Education and the Web: Soul mates or Strangers Trapped in an Elevator

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Education and the WebSoul matesorStrangers
Trapped in an Elevator?

• Andy Gavrin, Dept. of Physics
• IUPUI

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Overview
An elevator is the wrong metaphor

• Introducing the couple
• How close is the relationship?
• The good times, and the bad
• The future

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Exercise
Have any of you ever

• Used email to communicate with a student?
• Emailed your childs teacher?
• Posted course information online?
• Looked up something for a student online?
• Used the web for your childrens education?
• Used the web to find info for your course?

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The first meeting?

• WWW released 1991
• First WWW conference, Geneva, 1994
• Before Netscape, Explorer, Java, Google
• 1 talk Interactive Education Transitioning
  CD-ROMs to the WWW

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Internet access in K-12 schools
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Student use of the internet
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Sloan Consortium Survey, 2002

• Fall 2002 Over 1.6 million students in online
  courses
• 1/3 of these taking all courses online
• 11 of all college students have taken one
• 81 of institutions offer one
• 34 offer full online degree programs

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A few uses of the Web

• Online syllabi, etc.
• Homework servers (WebAssign, UTHS)
• Course management systems (WebCT, Blackboard)
• Distance education
• Library catalogs
• Registrar
• Financial aid

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A few more uses
Math homework help lines, Reference data
(periodic table, integrals, phase diagrams),
Projects Bartleby and Gutenberg, Reference books
(encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauruses,
handbooks), k-12 curricula, Human anatomy,
Planetarium programs, Demonstration videos, Audio
analysis, Online instruments (microscopes,
observatories), Online scripts for drama,
Edutainment, Online data sets (census,
environmental, meteorological), Civics via govt
sites, Textbook sales, State boards of Education,
Grant applications, Professional societies,
Online Universities, Online High schools,
advising tools, course bulletin boards, chat and
email, general and special calculators, image
libraries, museums, NASA, NIH, NSF,
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Preliminary conclusions

• Whatever the relationship is, it is intimate
• Like many intimate relationships, there are
  offspring
• The parties are growing closer together

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More questions

• Are the partners getting along?
• Are there any signs of abuse?
• How about the families?
• Where is the relationship going?

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Some of the good times

• Physlets
• Online homework (e.g., WebAssign, UTHS)
• Student-faculty email
• Course bulletin boards/chat
• Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT)
• Online media (movies, animations, sound)
• Inverted classrooms?

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What makes the relationship work?
A. Astin, What Matters in College Four Critical
Years Revisited

• Student-student interaction
• Student-faculty interaction
• Time on task

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Another view

• Learning technologies should be designed to
  increase, and not to reduce, the amount of
  personal contact between students and faculty on
  intellectual issues.

- National Institute of Education, Study group
on the conditions of excellence in American
higher education, 1984
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What about distance education?

• Major improvement vs. no education
• Forces students to do far more writing
• For many, more total interaction
• Done well, more authentic applications
• Target audiences professional degrees,
  certificate programs, continuing education
• Worst case the traditional bachelors

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More conclusions

• Family harmony so long as the parties communicate
• Distance sometimes makes the heart grow fonder

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The dark side abuse?

• Online term paper services
• Blurring of intellectual property (napster)
• Poor S/N ratio
• Attempts to process students
• Academic get rich quick schemes

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Bad finances strain any relationship

• Administration needs cost savings
• New technologies can look like silver bullets
• Recriminations follow disappointments
• There are savings to be had

Classroom space, reduced attrition, parking,
campus services be creative!
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What about the families?

• Grooms side
• conscious administrators
• Students want to have their (wedding) cake
• Faculty are quite comfy, thank you
• Staff!!? You need staff to produce videos of your
  lecture?

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The other family

• The Brides side
• Your IT department just wants to have fun
• Online universities are here, and growing
• Bill Gates wants your credit card and SS s
• I have 25 million in a bank in Nigeria, and
• THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE IS UNTENABLE

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More conclusions

• There have been abuses of each side by the other
• Financial pressures complicate the relationship
• Both sides have family baggage

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Where is this relationship going?
More Sloan Survey results

• A majority of academic leaders (57 percent)
  already believe that the learning outcomes for
  online education are equal to or superior to
  those of face-to-face instruction
• Two-thirds of all schools believe that online
  learning is critical to their long term strategy
• Enrollment for the Fall of 2003 is expected to
  exceed 1.9 million students
• A one-year enrollment growth rate of close to 20

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Where else?

• NSFs National SMET Digital Libraries (MERLOT,
  JiTT, AAPT)
• Faster, more realistic simulations and
  visualizations
• Richer communications tools (iChat AV,
  whiteboard)
• Ubiquitous wireless networks
• Students and Faculty with better access to
  information and each other

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Conclusions?

• Education and the Web mostly get along
• Communication is important in any relationship
• There are lots of kids, and many seem happy
• Some of the kids do have behavior problems
• There is a lot of financial pressure
• The families often interfere

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What do you think?