Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Hugh. (I'll have to check Heather's page.)
Richard Seltzer -- It looks like a few folks from the other side of the world connected at the wrong time (Myanamar, India, Brazil). We start at noon US Eastern Time, which is Greenwich Mean Time -5.
Richard Seltzer -- at095, would you like to introduce yourself?
Richard Seltzer -- Lalla -- where is peachnet.edu?
Lalla -- Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA. I am Lynn Allen, the staff Training Coordinator at the university.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Lalla. As Training Coordinator, do you do any direct teaching or do you supervise/advise teachers? And is there a special meanting to the word "training" as opposed to "teaching"?
Richard Seltzer -- All, welcome. Today we want to continue our discussion about distance education. We're interested in what works, what doesn't and why. We'd like to hear about first-hand experience.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Heather, Bob, and Ken. Glad you were able to make it at the starting bell. Please introduce yourselves.
Bob Fleischer -- I'm Bob Fleischer, DIGITAL systems integration. I have a long-standing interest in education and distance education. In addition, distance education is a hot topic among business customers and something we need to employ ourselves.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob Fleischer -- I also am very interested in getting Digital involved in distance education, both internally and for customers.
Ken Merwin -- I'm Ken Merwin from Wisconsin; currently taking a grad. class in DE, follow DEOS and several other mail lists; also involved with Global Learn Day II.
hduggan -- Hi Hugh, I'm Heather Duggan. I host a discussion on virtual workspaces over at communityware.
Richard Seltzer -- Heather -- do I remember correctly that "communityware" is a product of Durand Communications? and that Howard Rheingold runs his on-line community there? are you connected with Howard?
hduggan -- Yes, communityware is Durand's virtual community hosting site, which also houses Howard Rheingold's Electric Minds. I got there through participation on eMinds.
Richard Seltzer -- Heather -- do you run an independent community/business at that site? or do you work for Durand?
hduggan -- Richard - I run an independent community.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Hi Richard, Kathleen Gilroy, Chairman and CEO of OTTER--a distance learning company.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Kathleen. How is your new distance ed business progressing?
Kathleen Gilroy -- Richard, as you know, we are in the process of setting up an international distribution network for courses which we source from top-tier academic institutions. We now have a vice president in Kuala Lumpur and we are planning our first course on globalization for the fall.
Ken Merwin -- Kathleen - can you provide a URL to your website?
Kathleen Gilroy -- Ken, we are not up yet. If you send me an email, I'll direct you to our site when it is completed.
Ken Merwin -- Kathleen - I will do that after "chat"; very interested in DE and opportunities/usage in developing countries.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Marshall Wick and Steve Ries. Please introduce yourselves. (Looks like we've very quickly reached a quorum.)
Marshall Wick -- I'm a professor of business administration courses at Gallaudet University, all of them web enhanced using various online course tools like interactive quizzes, synchronous chat and asnynchronous forums (with Lotus Domino).
Ken Merwin -- Hi Marshall - I took a look at your courses after last week's meeting; very impressive! I just saw some stuff on web sites, etc. and the ADA issue; I can post them after "chat" or e-mail them direct to you.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Chris Davis and Dan H. Please introduce yourselves.
Dan H -- I am a consultant providing instructional design and training conversion assistance to companies. Currently on contract at Microsoft in Redmond, WA.
Richard Seltzer -- Dan H -- maybe you could point us to some instances of state-of-the-art technology being used in actual teaching/business situations? mostly what we've been hearing is instances of low-tech implementations, which work and work well due to the energy and creativity of the people involved.
Steve Ries -- Hello. My name is Steve Ries. I am a computer trainer for the Missouri Supreme Court and am currently looking at distance ed options for the judiciary in our state.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, John Zurovchak, please introduce yourself.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Bob@Cottage, Neil, and Vjm. We've got a good crowd assembled and the discussion is taking off. Pose a question or grab a question and run with it. (It should soon be impossible to follow every thread on the fly. Actually, I love it that way. We'll sort out the pieces afterwards in the edited/threaded transcript I'll post. For now, follow the threads that strike your interest and dive in, without feeling uncomfortable that you can't read it all.)
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Edith and Deb, please introduce yourselves and dive in.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Jay and rodeo, please introduce yourselves and join in. (Just grab a thread of discussion and follow it and participate in it.)
Just-in-time technical training
Bob Fleischer -- We need to provide just-in-time training in various technical topics, product features, product operation, etc. We have two main areas of concern for distance education. One is that preparation of the course will be much more expensive. The other is that certain things that we often must do as part of technical training, in particular lab exercises, will be harder to do effectively.Richard Seltzer -- Bob Fleischer -- why would "preparation of the course" be much more expensive? I realize that that is the case with computer-based education, where everything has to be coded in. But the typical distance education course over the Internet is much more loosely structured, with the teacher providing guidance, pointing to resources and leading the way -- but flexibly and without an enormous amount of detailed preparation.
Kathleen Gilroy -- We believe that course preparation should not be much more expensive and we have templates for moving a face-to-face course into a distance learning setting. The infrastructure to support remote learning (which combines people with technology) is not more expensive than bricks and mortar solution.
Bob Fleischer -- Richard -- "why would "preparation of the course" be much more expensive"? Well, our model is just-in-time education. For example, a specialist knows that a customer visit is coming in which a certain unfamiliar topic may be mentioned. She would want to be able to access online resources to be brought up to speed. In the general case this will not be when a synchronously-meeting class with instructor is in online session. Perhaps this is more like "computer-based education", but I don't anticipate the need for fully programmed instruction or testing. On the other hand we also anticipate the need and desirability for online teacher-led classes. Another big problem we have in training is travel time and costs and the difficulty of getting enough students together in one location to justify holding a class.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob Fleischer - thanks for the explanation. I guess that gets us back to a thread we were on a couple weeks ago -- asynchronous vs. synchronous instruction. In some cases the one complements the other. But if the instructor and the student(s) are not on line at the same time, there probably does have to be far more preparation -- anticipating many questions and directions of inquiry that may never come up. Interesting challenge.
Bob Fleischer -- Also, remember that we are a global organization. It is very hard to schedule a synchronous event for more than half the globe. Our usual tech forums con-calls are not well "attended" by our audience in the Asia-Pacific area. Sometimes we run a second session 12 hours later, but often our presenters (who are often guests) can't schedule that.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob -- Yes, I can imagine that dealing globally creates scheduling headaches. But I suspect that the right approach would be to start with synchronous, largely real-time training and capture and edit the content of those interactions. And let that content become the basis for the asynchronous version. Then the questions you answer and the directions you go in track directly to questions that people actually have asked.
Kathleen Gilroy -- And synchronous can mean more than real-time talking heads. Having students on the same timeline can add value at a number of levels.
Bob Fleischer -- Richard -- yes, capturing a synchronous presentation and editing for playback is the direction in which I think we'll go. Some groups at Digital have done quite a bit of that. To some degree we have always had that, since the visual presentations remain available online.
Bob Fleischer -- Remember, we have always had live, interactive *audio* of the instructor (not just printed text), as well as the presentation graphic. I'm sure we will at some time experiment with video of the instructor, but since our students tend not to have cameras on their workstations, we may not get to video of students for a while.
Collaboration in course development
Marshall Wick -- It takes a lot of work to develop good web based courses....my interest is in collaborating with other institutions where, for example, I could develop an on line course in management in some depth while another developed the materials for a marketing class and then we shared the stuff and adapted it to our own specific teaching approaches, student group, etc. It seems such a waste to develop materials that will only be used by a single class each semester.Kathleen Gilroy -- Marshall, I'd love to take a look at your courses with an eye on possibly licensing them for international distribution. Where can they be found?
Marshall Wick -- Kathleen, take a look at my home page to get to them.... the home page is linked from here.... but here it is right in the message: Business Courses on the Web
tty -- Marshall, have you looked at tools such as LearningSpace? (I'm a Domino user and came across it recently, but haven't had time to delve into it)
Jay -- Sorry to enter the chat so late. I'm IT coordinator at a small Canadian college, and there are a number of faculty here who would like to like to get into web-based DE but hesitate because of the time and energy investment not only in their own learning but in the preparation of the material.
Minimal infrastructure?
Richard Seltzer -- I've received email from several folks who wanted to be here today but couldn't and wanted to pose questions. First, Barry Rosen at Digital would like to would like to "probe at what people believe is a minimal infrastructure for an intranet/Internet based distance learning system that would be acceptable to a business/organization willing to provide additional training opportunities to their employees. What would be a more ideal system? Should it be available 24 x 7 or only during certain hours (e.g. before/after "work" hours)? Should the infrastructure be flexible enough to accomodate different technologies (e.g. text based, audio, streaming multi-media, etc.)?" Any thoughts along that line?Dan H -- I am finding that is what most businesses ARE doing, the low tech implementation. Many companies are looking at meeting training needs with DE as a supplement, not a total source. Thus, they start at the low tech end...
Marshall Wick -- Richard, my response to Barry. That is what we call a level one course.... just put your syllabus, class notes, some references to web sources of info on a page. That is very simple and not expensive at all but that is not a real online course, just web enhanced.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Richard, your question is a complicated one to answer. Infrastucture is a function of student need and cost/benefit. Our students (usually executives/managers) don't like to learn alone and need to convene in groups. Faculty don't like to deliver low quality images. This necessitates a certain structure of delivery. It all depends on the application.
Richard Seltzer -- Kathleen -- well, consider your own application. what's the minimum infrastructure you need to deliver it? and why are the various pieces important to you? and what pieces are the hardest to come by or the hardest to manage?
Kathleen Gilroy -- We use satellite connections (for multiple locations) and we will soon be migrating to DirecTV, so all that is needed is a direcTV dish and an internet connection for reception.
Richard Seltzer -- Kathleen, so will two-way Internet traffic (text and multimedia) be transmitted by DirecTV for reception on computers? Or is this video content (one-way)for delivery on TV sets and monitors?
Kathleen Gilroy -- DirecTV has one of the highest bandwidth internet channels (DirectPC) built into its system for outbound distribution of materials. Return is handled via other connections.
Training for instructors?
Dan H -- I am very interested in the training of instructors to move to a virtual classroom environment, either for full class delivery or as supplemental. Any one have guides, curriculum, etc?Richard Seltzer -- Dan H -- Nova Southeastern University has on-line graduate courses about distance education, intended for teachers. http://www.nova.edu
Kathleen Gilroy -- Dan, we don't think training can be separated from instructional design. The course material needs to be delved into to determine where are the best opportunities for engaging remote students and how are the tools available best used to that end.
Dan H -- Yes, Kathleen, but I am more concerned about preparation of the instructor prior to being thrown into the "pit", as one of our fellow chatters just described. For instance, I believe any "good" classroom teacher who wants to teach online can do so, but must acquire certain skills first; mostly technical skills which must become transparent to the instructor's teaching style and technique. It is that level of training analysis that I am searching for now.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Dan, once we have mapped out the course structure and tools, then we use rehearsal and practice to get faculty ready for the actual course. It doesn't take that much time and works well for us.
Dan H -- OK, Kathleen, but what about instructors who are not at your facility with your support? What skills do DE/DL isntructors need? What kinds of techniques work in what instances? How do you approach running a chat vs. a bulletin board? If you can't provide real-time video, what are the options? There are a lot of teachers making the transition to online, and they need this type of insight. It would be great if they all had the level of support it sounds like you provide. In the many examples I am seeing in business and industry, the training staff is small and there is little internal support.
C hris Davis -- There is free high -speed internet teacher training at http://www.webteacher.org
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- Dan H The IMS project is trying to standardize DE. It can be found at http://www.imsproject.org/index.html
Richard Seltzer -- Dan -- I suspect that in many cases it makes sense for there to be more than just a teacher. Internet-based education probably requires or works best when there are folks in the role of facilitators and moderators and technical support. A facilitator feels very at home in the on-line environment and gets the students involved, prompts them, challenges them, stays in touch with them. You can't expect the teacher (content specialist) to have those kinds of skills or to have the time to do it, even if prepared for it. The moderator type is there to keep the discussion on track and do any necessary policing of inappropriate postings. So maybe you don't need to provide extensive on-line training for the teacher, if you can provide the right support staff.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Richard, our business model is based on the intersection of people and technology. With large numbers of students, there has to be a set of intermediaries, who fulfill very different roles from the professors. We are building a staff to do that and the technology and marketing to support and sell the courses.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Dan, I don't think these questions can be easily answered independently of a particular course and/or audience profile. For example, a high-level managerial course requires a different set of solutions than an OSHA certification course.
Dan H -- Ah, Richard, you assume there are enough people involved to have facilitators AND instructors, etc. I am not seeing that, but then, most training has been based on a "single person" being responsible in the traditional classroom. I am finding that most of the support being offered is the technical support needed to get them online, and that is about it. It seems there needs to be a support structure for these people to use. That is what I am trying to research, as well.
Kathleen Gilroy -- And Richard is right -- there are different versions of a course (with different audiences/prices/values).
hduggan -- Dan - Not specifically educator training, but we are just about to re-open a online host training conference over at Communityware - the URL is http://www.communityware.com/asp/Community.asp?id=3014
Role and example of this scheduled chat
Marshall Wick -- I hope you all realize how collaborative this forum is--we are sharing tips, references, experiences. That is an ideal learning experience our students should have on some level too.Ken Merwin -- Marshall: A very good point. The DE course I've referred to at Univ. of Northern Iowa is solely Internet-based and we use several list servs for exchanged assignments, etc. I sense there are some of us already who'd like to associate a face with our writings; the instructor is incredible at managing a huge class and is certainly open to all suggestions; it is such a new area and it's refreshing to work with people who are open on the technology.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Richard is so good at capturing these conversations. They themselves become a resource. We see ourselves building an archive (student-authored) that could become an extremely valuable resource over time.
Ken Merwin -- It's been mentioned before but what makes this chat so beneficial is the work Richard does to "archive" it; I don't think any of us can absorb all the valuable information. I visit the archives several times during the week.
Phil Goodrich -- Marshall --Students love to be collaborative once they get the chance. They also do like to see what others create and they learn from writing others have done. Most do not worry about others seeing what they have done.
Maintaining control (as an instructor)
Richard Seltzer -- Another question sent in by email, this one from Marilyn Ellis, who suddenly finds herself teaching a distance ed class and wonders how to keep control --"The irony of this situation is that I have acquired a distance learning class in Computer Science (Data Communications and Networks). We are set up with email and also Nicenet. I am getting some complaints about the amount of homework. And I have one student determined not to take the final. We are fortunate that we CAN meet once in a while. We have a test scheduled for the 14th, and I have provided a discussion period before the test. So far, students are responding fairly well. It is exciting, but I am also seeing some of the students desiring to take over the class and run it themselves. I feel like I need to provide them with a time to discuss their issues, but when it comes to decisions, I am still the ultimate authority. Do you have any suggestions on how to maintain control? I am really a new teacher, and have not taught DL before, have only taken DL classes. Anyone with some answers to this, please email me at:
mellis@bayou.uh.edu
Marshall Wick -- Richard, Marilyn asks about control. I am not sure where she needs control but maybe it is in chats or use of the forums? I let students chat all they want and don't care about control.... if someone wants to take overe and has the support of his/her fellow students, more power to them. On the forum though, the teacher has a moderator role so has the power to control the discussion, even to the point of deleting inappropriate messages.
Ken Merwin -- Within the past week or two there were some posts on the EDTECH mail list about students who are technically more savvy than the teacher...I can post the URL to EDTECH's archives if anyone is interested.
Richard Seltzer -- Ken -- yes, please post that URL and/or send me email and I'll add it to the transcript.
Ken Merwin -- I will Richard.
Use of video in low to medium bandwidth situations
Ken Merwin -- I'm looking for success stories using "Cu-SeeMe" & similar products in low to mid-bandwidth situations; doing a web page for my Univ. of Northern Iowa course to document the products that support multiple platforms (MicroSoft NetMeeting not available for Mac); feel free to e-mail to me.C hris Davis -- As a staff development trainer we have been locating distance learning resources for educators. -- I have been working with a corporation developing multi-media training software for use with new employees. I do not know about its application to the internet and distance learning.
Kathleen Gilroy -- Ken, you should call Don Babcock at UMASS/Boston 617-287-5400. They have a great interface using CU-See-Me. They couple it with high bandwidth distribution of lectures. It's very nice. We are working with them to do a nursing pilot this spring.
Ken Merwin -- Kathleen - thanks. I'm just now following a Cu-SeeMe program from National Zoo on elephants...
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- Hello all -- is anyone using RealVideo (tm) to present and archive lectures for delivery on demand ?
Bob Fleischer -- One thing we do successfully within Digital system integration that is a kind of distance education is a monthly "Technical Forum". We use a combination of telephone conferencing and pre-distributed (via the intranet) presentations. The audience is the technical field personnel in system integration. Our forums last two hours and typically have three prepared presentations (in our case on internet-related technical subjects). We have also supplemented this with NetMeeting for sharing of windows, which allows presenter-driven demonstrations to be seen by all. The presentations continue to be available after the forum and we are about to try RealAudio playback of the recorded audio.
Importance of seeing video of instructor
Ken Merwin -- Another post I read recently (can't recall the mail list) dealt with the question of why video showing the instructor is really all that necessary...since it tended to try to replicate the traditional classroom model of teacher talks, students listen, teacher recognizes student, etc.Bob Fleischer -- As far as our technical forums are concerned, we too see little need for live video (although we would all love to play with it!). We have live audio, chat, shared whiteboard, and shared windows. That's fairly rich for our content. I could see some benefit to being able to share a prepared video -- just seeing talking heads and gesturing hands has little appeal for our use.
Richard Seltzer -- Ken -- re: seeing faces. I also heard of some research that showed that if you see a talking head (lips moving) you actually retain more than if you just heard what was said (I don't know if they did a comparison to reading).
Marshall Wick -- Ken, i don't think that showing a video of the instructor is NECESSARY but it seems to add an element of humanness to the cold printed/typed word. To be really successful in getting synchronous and asynchronous collaboration working, you need to build a community first and students are used to f2f training so you need to make a transition somehow for most and using photos, video, etc. can help there.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob -- yes, in general, I have the same disdain for "talking heads", but then that research (I believe it was at Georgetown and could provide a reference in the transcript if anyone is interested). That was part of my interest in the Face-to-Face technology at Digital's Cambridge Labs that can provide a talking head a low bandwidth.
Kathleen Gilroy -- And synchronous can mean more than real-time talking heads. Having students on the same timeline can add value at a number of levels.
Richard Seltzer -- Ken -- Right now I'm acting as a "tutor" (one flavor of support person) for a distance education class being given by Nova Southeastern University. The professor is the content expert. There is also a technical support person. I'm there to answer day-to-day interaction kinds of things. Seems like a good model. There are about 20 graduate students (mostly teachers) in the class. And they also get together face-to-face for one 2-day session in Florida.
Personalization and delivery to ships at sea
Jim Wolfgang -- Addressing personalization --- We have recently been delivering a hybrid (multiple modalities) DE graduate demo program to the USS Carl Vinson aircraft in the Pacific. One resource we used was WebCrossing's forum software. This helped in personalization of the effort because the students picture was tied to each posting. The picture, when clicked, went to their bio.Richard Seltzer -- Jim -- Very interesting. I may have missed an earlier posting of yours. Do you work for the Navy? Or are you doing this on contract? And what other similar experience have you had? (It's intriguing to think of delivering courses to people on ships at sea.)
Jim Wolfgang -- Work for a university in GA. as AVP for DE. Contract for the demo. Last summer we hit the ship in the Gulf. We also use VTC.
Richard Seltzer -- Jim -- What do the abbreviations stand for? AVP? VTC?
Jim Wolfgang -- Assistant Vice President Video Teleconferencing two way interactive video/audio live time at 128K
Interaction in a course with just two students?
Phil Goodrich -- Hi All, I am an engineering educator at Univ. of Minnesota and am currently teaching a non engineering course on the Internet. Building and using it at the same time. With only two students it lacks some of the interaction that I would like. Any suggestions? I agree that it does help to have some of the clues to face to face. We did get together once in real life to assist in knowing each other and would try to do it with video or at least posting photos that I could scan from time to time.Richard Seltzer -- Phil -- only two students? Are they local? If so, get together face-to-face. If not, see if you can get a video-phone hookup going among you. What's the course?
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- Phil - sounds like your class is a pilot program. As far as boosting attendance, I think that you will have to investigate Market your class on the Internet.
Phil Goodrich -- Is Market your class on the Internet a place, a service or ?
Marshall Wick -- Bob--market your class on the Internet.... that is a very interesting concept. How do you suggest one go about doing that?
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- As in any product sale, just because you have a great product doesn't mean they'll be knocking at your door. I'm afraid you'll have to do the same kind of marketing of your "product" as a commercial venture. Starting, of course, with high visibility in appropriate search engines.
WebCT courseware product
Jay -- We've gotten hold of a courseware product called WebCT that we're just starting to take a look at as a web-vehicle. Does anyone have any experience with this product? I'm interested in knowing how readily faculty can get up and running with it?Richard Seltzer -- Jay -- who makes Web CT? Do you have a URL?
Marshall Wick -- Richard WebCT was developed at the University of British Columbia and is now being licensed to others. If jay doesn't have the URL, i'll get it for you--i think it is in my tech list also...
Jay -- The URL for WebCT is http://www.webct.com
Upcoming global conference on distance education
Ken Merwin -- Our upcoming "Global Learn Day II" event scheduled for Columbus Day Weekend, 1998 will be live and world-wide; the technology plan has just been released and I'll be posting it to Richard since I've not had a chance to fully study the plan. It will be a global showcase of technology, etc. Home page is:
http://www.bfranklin.edu/
Ken Merwin -- AND it will be a true global conference on DE that is delivered in a total DE environment, no travel costs, etc. How many DE conferences out there have even a portion done in DE mode?
U.S. Distance Learning Association
Richard Seltzer -- Another off-line message of interest, this one from Harris Sussman. There is a US Distance Learning Association. Their home page is http://www.usdla.org/and the description there is -- The United States Distance Learning Association is a non-profit association formed in 1987 by Patrick Portway, Dr. Smith Holt of Oklahoma State University and Dr. Ralph Mills of California State University. The association's purpose is to promote the development and application of distance learning for education and training. The constitutents we serve include K through 12 education, higher education, continuing education, corporate training, and military and government training. Toward this purpose the United States Distance Learning Association convened a National Policy Forum in July 1991 to develop and publish a set of National Policy Recommendations that have been the basis of legislative and administrative proposals in education and telecommunications policy. Has anyone had any experience with that organization? can they provide help on the kinds of questions we're dealing with? do they now deal with Internet-based education? (Looks like they got started in the days when "distance" meant TV and correspondence courses.)
Kathleen Gilroy -- I know this group well and they are an offshoot of the company that runs Telcoms--the big industry trade show in the teleconferencing, business-tv space. I have not found them to be particularly helpful but they may be getting better now. In the past they were very tied to hardware vendors.
Distance ed links
Marshall Wick -- I have a hidden page on my site where is put a hodgepodge of urls related to distance education/online courses/web development etc. really for my future reference as sort of bookmarks. You can take a look at it at: tech links for what it might be worth (if anything) to you.
Wrapup
Richard Seltzer -- All -- I haven't seen a topic generate as much interest as this one has. I don't think that we are progressing in any structured way -- I can't see us dealing with one subtopic one week and another the next. But yet, I'm finding each session informative. Do we want to continue this topic? (The next topic that I'm particularly interested in is -- how to get paid for content on the Internet? what models are people using? and what's working? -- from subscriptions to micropayments to advertising and whatever else is out there.)Ken Merwin -- This is a fascinating theme; as an older person (now student) wanting a 2nd career I'd like some ideas on how to make a career in this; I also want to work in the DE training environment in the "developing country" arena, which is why I tend to look more at the lower tech. but innovative technologies.
Marshall Wick -- Yeah Richard, I'd like to follow up and maybe get some more input on effective maximum class size and costs....
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- Richard - I would lean towards narrowing the topic to one or two specific areas related to our DE/DL topic and continuing.
Richard Seltzer -- All -- Do I understand that you do want to continue this topic for at least another week or two? Please send me email with your followup thoughts on that and other future topics. seltzer@samizdat.com
Richard Seltzer -- All -- we also have to decide what to do about next week. I'm going to have to take a few days vacation time to go down to Nova for their face-to-face session, and that means I won't be able to do this chat next Thursday. Do you want to continue the discussion in my absence? And if so, do I have an experienced volunteer to stand in as moderator? (Bob@Cottage, would you want to give it another shot?)
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- Richard - I'm available !
Marshall Wick -- Bob, great... so much to talk about, so little time.....
Richard Seltzer -- Bob@Cottage -- terrific. thanks for volunteering. You're it. (And thanks again for doing such a great job a couple weeks ago.)
Richard Seltzer -- Bob@Cottage -- please send me email with your thoughts on the specific focus for next week and I'll weave that into the reminder messages.
Richard Seltzer -- All -- as usual, I'll post the edited/threaded transcript in the next few days. Check at http://www.samizdat.com/#chat and send me email with followup messages for inclusion with the transcript.
Richard Seltzer -- All -- before you sign off, please post your email and URL addresses so we can keep in touch. Don't count on the software to have captured that info.
Ken Merwin -- All - have a great week. Ken - Wisconsin kmgraduw@centuryinter.net
Bob Fleischer -- Bob Fleischer, robert.fleischer@digital.com, http://www.tiac.net/users/rjf/
Phil Goodrich -- Bye for now Phil Goodrich, U of Minn, gqn6051@tc.umn.edu
Bob@CottageMicro.Com -- See you all next week Bob Zwick bob@cottagemicro.com Cottage Micro Services, 103 Vinyard Drive, Waxahachie, TX 75167 PH/FX: (972) 435-2446 http://www.cottagemicro.com ...... ICQ 779704
Jay -- Cheers, everyone.
I'll try to be on time next week. johnson@acd.mhc.ab.ca
http://www.mhc.ab.ca/ejay1.htm
Marshall Wick -- Marshall
Wick emwick@gallaudet.edu http://www.gallaudet.edu/~emwick
also check out http://www.gallaudet.edu/~emwick/technology.html
for links to lots of goodies (non technical mostly) re developing courses.
Jim Wolfgang -- Thanks, Enjoyed my first visit. Jim Wolfgang, Georgia College & State University jwolfgan@mail.gac.peachnet.edu
Richard Seltzer -- All -- thanks very much for joining us today. I hope you'll be able to come again next week, when Bob Zwick (Bob@CottageMicro) will lead the discussion, in my absence. I'll be back again Thursday Feb. 19. Please spread the word.
Followup
"Teaching Online" course from Cybercorp Net
From: Tracy Marks <tmar@tiac.net> Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 03:34:11 -0500Just reading over the last transcript. Several people brought up the subject of training teachers for distance ed. Your readers might be interested in cybercorp.net's Teaching Online course. The next session starts in March; it's highly interactive, involving collaborative learning, and the exploration of many online teaching environments, including web chat, Moos and numerous other options determined by participants in small groups. I took it last spring, and though I have some criticisms of the course, I nonetheless found it very worthwhile.
http://www.cybercorp.net/gymv/crs_out/to_crs.html
Tracy Marks, M.A. tmar@tiac.net http://www.windweaver.com/
Statistics from six distance education chats
From: Bob Zwick <bob@cottagemicro.com> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 15:06:57 -0600I've done a rough summary of the DE Chat showing participant involvement and topic popularity.
This is a Summary of the Chat topic Distance Education. Each category is sorted by highest to lowest numbers.
Total number of message per chat session
101 msgs Week 2 =====#65===== Participants =26
079 msgs Week 6 =====#69===== Participants =30
074 msgs Week 5 =====#68===== Participants =21
070 msgs Week 1 =====#64===== Participants =19
054 msgs Week 4 =====#67===== Participants =14
043 msgs Week 3 =====#66===== Participants =15
Total Participants per chat session
030 Participants Week 6 =====#69=========
026 Participants Week 2 =====#65=========
021 Participants Week 5 =====#68=========
019 Participants Week 1 =====#64=========
015 Participants Week 3 =====#66=========
014 Participants Week 4 =====#67=========
Total Topics discussed per chat session
014 Topics Week 6 =====#69=========
013 Topics Week 2 =====#65=========
011 Topics Week 4 =====#67=========
011 Topics Week 1 =====#64=========
008 Topics Week 5 =====#68=========
005 Topics Week 3 =====#66=========
Total number of interactions per topic
(23) Synchronous (chat) vs. asynchronous methods [wk2]
(22) First-hand experience in distance education [wk3]
(20) Mixed media [wk2]
(17) The role of chat and forum [wk5]
(17) Defining "distance education" [wk1]
(15) What's unique about the Internet for Distance Ed? [wk5]
(14) Training for instructors [wk5]
(13) Business incubation [wk4]
(13) Audio/video for distance education [wk5]
(11) Standardizing/mainstreaming Web-based education [wk4]
(11) Nova Southeastern University [wk5]
(10) What skills are needed to moderate an education-oriented chat? [wk2]
(10) Just-in-time technical training [wk6]
( 9) Top Internet educational institutions? [wk2]
( 9) Prices - - how to attract students who are willing to pay enough to make it worthwhile for the instructor [wk1]
( 9) Optimum configuration for peer-to-peer learning? [wk1]
( 8) Special role of Internet and distance ed for the deaf? [wk5]
( 8) Boundaries and rules for chat etc. [wk2]
( 7) Training for World Bank -- translation issues [wk2]
( 7) Teaching on-line [wk1]
( 7) Optimum number of students? [wk3]
( 7) Non-credit continuous education classes [wk4]
( 7) Minimal infrastructure [wk5]
( 7) Importance of seeing video of instructor [wk5]
( 7) Courses on CDs [wk3]
( 6) Utah and Arizona [wk5]
( 6) Use of video in low to medium bandwidth situations [wk5]
( 5) Testing in an on-line environment [wk3]
( 5) Social aspects of education [wk1]
( 5) Role and example of this scheduled chat [wk5]
( 5) Personalization and delivery to ships at sea [wk5]
( 5) Partnering and teamwork assignments [wk1]
( 5) Package pricing for distance ed [wk4]
( 5) On-line training for sales reps [wk1]
( 5) Maintaining control (as an instructor) [wk5]
( 5) Looking for grad program sensitive to "developing countries" [wk2]
( 5) Interaction in a course with just two students [wk5]
( 5) IChat? Learning Space? [wk2]
( 5) Drop-out rates and skills/abilities the student needs to benefit from on-line education [wk1]
( 5) Courses at Web-net [wk4]
( 5) Collaboration in course development [wk5]
( 4) WebCT courseware product [wk5]
( 4) Virtual workspaces [wk1]
( 4) Infrastructure/administrative systems [wk2]
( 3) Upcoming global conference on distance education [wk5]
( 3) UOL [wk2]
( 3) University of Northern Iowa [wk4]
( 3) Need for more response from instructor and other students [wk2]
( 3) Mixed media -- Internet plus TV [wk5]
( 3) FAQs vs. email (and how can you get paid for providing on-line advice?) [wk1]
( 3) Business writing course [wk4]
( 2) ZDU [wk4]
( 2) Web courses in the Boston area? [wk4]
( 2) U.S. Distance Learning Association [wk5]
( 2) Is there any gold in those hills? [wk4]
( 2) Infrastructure needed for Internet-based distance learning? [wk3]
( 2) Guidebook on design, facilitation, etc. -- making the transition to distance learning? [wk2]
( 2) CyberEd [wk2]
( 1) Virtual University [wk4]
( 1) Studying ZDNet, looking for info [wk5]
( 1) Distance ed links [wk5]
( 1) CyberEd [wk1]
Bob Zwick bob@cottagemicro.com, Cottage Micro Services http://www.cottagemicro.com
Previous transcripts and schedule of upcoming chats -- www.samizdat.com/chat.html
To connect to the chat room, go to www.samizdat.com/chat-intro.html
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