Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 09:52:00 -0700

From:	Jack Park
	jackpark@thinkalong.com Reply-To: unrev-II@yahoogroups.com

To:	unrev-II@yahoogroups.com

Subject:

About Telelearning

From....

"Though telelearning breaks through many barriers to education, it is not a nirvana. Much richness of interaction is also lost:

• The Trouble With Text:

  People become concerned with the appearance of their text. Typos detract from one's online image. Grammar implies personality.

• No Physicality:

  Without facial expressions, voice intonations, or gestures, relationships can be strange; jokes and irony can lead to misunderstandings. The distancing safety of the medium can promote casual inflammatory and hurtful remarks.

• Vulnerability:

  Participants feel inhibited because their words are preserved forever in a computer database with the potential for unknown future use by others, perhaps out of context. Who owns your commentary and who has control over it's future use? The student or the teacher? What about intellectual property rights?

• Information Overload:

  Large telelearning classes force users to follow gigantic discussions requiring a tremendous amount of reading in addition to the class reading list. Heavy required searching and browsing of virtually infinite online resources can also be overwhelming.

• Lack of Tools and Standards:

  Limited tools for linking, relating comments, references, and ideas; and poor mechanisms for viewing and manipulating these linkages, or making decisions online. Also international standards for graphics and sounds are only just emerging."

"The key is to facilitate collaborative learning:

• Don't Lecture: Long but coherent postings often produce silence. Use short open-ended comments that invite response.

• Be Clear About Expectations: Define what students must do for the whole course, for each module, each assignment and each time period.

• Be Flexible And Patient: Guide the conversation but don't dominate. Remember curriculum will be affected by the diversity of opinions from different world views. Be open to change and acceptance of new views on various topics.

• Be Responsive: Especially at the beginning, ensure that every student's comment gets a response. If no else replies, either respond yourself by a private message or by mentioning the original author's comments in one of yours.

• Don't Overload: Contribute no more than one long comment a day, or less if students are active. Several short notes are better than one long one.

• Monitor and Prompt: Read the system status report frequently. Encourage those falling behind with private email. Prompt those who are reading but not writing. If no response after one week, telephone and discuss problem.

• Encourage Group Work: Give assignments to small groups. If a class is large, divide it into two or more discussion groups. Assign individuals within groups the role of "teacher" for small portions of the course.

• Teach Netiquette: Explain how to avoid insulting others and straying off the course topic.

• Write Weaving Comments: Summarize and focus the discussion with comments that weave together various threads of interest.

• Do Electronic Housekeeping: Move or delete items that do not belong to the discussion. Organize and model the use of keywords and references to show relationships.

• Establish Norms and Set Rules: Give credit for good participation.

• Close and Purge In Stages: Moribund discussions need to be closed slowly, giving members a chance to save messages.

Sincerely,

Jack Park
jackpark@thinkalong.com