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How to Replace the Learning Management System with SharePoint

One of the main reasons I chose to dedicate so much of my professional time on SharePoint is because it gave me the possibility to own the very site where I post and work. As a knowledge manager and trainer I have the constant need to keep materials updated. I also need to keep my end user engaged. Working within the constraints of enterprise learning and publishing structures means you have to send materials out to teams that then in turn publish the materials out, not always swiftly.

Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code

You've always wanted to learn how to build software yourself—or just whip up an occasional script—but never knew where to start. Luckily, the web is full of free resources that can turn you into a programmer in no time. If you're curious about how to become a programmer, you can get off to a running start using tons of great free web-based tutorials and resources.

Ten Things to Consider Before Choosing an LMS

Over the years I have spent many hours testing content and trying various different Learning Management Systems, and have even done some LMS (like) design work with Articulate Online. Over that time period I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about what does work well, and what doesn’t work well in a lot of systems, so based on my knowledge on the subject, here is my list 10 things to consider before choosing in an LMS.

You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners

"Content-rich" is not enough. Most websites are not learner-friendly. As an industry, we haven’t done our best to make our content-rich websites suitable for learning and exploration. Learners require more from us than keywords and killer headlines. They need an environment that is narrative, interactive, and discoverable. Amber Simmons tells how to begin creating rich content sites that invite and repay exploration and discovery.

How CarTalk Can Save Your E-Learning

You, as the instructional designer, are starting to panic — you know that you have limited time and resources to create this training, and the more content you put in, the less you are able to do with it. If it’s e-Learning, it will turn into the Dreaded Page-Turner, because you just don’t have time to create the 17 different problem-based scenarios to account for all of the different exceptions she’s describing. It turns into a battle, where you keep trying to cut things, and she keeps saying “but they need to know this!” So who’s right? Well, you both are, depending on your perspective.

Using the EServer TC Library for Course "Outside Readings"

Almost two years ago, I posted a rough note here about teaching my intro to technical communication course using the TC Library as a supplement to the textbook. Here's a more detailed essay on the method, which is working quite well so far.

Model Based Heuristics for Constructivist e-Learning

Many e-learning applications and games have been studied to identify the common interaction models of constructivist learning.

Do Business Communication Technology Tools Meet Learner Needs?

While institutions of higher education are enthusiastically embracing technology-mediated learning (TML), little research has been conducted to identify factors that influence student use of TML tools or determine whether use of them increases student learning. This study of business communication students at two universities found that (1) students tend to be sensing, visual, active, and sequential learners; (2) perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of TML tools are positively associated with perceived learning success; (3) learning styles do influence the students' usage behavior of certain TML tools; and (4) students' sensing/intuitive learning style is related to their perceived learning success.

A Brief Orientation to E-Learning

What is E-learning? E-learning is a general term that refers to education delivered using various forms of digital media such as the internet, video conferencing, audio, animation, and virtual environments. A course delivered using these tools, combined with face-to-face learning from an instructor, is referred to as blended learning.

Content, Standards, Learning and SCORM

Within content domains, the key themes of the information age are being adopted: Modularisation, specialisation, integration and interoperability. Our communication is changing in volume, purpose and channels. The emphasis is more on collaboration and less on expert-to-novice teaching. And there’s a stronger emphasis on openness.

Web 2.0 in Schools: Policy and Leadership

This report documents the beliefs, perspectives, and practices of educational administrators which help or hinder effective use of Web 2.0 in K-12 education. The study collected data from nearly 1,200 school administrators on the role of Web 2.0 in American schools and was made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Wikipedia and the New Curriculum

Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities. Just check the entry on Global Warming.

Learning-on-the-Go: Anytime, Anywhere Access to Course and Study Materials

The key objective of Duquesne University's "Learning-on-the-Go" program is to break down the barriers that make studying and attending class difficult for adult students. "Learning-on-the-Go" will accomplish this by providing convenient access to course materials, developing technologically-supported pedagogical tools to foster student learning, and creating a framework for faculty exchange of effective practices in mobile education.

What Colleges Should Learn From Newspapers' Decline

Newspapers are dying. Are universities next? The parallels between them are closer than they appear. Both industries are in the business of creating and communicating information. Paradoxically, both are threatened by the way technology has made that easier than ever before.

Can You Teach Me Moodle?

Teachers are a very pragmatic lot and love to borrow good stuff. Give’em a good one in Moodle and they will come! If a science teacher has a great solution using Moodle for a problem or idea her class and say, an English teacher sees it and ‘gets it’ - you can bet the English teacher will at least try or ask how to go about it. And coming from a colleague and a fellow ’struggler’ is a much more powerful thing than coming from the school’s main Moodle peddler like me.

How XML is Enabling the Next Generation of E-Learning Systems at Cisco

Cisco relies on Elearning for much of its training. So much so, that Cisco has become one of the largest Elearning providers in the world. In fact, Cisco provides over 120 courses in 152 different countries around the world. The courses and related assessments are often subject to frequent change, and the content must be produced in multiple languages or formats, combined into different courses, or efficiently searched and retrieved from large volumes of similar material. Early on, they realized that in order to keep that content current and manageable it was important to build an architecture that scaled well and was easy to maintain.XML became a clear choice for the data format. Cisco’s RLO (Reusable Learning Object) data model provides for flexible data modules that can be reused in many different contexts and driven to many different formats.

Access to Web-Based Special Education

Although, web-based distance education programs address geographical and cost barriers, they usually ignore access barriers to students with special needs (i.e. those with sensory, motor or cognitive disabilities). Distance education programs should ensure that conduits, and not barriers, to information are created. When planning a web-based special education program the following concerns should be considered: how to increase Web access to persons with disabilities by addressing access issues on both the client and the service side; how to optimize the use of innovative web technologies to transmit interesting yet accessible learning materials; how to increase community amongst special education students and teachers.

Converting Courses to Online

In all honesty, it really isn’t that hard to put an online course “online” and offer it to the public as an alternative or supplemental learning tool. What has given online learning the perception of difficulty, however, are those issues that were unforeseen, or, more precisely, unplanned.

DETC Member Survey on Online Learning

Survey respondents reveal the focus on change and growth. Almost every responding institution disclosed plans for improvement – new course designs, additional online options, or experimentation with various Learning Management Software. DETC schools are prepared to embrace the changes in technology and increased online delivery while continuing to provide superior education to the distance learning student. The results also demonstrate reluctance to abandon a synchronous, print-based method of learning.

Online Teaching Opportunities for Technical Communicators

Supplement your income and provide students with real-world knowledge and experience. Learn what kinds of online teaching opportunities are out there for technical communicators.

Fulfilling the Promise of Open Content

Unfortunately, the movement to use open educational resources in higher education hasn’t yet realized the full impact that its founders anticipated. Open content is still in its infancy and faces some technical and cultural challenges that affect its widespread adoption.

Assessing a Hybrid Format

As college instructors endeavor to integrate technology into their classrooms, the crucial question is, 'How does this integration affect learning?' This article reports an assessment of a series of online modules the author designed and piloted for a business communication course that she presented in a hybrid format (a combination of computer classroom sessions and independent online work). The modules allowed the author to use classroom time for observation of and individualized attention to the composing process. Although anecdotal evidence suggested that this system was highly effective, other assessment tools provided varying results. An anonymous survey of the students who took this course confirmed that the modules were effective in teaching important concepts; however, a blind review of student work produced mixed results.

Beyond Google: How Do Students Conduct Academic Research?

This paper reports findings from an exploratory study about how students majoring in humanities and social sciences use the Internet and library resources for research. Using student discussion groups, content analysis, and a student survey, our results suggest students may not be as reliant on public Internet sites as previous research has reported. Instead, students in our study used a hybrid approach for conducting course-related research. A majority of students leveraged both online and offline sources to overcome challenges with finding, selecting, and evaluating resources and gauging professors' expectations for quality research.

Beyond Google: How Do Students Conduct Academic Research?

Looking Toward the Electronic Future in the Classroom

The electronic tools available in the technical communication classroom have increased in number and sophistication over the last decade. Our three panelists examine the implications to the classroom of virtual reality, E-mail, and 'the information superhighway.'

The Virtual Working Environment: A Challenge for Both Educators and Students

With the increasing use of technological resources such as the Internet and World-wide Web, the concept of the 'virtual campus' where there is little or no face-to-face contact between colleagues is becoming commonplace. Students will be more attractive to potential employers if they are ready for this environment prior to graduation. To prepare students for this challenge, educators must work to ensure technical communication programs remain current with the technology field. Knowledgeable educators and up-to-date programs will produce graduates that are adequately prepared to enter the professional workforce.

Analysis of Virtual Classroom Environments: Survey of Classroom Dynamics in RSVP Courses

Students can earn Master's degrees or continuing education certificates by at tending courses offered live satellite or compressed video or on videotape for delayed viewing. This panel discussion evaluates the effects of the various forms of technology and modes of interaction on the classroom dynamics in a live satellite class offered by Rensselaer Polytechnic institute (RPI).

Exploring Burnout among University Online Instructors: An Initial Investigation

Burnout has been identified as a significant issue among those in instructional positions. The purpose of the present research was to identify and describe the status of burnout among higher education online instructors. The population for this study included responses of 76 online instructors employed by baccalaureate granting institutions within the United States. A demographic survey and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES) were used to collect data from respondents. Data analysis revealed online instructors possessed an average score on the emotional exhaustion subscale, high degree of depersonalization, and low degree of personal accomplishment.

Faculty Integration of Technology into Instruction and Students' Perceptions of Computer Technology to Improve Student Learning

There has been a remarkable improvement in access and rate of adoption of technology in higher education. Even so, reports indicate that faculty members are not integrating technology into instruction in ways that make a difference in student learning. To help faculty make informed decisions on student learning, there is need for current knowledge of faculty integration practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the relationship between faculty integration of technology into classroom instruction and students' perceptions of the effect of computer technology to improve their learning. A sample of at least 800 undergraduate students at a participating medium-sized midwest public university was selected using a stratified random sampling technique. The researcher delivered and administered the surveys to the participating students and collected them after completion. 98% of the questionnaires were complete and retained for analysis.

Usability of Online Education in a Diverse Community

This study explored the usability of an online tutorial in a diverse community of users at a major Midwestern university. The analysis of data revealed a significant difference between American and international users in such usability components as learnability, memorability, and number errors; however, no difference was found in the users' satisfaction rate. The difference in usability may suggest that the online product's effectiveness is largely dependent on background of the audience; therefore, online education may require additional adjustments to fit the needs of a diverse community.

Teaching Online Workspace Collaboration

This article provides a review and analysis of asynchronous chat sessions used by students to produce a collaborative formal proposal in an undergraduate technical communication service course at Bowling Green State University. The author/investigator reviewed archived chat sessions of the two most successful student groups and compared their experience to the conclusions drawn by a previous study on collaborative writing in the virtual classroom. The current study represents an initial exploratory attempt to replicate and/or refute the results of the prior study.

Digital Language and Literacy: An Online Course Design Learning Community

This paper overviews a discipline-specific educational technology assistance program titled Digital Language and Literacy, which links technologically literate graduate students in English with faculty developing online courses for the first time. Such models not only help with online course design but also help to establish technological and pedagogical learning communities among current and future faculty.

Ten Ways to Engage Online Learners

Online courseware is being simultaneously hailed and criticized by experts and learners. We're succeeding in delivery and accessibility, but failing in interactivity and interest. What makes online courseware work? This article looks at how online course authors engage their audiences. What kinds of interactivity are successful in Web-based courses? This article reviews strategies for pulling learners into scenarios, encouraging experimentation, and using gaming techniques in e-learning. This article also glimpses into the world of m-learning on a handheld device.

Communicating Emotions Effectively in Online Learning Environments

This paper presents an analysis of the various textual and visual ways that emotions are typically communicated in online learning environments. It also looks at the importance (and limitations) of both verbal and nonverbal online communication from the perspective of Daniel Goleman’s concept of “emotional intelligence.” Descriptions of three case studies demonstrate situations that involve emotionally-based student-instructor interactions that could have become problematic without the instructor’s awareness of the actual emotional issues involved. The paper concludes with a set of recommended guidelines for instructors addressing emotions in online learning situations.

Cross-Cultural Considerations for Designing International Internet-Based Learning

As increasing numbers of multinational corporations, consultants, universities, and instructional designers create Internet-based learning (IBL) courses or require courses to be taken via the Internet, not all are aware of the need to adjust their design expectations and assumptions due to cross-cultural considerations involved in such online courses. Eight critical considerations discussed in this paper include the following: language, culture, technical infrastructure, local/global perspective, learning styles, reasoning patterns, high/low context communication, and social context. Recommendations are listed for low-context designers to design with more cultural sensitivity for global learners and also for high- context learners who take low-context IBL courses.

Re-Thinking Assessment: Assessment Measures for Online Writing Classrooms

Because of the increase of fully online courses within the University setting, educators need to look more deeply at the teacher and student readiness and success in these environments. Assessment measures, such as self-assessments of technological comfort and online-specific course evaluations can assist with this examination. I will focus this discussion on observations and collection of interview data at Bowling Green State University using second semester fully online writing courses.

Situating the Adult Learner in the Online Classroom

Adult learners in the online classroom present new challenges for educational institutions and instructors. Often instructors create the online course by copying course syllabi, content, and assignments to the online course website. Along with the using the same content, instructors try to adapt their current pedagogical practices to the online classroom. This paper explores the aspects of adult learning in an online environment, discusses how it differs from the traditional educational environment, and offers suggestions for facilitating a successful online classroom for the adult learner.

Work-Embedded E-Learning: Wherever You Are, Whenever You Need It

New approaches in e-learning are stretching boundaries in exciting and game-changing ways. Find out about one of the newest ideas--work-embedded e-learning--that integrates learning materials directly into the work environment.

Teaching a Distance Education Version of the Technical Communication Service Course: Timesaving Strategies

The author has taught a distance education version of the undergraduate technical communication service course at Boise State University since 1997 and shares the strategies he has found to decrease the time instructors spend teaching online, thereby enabling them to use the time they do have to enhance their students' online experience. These strategies are distributed among four areas: management of collaboration, presentation of course material, grading, and interaction with students. For each one, the author presents the problems that may occur and approaches to resolving them. The article addresses a number of concerns expressed in the scholarly literature on distance education and is informed by surveys given to five sections of the author's course taught between 2001 and 2003. Interspersed through the article is an overview of some of the current research and commentary on distance education of particular interest to those teaching the technical communication service course via the Internet.

The Impact of Web-Based Learning Supplements on Engineering Students in India: A Study with Audio-visual Aids

The incorporation of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in the teaching-learning process of technical education programs in Indian universities is a relatively recent and gradual phenomenon. Most technical education colleges in the country still follow the traditional classroom and blackboard oriented teaching approach. This study, conducted on a group of engineering students at Agra, India, evaluated the impact of using web-based audio-visual study aids alongside (and as a supplement to) the traditional classroom teaching methodology and observed a substantial improvement in the students' academic performance.

E-Learning Trends in China

China faces the enormous task of educating its 1.3 billion citizens, many of whom face extensive educational and social disparity, as well as extreme geographic isolation. Find out how e-learning--and technical communicators--can help solve this educational problem.

Rob Houser on Creating Nontraditional E-Learning

Rob explains how you can use Captivate to create nontraditional e-learning materials, such as on-the-job training, sales and marketing training, or even bird-watching training. You aren't just limited to technical how-to information in screen demos.

Experience-Enabling Design: An Approach to ELearning Design (II)

Layout decisions like the course structure, navigation, media, etc., affect the experience of the product. For a learner, the ease and intuitive way of getting in, moving around and exiting are the experience factors. How do we bridge this gap between layout and experience?

Experience-Enabling Design: An Approach to ELearning Design (I)

This paper draws inspiration from diverse media to understand what constitutes experience. In doing so, it seeks directions for building experience into design of elearning products.

Internationalizing Online Training

Online training is becoming increasingly popular; however, geographic and cultural distance can work to your disadvantage. St.Amant outlines how to set up a training program that both attracts and benefits communicators in locations around the globe.

Interchange Keynote Presentation: E-Learning

In today's market, corporations consider 'cost avoidance' a top priority; nonetheless, complex products and tasks still demand training. Therefore, organizations look for efficient and effective training methods. E-learning answers that search.

Why Teach Digital Writing?

This webtext 'talks' in all the ways we are asked to talk about teaching digital writing: in the hallways to colleagues, in policy documents to administrators, in classroom exercises to graduate and undergraduate students, and to colleagues at conferences, in journal articles, and other scholarly genres.

Meeting the Challenges of Grading Online Business Communication Assignments

Marking and grading assignments submitted in an online environment require the use of different methods than the traditional on-campus counterpart. The best method to accomplish this marking and grading depends on personal preference and the accessibility of various hardware and software choices. These choices include printing and hand marking papers, using word processing software, Adobe Acrobat software, or specialty software designed specifically for marking writing assignments. Each of the choices has advantages and disadvantages.

Using the Web to Enhance and Transform Education

With the aid of the Internet and web technology, today's classrooms and learning environments are undergoing a major transformation. There is a massive effort to utilize the Internet as an effective communications and storage medium for education, research, and corporate training.

Why Teach Digital Writing?

Computers are not 'just tools' for writing. Networked computers create a new kind of writing space that changes the writing process and the basic rhetorical dynamic between writers and readers. Computer technologies have changed the processes, products, and contexts for writing in dramatic ways—and writing instruction needs to change to suit how writing is produced in digital spaces.

On Becoming a Web Site

The course Web site is a critical mediator between the instructor and students in online classes. This requires a shift in how instructors think of their presence and influence on the classroom. This essay, based on the author’s personal experience in designing and teaching online, argues that the design of the course Web site needs to carefully reflect the passions and pedagogical philosophy that drive the instructor. It is also an argument against one–size–fits–all approaches to online course design as instantiated in most course management systems.

Teaching as Performance in the Electronic Classroom

New developments in online educational technology have a profound effect on notions of intellectual property. Theories of the social construction of technology explain the extremely unstable nature of new technologies. Walter Ong’s theory of the alphabet effect provides insight into the ways in which knowledge changes as media of communication change. Shoshana Zuboff’s ideas on how managerial knowledge is transformed by technology help us understand how certain kinds of knowledge resist being textualized. These ideas help us understand the effects of new teaching technologies in terms of a long–standing struggle between two views of knowledge: knowledge as performance and knowledge as thing.

The Voluntary Workcamps Association of Ghana's Computer Literacy/Distance Learning Project

In Ghana, the use of electronic networks and information technology is in its infancy. Computers have yet to penetrate many sensitive sectors of the Ghanaian economy. Coupled with this is the fact that many Ghanaians lack computer skills in all areas, from basic knowledge and use to advance knowledge and computer management. Added to the aforementioned problems is the lack of educational and training facilities to help train people acquire basic computer skills. These problems often force user organizations to hire experts from overseas, some of whom may lack knowledge about the culture of the country in which they operate.

Design and Assessment of Web-Based Learning Environments: The Smart Engineering Project and the Instructional Software Development Center at U.M.R.

We present a framework for web-based learning design, which consists of seven basic components: directionality, usability, consistency, interactivity, multi-modality, adaptability, and accountability. We propose that effective design begins with a clear delineation of the intended audience, usage context, and learning goals and that all further design occurs within the context of these factors (i.e. directionality). The design factors themselves can be seen as representing the fundamental contrasting goals of simplicity (usability and consistency) and complexity (interactivity, multi-modality, and adaptability). We propose that effective design consists of the proper balance of simplicity and complexity. Finally, design should include an evaluation component (accountability), which should in turn impact design modification via feedback. We review research that relates to the components of the framework, including a recent assessment on Web-Based modules as part of the PsychConnections project. We also pose recommendations and provide examples from the Smart Engineering Project and other instructional multi-media developed under the auspices of the Instructional Software Development Center at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

A Model of Web Based Design for Learning

Reviews a model that serves as a framework for the design of web-based learning environments. The model consists of seven basic components: directionality, usability, consistency, interactivity, multi-modality, adaptability, and accountability. We propose that effective design begins with a clear delineation of the intended audience, usage context, and learning goals and that all further design occurs within the context of these factors (i.e., directionality). The design factors themselves can be seen as representing the fundamental contrasting goals of simplicity (usability and consistency) and complexity (interactivity, multi-modality, and adaptability). We propose that effective design consists of the proper balance of simplicity and complexity. We also introduce a method we refer to as “progressive complexity”, which is one potential method of achieving such a balance effectively, by offering the user a systematic set of options. Finally, design should include an evaluation component (accountability), which should in turn impact design modification via feedback. Evaluation, within this model, consists of learner variables, experimental methodology, outcomes, and measures. We review research that relates to the components of the framework, and also pose recommendations for development.

WWW Instructional Documentation for the Development of a Smart Composite Bridge

An instructional World-Wide-Web (WWW) site for a smart composite bridge provides technical documentation to a diverse audience including professional and student users. It describes a prototype bridge project that demonstrates the use of fibre-reinforced-composites and smart sensing techniques for civil engineering applications. This smart composite bridge is a long-term technological demonstration for industry and an interdisciplinary field laboratory for students. The site content includes live images, technical details, associated publications, manufacturing protocols and developmental testing. The site objectives are to provide current information, to organise progressive levels of detail and to exploit WWW instructional capabilities. Clear organisation, navigational aids, supplementary helps and content layering balances the user needs (1) for simplicity through consistent presentation and usability and (2) for complexity through user-centred options and multimedia. This instructional tool models effective communication of research to industry and the classroom. It shows how site design can accommodate diverse needs of information delivery.

The Harder They Fall: Pitfalls of Online Team Writing Assignments

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has opened up new territories for teaching technical communication. But web-based courses can present steepchallenges for students working on team assignments as well as for teachers designing them. What conditions make it likelier that e-teams will fail? Whatconditions might better prepare instructors and student teams to deal not only with the technical, but also the interpersonal, challenges of learning from eachother in a CMC environment? First providing theoretical frameworks suggested by research into collaborative writing and the effects of CMC on learning andteamwork, I outline some difficulties facing students struggling to complete a technical writing team assignment. I then suggest strategies for instructors andstudents to help ensure that online teamwork is a productive and positive experience.

ELT on the NET: The Internet In English Language Teaching

Well before most us come to the end of our working lives use of the Internet and World Wide Web in education will be standard practice.

Virtual Classroom Project Report

The aim of the Virtual Classroom project is to create an environment that will help stimulate purposeful communication between English language learners across the globe.

Teaching Writing at a Distance: Avoiding Lecture, Fostering Interaction

This panel segment focuses on lessons learned from teaching technical writing via Interactive Compressed Video ([C V). Although ICV has limitations, its two-way audio and video have distinct advantages, especially when combined with document cameras at each site. With some ingenuity, the discussions, hands-on exercises, workshops, and individualized coaching that are the mainstay of writing instruction can be adapted for teaching at a distance.

Teaching Technical Communication at a Distance

Satellite education can be rewarding for both on-campus and satellite students. However, teaching in this setting places considerable demands on the instructor. Course planning, preparation, and delivery require more time and effort. When this is done optimally, the benefits to students outweigh the demands on faculty.

Administration of an Electronic Classroom

The electronic classroom in the Oklahoma State University English Department is now a little over a year old. In the three semesters we've been using it, a number of administrative challenges have surfaced. Some of those challenges were easily overcome, but others have been consistent dilemmas with no clear solution in sight. The day-to-day administrative issues in operating the facility center on issues of access and maintenance and repair. This article will focus on some of the major challenges with the intention of pointing out potential problems that may occur as other writing programs establish similar electronic teaching facilities.

Managing and Teaching in an Electronic Classroom: Oklahoma State's Experience

The computer has been called the single most important invention since Gutenberg introduced movable type and the printing press in the fifteenth century. 'Computers have changed the way we perform scientific research, conduct business, create art, and spend our leisure time.' They have also changed the way we train students for the workplace.

Static in the Electronic Classroom: Can Technology Get in the Way of Learning?

Technology can be a very powerful tool in the technical communication classroom, but can technology sometimes get in the way of learning? It can if we do not carefully plan our transition from the traditional to the electronic classroom. In preparing for this transition, we must consider the needs of our students, the capabilities of the technology, and our own responsibilities as instructors.

Accountable Assessment in the Age of Digital Labor

Entrepreneurship is THE economic mode of the digital age and entrepreneurship is defined by risk. Students who will become workers must be comfortable, even engaged by, risk-taking.

So You've Decided to Develop A Distance Education Class...

As colleges and universities race into Distance Education via the World Wide Web, instructors are asked to move out of their 'safe' zones and into a new realm of teaching.

FAQs About Your First CBT

A comprehensive overview of computer-based training for technical communicators new to the subject.

Videoconference-Based Courses in Technical Communication: Pros, Cons, and Considerations

Interactive compressed video (ICV), also called videoconferencing, is increasingly popular for distance education. While ICV shares many features with satellite technology, its two-way audio and video make it more interactive and versatile, at a lower cost. The interactivity can help meet the instructor’s concern about appropriate methods for teaching writing. The lower costs, and the versatiliy to send as well as receive courses, can help meet the administrator’s concerns about maximizing the return on investment.

E-Learning: When and Why

Technical communicators have a responsibility to help companies determine when e-learning is an appropriate training solution. Smith offers criteria for making informed training choices.

The Distance Learning Experience: Developing, Transmitting and Participating in Courses Delivered at a Distance

Distance education comes in all shapes and sizes. Videotaping led to satellite and videoconferencing. Today, web-based videostreaming is gaining popularity in many areas. Back in 1995, a team from Rensselaer and IBM met to discuss opportunities to deliver leading edge user interface design education via distance delivery methods. Join our panel discussion to hear how this program has progressed, and how Rensselaer’s Professional and Distance Education Program continues to work directly with its customers to deliver leading edge distance education.

As It Was in the Beginning: Distance Education and Technology Past, Present, and Future

As DE courses are being developed and carried out by an unprecedented number of university-level educators, it is time to reexamine the long history of DE in hopes of better understanding the ways in which seemingly revolutionary developments such as virtual classroom and e-mail collaborations have more in common conceptually with early iterations of DE than might be supposed.

Why We Need More Assessment of Online Composition Courses: A Brief History

Online courses now command a prominent position in composition scholarship where we dream of democratized education and liberating literacies. But...

The Virtual Classroom

The Virtual Classroom is not just a fancy new term for distance learning. Although distance learning is an important aspect, the Virtual Classroom involves a broad range of issues and ideas, and uses emerging Web and Internet technologies to fairly easily bypass the many long-existing barriers to a truly ideal learning environment. It takes the best of each technology or learning method, and integrates these into a whole. In other words, instead of choosing among classroom, self-study, or other deliveries, you take what is best from each. The goal is to change the instructor’s role from being a teacher to someone who manages the students’ learning experience. The result is better, faster, cheaper, and more effective learning experiences, from which the student and teacher both benefit.

Teaching Writing, Grammar and Editing Skills On-Line

Universities are rapidly expanding their asynchronous course offerings in order to meet the demands of the adult learner. Nowhere is the asynchronous learning environment more useful then when teaching writing and editing skills. One such on line course was developed at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. The course, COMM 1002-Media Writing, uses the virtual classroom, threaded discussion and peer editing techniques to maintain student connectivity. The course also provides a number of testing/quizzing platforms to allow students to increase their grammar and vocabulary skills at an individual pace thus decreasing student anxiety about professional writing.

Making Decisions about Distance Education: Organizational and Individual Perspectives

Decisions about distance education, whether from the perspectives of academic or corporate organizations, are often made on the basis of economical, pedagogical, and psychological perspectives. Decisions are also made by potential distance learning students. Distance learning delivery organizations often include student self-surveys in their initial online promotional materials. This metaanalysis of several student distance learning 'readiness' surveys identifies their major common elements, and it offers a checklist of topics to include in distance learning student 'readiness' surveys. Finally, recommendations are offered concerning the ethical and research dimensions of the decision-making required for effective distance education delivery.

E-Mail in the Classroom Workplace

E-mail usage creates special concerns in education, and teachers must learn how to make e-mail a more effective tool. Students must be taught how to use e-mail for purposes other than informal communication and to evaluate sources of information gathered through correspondence. Although e-mail presents problems in how and what students learn, it also can foster international learning experiences, provide some students with a clearer method of expressing their ideas, and increase collaboration.

From Courseware Cosmetics to Human Cognetics: A Pragmatic, Innovative Pedagogy for Distributed Learning Design and Development

Commercial courseware management systems efficiently distribute expository instructional shovelware without regarding how adults actually construct knowledge or develop practical skills. Critical, unaddressed instructional problems increasingly face the commercial and academic distributed learning community and require thoughtful, boldly pragmatic instructional design solutions to this salient issue. Alternative, innovative pedagogical approaches more appropriate for 21st century communications technologies need to be systematically explored, developed, validated, and creatively implemented. One promising perspective is to focus emerging technology systems on the design of cognitive learning environments based upon what we know and what we are discovering about how people actually learn, develop performance skills and heuristic competencies, and construct meaningful, transferable knowledge throughout their lifetimes.

Implementing the Online Classroom: Curriculum Development, Tutoring, and Teaching Initiatives

Three facets of implementing the online classroom at University of Maryland University College have yielded promising results. The first facet, Curriculum Development, involved remaking a popular writing course. Humanities 390, Writing for Managers, was redesigned for online delivery with a new Course Guide, a revised syllabus, and new assignments, activities, and presentation strategies. The second facet, Tutoring, was realized in a project to match student users with online tutors for basic writing instruction. The third facet, Teaching, has provided training and support for online faculty -- including computer conferencing on Writing and faculty workshops for 'going online.'

Technical Writing Taught Over the Internet

Is it possible? Can a writing course be delivered effectively from a distance, without interaction from an instructor? It’s not easy, but we think it can. In fact we are well into developing an online course which is entirely self-evaluated.

Crossing the Boundaries of Instruction: Assessing Web-Based Courses

We recently conducted survey research to discover students' responses to our web-based courses and online programs. We wanted to know their reactions to the course materials, teaching methods, interactions with faculty and other students, as well as their own competence in the particular subject area following such as course. While we are discovering that students are generally satisfied with all aspects of the courses, they express valid and noteworthy concerns.

Integrating the Web into Education for Technical Communication Majors: A Process-Oriented Approach

As the work of professional technical communicators has broadened in scope, so has the challenge of integrating this broader range of concerns into everyday practice.Within the academic world, the response has usually been separate courses. Many undergraduate and master's programs in technical communication sport courses in usability testing, visual communication, project management, and technical writing and editing.

Online Education Horror Stories Worthy of Halloween: A Short List of Problems and Solutions in Online Instruction

This article examines many surprising problems that arise in the process of distance education using the Internet and describes ways in which instructors and administrators can solve these problems. The information in the article is based largely on the experience of educators at Utah State University who have been exploring distance education for the past six years by teaching a wide range of online courses via the Internet. As a result of this varied online teaching, we have encountered a broad spectrum of challenges to which we have tried to respond and from which we have tried to learn. The solutions described are generalizable to other programs using online delivery for instruction.

Online Tools for Online Writing Teachers

When you teach online technical writing courses (where the primary method of communication is e-mail and where class materials are mailable through various Internet facilities), you face a number of challenges. Teaching writing courses online can be time-consuming -- not what we want in such a labor-intensive field of instruction. This paper reviews a number of software tools that can reduce these problems and add advan-tages not normally available in the conventional face- to-face classroom. (Omitted here is discussion of common Internet tools such as lTP, telnet, vi and other such facilities.)

Accessible Web Pages: Advice for Educators

While educators have embraced the responsibility of providing equal access to educational resources to all students, Internet technology presents new challenges in this area. Students who have vision or hearing problems, who have difficulties with motor control, or who face other challenges, such as learning disabilities or language barriers, may find the Web difficult or impossible to explore.

Computer-Based Training that Really Communicates

To design and develop effective computer-based training screens, take advantage of visual psychological impact. Treated as a grid, the screen has high and low impact areas, Position the elements of the message to take advantage of these. Use visual cues to create planes and layers for emphasis. Decide on the content types which make up your message. These include concept, principle, process, procedure, and fact. Build screen sequences to make the purpose of the content clear to users. Add application Ievel questions to keep users involved.

Using Virtual Peer Review through the Online Writing Center

Virtual Peer Review is an exercise in which students review the written work of other students in online or Internet-based settings. Just like peer review--an activity in which readers make suggestions for improvement on another person's writing--virtual peer review supports revision in the writing process. The difference is that this review process is conducted using online technologies.

Evaluating Online Tutorials on Software Applications

Nowadays, there are a lot of software applications designed to meet the need of end users to simplify their work. These software applications usually come with supporting tools to help users with system setup and requirements, installation guides, troubleshooting, or getting-started tutorials. When looking for more information on a specific topic or “how to” on a software application, users usually tend to look first on the manufacturer’s Web site. In reality, however, the result doesn’t always answer our questions, because the manufacturer may have a wide variety of tutorials that may confuse us, the manufacturer’s tutorials may be intended for experienced users, or tutorials may be incomplete because the manufacturer only goes through the basics of the software application.

Online Ins and Outs: How E-learning Works

Online classrooms are the way of the future, and rather than discussing the benefits and drawbacks of e-learning, let’s look at how e-learning works on two of the top e-learning environments running today.

Online Learning in China

Online learning, a new phenomenon in Chinese education, is developing at an unimaginable pace. According to China Internet Information Center’s (CNNIC) survey in June this year, there were 68,000,000 Internet users. Statistics also show that there were 59,100,000 more users compared with the first half of the year. Eighty-four percent of the users were between 18 to 40 years old, the ages for continuing education (China Internet Network Information, 2003). The survey indicated that taking online courses is one of the most important purposes of the users. The development of online learning in China has three tendencies: student-centeredness, more involvement in the nation’s education system, and collaborative effort by prestigious universities.

Online or Face-to-Face: A Survey of Student Preferences

Although COMS 101 is officially a face-to-face course, I duplicate so much of the course online that it is more like a hybrid course. A hybrid course is between a traditional lecture course and a completely online course in terms of the percentage of class time conducted online. Theoretically, my students learn in our scheduled lectures, but in reality, about one-third of the class requirements are accomplished with little or no instruction from an in-person teacher. This is not so much due to the online content, but instead to the requirement of learning software applications without benefit of a scheduled lab session.

The Webinar: The New Face-to-Face?

E-learning, the ability to access a training session via the Internet, is available to anyone with a phone line and a PC. E-learning provides participants with the opportunity to receive information about a particular topic in his or her related field. The instructor may be a business associate, university professor, or other expert.

Web-Based Instructional Learning

You may not find all the answers to your evolving questions, but the authors throughout the book do a good job of analyzing relevant research questions, defining the current state of Web-based education, and suggesting areas for continuing research. The book comes as close as you'll find to 'everything you always wanted to know about Web-based instruction,' with its in-depth coverage of today's Web education issues and research.

Preparing Learners for e-Learning

Finally, give this book to the CEO who blithely assumes that the corporation can simply replace classroom learning with e-learning without missing a beat. This book goes a long way toward dampening the hype surrounding online education by acknowledging that e-learning requires a shift in organizational priorities, teacher and learner attitudes, and ways of operating.

Publications on On-Line Collaboration and Educational Technology

On-line collaboration enriches the educational experience, especially if instructors use software environments that support group-generated projects, products, case studies, and other kinds of academic deliverables. Such activities are not supported well by the standard 'threaded topic' discussion formats of e-mail and message-based conferencing systems.

Crossing Institutional and Programmatic Identity Boundaries: The Possibilities of an Online Graduate Consortium

Should institutional boundaries prevent online students from learning from the best professors available? What is the effect of employing remote professors on a program's identity, and how do remote or distant professors fit into a faculty's programmatic and pedagogical profile?

Going the Distance: Online Teachers' Perspectives on the Usability and Sustainability of Teaching Writing Online

Distance education research tends to focus on students' experiences in the online classroom because students are the bread-and-butter of distance learning programs.

Heuristics for Sustainable Distance Education

Discusses eight conditions for technological change that can support innovation in educational settings. These conditions, which were first directed toward library contexts and then studied in a variety of education-related contexts, encapsulate the majority of sustainability issues associated with distance education. These eight conditions are not exhaustive, but programs that achieve many of them will probably experience a high degree of sustained success.

ABCs of E-Learning: Reaping the Benefits and Avoiding the Pitfalls

I'm always skeptical when I first read the praise for a book, especially when a full page of testimonials is published just inside the front cover, as well as on the back. However, by the time I finished reading Brooke Broadbent's ABCs of E-Learning, I could've added my blurb of congratulations on a job well done.

Making Educational Software and Web Sites Accessible: Design Guidelines Including Math and Science Solutions

Students with disabilities are increasingly placed in inclusive classrooms where they learn alongside their peers. This poses a challenge to teachers and students because instructional materials may not be available in a form that is accessible to the disabled student. Inaccessible materials stigmatize students with disabilities by preventing them from using the same materials as their peers and can limit their educational opportunities. As technology becomes more prevalent in classrooms, students with disabilities face even more challenges in keeping pace with their classmates.

Providing a Backbone for an Online Master's Program in Technical Communication

Classrooms without walls. Textbooks without pages. Thinking outside the box. These are the hip phrases that describe contemporary e-learning. What is it, then, that provides structure, cohesion, and foundation for distance learning degree programs in technical and scientific communication?

Some Ideas About Producing Online Modules: Learning Dynamics Australia

Online learning results from the interaction of a learner and a Web-based set of content and collaboration with other people. The selection and direction of the content are determined by the learning and business outcomes of any module. The client sets the outcomes and provides the content. The LDA team translates that content into a set of screen components that state the meaning of the content and builds in continuity through a navigation system. In addition, collaboration with a tutor andother learners helps to maintain the personal nature of learning.

Sustainable Practices in Distance Education

We are engaged in distance education because our graduate program is committed to responsible instructional practices in the computer age. As humanists, our efforts in this relatively new area are primarily energized by opportunities to revisit basic educational assumptions, test the social claims made about distanceeducation, and prepare future teachers who can operate both effectively and judiciously in online environments. From our perspective, departments that foreground the values of the profession will find distance education tobe a productive site for literacy education, one that can even influence the shape of resident instruction in positive ways.

Evaluating Distance Learning in Graduate Programs: Ensuring Rigorous, Rewarding Professional Education

Internet-based distance learning programs make it possible for technical communicators located anywhere in the world to participate in graduate courses in their field. But are these graduate programs as rigorous as those offered through traditional educational venues? Do they provide opportunities for participants to learn from professors and their fellow students that are as rewarding as those provided in traditional graduate seminars? This paper reports the responses of students in two such classes to a series of questions probing these issues, and offers conclusions and recommendations that may help others who plan such courses to structure them more effectively.

EPSScentral: Online Learning

Articles about emerging trends in online learning that may affect the design and development to electronic performance support systems.

Continuing eBook Classroom Studies

Acceptance of eBooks improves at Ball State University. Improvement of visual quality and 'no testing' helps a higher percentage of graduate students recommend eBooks for further classroom use. Many students found reading text material "satisfying & easy." More studies planned for the K-12 population.

Behind the Cameras: 10 Non-Instructional Issues to Consider When Coordinating a Distance Education Program with Other Institutions

When she learned that I would be teaching a course in her department, the department secretary made a mailbox for me and made sure that I received a copy of every memo and announcement distributed to the rest of the faculty. Other part-time faculty appreciated this service, so it became a part of the secretary's standard operating procedures. But I never received the mail because the mailbox was in Crookston, Minnesota and I taught the course by instructional television (ITV) from St. Paul, Minnesota, approximately 350 miles away.

Determining Constraints for e-Learning

One of the challenges of starting an e-learning are the constraints. If you don’t uncover them before you begin a project and choose software, the issues can come back to haunt you. Following are questions you can ask to determine the constraints you'll need to address when implementing e-learning in your organization. You might need to ask additional questions, but these should give you a good start.

Eight Things That Training and Performance Improvement Specialists Must Know about Knowledge Management

4This white paper introduces training and performance improvement professionals to knowledge management. Specifically, it: describes what knowledge management is and how it is used within organizations in general, and within training and performance improvement groups in particular; identifies the technology needed for a knowledge management system; identifies the work activities needed to effectively place information in a knowledge management system; suggests ways that training and performance improvement professionals might be affected by knowledge management efforts within their organizations.

Resources on E-Learning for Training and Performance Support

A comprehensive collection of links to e-learning resources online for workplace training.

What Executives Must Know about E-Learning

So you’ve heard about this e-learning thing. Can it work in your organization? Before you make an assessment, consider these issues.

Build It Right And They Will Come

Teaching through the Web requires instructors to reconsider their previous assumptions about the nature of teaching, lecture, testing, and student/teacher interaction. In online classrooms, instructors often serve many design and maintenance roles. Managing the time required for these roles is an inescapable part of online instruction. The simpler the overall course design, the less often the instructor has to shift from role to role. Online instructors must use textual, visual and interactive metaphors consistently to help guide students toward productive forms of interaction. Finally an equal mix of textual, visual and interactive rhetorics is vital for effective online course design.

Mapping the Expanding Landscape of Usability: The Case of Distributed Education

As the environments in which we use technology become more complex and more diverse, we need to extend and expand our notion of usability to include a broad spectrum of users and user activities. We take as an example the case of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's distributed education program for human-computer interaction (HCI). While HCI is the subject matter for the courses, the courses themselves present a challenging case study in HCI usability.

Design Once: Use Again and Again and Again…

You can either do it over and over again; or, you can design it once and use it again and again. The decision to create reusable learning modules need not be an expensive one. It just requires modular design.

Computer-Mediated Conferencing: Teaching in a Virtual Classroom

Asynchronous desktop conferencing, or computer-mediated interaction, is one of the new technologies in education. A videocourse with an interactive conferencing component was used successfully in a distance course for graduate students in technical communication. The technology allowed students to collaborate, peer review, and conference at their own pace without coming to campus. Computermediated conferencing has promise as a teaching tool for technical communication.

Recreating the Technical-Writing Classroom on the World Wide Web

Many of the limitations inherent in technical-writing instruction on the World Wide Web can be overcome by intelligently designed web sites. Web-based instruction here refers to courses, in either the corporate or academic setting, where most ofthe instructional materials are supplied over the WorId Wide Web and where students and instructors communicate and exchange writing projects through e-mail. Acknowledging that few instructors have the expertise or technical support to create such web facilities, this paper makes available annotated Per1 source code for instructors ’ use or customization.

Iolis Authoring in a Web Environment

Recently, there has been increasing focus on the acquisition of research skills by law undergraduates. One reason for this interest is a belief that many such students do not acquire an adequate level of research skills by the time that they graduate. Reflecting this concern, the Law Society/Bar Council's Joint Statement on Qualifying Law Degrees and the Quality Assurance Agency's Benchmark Standards for Law both place great emphasis on the need to improve research skills training at University level. In the light of these developments, Durham University's Centre for Law and Computing was asked to develop a self-paced learning package providing more advanced training on the skills necessary to do legal research projects. It was envisaged that the learning package in question would take the form of an Iolis style workbook. Rather than use traditional law courseware authoring tools, however, the Centre chose to experiment by attempting from the outset to develop the workbook as a website comprising interlaced text and interactions. If successful, such an approach would have the benefits of producing a prototype that was: (i) readily accessible across the Internet, or a campus intranet; (ii) customisable to the needs of individual law schools; (iii) flexible enough to reflect more of an author's own personal approach; and (iv) massively interconnectable with campus intranets and with the Internet at large.

Making the Grade, or How to Upgrade an Online Class

Because online technical communication classes, as well as classes with several online components, are no longer a novelty, teachers must plan coursework and technology use to better meet students’ needs. To improve my online teaching methods and plan future courses, I follow these guidelines: 1. Prepare students to use e-mail efficiently; 2. Prepare students to use the class chat room for meetings, office hours, and required discussions; 3. Maintain a flexible assignment schedule while enforcing the final deadline; 4. Help students gain access to computers; 5. Develop pleasant working relationships with technical support personnel; and 6. Develop course information for students with different learning styles.

Training for E-Business: Turning Your Education Offerings On!

These days, the buzzwords of our industry revolve around E-commerce and E-business. At the same time, we have also seen major shifts in the required focus of our training offerings – from Tool/Task-Based to Business Process/Role-Based. Finally, we can no longer demand that the students come to us for what they need. They are demanding that we take it to them. But how do you turn your training organization on a dime to respond to the changing needs? This paper discusses how you can transition from standup/ manual-based instruction to a WBT/online documentation method of training.

World Wide Words: A Rationale and Preliminary Report on a Publishing Project for an Advanced Writing Workshop

Publishing articles on the World Wide Web in established webzines edited for love or money by people who take their tasks seriously offers a possible remedy to the problem of inauthenticityor pseudotransactionality in student writing.

Collaboration via Desktop Videoconferencing: Designing Interactive Environments

Recent studies suggest that classroom collaboration is not always successful. We designed a course that motivates students to provide adequate help for writers. In this course college students studying to become technical communicators mentored high school students in language arts and content area courses. In order to overcome barriers of schedules, distances, and resources, we created a multimedia system that combined face-to-face communication and networking in one configuration. We collaborated with University of Minnesota groups, local high school personnel, US WEST Communications, Inc., and Compression Labs, Inc. in the development of the system.

Graduate Research in Technical Communication: Preparing Students to Use the National Information Infrastructure

Graduate researchers in technical communication help prepare other students for using the National Information Infrastructure, known as the super information highway. Here graduate students report recent research on the importance of logical screen sequences in hypertext, eight types of information to include to make proposals persuasive, and a profile of surveyed university computersupported writing facilities to point out needs such facilities have.

Effective Computer-Based Training Design

The purpose of computer-based training (CBT) is to motivate students to reach clearly defined objectives, so CBT design elements should help learners reach those goals. The interface design results from a complex interrelationship among these primary factors.

Training the Brain: Building an Online Course

This case study is based on the process that one team of technical communicators used to create an online science course—for a company that had not previously offered online courses. The team developed, created, and implemented the course, Language and the Brain, in just two and a half months.

Students as Netizens: Connecting the Classroom with the Web

Connecting students with the digital world available through the Internet is an aspect of the traditional technical communication classroom that is often stated as a goal by many instructors. Accomplishing this task is sometimes a pedagogical challenge. Some of the issues involved in turning students into competent 'netizens' result from pre-existing student attitudes, while others reside directly with the instructor. Ultimately, it is the instructor’s responsibility to construct meaningful learning experiences that incorporate the rich resources of the Web in ways that enhance course learning goals. While focusing on the Web as a supplementary learning resource, instructors can stimulate learning experiencs by functioning as 'navigators' and 'pathfinders' in creating 'Web treasure hunts' for their student netizens.

Three Worlds of Online Education: Evaluation of Commercial Courses

Courses delivered over the World Wide Web, are an important element in today’s training programs. You can evaluate them by analyzing their content, handling of audience, interactivity, and cost.

Creating Your First CBT (Computer Based Training) Program

There are a series of questions that should be answered when you start the process of creating either a Computer Based Training program or a Web Based Training program. In this presentation I’ll go over the questions I asked while making my first CBT, the reason why I asked the question and then the answer I received to each question.

Doc, I've Been Looking at Some Web Sites--So What Should I Believe?

Because anyone, from nationally renowned physicians to your next-door neighbor, can post health information online, readers need to be selective when taking advice from medical web sites. Several non-profit and government agencies have developed guidelines to help readers as they evaluate health and medical information online. Some researchers have also begun to study the ways that readers actually judge the credibility of web sites. Recommendations from heuristic guidelines and recent empirical research have been distilled into a list of guidelines for writers and editors.

E-Learning, Single Sourcing and SCORM

E-learning is a highly effective way of providing training to widely dispersed audiences. Single sourcing (information reuse) provides the facility to create and store reusable content from a single source, and delivers that content to multi-channel information products for learners. SCORM is the Sharable Content Object Reference Model; it’s an initiative of the ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning Network). This session provides an understanding of how you can create effective e-learning materials using single sourcing or SCORM.