Give MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) a Try

Last week, I finished my first MOOC. No, it is not a sound a sick cow makes, rather it's a Massive Open Online Course  MOOCs are different from other online courses in that they are open. Open in that they are free to take and open to anyone, no perquisites required. Massive in that their free status tends to attract a very large number of students - with diverse backgrounds, locations, and subject-matter knowledge.

My experience is limited, but from talking to others who have taken MOOCs, I have a sense of their structure and purposes.

MOOCs tend to run for a more limited timeframe than traditional university classes (online or offline) - often for four to six weeks, sometimes at a self-study pace. The MOOC I took would require anywhere from 20 to 40 hours to complete (depending on one's prior familiarity with the topic and one's language and technical skills).  The course was pass / fail - which I also believe is common for MOOCs - but credit could be applied to a program at the university offering it (I'm not sure if this is common).

MOOCs use an e-Learning platform. The MOOC I took used Desire2Learn, but Moodle and Coursera are also popular options. All the e-learning platforms are similar in that they offer a web-based interface for the instructor to posts text-based notes or readings, lecture videos,  forum style discussion boards for students to post questions to the instructor or fellow students, and online quizzes.

E-leaning is one of the areas I consult on and I have blogged a lot about this already (see my prior posts on e-learning).  For this post, I'll focus on the differences between MOOCs and online courses generally.

All the challenges I have identified with e-learning are present and often compounded with MOOCs (e.g., lack of presence of instructor and students, minimal interactions, etc.). There are the same benefits too (e.g., distance and time barriers removed), but the benefits are not as many

From an institution perspective, MOOCs are a good marketing opportunity. It is a way to introduce prospective students in a low risk environment to programs and faculty. It is also a great way to disseminate knowledge for altruistic reasons. From a student perspective, the selling point of MOOCs is their price - free. You can't beat free!

Pros
Did I mention free? But there are other advantages beside the price or lack thereof.

Despite attending one of the largest universities in Canada, I haven't taken a lot of courses on my research interests at my home school as there hasn't been courses on my exact subject matter offerred. Considering the large number of universities and colleges worldwide offering MOOCs, one can choose from a large number of schools, which makes it likely you'll find a relevant course for you somewhere.This gives one access to an exciting array of schools and professors not limited by location country or cost.

I also like that the class I took was pass or fail (i.e., no grades) - with the opportunity to redo any tests that were failed. This meant that I could focus on learning for learning sake and not for the primary reason of getting a good grade (which is ruining education at all levels). It was really refreshing and rewarding to take such a class.

I also loved how my course combined the standard e-learning techniques (i.e. online reading and multiple choice tests) with applied projects in applicable software. As so much software in any field is online now, it is great to be able to combine theory with hands-one experience in one course. We used a trial version of the software, so we got access to mainstream, premium software for no cost!

Cons
As MOOCs are designed, I believe, primarily to be a marketing tool for universities and thus reach a wide and large array of prospective students, the material tends to be at a general level.  The course I completed had students from all levels of academic backgrounds. So one is studying with people with no post-secondary education to PhD students and working professionals in the field to absolute newbies. There are also many students from various countries with differing levels of technical and English skills (from almost none to proficient in both). So to design a course around such divergent skills and backgrounds is difficult. Thus the first few modules in my course was way too basic for anyone at an undergraduate level or above. This wasn't a huge problem as I could breeze through those and by the final few modules the material was much more insightful and helpful.

The diversity of the students would also be a great way to meet and interact with other people interesting in the same topics, yet MOOCs in being "massive" and for a short duration don't provide any feasible means for students to meet and engage with one another.

I also have gripes about people who don't read the FAQs and post stupid questions to the forum, but that's people for you. Because the class was free, there were times when the class felt like it was third-rate - there were lots of typos and  poor quality material at times. I realize one gets what one pays for - but from an institutional, marketing perspective it defeats the MOOCs purpose to be perceived as second or third rate.

Overall,  however, my experience was really good. I'm sold on MOOCs. In fact, I start another MOOC next week!

e-Learning Platforms in a Nutshell

I've been examining e-learning methods over the past two months for a client. As a student and teaching assistant I have experience from both ends of e-learning. I've found that there are a lot of ways to online educational opportunities. But e-Learning platform appear to be gaining popularity as a comprehensive and integrated solution.

An e-learning platform (also called an online learning management system or LMS) is a website that embeds various Internet media and educational processes. The basic unit for an e-learning platform is an individual course, but a student's entire course load can be offered within the same website.

An e-learning platform comprises three main components, each with various functionality and access levels (often called a view):

1) Student view - students can read, view and/or interact with course content and communicate and collaborate with teachers and fellow students.

2) Instructor view - instructors can structure courses, post content, interact with students, receive assignments, and post grades for their designated courses.

3) Administrator view - a more technical role, administrators run the LMS, which includes both front-end decisions such as granting access rights and archiving, as well as back-end work such as ensuring the platform integrates with other necessary technology.

There are other types of access levels such as guest (i.e. can only view designated areas) and teaching assistant (i.e. similar to instructor but with reduced privileges).

Options
Most e-learning platforms have a core offering and optional additional functionality (which may be add-on or plug-in software). Within the core offering instructors choose which tools to use and how to structure their course.

Leading Products
There are two dominant leaders: Blackboard and Moodle.

Blackboard is a for-profit company. Blackboard will either enable users to install and run the system on their own servers or offer a hosted solution (i.e. that is the software and database resides on the company's servers and is maintained by them). For extensive information on Blackboard the University of Toronto's Blackboard pages are helpful.

Moodle is open-source, which means a global collective of people jointly develop and support the software and make it available to others to use for free. You can download the software and install it on your server and run and customize it for yourself. Alternatively, there are companies that will host the software for you on their servers and maintain it. To get a sense of Moodle, there is a demo that allows you to see a sample of it from a student or teacher view.

Other main LMS organizations include Desire2Learn a commercial service based in Kitchener, Ontario, Haiku, and Sakai an open-source solution.

Goals of a e-learning platforms

1. information - offer course material
2. communication - news and discussions amongst instructors and students
3. collaboration - jointly-authored assignments or presentations
4. evaluation - grading by instructors, feedback from

Product Features

Informational tools may consist of:

• Lessons - instructor-supplied text or multimedia content (e.g. podcasts, videos)
• Resources - instructors or students can post webpages, PDFs, images, audio, or video files
• Glossary - a course-related terms appearing as links or a list

Communication tools may consist of:

• Announcements - posted by instructor to the LMS homepage
• Updates - course news or recent discussions received via RSS feeds or emails
  
• Forums - threaded discussions
• Chats - live text-based chat room

Collaboration tools may consist of:

• Wiki - collaborative document editing
• Calendar - team and/or class-based scheduling
• Blogs - individual text-based articles
  
• Groups - instructors can divide classes into smaller units

Evaluation tools may consist of:

• Quizzes - with automatic grading (if multiple choice)
• Assignments - allow students to upload a file and receive grade & comments
  
• Grading - instructors assign grades and manage class averages
• Surveys - poll the class on course topics or offer their evaluation of instructor
• Ratings - students can provide assign their value to a lesson
  

Benefits of a LMS

• integrated, all-in-one place solution, which allows:
• connections and cross-linking of various course materials
• only one interface for students and teachers to learn
• simplicity of finding all course material
• web-based administration
• can ensure all course content follows academic institutional policies and jurisdictional regulations (e.g. accessibility, privacy, security) - if not using a hosted solution
  
• no advertising appears (except with some free, hosted solutions)
  
• extensive functionality
• streamlined grading processes
  

Concerns

• requires some IT knowledge and skills (if not using a hosted solution), such as
• installation
• integration with web server and database
• quality assurance and trouble-shooting
• back-ups and archiving
• user tech support
• customization
• hosted solution may entail data being stored outside of Canada (and therefore not subject to our laws, e.g. privacy)
  
• high cost for commercial software or for hosted solution
• likely more functionality than most instructors need or students will ever use
• cloistered environment, which omits participation and exposure to other interested people or ideas
  

Other Considerations
There are benefits (beyond financial) to using non-integrated solutions such as free web-based applications such as blogging tools, social networks (Facebook), Google Docs, Twitter, YouTube, etc. EDUCAUSE published a 2-page paper on this topic entitled 7 Things You Should Know About LMS Alternatives

e-Learning platforms cover a broad array of concerns from technological to pedagogical and from usability to feasibility. This post was meant to cover the basics.

e-Learning in 2011

A friend recently tweeted (posted to Twitter) a bunch of interesting articles about the state of e-Learning. I thought they were interesting to share, but as they are rather lengthy (one report is 40 pages) I excerpted key points.

1) 2011 Horizon Report
By EDUCAUSE
Covers how and which technologies are affecting education in currently and in the future. Among their findings (quoted from the report):

• The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-making, coaching, and credentialing.
• People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want.
• The world of work is increasingly collaborative, giving rise to reflection about the way student projects are structured.
• Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
• Keeping pace with the rapid proliferation of information, software tools, and devices is challenging for students and teachers alike.

Their technologies to watch for this year are electronic books and mobiles, with augmented reality and game-based learning expected to gain prominence in the next 2-3 years.

2) 2011 Outlook for Online Learning & Distance Education
By T. Bates, Contact North
Covers trends, barriers, and opportunities. The author found that enrollment in fully online courses grew by 20% last year (in the US) are found major barriers (quoted from the report):

1. Faculty resistance to online learning and/or distance education, which remains strong in many institutions;
2. Lack of training in teaching, which limits instructors’ ability to imagine effective alternative technology-based models to face-to- face classroom teaching;
3. Unambitious institutional goals for technology-based teaching, focused more on enhancing the classroom model than finding new designs that allow for more flexible access and that use the affordances of new technology to develop skills needed in the 21st century;
4. Failure to develop appropriate methods for costing online learning; the costs are often unknown, as are the costs of face-to-face teaching, but generally technology is an added cost rather than used to replace less effective activities; and
5. Lack of a system wide approach to online learning and distance education
   

He also predicts opportunities for 2011

1. Course redesign [integrating new models]
2. The future is mobile: ‘the notion of class time as separate from non-class time will vanish.’
3. Open educational resources are a development that still falls far short of its promise.
4. Multimedia materials, such as short video clips, animations, and simulations will increasingly be developed as part of online course materials,
5. Learning analytics will provide instructors and course directors with tools that will enable decisions to be made
   
6. Shared [IT] services

3) Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension
By R. Stross, NY Times
The irrelevance of teachers won't happen any time soon, and even less likely in the humanities and social sciences. Here are quoted excerpts:

When colleges and universities finally decide to make full use of the Internet, most professors will lose their jobs.

A genuine online course would be nothing but the software and would handle all the grading, too. No living, breathing instructor would be needed for oversight.

Candace Thille, the director of Carnegie Mellon’s program, put it this way: “There is something motivating about the student’s relationship with the instructor — and with the student’s relationship with other students in the class — that would be absent if each took the course in a software-only environment.”

Those relationships — with humans in the flesh — help students to persevere. Online courses are notorious for high dropout rates.

Much, of course, depends on the subject being taught. An introductory statistics class taught to 600 students in a lecture hall won’t offer much of a relationship with the professor. Moving it into a self-contained, adaptive software package — Carnegie Mellon’s online program offers two statistics classes — would arguably offer a superior learning experience. But in this case, the subject matter is distillable into a handful of concepts, and the exams use questions with only a single correct answer. That’s not an option for just about all of the humanities and vast swaths of the social sciences.

Wendy Brown, the Heller professor of political science at the Berkeley campus, spoke witheringly of the idea at a campus forum in October: “What is sacrificed when classrooms disappear, the place where good teachers do not merely ‘deliver content’ to students but wake them up, throw them on their feet and pull the chair away? Where ideas can become intoxicating, where an instructor’s ardor for a subject or a dimension of the world can be contagious? Where scientific, literary, ethical or political passions are ignited?”

Challenges with e-Learning

In addition to my doctoral studies, I'm also consulting with clients on how to implement new e-Learning mechanisms. I set up a blog to share our discussions. I'm reposting a post from this blog here as I think it captures some of the challenges I've encountered with e-Learning.

Having been a student at both an online-only and a blended program, I can relate challenges I experienced:

1) Time zones
One of the benefits often touted for e-Learning is that it removes physical barriers. Instead of geography being dead, it still presents challenges to classes with students in different time zones. If a course requires interaction or collaboration, divergent time zones can be difficult to overcome. Challenges arise not only in trying to find mutually feasible times for real-time communication (e.g. text-chats, webinars, Skype calls, etc.) but can also present challenges for asynchronous work. Depending on the extremity of students' time zones, there can be as much as a day's lag to allow for all students to receive and respond to a given message. This lag can draw out a collaborative efforts considerably.

2) Managing volume
e-Learning often relies heavily on required postings to discussion boards or blogs. With even more than a few students posting, it can making reading and responding to posts overwhelmingly time-consuming. Breaking classes into smaller teams or limiting posts to 100-300 words can help. Live chats with instructors can also present volume challenges if guidelines are not in place. One professor I had attempted to do Q&As via Skype. At first, there were no rules and students simultaneously besieged the professor and chaos naturally ensued. Even with established procedures in place, there were still students who joined late or weren’t following the conversation and asked questions already answered or off topic.

3) Presence of the instructor
The volume of postings can also affect an instructor’s ability to participate in class discussion. Instructors must either spend a sizable amount time of time reading and replying to everything or they must selectively respond. This diminished role of instructors (compared to in-person classes) combined with the lack of their physical presences can make e-Learning seem like distance education in more ways than one.

4) Learning the subject and the technology
In addition to learning the topic at hand, students using e-Learning must engage in possibly-unfamiliar technology. Some technology requires more effort to install, learn, and operate than others. Learning the full suite of options with mediating-technology can present obstacles or delays to even more technically-savvy users, let alone those new to e-Learning.

There are other challenges surrounding e-Learning (including a frequent over reliance on text-based communication and establishing student presence) but many limitations can be addressed by selecting appropriate methods and establishing suitable structures and guidelines.

E-Learning Modalities

I'm doing consulting work for an organization looking to expand their e-learning options. From my experience and readings about e-Learning, I believe it can take the following modalities, either in isolation or in combination.

The list is organized from the least to most interactive for students.

1) Access readings
Course instructors can post readings or links to readings on a public or secure (ie. log-in required) website. Readings can be in the form of webpages, PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

2) Listen/watch asynchronous audio or video
Instructors can post to a website (or iTunes) audio or video files for students . These files can be either of formal lectures or additional informational resources (like readings) or lectures. Audio or video files can be in the form of YouTube, podcasts, Real audio, Quicktime, Flash, etc.

3) Email or upload
Students can be given the functionality to participate online by being able to:
a) send instructor questions via email or a web form
b) upload assignments (e.g, Word Docs, PowerPoints, spreadsheets, videos, photographs, etc.)

4) Chat
Chat can be in the form of text-only (e.g. instant messaging) or audio (eg. Skype). Video chats are also possible (for example, via webcams) but not yet technically seamless. Chats can include or be lead by the instructor or be students-only (for example, team discussions). They may be structured or a free-flowing Q&A.

5) Listen/watch synchronous audio or video
This could be a webcast of a lecture, but can also be a collective viewing of a presentation (e.g. over SlideShare) with a simultaneous teleconference or chat. Students can be given the option to interact with both the teacher or the student via email questions, Twitter, chat rooms, etc.

6) Surveys and polls
In e-learning, these seem to be mostly used to gauge the pulse of students on course topics or administrative issues, but can also be used for decision-making.

7) Interactive quizzes or tests
Students can view questions on the screen and provide their answers online. Options include assessing or grading their answers automatically in real-time or by instructors. This can be in the form of webpages, Flash, etc.

8) Educational online games/experiences
There are a huge variety of educational games, but they normally are animated with sound and allow the student to interact and receive feedback from the game.

9) Online discussions
Also called message boards, threaded posts, and forums, discussions appear to be the mainstay of e-learning. The technology gives the functionality for someone to start a specific topic (i.e. conversation thread) and then others can reply in a specific online space for that discussion. There are various options for how to structure these, for example conversation topics can either be assigned or open, the entire class participates or they can be team-based, optional participation or required, instructor participates or students only.

10) Online collaboration
Students work collectively on course assignments. Assignments can be in the form of an essay, presentation, paper, etc. There are many tools to enable group collaboration online, including wikis, Google Docs, or simply email. Usually the instructor facilitates and answers questions but doesn't actively participate in the collaboration.

11) Virtual classrooms
A private virtual reality space (for example Second Life) can be built to resemble a traditional classroom or any desired venue. Students and instructors create avatars (online representations of themselves) and gather online simultaneously in the virtual space. The instructor can then lead a traditional-style lecture or Q&A session or enact an entirely new, multimedia event.

Identity Crisis

The issue of identity rarely seems to come up in discussions of e-Learning. Identity, in this sense, is the ability for students or instructors to project a sense of themselves and their unique, individual characters. Without a sense of identity, online interaction with others can seem distant, flat, and does not engage or foster deep learning.

Granted, identity may be less of an issue in e-Learning with very small class sizes or where students already know one another. There are also benefits to online anonymity in that it shifts focus from judgments based on personality or physical features to the quality of one’s ideas – and writing. Researchers have found this allows some people to escape bias associated with disability, appearance, race, and gender. I'm not convinced, however, that for e-Learning the benefits an anonymity outweigh the obstacles it raises. Identity was a barrier in my experience - both in courses that were entirely online with students I never met before and with in-person courses that used online components.

e-Learning often relies heavily on student interaction, often in the form of forum and/or blog postings. When I first started my online program with 45 classmates, none of whom I had met or been introduced to, I found the experience bewildering and overwhelming. Adding to this, I found that most classmate posters did not sufficiently differentiate themselves. The medium, and to a lesser extent, the communicators’ (lack of) action resulted in postings that seemed like overhearing the din of multiple simultaneous speakers and unable to hear any one sufficiently to join in.

There are ways to remediate these issues, however. These include technological mechanisms (e.g. including students photos on all postings automatically, auto linking to profile and to past posts, allowing individual design customization), norms (e.g. limiting the amount of or size of interaction, use of signature lines), or individual mastery of existing devices (e.g. writing style). In my online class interactions, I try to include my (bad) sense of humour, include references to my personal details, and to use a conversational style. The instructor can also address this, for example by establishing expectations or beginning a course with mutual introductions.

In a discussion on this topic with a classmate, she felt that such identity issues were not unique to Internet media. She shared an example of a class with a rather hostile teacher who attacked students for expressing opinions diverging from the instructor's. Rather than expressing herself in class, she “felt that my personal identity, open for all to see, needed to be hidden. Based on how quiet many students were, they likely felt the same.” She adds, "this experience showed me that strong classroom management, teacher scaffolding, and respect, either online or off, is vital." Clearly, a respectful, welcoming climate is essential for any type of learning.

I agree that the challenges of projecting, revealing, or protecting identity apply to learning offline and online. Personally, I have found participating in e-Learning discussions allows me a more safe way to project my thoughts and myself than offline. The more deliberate and controlled online mechanisms allow me to take the time to compose and edit my thoughts and expressions, compared to in-class.

I do think that there could be more that e-Learning technology could do to enable identity to be projected (as desired). The the e-Learning platform Moodle, for example, allows students to include their picture and biography. Educators should also consider this issue in relation to educational goals when planning courses. This will not only help guide decisions of e-Learning technology to use but can also allow instructors to structure courses appropriately.

End of the Royal Roads

As I get ready to start my PhD classes at UofT's iSchool next week, I wanted to wrap up my master’s studies with a post summarizing my experience of Royal Roads masters of Professional Communication program. Also, I thought it might provide useful information for people considering this or similar programs.

Blogging has been a useful way for me to record my academic experience from my search to find a master’s program to study the Internet, how I chose Royal Roads, my experience as an old student, winning my scholarship, and my thesis research.

Overall impression
The main strengths of the program in my experience were the flexibility to manage learning with work and family, solid foundation in communication theory, interaction with classmates, helpful and friendly faculty and staff, and the beautiful campus. The main weaknesses were the lackluster use of e-Learning techniques and over use of team work.

Program structure
The online master’s programs at Royals Roads combine distance and on-campus learning. The program lasts about two years, with the last few months spent working on a thesis or major project. One can extend the deadline, but there are hefty fees to do so. 

There are two three-week residency periods (one a year) at Royal Roads’ incredible Victoria, BC campus. In between these residencies, one takes an online course one at a time. There were no electives for online courses and only a small choice of electives for the final residency component. 

The program follows a cohort model with one annual intake. This means one studies for the next two years with the same classmates, which in my case was approximately 40 students. 

Classmates
With distance learning it can be difficult to get to know one’s classmates, but the cohort model allows one to have the time to get to know one’s classmates and build relationships. The program is available to students around the world, but the bulk of students came from Victoria and Vancouver followed by southern Ontario. There were students from most provinces and a couple from abroad. 

As this program is targeted to working professionals and as it is a graduate degree, I found that the background of classmates was impressive and diverse. There were a few students in my cohort who were young and beginning their career, but the average student was 30-50, mid-level career, and female. The ratio was about one male for ten females – but this seems typical of the communication field.

Residency
The program requires residency of three weeks per year. The residency follows traditional university format, ie. lectures with profs, essays, student presentations, team meetings, occasional guest speakers, and symposia. This period is intensive, covering most of 3-4 courses in that period. One has a few hours of class a day and essays and readings to work on at night. The first residency is lighter, so this is definitely the time to get to know one’s classmates.

Campus
Spending time on campus is an absolute treat as it is the most beautiful campus in Canada (if not anywhere). Take a look at my pictures. Vancouver Islands itself is beautiful and the campus is sandwiched between the ocean and primeval forest. Studying post-modernism in a Japanese Zen garden or spending a coffee break amongst giant trees are highlights of my experience. Google Maps has a good satellite image of campus.

Be sure to try the trails that run through or next to the campus. Students get a free guided tour of the national historic site, Hatley Castle and access to the gardens that one would otherwise have to pay for entry.  X-Men movies were filmed here – Hatley Castle was used for Xavier’s school for mutants. I loved telling my daughter I went to Xavier’s school. The campus library even has copies of all the X-Men movies which was a lot of fun to watch in the student lounge (the library has a bunch of free movies).

Other than the incredible beauty of the location, the campus is much like any other, except smaller.  There is only one place to eat, and while most of the dishes were fairly good, the menu is limited and a bit pricey. I made some meals in the kitchen RRU provides to save some money. There are nearby restaurants (short drive or 20 minute walk) but they are rather mediocre. There is a grocery store and wine and bear store nearby, as well as other amenities like a post office, pharmacy, etc. 

Some classmates elected to stay off-campus – and while that does allow one a calming separation, these classmates didn’t get the same degree of interaction with classmates. I’d recommend staying on campus if only for the chance to get to know one’s classmates better. 

The only downside is that the campus is rather far from downtown Victoria. Bus service is less than ideal and cabs downtown are expensive. Some nights when we wanted to go downtown we would wait half an hour or more to even get a cab to pick us up. Also, cabs from the airport are expensive, so arrange cab sharing with classmates. 

Online courses
All courses make use of Moodle for their online interaction (forums, chat) and resources (links, readings). I previously criticized Royal Roads non-innovative use of e-Learning techniques. Having finished my degree now, I stand by that post. While some professors used effective e-Learning techniques, most classes were based on extensive discussions with classmates, often in the form of discussions and projects amongst a team of 5-6 students.  I also posted on the benefits and challenges of relying on online interaction for learning.

Most classmates felt there was way too much teamwork. This is probably my biggest complaint. Although teamwork does enable one to get to know classmates better, it becomes overwhelming doing the actual work and managing the team (which is just as much, if not more, work). Teams for online courses are randomly assigned, but even out of 45 classmates I ended up with a bunch of the same people repeating on my teams. I lucked out and had teams (except one) where everyone participated and was pleasant. However, I talked to classmates who had bad experiences with teams, mostly in the form of people not participating. Considering that most students at Royal Roads are working professionals and thus encounter/cannot avoid extensive team experience, positioning team work as building skills is dubious (easier for professors to mark – is probably the real reason).

Program flexibility
The main reason I chose the program was that I could cater my learning around my schedule. Even living in a city with three universities, I would not have been able to have sufficient flexibility to continue to work and spend time with my family. This program is therefore ideal for those that need flexibility.

But it is not as flexible as some of my classmates thought it would be. Most classes required one to post to discussions frequently and at least every few days. Some classes had tight, rigid deadlines for team work that was quite difficult to orchestrate when combined with busy work schedules and various time zones. I could not participate in some class chats as a result and would also have a one day turnaround on some team work.



Kids - I was the only one in my cohort with a young family and I don't recommend doing this and working too if one has young kids.

Subject matter
I feel this program gave me a solid foundation in communication theory and cultural studies and honed academic skills, such as research, writing, and formatting (APA).  I had not studied communication before but had encountered some concepts from my bachelor’s film studies and journalism classes. I think the program did well in not assuming a prior knowledge set, teaching the essentials, and moving quickly enough through concepts to be appropriate for master’s level courses.

There were professional development courses geared to communication professionals, but reviews from classmates were rather mixed on these. The courses on research methodology were extremely useful both for preparing one for future study or performing research in a workplace. Other courses cover the gamut of communication theory from interpersonal to organizational and from computer to culturally meditated. 

Studying the Internet
I took communication, but I really wanted to take Internet Studies. As Internet Studies is such a new discipline, there were not a lot of options to study this remotely. I felt, however, that studying communication would give me a good foundation to study this aspect of the Internet. Plus, I hoped to examine specific instances when I could. A lot of the professors and classmates were unwired luddites, so Internet topics did not often come up – or with much depth. I have a multimedia background so I enjoyed discussing and learning about other media.

I told my professors of my career path and research interests and they were all open and encouraging to me applying course concepts to Internet cases.  Since I started Royal Roads has added “thematic paths” which is essentially what I did, but Internet Studies is still not an official path or focus.  Considering how much of the concepts do apply to the Internet, I’m surprised they don’t offer this.

Final thoughts
Over the years, I have studied at six post-secondary institutions. Never have I encountered such helpful, pleasant staff and faculty as my time with Royal Roads. Even the support staff and tenured professors were nice! Whether I was on campus, emailing, or telephone everyone was incredibly friendly and cared about helping me. There was one difficult nutty professor, but that's to be expected. Time and time again, Royal Roads staff and faculty spent extra time and effort to really help and talk to me, whether it was applying for scholarships, getting research approval, ordering food, finding library resources, discussing semiotics, etc. I'm not sure if it is a West Coast vs. Toronto thing, but it sure makes a difference to study at such a welcoming place.

I definitely recommend the program and university. If there is anything else you'd like to know, please feel free to ask below.

Is Online Learning Better than Traditional?

The US Department of Education recently published a report on online and face to face (F2F) learning which was covered nicely by the NY Times.

The study found "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction." This is a surprise finding for those that believe online learning is inferior. This report sparked discussion on the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) listerv. It also got me thinking about my Royal Roads e-Learning experience.

Points raised in the AoIR listserv questioned whether the study’s population was representative enough to make such a claim. Some suggested that online learners are more motivated and have a tendency to be over-achievers. With my Royal Roads classmates there were a large percentage of over-achievers, but this could also be due to the program being a graduate degree and marketed to working professionals.

Others AoIRers thought that online learning had the advantage over F2F as it tends to encourage greater teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction. I agree with posters who believed that such interaction is more apt to instill knowledge than just listen-to-learn lecture classes.

In my experience of online learning at Royal Roads, there was a great deal of such interaction (via Moodle forums). While it had challenges, it definitely was a compelling and enjoyable way to learn.

There are challenges affecting interaction in online learning:

1) Time zones challenges – As students are from across Canada and some from abroad, real-time communication (e.g. chats, Skype calls) can be very difficult. Often I or other classmates couldn’t attend at the chosen time or had to do so at an ungodly hour.
2)Managing volume – Our courses had about 40 students. At this number both real-time online communication and forum postings was difficult. One professor attempted to do Q&As via chat and Skype call. At first, there were no rules in place to manage the volume besieging the professor and chaos naturally ensued. Even with a few ground rules in place, there were still people who joined late or weren’t following the conversation and asked questions already answered. It was also difficult to follow forum postings with that many classmates and with some people posting lengthy epistles. We also introduced the voluntary rule of limiting posts to 100-300 words or less to help, but still speed and selective reading was the only way to manage.
3) Presence of the professor - The volume of postings also affects a professor’s ability to participate. Either the professors spend an insane amount of time reading and replying to everything or selectively respond. All my professors responded to specific questions posed to them in designated forums. For these types of Q&A forums to work, it is important that timely responses be made or someone will resorst to calls, emails, or give up on that venue. Royal Roads professors were incredible in replying to such posts day, night, and weekends. When it came to the general forum, professor behaviour varied. Some commented on most postings, while others only a handful. Some offered insight or a helpful link, while others simply offered a quick response or simple encouragement.
4) Teams – Royal Roads randomly assigns students into teams of 5-6 for the duration of a course. This made managing the quantity of interaction more manageable and allowed one to get to know one’s classmates better. However, this is not without challenges. When the teams meshed well, it was great. But if they didn’t, the discussions languished. Considering that inevitably it seems out of a group of 6 at least 2 will not participate at all or at the bare minimum, it did seem one was communicating with the same couple people a bit too much.
5) Quality of writing – Some postings were hard to read whether due to their untenable length, mistakes, or an inability to adequately organize and articulate thoughts. Forums by their nature tend to be more conversational than other forms of writing, but nonetheless it would help if some people spent a bit more time writing and editing to ensure clarity. Some people are just not good writers and never will be.
6) Time commitment – Courses that required posting could result in a significant time commitment (worsened by the workload of obligatory readings and assignments). Some courses had tight deadlines for postings. This added up to more of a time commitment than occured in my offline studies.

The benefits of more discussion-based learning were:

1) Get to know my classmates much better - Participation is usually a component of offline learning classes, but online it tends to be essential. Most of the F2F classes I have been in have had a large percentage of classmates that never or only rarely participate even when encouraged to do so or graded on it. With online learning I got to hear from all my classmates and regularly, so I got to know all of them and some of them (particularly those assigned in my teams) very well. Living in residence or participating in campus organizations is the only way I found that comes close to this degree of interaction.
2) Depth of subject-matter interaction is better than offline - I have found that students tend to talk rarely about academic topics with peers outside of the classroom. I enjoyed hearing my classmates’ perspective and experience on course material. I also enjoyed getting feedback from classmates on my thoughts. One Royal Roads class had a professor provide uniformly negative comments, so the positive feedback from classmates was really beneficial.
3) More engaged and more often - I have attended good lectures; I’ve fallen asleep at others. Offline classes (even with tutorials) tend to be about 3 hours a week, so even the best of them has a fleeting engagement. Regular posting can foster deeper and more constant pondering. I really did feel that I learned more as a result. And when the material was personally interesting, it was exciting to learn.

Quality and quantity of interactions I found were predominantly affected by the following factors:

• Optional versus required posting
• Seeded versus free topic posting
• Team versus all-class posting

Requiring posting tended to result in huge quantity, serial monologues, and monosyllabic replies. Students focus on meeting the requirments, impressing the professor, and appearing as if adequately participating rather than prioritizing actual interaction and conversation. It also meant that those not inclined or confident to participate are heard from. When participation was optional, only the same keeners tended to chime in, but these students tend to be more interesting and engaged. Even requiring participation did not result in some people actually participating, so optional participation does not work for these students at all.

Seeded forum threads helps students delve into the discussions, but can fail to spark discussions of interst to students. This can result in students just going through the motions making for unispiring reading. Allowing students to post on their own topics resulted in some of the most interesting and educational discussions.

Having the entire class post results in an overwhelming volume, but increases the odds that one will find someone discussing the topics you find interesting and offering insight. Confining postings to small teams makes managing the volume easier, but limits the breadth of discussion.

My experience of studying online showed the complexity involved in setting up systems and norms to adequately foster interaction. When done properly or through happenstance, the experience can be more engaing and effective than F2F education.

Poor Grades for e-Learning

As of last week, I have one more year of studies for my online master's in communication at Royal Roads. I'm currently in my sixth class, and classes finish for me in December, as afterwards I'll be working on my thesis.

While I have great respect for the university, the program, and my classmates, I am disappointed in Royal Roads. Despite the occasional good use of online media, there appears to be no overall commitment to e-Learning, instead they seem to rely on standard offline distance learning methods, with forums thrown in. So while I have not got the exposure to innovative e-Learning I had hoped for, there have been unexpected benefits from their approach.

I do like Royal Roads' use of three weeks of on-campus classes per year. The setting is sensational, as are the faculty and support staff - so it is a delight to be on campus.

The standard format of online classes is weekly to do readings and then answer specified questions and discuss via forums amongst one's teammates. There are forums to field questions to the professor, but this is for help and is not a fixture of the class. Essays, as with any university class, are the major basis of grading. There are no lectures per se, which for me is the biggest weakness as I find the readings do not say it all and I would have benefited more from a professor's insight on the subject matter (as we receive during our on-campus time).

Most of the course activity, aside from reading and essay writing, is discussions with one's team (a new team every class). I'm not sure if I lucked out, but I have never taken a class with such a group of intelligent, humourous, and personable people, so discussions are generally lively and insightful. However, there is a serious time commitment to keep up with discussions that is problematic for working professionals.

Of my six classes so far, there have been sporadic examples of e-Learning techniques. The best so far, was for an initial class, that made use of podcast lectures combined with PowerPoint presentations. Another professor held regular Skype discussions (which was the first time I used Skype, I'll admit). Another professor used HTML forms for tests.

My suggestion for improvement would be for Royal Roads to take the most effective and feasible e-Learning techniques and make it a core component of every class. e-Learning is not just about the coolness of technology, it can aid learning, as I experienced with the podcast lectures early on.

My suspicion is that most students don't choose online learning over in-class. Online programs offer more flexibility than traditional programs and that's why they are flourishing. However, face-to-face communication still has advantages and using technology and media effectively can help bridge the gap and maximize learning.

On the Royal Roads

I'm off in a few hours for three weeks on-campus at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC for the Master's of Communication program.

The last few weeks have been the pre-residency phase, which was a period of reading and some online learning to prepare us for the intensive in-class work during the residency period.

So far, my experience with working fulltime and studying fulltime has been dreadful!

During the day, I've been working my ass off to prepare for my three weeks away. At night and weekends, I've juggled spending time with my family with keeping up with my studies. It probably would have went fairly well - had I not got sick about a month ago. I never got better.

Finally, I went to a doctor and found out that I have an ear & sinus infection. The doctor told me it probably started with a cold and as I didn't rest enough (one sick day and one weekend day was all I "rested")that caused the infection. Should've went to the doctor sooner as the last few weeks of being sick and juggling work and study have been hell.

Early critique of e-Learning
Despite it all, I have managed to learn quite a bit from my Communication Theory class. I'm taking two others classes at the same time, but I'm not sure if these professors were charged with doing any e-Learning.

My Communication Theory professor did a few things to really make the most of e-Learning.

Podcasts worked great
First the professor had the standard readings, but these were supplemented by podcasts with PowerPoint presentations. I found the readings combined with podcasts really helped me get the key concepts. The podcasts were also fun and much better than just reading a transcribed lecture, as was the format of my distance ed. courses at University of Guelph years ago.

Mixed experience with forums
All the classes have forums for students and faculty to discuss lessons and other topics. (There's also a chat feature that I think is never used.)

Another professor made posting one intelligent comment a week a requirement and weekly seeded topics. Discussions flourished. I shouldn't really say discussions though. Due to the requirement of an insightful posting everyone, myself included, worked to achieve this. I've never seen a forum with so little genuine back-and-forth discussion or where each post is an epistle. This was a shame, not to mention sometimes a chore to read, as in trying to meet the requirements some posts went to 400-500+ words.

However, overall this class has had the best discussion of any class I have ever taken. In all my university and job training courses, I have never seen such generally insightful commentary. And even more rare, every student participated. Maybe my class doesn't have the standard shy and unmotivated students (dullards) but every class I have taken generally gets less than a quarter of the students participating, no matter how hard the instructor tries to get all to chime in. It really was great to hear from every classmate!

This professor also started an informal discussion area which has helped connecting online to fellow students a real success so far. Much gratitude for that! I posted a request for classmates to join a class group that I started on Facebook and to "friend" one another and this has further helped me get to know my classmates.

So between the podcasts and the forums, and despite my sickness, my e-Learning experience has started off really well.

Argument for e-Learning

Today, my Master’s of Professional Communications classes at Royal Roads University officially begin.

I'm excited by the subject matter and by the method of learning. My program is predominantly delivered through e-Learning, with a readings offline and online. There are also two periods of three weeks of intensive classes on campus in Victoria, British Columbia.

There are a lot of criticisms of e-Learning. As a web professional, I'm committed to living as much of my life online as I can, so I'm excited to be so immersed in this aspect of the Internet. Also, I think some of the concerns of e-Learning aren't always legitimate.

Some criticism undoubtedly arises, because e-Learning is new. But it's not that new - even before the Internet was popular, there was e-Learning. Back in 1993, I took a distance course from the University of Guelph that used computer programs (everything was done by exchanging diskettes). The course applications explained concepts, had users interact with the subject matter, answer questions and get feedback, and complete tests. In my case, I found this style of learning worked really well, allowing me more opportunity to work through the particular lesson and put the learning into practice – this just couldn't have happened without individual instruction, something not cost-effective to provide.
While change is no doubt intimidating to many people, I do think some instructors are worried they'll lose their jobs. If universities offer effective e-Learning, there should still be need for a lot of professors and it could grow with the opening of access to education that e-Learning enables (both by removing geographical and time barriers – sadly, as I can attest, not cost barriers though).
Another concern is that e-Learning prevents the Socratic method of learning so beloved by academics, but so lacking in modern factory universities nowadays. I didn’t get the Socratic method in my huge university classes. Even when there were opportunities to ask questions and have discussions, they were usually in sessions led by grad students who were sometimes only a year or two ahead of me. But I do believe that discussions with professors and students is essential (and something campuses really need to improve). Effective e-Learning can counters this concern, through online discussions, wikis, and forums. I have heard of courses using these but unable to get students to participate. I think is due to three reasons: 1) participation needs to be required – as are university "tutorial" type classes 2) language skills – people need to know the language and be able to articulate their thoughts through writing, obviously this will work better in some faculties than others 3) familiarity – it really helps if people feel comfortable with one another, this is hard in online only courses, but I think Royal Roads in-person time will foster a community that will then be able to be transported online.

Cheating is also concern with e-Learning. A colleague is taking an online course and must complete multiple-choice exams online. I did find it troubling that there was no means to prevent her from having help completing her tests or even that she herself did them. But I have had take-home exams before and certainly essay purchasing is not unheard of – so this may be a reality of academic life.

I suspect most people would, if it were feasible, prefer in-class rather than online or other distance learning. Distance learning has been around for ages, but traditional forms (print &/or video/televised) don't seem to be as popular as e-Learning. I suspect e-Learning's advantage is the opportunity to participate and interact. I took distance courses that did make good use of computer programs and videos to supplement what would otherwise be all reading, but there was no interactions with the professors or students. e-Learning greatly enhances distance education, but I still don't think many people prefer e-Learning (with the exception of web geeks, social phobes, mobility challenged, and naturists). e-Learning allows the opportunity to get an education when and where you want it. This allows people flexibility to study at their own time to not have to move or commute and to maintain their otherwise hectic life.

As my courses progress, I'll update this blog on my experiences with e-Learning – good and, hopefully not, bad.

Update: Thanks to Madison Murphy for her help with this post.