Principle 1: Contact Between Students and Faculty
Good practice in undergraduate education encourages contact between students and faculty.
Introduction
Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of class is a very important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and encourages them to keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well enhances students' intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values and plans.
Technology permits instructors to significantly increase contact with their students when compared to traditional face-to-face classes. There are, literally, hundreds of ways instructors can extend their traditional classroom contact online; this page describes just a few of them.
There are a number of ways that technology can facilitate improved contact between the instructor and student; but one of the oldest and simplest is email. Most instructors use email in their daily lives and encourage students to use that medium for contact. Faculty members offer assistance with homework, clarification of assignments, and other help via email. Of course, there are other ways to foster an online discussion (see Practice Two for more about this). However, email is easy to use, and most faculty members check their mailbox frequently, so it is usually the preferred means of contact.
Email Tools
Google Groups. Yahoo! Groups. These free services are similar and permit students and instructors to create a "group" which can then collaborate using email and other tools. Groups can be used to complete various team projects using all sorts of both synchronous and asynchronous tools.
Telephone and Voice Mail
Instructors often are so used to using email that they forget about the good, old telephone. Instructors can certainly still call students to check on a missed assignment; and, of course, students can also phone instructors to clarify something said in class.
Instructors can also use a brief voice mail message to relay important information about class. For example, if the instructor becomes ill and needs to cancel class, a quick voice mail message may help keep a student from driving to the campus only to find a "Class Cancelled" sign on the door.
Telephone Tools
Skype. This Voice-Over IP telephone service permits people to make/receive free phone calls from other Skype members for free. If instructors are collaborating with students or peers in distant locations, Skype will help keep the cost of phone service to a minimum. Additionally, Skype users can call land lines for a very low cost. Skype also includes text and video messaging.
Synchronous Discussions
The Internet permits people to engage in synchronous (or "real time") chat. This adds an immediacy to a discussion and permits students to contact each other, or instructors, to get help with a problem. Many colleges are using synchronous tools for recruiting and instructors are finding them useful for office hours.
Synchronous Discussion Tools
MeeBo. This is a web-based tool that lets you log into and use numerous instant messaging (IM) services at one time. Therefore, if instructors want to communicate with students using AIM, MSN, Yahoo, or other services they can access all of those from one spot. MeeBo also provides several nice features, like file sharing and video messaging. Finally, MeeBo has an app for the iPhone and Android, so students using mobile computing can still stay in touch.
ICQ. (Think: I Seek You.) This is one of the original chat-type tools and it is still going strong. It is actively maintained and includes both text and video chat. ICQ has apps for iPhone and Android so mobile students can stay in touch.
Web Conferencing
Most colleges have an online conferencing system of some sort. That permits a group of people to meet together online, so even if the conferees are located in geographically diverse regions, they can meet together.
Instructors can leverage online conferencing to create live sessions for their classes. There is nothing quite as immediate as a student asking a question and getting an answer from an instructor who is online at the same time. Instructors can also use their web conferencing system to set up office hours so students can chat (using either voice or text) to find answers to questions. Many systems rely on Voice-Over IP for voice, so students do not incur huge telephone bills to call their instructors.
Finally, most web conferencing software permits the instructor to record the session. That way, questions can be answered one time, then the recorded session can be posted to create something like a video FAQ to help other students.
Web Conferencing Tools
Vyew. This is a free online meeting system. Instructors can create an account and host up to 10 students at a time. The drawback is that Vyew is add-supported, so there may be a small ad in the corner of the class; however, the price is right.
Classroom Assessment Technique
CAT (Classroom Assessment Technique) is a way for instructors to create a quick "How is class going" type of assessment. CATs are not intended to be used for student grading; rather, for finding out if the lessons are working. Instructors can use various survey tools to administer a quick assessment. You can find examples of CATS at the National Teaching and Learning Forum.
CAT Tools
AnswerGarden. Instructors can create a question at this site and students can then input a very short phrase (20 characters) to answer the question. The question can be linked or it can be embedded on your class website. This is a great way to simply ask "What did you learn today?"
SurveyMonkey. This site permits instructors to create free surveys they can use to improve class.
Free Online Surveys is another site that permits free surveys that can be used for class.
Poll Everywhere. Instructors who are familiar with "clickers" in a classroom already know what Poll Everywhere does. Using cell phones, students can respond via text message to a question that has been posted. The results are shown via the web in real time. This would be a great way to poll a class for understanding during a lecture. This is a free service for groups of 30 or less.
Creating Videos and CDs
While it takes a little more effort to create a lesson video than just a simple lecture; once it is made, it can be reused for many classes. Videos can be very simple, being little more than a narrated PowerPoint slide show. However, videos can also include music, animations, and "how to" demonstrations that would be difficult to share with a simple text file. While the time needed to create a video can be substantial (it takes me about three hours to create a 10-minute video with music, animations, and other eye candy); they can be reused for many years and will become a valuable resource for students. Of course, I've also created simpler videos in just a few minutes at my desktop.
Video Tools
AuthorStream. Instructors can upload a PowerPoint slide show, complete with whatever narration and effects have been added into the file. The slideshow can even be downloaded as a video file, so students can view the slide show whenever they want.
Slideboom. This site permits instructors, or students, to upload a narrated PowerPoint slide show and then share it with the class. There is even an option to keep the slideshow private so only members of the class can see it.
Jing. This tool permits instructors to create short (up to 5 minutes) screen captures with audio narration. The results are stored online so a simple emailed link is all that is necessary to share the video. It is perfect for quick "how to" videos to answer students' questions and has become my favorite video recording tool (many of the videos posted on this site were created by Jing).
Camstudio. Similar to Jing, this allows instructors to record what is happening on the computer monitor and provide voice-over. Camstudio, though, permits long recordings and the resulting file can be saved as either AVI or SWF, which means that they can also be captioned for better accessibility.
Resource Lists
Finally, faculty members can create online resource lists to help students with their lessons. One option would be to create a Webliography that contains links to resources for the class. However, there are ways to create an online resource list that can be shared with students.
Resource List Tools
Delicious. This site permits people to store "favorites" or "bookmarks" online so others can use them. Bookmarks can be tagged (or "sorted") in multiple ways, so students can be referred to an instructor's delicious account and told to search for only those links tagged "philosophy" (or whatever).
Trailmeme. This site permits instructors to create "trails" through numerous web sites in order to help tame the Web for students. Trails end up looking something like mindmaps and students can follow whatever path they want to find information. This is an exciting tool that may help students organize piles of web sites.