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The Convergence
of Teaching and Design in WebCT
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The Convergence
of Teaching and Design in WebCT
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© Copyright 2000 by Sharon Widmayer. The right to make additional exact copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require permission of the author. |
Online Course Management Systems Online course management systems (OCMS) are software packages designed to allow faculty to create easily on-line course content, to provide opportunities for learning interactions and assessment, and to manage their courses. As such, they provide both pedagogical tools, such as chat rooms, online quiz creation, and student work space, and administrative functions, such as a grade book and an interactive calendar. Additionally, course management systems typical provide templates or interfaces to help faculty design and layout their web-based material. Since these systems are web-based, they are accessible from any computer with an Internet connection and a Java-enabled web browser. What this means then, is that although these systems provide an opportunity to work with computers in class, especially if there is a computer lab available, their greatest advantage is that they provide a means for faculty to set up instructional activities and interactions to take place outside the classroom. However, as an instructional designer, I am frequently asked why faculty should use an OCMS, since many of its features are available elsewhere. For example, course handouts can be posted on any old Web page and class can hold on-line discussions using web boards created for that purpose such as Townhall or even Yahoo Club sites. First of all, with course management software, instructors can add interactivity to their web pages without having to learn advanced programming skills to do so. Setting up a chat room or bulletin board requires no more than a few clicks of the mouse. Additionally, these systems usually provide productivity tools such as an online grade book, a calendar, and student tracking to help instructors run their course smoothly. Most importantly, OCMS allow faculty to put all of the online support for their course in one password-protected space. Such centralization creates ease of use for students, since they will need to know only one URL and password to access their online course material. Furthermore, as student work inside OCMS is not accessible on the World Wide Web, these systems allow professors to create collaborative learning environments while protecting the students' right to privacy. However, many of the ways in which students and faculty interact online in general are identical to ways that students and faculty interact inside an OCMS folder. The advantage of OCMS is not that they have substantially changed or revolutionized online teaching. Rather, they have made designing the online learning space less technically demanding for faculty and provided an easy way to centralize all aspects of online course support. Many of my insights below about teaching with WebCT could just as easily be insights about teaching with any OCMS, or in fact teaching with the web in general.
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