E‐TEACHING IN PRACTICE Making it work
Tomasz Gołąb WSB‐NLU
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
This E‐booklet was created by the Partnership for valorisation of the best e‐learning practices among teachers and trainers in Europe. 2 | E ‐ B o o k l e t T i t l e .
Contents 1.
Introduction ............................................................................... 5 Purpose.......................................................................................... 5 Who is it for?.................................................................................. 5
2.
E‐Learning and blended learning ................................................ 6 E‐learning....................................................................................... 6 Blended learning ............................................................................ 6 Comparison of e‐learning and blended learning ............................. 7 Practical examples.......................................................................... 8
3.
Learning management systems .................................................. 9 What do we need LMS for? ............................................................ 9 Characteristics of sample learning management systems ............. 10
4.
E‐learning standards................................................................. 12 Introduction ................................................................................. 12 AICC and SCORM.......................................................................... 12 What should we know about them? ............................................. 13
5.
E‐learning projects ................................................................... 15 Challenges and issues................................................................... 15 Communication............................................................................ 16 Software ...................................................................................... 17 External and internal procedures ................................................. 19 Practical examples........................................................................ 21
6.
Conducting e‐learning .............................................................. 22 Course organization ..................................................................... 22 E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e | 3
Support and administration..........................................................23 Verifying results ...........................................................................24
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1. Introduction Purpose This booklet has been created to present the most common challenges and issues that may occur in the e‐teaching process and to suggest appropriate solutions. The issues and challenges in question comprise selection of an adequate form of teaching for a given organization, learning management systems, standards, and software, course delivery, as well as practical examples.
Who is it for? This booklet is meant for anyone interested in e‐learning of any form. It has been constructed in the way that illustrates challenges and issues, but does not forget about solutions for those who are interested in conducting e‐learning or participating in e‐learning projects, in particular for those who want to support teaching methods with IT solutions.
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2. E‐Learning and blended learning E‐learning E‐learning, which is learning with the use of computer technology and the Internet, means assisting teaching with personal computers, CDROM, and the Internet. It enables a student to complete a course, to undergo training, or to study not being physically present in the classroom. Especially in higher education e‐learning increases the opportunity to create Virtual Learning Environments, which in conjunction with information control (MIS – Managed Information System) form a control system for e‐learning. The advantages of e‐ learning often comprise flexible working hours and convenience for students (especially if they have other commitments), facilitated communication between students, better adaptation to the students’ needs, a wider variety of learning practice through the use of multimedia and non‐verbal presentation of the material. E‐learning allows you to learn at your own pace and minimizes the fear and intimidation, which might occur in the traditional classroom. Using video techniques allows for learning through audio‐visual material, which can be stopped and rewound for the student. Compared with traditional classroom activities, e‐learning brings great benefits to organizations with distributed and constantly changing learners (eg restaurant staff).
Blended learning In a very basic form, blended learning can combine face‐to‐face instruction with computer‐mediated instruction. In more general approach, blended learning is a combination of electronic resources (e‐learning or m‐learning) with any other learning resources. The idea behind blended learning is to create a combination of synchronous and asynchronous instructions providing realistic practical opportunities for learners and teachers to make the process of 6 | E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e
learning independent, useful, sustainable and ever‐growing. The role of the instructor often requires transformation from the teacher to the facilitator, as there is a significant need for assisting students with computer skills and applications, so that they can become independent learners. Because the term “blended learning” has often been overused, some people object to using this term. They point out that the term has become a bandwagon for almost any kind of teaching that contains “two or more different kinds of things that can be mixed” (Martin Oliver and Keith Trigwell).
Comparison of e‐learning and blended learning Blended learning may be perceived as an extension to e‐learning, which is basically true, as most of the advantages of e‐learning may also apply to blended learning. One can say that comparison is not necessary, as we can take the best of e‐learning and, what is more, we can add some extra sources of information. Yet, in terms of return on investment we have to take a closer look at e‐learning. This is of course a much harder task than mixing all types of resources into one big course to make sure everyone will get something for themselves. Bearing in mind that most projects have a limited budget, one of the biggest advantages of e‐learning is cost reduction, as we create content once and distribute it as many times as possible. When we run e‐learning alongside traditional methods as an alternative to accommodate different learning styles, we undermine the ROI argument, as we increase the cost rather than reduce it. What is more, when we offer people a possibility to choose types of materials to be used in their learning, most of them will not switch to e‐ learning, as it is something new and different, and we generally do not like changes. Taking the above into consideration, we can clearly see that we should not compare e‐learning and blended learning. It is a matter of answering the questions: Can we accept the failure of our e‐learning programs by allowing participants to choose types of E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e | 7
materials to be used in the learning process? Can we afford increased cost of our current course programs, in other words, are we going to have ROI?
Practical examples One of the learning programs delivered at WSB‐NLU is for foreign students, especially for Ukrainian students. Part of the course takes place in WSB‐NLU classrooms while the remaining part is conducted online, using learning management system developed by WSB‐NLU. In the face‐to‐face part, both the teachers and the students are taught how to use the learning management system and other applications designed to support the learning process. While the students were keen to use the applications and LMS and wanted to practice under the supervision of an IT Department employee, the teachers tried to avoid training sessions, saying that they will have no problem using it, as they have done it before. Despite their statement the teachers were made to participate in training sessions in order to have their skills verified. It took less than fifteen minutes to find out that their knowledge of the applications as well as their overall computer skills were insufficient. Three times more time was spent on making them familiar with the applications and providing them with basic knowledge than had originally been intended. This example shows that we have to remember how critical the teacher's role is in e‐ learning and how easily we can underestimate it, which in turn can lead to possible failures.
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3. Learning management systems What do we need LMS for? Learning management systems are designed to support or fully conduct learning process online, especially under conditions where the teacher and the student are in separate locations. They should provide an opportunity for at least asynchronous communication for all of its users, and synchronous if possible. A well designed LMS facilitates the learning process down to user‐friendly standards. Its users should know where the materials are stored or, in case they do not know how to find them (instructions built in the system and course organization information). On the one hand, we can use LMS to support live sessions. In this way we can easily organize trainings in the classrooms, so that every user is provided with information about how to use it. On the other hand, we can conduct the learning process exclusively online. We have to make sure that built‐in tutorials provide sufficient amount of information, for example self‐tests for teachers and learners. LMS can also help with administration issues, including: • • • • • • •
Creating activity logs. Receiving grades. Managing long lists of students. Fast reports on course participants’ progress. Easy communication with teachers and learners. Distributing course content in the form of electronic materials. Organizing courses for teachers and students from remote locations.
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Characteristics of sample learning management systems The most required feature is ease‐of‐use. First of all, every extra idea implemented into the system makes it better and more useful, but in the long run the system can become very complex, which leads to frustration and decreases activity on the user’s part. Interfaces must be ergonomic and organized in a common sense manner. What often happens when the system becomes very complex is that it is replaced with a simpler system despite its limited functionality. Participants must not be disturbed by the complexity of user interface while using the resources gathered in LMS for them to use or, as a result, their interest in our courses will drop. To prevent such situations LMS interface must be checked for resources and assessment accessibility. LMS should have features allowing to: • • • • • • • • •
Administer courses and users (add, remove, edit). Organize courses in learning programs. Assign homework to students. Create and authorize materials. Provide virtual space for learning objects. Create tests/quizzes and verify the results. Display standardized content (FLV, SWF). Monitor students’ progress. Communicate within course groups (student to student, teacher to teacher, student to teacher).
In case of valuable properties, such as video materials, Digital Rights Management system should be supported and used by a given LMS; otherwise, the authors might be reluctant to store their resources in the system. Above all that, we have to decide if we want LMS to be implemented in our infrastructure or if we can accept a hosted solution. While a 10 | E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e
hosted solution should not take more than a couple of weeks in order to make it ready to use, full implementation in our own infrastructure might take even more than a year depending on the way data is stored in a given organization and its compatibility with the LMS database. In most cases, a hosted solution is less expensive, both in the short and in the long run, especially for smaller institutions without an IT Department or its equivalent. However, a hosted solution is often impossible to implement because of the personal data stored in the database, which would be of high value to other companies. Selecting an appropriate Learning Management System is not an easy task. We have to not only take into account our current needs but also predict our future needs, especially when we have decided to implement a third‐party system in our own infrastructure.
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4. E‐learning standards Introduction E‐learning procedures and methods are getting increasingly complicated. They have to catch up with the rapid growth of e‐ learning itself. E‐learning standards are known as specifications before being verified. It is due to the fact that different groups have come up with solutions that cover different areas. When the majority decide to use a specification and an accredited organization reviews this specification, it becomes the standard. Standards are made to describe procedures and methods allowing for content packaging, content sequencing, e‐learning subjects and cross‐platform usage of resources.
AICC and SCORM The Aviation Industry CBT (Computer Based Training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology‐based training professionals that creates and develops guidelines for aviation industry. AICC develops standards for interoperability of computer‐ based training and computer‐managed training products. AICC standard is broken into two major sections: Course server communication: • • • • •
How are students’ results stored? How does the course participant obtain user preferences? Course structure definition: How does the server load and broadcast the course content? What content is served next?
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Instructional Management Systems (IMS) is a consortium that focuses on developing metadata specifications that addresses content packaging. The IMS metadata is available in XML and RDF/XML encodings. Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is the most widely adopted standard. This model ensures reusability, accessibility and manageability. SCORM divides the e‐learning world into Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Sharable Content Objects (SCOs). SCORM version 1.2 is basically AICC and IMS combined.
What should we know about them? Depending on what we do, we should gather different information about standards. LMS and tool developers should understand the technical details of the specification, so that they can program the standards into their applications and work with other vendors to provide a complete solution. Course developers need to have a basic knowledge of SCORM, AICC and IMS capabilities, so that they can ask correct questions to their LMS and authorized tool vendors. We also have to remember that implementations are subjective. You have to know what you want to do and then be assured that your vendor can meet these needs. When you choose a vendor, you should not think about standards. A good implementation is invisible to students. Indeed, students should never be aware of the implemented standards.
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Questions that a course developer should ask their LMS vendor: • •
What standards do you support? How much of the standard have you implemented?
Questions that a course developer should ask of their authorized tool vendor: • •
What standards do you work with? Have you customized your implementation for different LMSs? Since each LMS implements the standards slightly differently, a course saved as SCORM might not work with any SCORM LMS.
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5. E‐learning projects Challenges and issues Difficulties that may appear while delivering e‐learning courses and projects tend to be underestimated. A lot of the faculty perceives e‐ learning courses as nothing more than sending materials to students via e‐mail or storing them in online repositories for everyone to download. This is one of the biggest issues that we have to overcome. It is necessary to organize meetings and training sessions before we decide who to employ in e‐learning projects. In the end, we might find out that none of our best face‐to‐face teachers performs well, while a number of less charismatic people impress us with their approach. First of all, we have to carefully plan our intended desired project results. Once we have the list, we have to face the reality and adjust it to our human and infrastructure resources. It is common to overestimate the resources we possess, which leads to underperformance relative to our plan. In order to avoid underperformance, select those who understand: • • • •
how time‐consuming the work on e‐learning projects is, that e‐learning project development takes a lot of redoing, that the content must be interesting, catchy and involving for students. that e‐learning support also takes time and that apart from testing and homework there must be a way the student can communicate with his/her teacher.
We have to remember that the most experienced teachers might be used to their own, specific way of presenting materials, which most likely will not be compatible with our e‐learning projects. We have to schedule enough time for teaching how to produce materials that can be used for e‐learning courses. In this case only learning‐by‐doing E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e | 15
works. Thus, we have to be sure that before we begin to create learning materials, the teachers should realize: • • • • • • •
the desired results of the whole e‐learning program. the aims of a given course. the way we want the materials to be presented. the media we will use to support presentations (video, audio). the amount of time required to create courses based on materials given by teachers. how to use the LMS system, if any, and how it limits them. how to use any additional software.
Communication Communication in e‐learning courses and projects is very critical in the whole process, from first project meetings until result verification. Sadly, many e‐learning courses or projects are treated as a simple remedy for insufficient human resources to conduct traditional classes or for a lower number of new full‐time students. Or, in other words, they are seen as a way of generating income without having to invest or as a way of gaining a new group of clients without the required level of infrastructure. The second sentence reveals lack of common sense when we look at e‐learning in this way. Those who overlook this fact go even further saying that we do not need stationary project members and that online communication will be sufficient, and that it even suits the whole idea! The presented approach leaves the project unorganized. Lack of adequate funds can seriously limit the software we might use to organize proper communication, especially when we are new to e‐ learning. Without it, we end up with underdeveloped projects where no one knows what to do next or how to achieve goals. 16 | E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e
While in such environment it is very hard to establish good communication between project members, it is not impossible. First of all, we have to start communication at once, to make sure everyone is ready to work. Once this is done, we can focus on: • • • • • • • • • •
communication procedures (when we meet, what will the meeting be about, what software we use). informing project members of the project deadlines and the schedule. informing project members of their assignments and the form of progress reports. Due to the nature of online communication, we have to: be on time (it is very demotivating to be alone in the online chat room). make sure everyone has understood a given task. check how project members are doing between online meetings, if they have any problems. distribute the online meeting agenda well ahead of the meeting, as everyone needs time to get prepared. take into account the fact that many people do not reply to e‐mails more often than once a day. remember that remote cooperation means various time of activity.
Software Nowadays, there is a variety of software in the market that we can purchase to use in our work on e‐learning presentations, both open source and proprietary. It is not easy to say which type to choose. To make it as simple as possible, open source solutions are well suited for organizations that wish to start with e‐learning, as they do not require investments from the very beginning when we have little or E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e | 17
no experience, and we do not know exactly what we want to do. It does not mean that we cannot use it in the long run. Most of the proprietary software does have open source counterparts. When deciding which type to use, we have to take into account not only the price of given software but also other factors, such as our staff’s habits. Every implementation of any software requires time to make our staff familiar with it. The more complicated it is the more resistance we will have to face. That is why every change in that matter must be considered carefully. What is the point in switching to open source solution when it requires a lot of money and time‐consuming training? In the end, we might lose money instead of saving it. When we want to start conducting e‐learning while not having a lot of free resources, it might be a good idea to buy software that works in a way that is similar to the most widely used Microsoft Office package. For example, getting used to interfaces of Adobe Captivate may prove easy, as it is similar to PowerPoint. Indeed, starting up with Adobe Flash Builder or Adobe Flash itself may be too much for those who do not have computer programming skills. But, then we must understand that the most customized and interactive presentations require either programming skills or knowledge of some tricks we can do in given software to receive impressing effects. Involving programmers in the creation of e‐learning presentations will be for sure more expensive than involving people who can only use already created software. But, the results can exceed our expectations and provide us with interactivity we would not be able to achieve otherwise.
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In short, depending on the budget, go for programmers for better interactivity and reusability or in case you have limited resources, focus on software designed to create presentations. Regardless of the choices: open source or proprietary, own programmers or software to create presentations, it is also worth mentioning that every solution requires support. Especially at the beginning, we have to make sure that we have easy access to problem solutions and technical support. New software often lacks adequate solutions database for common problems and needs time to become reliable (post production bugs require time to fix). This is especially the case when we want to use open source solutions. As we cannot expect the authors to work on it forever, they might lose interest in it, and we can do nothing about it. Proprietary software is also affected by this issue, but it is rather unusual for a company to abandon its product just after introducing it to the market.
External and internal procedures E‐learning projects results (courses) are often designed to be in use for a longer time than the project itself. We will not be able to make changes to courses once most if not all of the project members are unavailable. It leads to an obvious solution: plan carefully, which seems like nothing special. More intriguing is the fact that careful planning should result in the collection of procedures, both internal and external. While it does not look too human, and many people do not like to follow procedures, it pays off in the long run. Some of the procedures we should create and distribute to everyone involve: •
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• • • • • • • • •
Who is responsible for what. The form and structure of learning materials (including things such as font size, and type of the document). Length of text, video and audio materials. Course organization (how it is divided and served to prevent boredom). What are the tasks of online tutors (the amount of interaction with learners). Fail‐safe procedures (where and how often to backup data). How actors should behave, modulate their voice and what they should wear when being recorded. Positioning of actors in the environment (where to sit, what to look at, expected amount and direction of light). How our customer should report any issues and until when we have to fix them.
Making the team follow the procedures proves to be hard in the beginning, but after a while everyone gets used to it, as it brings a lot of relief to our busy minds and allows for better performance. In the end, it makes our work easier and more productive. Sometimes, well structured procedures signed by everyone involved can save the ongoing project. For example, losing the leader may prove fatal for the whole project when he/she is the only person who possesses the whole picture of the situation. Without appropriate procedures a new leader will need a lot of time before he/she gets familiar with the project status and the way things are being done. Besides, we might not have that required amount of time. It is a good practice to update procedures every once in a while and distribute new versions to everyone with the highlighted changes or new sections. Such approach also gives us a better look at our resource needs and activities that are being performed by our staff 20 | E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e
that we might not be aware of otherwise. Reviewing procedures can also help us with identifying bottlenecks in processes which are lowering our performance.
Practical examples One of the first e‐learning projects conducted at WSB‐NLU lacked procedures and training sessions about the idea of the project. This approach was based on the assumption that the faculty members have a lot of experience in teaching, so it would be unprofessional to tell them how to do their job. As a result, the production of the first e‐ learning content was an organizational nightmare. Some teachers simply sent all the materials they had gathered during their career to “put somewhere” in LMS for the students to download. It not only severely disturbed the course organization but also led to confusion and a massive number of questions from the team members and the students. In the end, communication level adjusted and some of the implemented procedures are in use until today. The project received average to good reviews from the students, but it stayed well back behind the planned result. Currently, the number of procedures is constantly increasing. In the most recent projects procedures are being designed on initial meetings, sometimes even before the actual start of the project itself. Now people are aware of the impact that procedures have on the result of any project. The more precise procedures there are the fewer problems we have to face during the project realization. Training sessions for teachers and learners have also become a standard. In case teachers and learners have similar computer skills and overall knowledge of e‐learning, we estimated that for every single hour of training dedicated to students we have to hold at least three hours of training for teachers. E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e | 21
6. Conducting e‐learning Course organization Every course, even the smallest one requires proper organization and planning before conducting. To meet those initial requirements we have to take into account: • Resources that we have (people, infrastructure and other assets). • Resources that course participants have (software, hardware and Internet connection bandwidth). During the initial planning we must already have the data referring to at least Internet connection bandwidth of our target audience. While it is great to provide students with HD quality movies, they will not appreciate it without appropriate connection speed. We also have to identify what software and hardware our students plan to use. For example, too complicated Flash animations do look great during presentations in local network on PC with Quad Core and 2GB graphic card, but when distributed by Internet they often work slowly and the desired effect gets clouded by frustration. While conducting e‐learning courses we have to make sure that our own infrastructure and human resources are sufficient to support ongoing projects. Technical support must be available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week if possible because the main idea of e‐ learning is to be able to access knowledge from the remotest and learn any time we want to. Unsupported system failures during the night hours as “our working hours are 8.00 am to 4.00 pm” are unacceptable. When it is good to start, we have to make sure that our teachers are as available as possible to their students. Hours at which teachers are 22 | E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e
available online must be properly announced to everyone. The tutor must take care of their students, must monitor their activity, not allowing them to stay behind others for too long. E‐teaching is at least as much time‐consuming as traditional teaching. Interest in materials must be maintained by giving additional assignments that require teacher–student communication. As e‐learning leaves us alone in front of the screen, we have to organize videoconferences and other activities in which bigger groups of people are as involved as possible to maintain group identity. Technical issues can make every e‐learning program fail. We have to identify upcoming problems and prepare for them. While hosting LMS in our own infrastructure keep in mind that the amount of space on hard drive is not unlimited. Especially graphic design courses where participants share with each other their resources as well as courses with lots of video materials are space‐consuming. Estimations of how much space a given course might need are necessary to be done before launching the course. It is frustrating for the student to see “insufficient disk space” while uploading homework which is due the next day.
Support and administration Organizing helpdesk, with highly trained staff (those who developed the system or are its administrators) seems to have sense at first. But, a lot of problems are so common that anyone with a good attitude can answer them as long as he or she is provided with FAQ and answers. Creation of such handbook should start before an e‐learning course starts. Some questions are easily predictable, such as: Q: “I do not see all the courses I should in your LMS, can you fix this?” A: “Did you pay for your courses?”
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This approach might save a lot of time of our most valuable employees (programmers, administrators). Instead of running tests and looking for solutions, the problem can be identified and solved by the helpdesk operator. Administration must be very responsible while working with e‐ learning participants. In traditional learning it does not change much when one person is in a wrong group for an hour or two or does not have access to some support system for a day or two. But in e‐ learning everything must work as a perfectly oiled machine. Every mistake lands very fast on the general forum, which looks very unprofessional. Another aspect of online administration touches cheating. Internet still gives the feeling that no one would recognize us and that many things go unnoticed, which is very naive. There is always a group of participants who blame the system, the organization of the course or something else for their failures. Age or position makes no difference. Be strict and verify each technical or other issue with statistics of activity gathered by the LMS. For example, it is impossible that a user had problems while filling up the test due to the system failure while there is nothing in the system's log about this user’s logging into the system.
Verifying results E‐learning programs have goals to achieve. Verifying results should be held on a regular basis, more often than in traditional teaching. Lack of close control can prove fatal to the whole process, there is always something going on: new posts on forums, e‐mails, people in chat rooms, teleconferences and videoconferences. It does not go by itself. When we have online students, we might not notice that someone is underperforming until the very end of the course, when it is too late. 24 | E ‐ T e a c h i n g i n p r a c t i c e
That is why tutors have to inspire interaction and communication with students. Unless we are videoconferencing with every student, we might not notice that he have problems with something. If the system does not support private communication, we should not expect students to talk about their problems on the general course forum. Sometimes, everything is going fine, students are happy, the course is well organized, and there is nothing left but the final test. As most LMSs allow for knowledge testing, teachers have to adjust their questions to the online standard. General a) b) c) test questions might not work because we have the Internet, and answers are easy to get. It is recommended that you check if your test questions are Google‐ proof (1st page does not contain the answer). A lot better idea is to create open‐ended questions. In that way we will ensure that every student works on their own, as it is fairly easy to find out when people are cooperating. One would say that checking such questions takes a lot of time and kills the idea of using automatic tests. Well, who said that e‐teaching will be any easier than traditional teaching?
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Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu ‐ National Louis University has been well known among the best Polish universities for years. Practical approach to education combined with a solid educational backround and modern technological facilities makes WSB‐NLU one of the pioneers in many fields of science and business. WSB‐NLU ‐ a place for people with passion. Vilnius Business College is a non‐profit private training organization providing higher education as well as formal and informal education in the fields of business administration, finances, languages and ICT. The Belgian Network for Open and Digital Learning is a non‐profit making organization. It aims at establishing cooperation between statutory organizations and private companies with a view to a growing implementation of e‐ learning in training programmes for employees in Belgium. Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) is one of the leading business schools in Baltic countries, which offers quality education in economics and business administration. SSE Riga has been involved in a number of research projects related to business development in Baltic Rim. RayCom BV in Utrecht, The Netherlands is a software development company that specializes in web‐based solutions for knowledge development, knowledge exchange and business.