Best Practices for Online Facilitation

Abstract

Imagine you are helping a 20-something year-old student logging on to his/her first online course. Then, imagine you are helping a 40- or 50-something year-old student logging on to his/her first online course. What are the differences? The first obvious difference may be the degree of computer skills and experience. Most young adults have had experience with computers, electronic games, and other digital devices in their K-12 classrooms, friends' homes, the mall, and even workplaces. Computers are a way of life for them. But for older learners, computers often cause anxiety; technological proficiency may be a newly acquired skill, limited perhaps only to their television remotes. Those of us older than 35 did not grow up with computer technology, so may have had to adapt to it in our workplaces. Technological proficiency and comfort are also accompanied by very different expectations learners bring to online learning. Younger adults also bring expertise with a variety of different types of communication: IM (instant messaging), interactive video games, online chats, electronic bulletin boards, blogs (Web-based journaling sites) and cell phones that take and send photos and text messages. It is important to take these audience factors into consideration when facilitating online learning. In addition to matching the learner preparation and abilities to the course level and content, other factors that contribute to facilitating of online learning best practices include understanding the technologies, effective course design, the multiple roles of the facilitator, developing your own online style, and effective group interaction. Understanding the Technologies There are many different technologies that add to the complexity of distance learning. The first online courses provided content and communication in one direction, such as documents from a static Web site, video to view, or information pushed from the instructor to the learner by e-mail. Today, the designer of an online course has many more ways to deliver information and create interactive communication. The technologies that make these different course delivery methods possible often are called information communication technologies (ICT). Today these technologies enable delivering course materials and one-way and two-way communication over the Internet, via satellite as well as traditional landline telephone and cable networks. Any of these ICT enable both synchronous (same-time or real-time) communication and asynchronous (at different times) delivery and communication. Examples of synchronous delivery include two-way audio (via computer, telephone or radio) or two-way video, IM, text messages and online chat. Examples of asynchronous delivery include e-mail, listservs, online bulletin boards, Hogs, videotapes, CD-ROMS or archived audio and video streams. ICT delivery modes are converging with the development of high-speed, wide-bandwidth Internet capacity (what the techies call big pipes) to carry content. The early forms of ICT delivery often used static Web sites as information repositories, with e-mail being the primary interactive medium. Then listservs, discussion forums, and chat technologies developed and were attached to Web sites. Soon these technologies were integrated with course management systems (often abbreviated as CMS or LMS--learning management systems). Examples of CMS are Blackboard, WebCT, angel, and eCollege. These course management systems (CMS) integrate features such as pages for announcements, the syllabus, course documents, and calendars along with interactive features such as discussion forums, e-mail, chats, white boards, drop boxes and group workspaces. Instructional management features include grade books, test construction and delivery, and tools to connect digital library resources, other Web resources such as research databases, audio and video streams, etc. …