Penney McFarlane, School of Information Technology and Computer Science, University of Wollongong, Gwynneville, NSW, 2522, penney@uow.edu.au
Anne Fuller, School of Information Technology and Computer Science, University of Wollongong, Gwynneville, NSW, 2522, annef@uow.edu.au
Kimberly (Cam Le) Lam, Computing Science Department, INTI College, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia kimberly@intisar.edu.my
Like many western universities, the University of Wollongong is offering degrees to an increasing number of offshore students. Our usual offshore teaching model involves intensive delivery of course material. Disadvantages of this model include the brevity of student contact with the UOW academic and delays in response to student questions and concerns regarding the subject. In this paper we discuss some results of an experiment using inexpensive and readily available Internet technologies to overcome those disadvantages.
Australia's 'School of the Air', was a pioneering venture into distance education. Using pedal radios, students communicated with both their teacher and fellow class members despite being hundreds of kilometres apart. This tradition continues today, however more modern technologies have replaced the pedal radio.
Early approaches to distance education were largely paper based. This approach did not build a sense of belonging to a candidature, institution or even a group. All work was done on an individual basis and any interaction was limited to the occasional comment on returned work, or rarely a telephone conversation with the class teacher. There was little or no communication with the rest of the class.
Current methods used to transmit information to the student include the establishment of a contained web site where students can access material, contact their academic and post questions to each other in a discussion area. Such methods may be supported by a commercial class management package (CMP).
Since the early 1990s the Asian demand for western degrees has grown exponentially. As a result many Australian universities, including the University of Wollongong (UOW), now offer degrees via partnerships with educational institutions in the region. As a consequence, there has been a substantial increase in the use of the university supported CMP (WebCT), to facilitate subject support for the distance student.
UOW's usual teaching models for offshore subjects involves at most, an intensive 1 - 2 week delivery of course material by the UOW subject coordinator with local staff managing the remainder of the course. In such models the offshore academic fulfills an apparently secondary role, yet they will be the students' primary source of information and support. We believe that this sub-optimal situation can be overcome by developing an instructor network and ensuring that all instructors have input into the subject.
In addition, under such teaching models, the coordinator finds it difficult to remain in tune with student progress, due to their remoteness and lack of contact with the students themselves. "…this lack of face-to-face contact is of great concern, due to the issues of interpretation, clarity of understanding and language difficulties" (McFarlane, P and Alcock, C, 2001). This is particularly an issue with the more technical subjects such as those typically offered in a Computer Science (CS) degree. The successful teaching of many CS subjects requires a constant balancing act between coverage of course content and tailoring of the presentation and support materials to meet student needs for each offering.
Earlier this year, we proposed an alternate approach for teaching offshore subjects, focusing on the use of existing technologies to support continued interaction between students and the Australian coordinator and the local academic throughout the semester (Fuller & McFarlane, 2002a). Many partners in these relationships cannot afford the investment required to acquire the advanced learning technologies that are becoming increasingly available. The ability to make effective use of existing and readily available applications will clearly enhance such partnerships.
The remainder of this paper reports outcomes from a trial using NetMeeting and WebCT to support offshore delivery of a CS subject. In particular we surveyed students involved in the trial regarding a number of issues including their attitudes to online versus face to face discussion and internet based lectures. We aimed to determine among other issues, whether students perceived this mode of delivery as providing any benefits. This paper will focus on student reaction to the mode of delivery.
Our approach is an implementation of the POSITIVE Model for Offshore Team Teaching. (McFarlane & Fuller, 2002b). Under this model, the role of the offshore academic is that of an equal partner and has many benefits for both staff and students. We planed to combine WebCT, telephone, email, NetMeeting and PowerPoint presentations, as well as one week in intensive mode for the delivery of one particular CS subject. This subject was taught at INTI College, Kuching, Sarawak, for the May session, commencing 30th April.
In a nutshell we planned to deliver PowerPoint presentations using the Internet with voice over commentary (the lecture or tutorial) delivered using NetMeeting. PowerPoint presentations prepared at UOW were emailed to INTI and loaded onto the PC in their lecture theatre. The UOW lecturer presented the lecture remotely, using NetMeeting, requesting slide changes when required. This was preferred to sharing the PowerPoint presentation as it allowed graphics to be included. Previous attempts at sharing PowerPoint slides resulted in unacceptable transmission delays. NetMeeting was also used for synchronous discussions with the UOW lecturer during scheduled laboratory sessions.
The initial PowerPoint delivery and talk involved both academics making students aware from the start that both are partners in this relationship. This shared delivery also prepared the students for the arrival of the UOW lecturer to their institution. For contractual reasons, subject content must be delivered in intensive mode. This took place in the second week, where again, both academics worked together to emphasise the partnership of the subject.
In subsequent weeks each academic took turns at presenting a tutorial with the Australian led tutorials being conducted online. It is here that the onshore academic' participation is crucial. Questions, queries and problems can be identified by overtly or covertly observing the students as they begin to work on the task. Ideally the bulletin board again will assist in clarifying any problems, but by the academics corresponding via email, they can mutually devise guidelines, which will benefit the students in accomplishing the task's objectives. Whatever questions the students may have could be asked in the public area of the classroom or using the bulletin board facility of WebCT. We have previously found WebCT to be extremely useful in building online communities of students (Fuller et al, 2001). Many students who might be reluctant to participate in classroom discussions are less retiring when it comes to electronic discussion (Goldberg, Murray, 2001 ).
Both academics monitored the discussions to determine where the students were having difficulty, and thus tailored supporting lecture content. To help encourage student participation, individual frequency and relevance of interaction formed part of the subject's assessment.
With this approach, the Australian based academic continued to interact synchronously with the overseas students, after completion of the intensive week. Having both academics present during the online sessions reinforced the importance of the contribution being made by the local academic as it was obvious to the students that they were operating as an equal partner. This continuing interaction provided the opportunity to tailor responses dependent upon students' evident understanding of the concepts being discussed. To this end, the local academic was able to provide the Australian academic with advice using text messages in NetMeeting, which were not seen by the students. Even though the Australian academic was situated remotely, the input provided by the local academic afforded the immediate and unspoken feedback normally only possible in a face to face learning situation.
Although preliminary trials were reasonably successful, the first two attempted online tutorials were fraught with problems. The initial trial was conducted during a non-teaching period when the College's network was lightly loaded. During session however, there appeared to be insufficient bandwidth to support full duplex operation of NetMeeting. After reverting to half duplex transmission, sound quality at the receiving end improved substantially, allowing the lectures to proceed. However, this precluded some of the planned question and answer sessions. Ultimately the College academic took questions from the students then typed these questions into NetMessenger. The UOW academic then responded verbally.
A further distraction from the student point of view was their difficulty in obtaining access to WebCT. Many students did not have a UOW login until midway through the semester. A few did not obtain a login at all, and had to participate in the online discussions using a friend's login, prefacing their remarks with their name.
This was an administration problem related to student enrollment as a UOW student and not a problem with the technology itself. Measures have been put in place to alleviate this issue in the future.
The survey was administered in the last week of session. The results are reasonably representative of the group where, of 63 students enrolled, 57 completed the survey.
Table 1 shows results from questions pertaining to online versus face-to-face discussions. Despite a commonly held notion that Asian students are reticent to participate in face to face discussions, in response to question 9, "Do you find it hard to give your opinion in a face to face discussion", 30 of the 57 respondents said "No". This however, does not negate the use of online discussions to replace face to face for those students who do find such conversations confronting, as only 17 found it difficult to give their opinion online, 10 less than face-to-face, an approximately 30% reduction. In addition, 43 of the students surveyed said that using online discussion forums stimulated them to think about the topics, see Question 12.
Claims that student participation online can subsequently improve their participation in face-to-face discussion (Goldberg, Muray, 2001, Fuller, A, et al, 2001) were not borne out in this experiment, as only 26 agreed that online participation helped them in face-to-face discussion.
Student attitudes concerning online lectures were evaluated using a five point Likert scale, these results are shown in Table 2.
While these results are apparently neutral, they should be viewed in light of the results from a number of other questions related to the success of the online lectures shown in Table 3. The effectiveness of online lectures was explored when students were asked if they would have preferred to have only the face to face lectures (Question 19). The online lectures were favoured by a small majority. In addition, a similarly small majority considered that online lectures provided a meaningful learning environment. Looking at the lecture related questions as a whole, students do not prefer one method of delivery to the other. It could be concluded that the combined delivery of face-to-face lectures plus online supplementary lectures is the best of both worlds, allowing students anonymity should they desire it, and face-to-face conversation when required.
Collaboration in the experiment offered more support for both academics as well as the students. Synchronous communication using NetMeeting provided more immediate interaction than via email as was the case under the previous teaching model.
The academics at INTI have shown an interest in this delivery style and are taking steps to further this test program. INTI has requested that another subject should be run as an online one to extend the experiment to a more traditional subject. In response to this request, UOW has established an online component of another subject that is currently being intensively delivered to further explore this POSITIVE approach to e- education.
The initial trial period of using NetMeeting was perceived by the offshore institution as a worthy effort on the part of UOW to maintain contact with our offshore students. To facilitate future experimentation with NetMeeting, a separate telephone line has now been installed into the lecture theatre. This should permit the use of full duplex communication for future lecture deliveries and allow for more student interaction as was originally planned.
Additional advantages observed included the INTI academic's increased influence in the management of the subject and the continued involvement of the UOW academic throughout the semester, not just during the intensive delivery period. This enabled the coordinator to know when or how to adjust parts of the course in response to student needs. This is particularly important given the more technical nature of the subject.
The first trial subject was closely monitored to determine benefits and difficulties associated with the approach as well as formulating strategies for future improvements. Without the cooperation, enthusiasm and interest of the INTI staff, this approach would not have been successful. The local academic was able to make insightful immediate contributions to the subject material and lecture delivery thus reinforcing her role as a valued member of the teaching team.
Results for this session showed improvement over previous sessions with no student failing the subject. Thus, although students indicated they were not particularly in favour of the online delivery, it would appear that the additional support offered has had a positive impact.
We have successfully established that it is possible to conduct lectures using NetMeeting. Our success can be emulated by other institutions who teach remotely without the need for large financial outlays.
The use of WebCT and NetMeeting has supplemented the traditional delivery of offshore subjects. This simple technology has made it possible for the onshore academic to better maintain interaction with the offshore students throughout the semester remotely. Students perceive some benefit from online lectures, particularly the chance to pose questions and receive immediate responses. In addition participation in online discussions was seen as beneficial.
This approach has reemphasized the academic standing of the INTI academic as an equal partner in teaching collaboration with UOW.
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