Introducing New Classroom Technologies: Balancing Comfort & Innovation

This post is motivated by a comment in "The Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2nd ed.)" Edited by Terry Anderson. The particular Chapter is "Developing an Infrastructure for Online Learning" by Davis, Little & Stewart. (See full citation and link for access below.)

"...how much do we employ technologies, which we know the students are already familiar with and have access to, versus those which are new and unfamiliar and/or which are expected to become widely available?" (2008, p. 123)

This question is something I realized I am considering on a daily basis, but am never explicitly asking. With a diverse student cohort, it can be difficult to find technologies that the entire class is comfortable with. Additionally, working with many individuals employed by the federal government, I often run into pushback when trying to integrate social media tools into the course due to security concerns.

Given the current workforce and emphasis on job-readiness of graduates, it makes sense to me that students should graduate with an increased knowledge base, but also familiarity with new technologies. One particular technology we use that is new for our students is our platform for hosting online simulations. We previously used facebook groups to host simulations, however with enough pushback we moved to a different interface that I don't believe is as user-friendly, but quieted the many concerns about having a Facebook account. This platform is entirely new for our students and we use it throughout the course for four different simulations. The simulations get progressively better as the students become more experienced with the technology. I need to find a way to effectively train students in this technology before they use it for the first time, so that their experiences with the simulations are all high quality, not just those at the end. It is hard to do this with simply a live-walk through of the platform which I have done previously. The simulations go quickly and it is the fast-paced nature combined with the new technology that often leads to confusion in the first week.  This, and my previous post about training instructors in the course technologies has left a lot to think about and look for solutions within the remaining course readings and the rest of this program.

Davis, A., Little, P., & Stewart, B. (2008). Developing an infrastructure for online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.) (pp. 121-142). Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/05_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf  

The Necessity of Technology Training for Teachers

This post stems from a discussion in Module 4 where the topic of institutional barriers for change came up. I think this is particularly relevent in course design for distance education. The common design method for traditioanl face-to-face courses is the single author mode. Instructors who have solely taught face-to-face courses might push back on a team-design method of development and not understand the need.

It was suggested that I look at Bate's and Sangra's text (Managing Technology in Higher Education Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning) for ways to remove these barriers to change.

One idea they suggest is the importance of technology training for instructors. This particularly struck a chord with me as it seems like an extremely relevant idea for my current position. Effective training would show our instructors the capabilities of our learning management system and would hopefully point out much they don't know. This realization that there are many new things to learn would potentially help ignite the idea that they need to adapt their instructional style for online courses.

Focusing the training on how face-to-face activities translate to online classrooms would be particularly useful I think. Walking through a syllabus and saying "Ok - this break out group discussion you do once a week in your face-to-face class, what are your ideas on how to achieve the same level of interactivity online?" We would then follow up by providing training on different collaboration tools within our LMS. Training that is authentic in context will likely yield the best result and hopefully also encourage innovation when instructors are exposed to new technologies and tools.

The Distance Educator & Student Anxiety

This idea for this post came from a specific section of the Moore & Kearsley textbook "Distance Education: A Systems View of Online Learning" in Chapter 6.

The authors state:

"Students are generally more defensive when taking a course from an unseen instructor than they would be in a conventiona class, but most are unlikely to express this anxiety."

They go on to explain that students are all looking for different levels of a relatoionship and support form the instructor - from both extremes. This led me to wonder what are some applied pieces of advice instructors can be given to better facilitate an anxiety-free classroom that engages students.

1. Include a picture that is friendly rather than a professional headshot. (Moore & Kearsley explain that an instructor humanizes a DE classroom and experience. (p.107)
2. Include a bio that explains professional experience and expertise, however be sure to include interests or facts that are relatable for students. Encourage students to do the same when introducing themselves. 
3. Provide students with a simple survey or discussion forum where they are asked to explain what level of suppor they look for from an instructor - follow up and make your teaching philosophy, what level of support you think is appropriate, etc. known to the class. Be willing to adjust if necessary. 
4. Ask students in the first week of class what items on the syllabus provide the most anxiety and they feel need additional clarification so you can spend the following weeks preparing extra assistance or clarifying directions if necessary. 
5. Ask students how they keep themselves accountable for their coursework, have them share best practices, ask how you can motivate them, make this forum or conversation publicly available to the class so they can learn from eachother. 
6. Make sure all communications to the class are conversational in nature, when you think something might be taken in an unintended way, be crystal clear in saying (this is sarcastic) or (this is a friendly reminder). 
7. Respond to all inquiries within 24 hours.
8. When providing feedback, make it detailed and be sure to include remarks that explain parts of the assignment you found particularly interesting. Use feedback as a way to help students improve but also motivate them. The students should know there is a real human on the other side of the computer. 
9. Encourage exceptional students by sending personal notes that suggest further learning or reading. For example, "I saw you were particularly engaged in the Module 3 forum, you should read this article that was just published, it has a few questions for further research at the end you may be interested in pursuing." 

What do you think? Anything that should be added? What other tips would you give to first time distance education instructors regarding limiting student anxiety and building an engaging classroom space?