Teaching with a Course Management System.

Student aptitude with and enthusiasm for on-line learning.

I was amazed at how well the students seemed to do with WebCT. No one seemed to have any problems logging in and most didn't have any problems at all. Everybody successfully posted their message to the [bulletin board]. A lot of faculty seem to be higher maintenance. The issue may be that 1) WebCT is easier to learn for students than for faculty (because they only have to learn how to use it, not design a course in it) or 2) students working in the business world are more tech-savvy than the average faculty member.

Coming from a perspective of supporting faculty, I expected the students I taught to have much more difficulty using WebCT. The major reason for my expectation, I think, is that the faculty interface of WebCT 1.3.1 is considered by many to be somewhat “clunky,” consisting primarily of groups of buttons across the bottom of the screen (link to screen capture of faculty view) . These buttons are often three to four levels deep (link to flow chart showing complexity of buttons).

The student view, however, is more straightforward, with students merely having to click on the icon to go to the part of the course material they were interested in. At the first class meeting, I gave students a brief (30 minute) introduction to WebCT, followed by some time to compose their first bulletin board message. After this initial introduction, students encountered few problems with the actual WebCT software. Most of the issues involved lost passwords, although one student accidentally deleted material from WebCT. I also perceived a high level of motivation from students to learn the technology. Since this way a business section, many of the students were preparing for business careers, and they seemed to believe that technology skills would be vital for their career paths. Some mentioned hearing from friends that discussion boards were being used in certain companies. They especially liked conducting their research using online databases, as they saw this as an opportunity not only to practice their research but also to learn how to use technology applications that may be used in their future employment.

Student-faculty contact outside of class facilitated via technology
This was the first time that I taught a course where students regularly contacted me outside of class through technology. It made it easier for me to remind students of upcoming assignments, post notices of new class locations, and tell absent students what the homework was. I also think that it was particularly beneficial for the students as, given that both the students and myself were very busy outside this class, the making of face-to-face appointments with me outside class time next to impossible.

Logistical Problems
There were a few problems seemingly caused by bugs in WebCT or by operator error. For example, one of my students disappeared from my WebCT folder. Unfortunately, despite my frequent advice to faculty to the contrary, I had not make a recent back-up of the course, forcing me to find all the student's papers on my computer and in my files and reenter them into WebCT. The other problem arose in my attempt to use WebCT's selective release feature to release course material, assignment explanations, and handouts to students based on the date or based on their name (with half the class looking at one assignment and the other half looking at another). The feature works, but faculty have to be extremely careful to enter the right date and time, and to make sure, if students are divided into groups where each group will look at different material, that no one is accidentally excluded.

Key Project "Puzzlements"

Designing Course Material for Online Learning