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Summary of the ALNTalk Discussion: Developing ALN Communities

by Sloan-C

The following is a summary of an ALNTalk session held January 5-16, 1998. The primary topics included "Roles of Facilitators and Learners" and "Overcoming Technical Difficulties and Disabilities."

I. ROLES OF FACILITATORS AND LEARNERS

The ALN environment is a much more collaborative way of working than faculty lectures. This will have an impact on the roles of students and faculty. The faculty will develop in the direction of being a coach leading a team – the class – towards a goal through teamwork. This change will include a way of working where students take more responsibility for the process of learning.

Woranut Koetsinchai says that one of the changes in roles is that faculty will become technologists, who will have to deal with a technical development staff. Different statements from others have sorted development of courses into two directions:

• Faculty coding courses on their own.
• Faculty using a development group to put together courses.

It is obvious that faculty running the greatest risk of becoming technicians will be the ones doing their own development. Not all will be able to – and some do not have the choice. Some organization budgets do not provide money for a development team.

Skip Knox disagrees with the statement that faculty must be able to work with development teams. Course designers will have to ask the relevant questions and understand the flow of words coming from the faculty. The designers will need to be good consultants. Skip Knox suggests that the development team have knowledge about the course subject.

Is a system friendly? Ifay Chang posed this question. If the word "friendly" means welcoming and polite, then we might think of the people on the network regardless of their roles as faculty (facilitators) or students. A browser window does not smile to the students when they turn it on. In this way the new media is like the traditional "media" – the classroom. But a friendly way of presenting and contacting is important. It is important to provide a way to let students feel that they are not caught in a machine but are participating on a network with other people. In contacts with students it is important to follow up on teaching and learning for an ongoing improvement of a course, says Woranut Koetsinchai. She also observes that commenting on the courses of colleagues will help faculty to develop and improve their courses, in the same way we intend for the students to work.

John Gundry distinguishes between two types of instructional styles and two types of learners. The two types of instructional styles are formal transmission-oriented instruction and open learning. The two types of learners are active learning-driven learners and passive, grade-driven learners. The best outcome is expected from the combination of active, learning-driven learners and open learning instructional styles.

ALN courses are not a short cut to knowledge. However, a number of students might believe so before they attend an ALN course, says Skip Knox. Faculty have the role of giving information and advice. It is an important role in the collaborative process of learning, and might have to do with decreasing the dropout rate.

Another role for the facilitator is encouraging participants. Skip Knox has experienced what he calls "virtual shyness." This shyness is very common and we have to deal with it. Students lurking (observing, but not taking part in discussions) can block the ALN collaborative work in the class network.

In the course design we may implement a sort of necessary or practical dependency between students. One way of doing this could be grouping technical novices with net athletes. Of course other constructions are possible and will depend on various groups of students, course subjects, and the like. Skip Knox has a series of proposed activities that could be used in reinforcing the collaboration among students. Events, new lectures, team projects and guest presenters are some of the activities that can induce students to work together. We talk about a community because we want students to work with a common experience – because discussions, shared investigations, and continuous evaluations and adjustments can make a difference between "known" and experienced knowledge.

Skip Knox asks, "Is the ALN environment a community or are students / participants just coming to get a grade and their knowledge individually?" The question turns up on a regular basis. The reason is probably that ALN does not always work like a community, but we WANT it to be a community. This is for one simple reason: Making your own experiences is much more instructive than just hearing about the experiences other people have had. The community can set up an environment in which students are learning how to learn, and how to learn together. John Gundry proposes the following: In a community people say "we."

II. OVERCOMING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES AND DISABILITIES

In the first section we claimed that it is necessary that the programs and the net become invisible to the user in order to focus on a course subject. One could ask whether this is too ambiguous. Where do we need changes? Are the net and programs to become much better – or is it rather a question of the users getting acquainted with another way of learning and teaching?

According to Janet Maker the systems will have to become easy to use for course designers. This will by itself have the benefit that it will become easier to use by the students. This might be true as long as the user interfaces are somewhat alike. Three interfaces could be used: a development interface, an administrative interface for faculty, and an interface for students. Janet refers to a development product (FrontPage for developing web sites) that cannot be considered representative for the interface to be used by facilitators as well as students. It may also be possible to consult ALN experts around the world for help to solve a problem.

Where are the courses with "How to" discussions? Discussions might bring up new ideas and new approaches for developing a good, interesting and living ALN community. What will make the ALN community easily accessible? There is not ONE answer to that question. Bringing up ideas will present a variety of solutions, which can be useful to any community. Mark Henderson is longing for someone to take the lead in setting up a conference activity. The question was brought up, "who has had a developer group meeting?"

Someone will have to define the needs for the future. Is it industry? Is it the local and/or national government? Or is it the schools individually? It is industry, Tony Bruno says. And to some extent he is probably right. But others might also set up requirements. Also advisory boards or government regulations might set up requirements, says Ekkehard-Teja Wilke. Those requirements might be unknown to industry and therefore especially important.

Asking for needs will have importance in development of user interfaces. One concern might be that user interfaces are not flexible or not user friendly enough to fulfill the needs of, say, industry. Doing our homework will bring together folks who know something about the online learning process, regardless of their role as faculty or as student. They know the needs and can contribute in setting up specifications for courses.

"Survival of the fittest" seems to be a relevant phrase when talking about conference packages, says Marcia Birken. Will students drop out of courses employing systems that are not easy to use? Some will cope with the system provided. It all depends on each student’s ability to abstract from a possibly technical user interface. In the physical environment we cannot require students to wear warm coats because the heating is not on. In the same way we must demand user interfaces to be developed so that only a minor number of students will drop out due to poor conference design and misinformed user interfaces.

Marcia strongly believes that faculty will not move into ALN unless they are satisfied with the conditions. Whether this is a simple fact or not must be considered! Different school systems use many different systems. They cannot all have the same facilities and/or qualities. So they use their individual systems. Marcia has been using a FirstClass system, which is mostly a non-web system (though it can be web-based in later versions). FirstClass requires students and faculty to install new programs. This leads to the need for a support team, to help out on installation. This support will have to be calculated into the budget for course pricing purposes.

What does technical disability have to do with marketing? Well it has so much to do with marketing that we may, or even must, target our marketing in different ways for online and off-line users. For those who can already read online marketing materials, there may be few technical disabilities.

The barriers have been lowered a great deal already. Using computers and using the net (e.g., for making contact with others in the ALN community) is rapidly converging with our way of using the typewriter and the telephone says John R. Bourne. Nevertheless a large number of people do not consider these tools easy to use. Perhaps it is because things we do not know often seem more difficult or more problematic than they actually are. We must deal with that problem – if we can. We may not be able to do so directly, and will have to rely on technical developments and on developments in the larger society. Whether facilitators (faculty) will develop their course materials on their own (i.e., without a technical development team) will probably depend on the individual ALN school. We are on our way: Among young people we notice that a large number are familiar with computers. In that light it will only be a question of time until most people can handle computers as well as networks.

"You cannot assume too little knowledge," says Cynthia Liston. This seems to be the opposite of what John R. Bourne is experiencing among students. We are at a point of change. This means that the process of incorporating ALN plans into a learning program is very sensitive to the group of students using it. It will probably be a good idea to set up Internet and computer tests and on-campus courses for students who will be using ALN. But Cynthia (and we) might also be experiencing something other than lack of knowledge when students do have a hard time with ALN. Studying through ALN will require self-discipline. They are studying together – but alone!

Not all barriers are falling: visiting an ALN site is not always becoming easier. Some barriers are getting higher. The technical requirements are constantly growing and leaving people with "older" technology far behind and possibly incapable of getting connected to the desired learning sites says John Sener. Facilities are in fact getting more advanced. Some sites are not offering differing facilities to adapt to different levels of technical knowledge and hardware. It is possible to adjust programs for computers of various states of technology. Only ALN developers can decide whether it is reasonable to administer parallel systems.

III. FINAL SUMMARY

The ALN environment is very much different from a traditional learning environment. Therefore we must keep in mind:

• If a development team is not available the faculty might need to take web authoring courses.
• Faculty must focus on a friendly and concerned tone towards students, thereby showing that the ALN net is populated with humans.
• The preferred pedagogical method is an open learning instructional style. Effort should be made to support students to match this style.
• Faculty must encourage students to get rid of virtual shyness.
• Course design should be implemented so that students must cooperate through the course.
• Course design and programs must be easy to use on both the developmental side and on the student side, thereby making dropout rates low for both faculty and students.
• Course design could be arranged to please students with older equipment.
• Provide Internet introduction courses for students with little technical experience.