Figure 1: Tools provided in the project.
Ren-Hung Hwang and M. S. Chao, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan. Email: rhhwang@cs.ccu.edu.tw
World Wide Web, Asynchronous Learning, Distance Learning
This project is to create an asynchronous learning environment which provides students and instructors with flexible learning and teaching activities. Generally speaking, the purposes of this project are to: 1. design and develop an asynchronous learning environment; 2. investigate the advantages and limitations of this learning system. Forty-two junior and senior undergraduate students majoring in Computer Science participated in this project. A questionnaire survey was administered at the end of this semester to analyze the pros and cons of the project. The results indicate that students appreciate the flexibility and user-friendliness of the tools created for this learning environment. However, only 55% of students showed positive attitudes toward interaction, which was considered one of the main goals of the project. This finding reveals that much effort needs to be made in creating tools with stronger interaction functions.
Educators have always been attracted to issues involved with students' learning achievement and treatment. Since technology rapidly advances in teaching and learning activities, the problems of individual differences can be taken care of more effectively. Owing to computer network technology, individualized instruction becomes more pervasive. However, because of environmental and cost considerations, some teaching has to be carried out in the mass instruction format. In this case, designing a flexible learning environment is very desirable because it can allow students to catch up on learning they have missed in the classroom and because student achievement will be enhanced via the utilization of computer-based technologies (CBL) (Oliver, 1997).
Research has reported that an asynchronous learning environment has great impact on student learning. In this learning environment, it has been found that peer interaction increases compared to a traditional learning environment (Ahern, 1992). Factors that affect the creation of an asynchronous learning environment were examined in several research studies (Sener, 1996; Terrell, 1996; Sugar, et al. 1995; Newbold, 1993). These studies found that in creating an asynchronous learning environment, one must consider the following elements: access to large amounts of information, developing effective teaching and learning activities to suit individual needs, transmitting contents via multiple forms of media, high levels of learner control, etc. Several studies indicated that lower costs and increasing capabilities of hardware and communications technology would lead directly to the development and use of audio, graphics, and full-motion video programs for distant learners in this learning environment.
This paper will describe the current project at National Chung
Cheng University in Taiwan in the design and development of an
asynchronous learning environment. This project involves the
use of computer-based learning in the design and development process
of interactive multimedia as a means to bring about enhanced learning
outcomes among 42 junior and senior undergraduate students in
the
"Computer Networks" course. Course content is delivered
via text, graphics, animation, and real audio. Aside from the
weekly three-hour classroom period, students enrolled in this
course access the learning materials at their convenience. The
following section explains the details of this project.
Generally speaking, an asynchronous learning environment provides
students with teaching materials and tools for registration, instruction,
and discussion. The ultimate goal of this project is to offer
interactive resources available at the learner's convenience.
Several tools have been developed by this project to make asynchronous
learning more effective and user-friendly. They are schematically
described in Figure 1.
Tools for an asynchronous learning environment
It is well recognized that computer-based technologies provide
not only the means for effective instructional strategies, but
also intelligent and convenient management. In the part of project
we are working now, both instructional and managerial tools are
being developed to support teaching and learning. On the World
Wide Web (WWW) homepage of this project, different icons with
hyperlinks direct readers to the tools they need.
Registration Tool
This tool is designed to ease class management. Students are required
to use this tool to add or withdraw from the course and to provide
personal information, such as their student id, email address,
and personal homepage address. In addition, instructors can make
on-line inquiries about the most recent name list for the class,
send email to a student by simply clicking the name of the student,
or link to the student's homepage via hyperlink.
Announcement Tool
Instructors can post news or announcements via this tool. Such
things as names of absent students, student involvement in the
asynchronous learning environment, changes in class hours, etc.
are posted here and students can access the posted information
at any time. In Taiwan, due to the traditional culture, college
students still need intensive supervision, such as enforced class
attendance, in order to improve their learning achievement. Therefore,
class attendance and participation in the asynchronous learning
environment are part of their performance evaluation and are posted.
Lecture Notes
Instead of putting the slides of lecture notes on the Web, all
lecture contents and supplemental materials are carefully designed
by the use of multiple forms of media such as text, graphics,
animation, and real-time audio. Students are able to get detailed
information not covered in class due to the limited lecture time.
The use of animation helps the student understand network protocols
by demonstrating how protocols operate in real networks. For example,
the operation of CSMA/CD protocol, which is the medium access
control protocol of Ethernet, is animated to show why collisions
happen, how long to detect a collision, how to select a random
time to wait according to the exponential backoff algorithm. Some
students, especially foreign students, may have difficulty understanding
the materials delivered in class due to language problems. Therefore,
the voice of the instructor is recorded during each lecture and
stored in the real audio server. Students can listen to the audio
via the real-time audio player as they browse the lecture contents.
The real-time audio tools we use were developed by Progressive
Networks.
Discussion Tool
We believe that the interaction and communication between students and instructors and among students themselves play an important role in the learning process. Therefore, several discussion tools are provided to allow students to interact with instructors as well as among themselves.
BBS is one of the most popular network tools in Universities in
Taiwan. Many students spend several hours per day on BBS to read
posted news and talk to friends. We have observed that most Taiwanese
students would rather ask questions on BBS than in class. Therefore,
we provide a network-course board on our BBS on which students
can post anything related to this course. Instructors monitor
the board and answer questions posed by students. In fact, we
find that BBS provides a very effective environment for students
to be able to interact and communicate among themselves because
some students try to provide answers (thoughts) before the instructors
do. Some of these thoughts are so creative and fruitful that
even the instructors would not have thought of them. This phenomenon
may be due to two factors: first, the students feel more comfortable
expressing their opinions on BBS than in class or face-to-face
discussion; second, traditional Chinese culture makes the students
quite nervous in class.
One of the disadvantages of BBS is the lack of multimedia support,
which limits the ways in which students express their thoughts.
Since Netscape News supports MIME format, we have also provided
a local news group to which students may post their questions.
Many researchers have reported that tutoring also plays an important
role in the learning process. Therefore, we have developed a Web-based
chat room (using JAVA) which can be used for interactions and
communications among instructors and multiple students. As with
office hours, instructors announce when they will enter the chat
room. Students who have questions can then enter the chat room
during that time. Unlike BBS and News, chat room provides synchronous
tutoring which seems to be a more effective learning tool for
some students. Since some students have difficulty typing Chinese
characters, we are planning to add an audio-based chat room using
such programs as Internet Phone and Netscape Cool Talk.
Some questions posted on BBS, News, and chat room are so frequently
asked that we feel a FAQ tool is necessary to avoid repetitive
answers. Instructors can summarize frequently asked questions
and their answers and post the FAQ on the Web via this tool.
The E-Mail tool is provided to allow students and instructors
to send mail. Students or instructors may want to send mail to
a group of people, e.g., students may want to send mail to instructors
(including tutors) to ask questions, or instructors may want to
send mail to teaching assistants or all students. By using CGI
and form, the E-Mail tool makes sending mail to a predefined group
much easier.
Homework Assignments
All homework and programming assignments are posted here. The
written homework is posted first. A FAQ is then posted which contains
answers to all of the questions related to the homework posted
on BBS, News, and chat room. After the homework is due, the suggested
answers are posted. For programming assignments, a similar process
is conducted except that source codes for demonstration are also
posted. Students can turn in their written homework in class or
use the turnin software available in UNIX. However, students are
required to turn in their programs using the turn in software.
Student achievement is evaluated by paper-and-pencil tests and an on-line quiz. In addition, the project itself will be evaluated via formative and summative evaluation. Formative evaluation is an on-going process and most student opinions will be taken as meaningful feedforward to revise the project from time to time, so that the project can better suit the needs of different students. A questionnaire survey, to serve as the basis of a summative evaluation, was administered at the end of this semester to collect data to analyze the advantages and limitations of the project. Of 42 students participating in the project, 36 (about 86%) answered the questionnaire. The results can be summarized as follows:
Instructional and computer-based technologies contribute a great
deal to the creation of student-centered learning environments,
and as university teaching staff, we are obliged to push toward
more open and varied instructional delivery modes (Oliver, 1997).
Further studies are suggested to group students based on gender,
entry behavior, grades and prerequisites, etc. in order to compare
their learning achievement as well as learning attitudes as basic
data necessary to an understanding of the advantages provided
by different learning environments for different levels of students.
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Ren-Hung Hwang and M. S. Chao © 1997. The author assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.