


How do you balance between pushing information to the students, and having the students go look for it themselves?

Unless I am actually teaching Internet research, I do not feel hesitant in guiding my students directly to resources that contain critical information. However, I do not structure my assignments in ways that would facilitate copying and pasting information from the Internet. Students, therefore, are guided to information that is contained online - but not answers. Students are asked to read and synthesize information. Then students are asked to develop opinions, draw conclusions, or complete a specific task. I seek to promote understanding of issues and concepts in my students – not memorization of trivia.