SEPTEMBER 2005

By Tammy Edwards
W
e frequently discuss the
importance of providing timely
feedback that is specific and
detailed, but we rarely provide
strategies to help deliver disappoint-
ing news. Unfortunately, in an
online environment constructive
feedback is often misinterpreted or
disregarded because the student
feels a response was short, critical,
or lacked the specific direction that
was needed. As the director of
online learning for North Hennepin
Community College, I was surprised
to discover that 20 percent of online
students surveyed last fall felt that
their instructor did not adequately
communicate expectations or confi-
dence in them.
Delivering constructive feedback
in writing can be challenging, espe-
cially in an online class, where
comments are more direct and
personal. When this delicate com-
munication is managed casually, it
breaks down the trust we work so
diligently to build in our online
classes. In a recent workshop, Jane
Wilson, coordinator of NHCCs
College Learning Place and online
music instructor, said, So often we
fire off a fast e-mail in the tone of a
quick, informal response; but it is
critical for student success that the
dialogue modeled by the online
instructor includes respectful,
positive feedback as well as critical
analysis of the students problems
and suggestions for improvement.
As we have worked with online
instructors, Ive realized that it has
taken me a long time to become
confident in finding my own style
for providing constructive online
feedback to students. The good
news: weve found that basic
feedback strategies and a simple
template work the best!
1. Start with something positive.
Start off right away with
something the student did well.
This helps the student identify
something to keep doing and sets a
supportive tone so you can continue
to build a trusting online relation-
ship.
You did very well in this weeks
discussion.
You have a great way of sharing
your experience with the class.
2. State the grade and reason
right away.
The main point of providing
feedback is to clearly explain the
reason for the grade and set a per-
formance expectation. Stating the
2
Teaching from the Road
3
Save Time without Sacrificing
Quality
7
Supplementing a Course with
Online Tutoring
4
Online Learner Types
I
n

T
h
i
s

I
s
s
u
e
Seven Steps for Providing Constructive
Online Discussion Feedback Successfully
Tips from the Pros
Understanding Student
Perceptions of Online
Learning
When preparing to teach an
online course, consider the
following assumptions that
many online students make
about online learning:
Online courses are easier
than face-to-face courses.
Assignments can be
completed anytime,
anywhere.
The instructor will be
available seven days a week
and will respond to e-mail
within 24 hours.
All online courses are
arranged in essentially the
same way. Once I understand
how one online course works,
I can expect that every other
online course will work the
same way.
If I get behind in my work,
its easy enough to catch up
later.
In trying to convince
students that these assump-
tions are not necessarily true,
consider sharing with them the
following traits/perceptions of
successful online learners:
It takes two to four weeks to
adjust to the online
Continued on page 6 >>
Continued on page 6 >>
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T
his summer, R. Nicholas
Gerlich, associate professor of
marketing at West Texas A&M
University, took to the road to teach
an online marketing course,
stopping at WiFi hot spots during
his 5,000-mile, five-week trip and
providing real-world examples of
course concepts.
It was the best experience I ever
had teaching a class. The students
loved it. They were living vicariously
through my travels, and it caused
them to engage in the class in ways
that students hadnt been able to in
the past, Gerlich says.
The course was one that he had
taught many times before, and the
syllabus remained unchanged. The
big difference was that he included
a daily blog that featured his obser-
vations about marketing throughout
the country.
Every day I wrote a one-page
essay about whatever I saw, which
let students know I wasnt just out
vacationing. I wanted them to be
assured that, yes, I was on the
road, but I was working every day,
because this thing could have
backfired if I was not careful. They
could have just thought, Hes out
driving around, going to the beach,
eating pizza in Chicago, and just
stopping by once a week for e-mail.
I made sure that they knew I was
plugged in, and it didnt matter
whether I was in Janesville,
Wisconsin, or Canyon, Texas,
Gerlich says.
The first half of the course
featured the nuts and bolts of
marketing. The second half looked
at issues in marketing.
Incorporating his daily observations
became a great storytelling
adventure.
The learning was embedded,
and students almost didnt realize
how much they were learning along
the way. It worked well. I was able
to talk about things that may not
seem, on the surface, to have any
marketing value and somehow find
that value and let students see it. I
didnt have to preach to them. They
were able to figure it out by reading
the story, Gerlich says.
Gerlich was able to bring to his
students descriptions, commentary,
and, sometimes, digital photos of
new products that he found being
test-marketed in limited areas.
During the trip, Gerlich visited
his parents in a gated retirement
community in suburban Tampa and
wrote an essay titled Im Living in a
Minimum-Security Prison, which
he used to open a discussion about
marketing to senior citizens. He
asked, Whats for sale here? Why
would anyone want to live in one of
these highly regimented, gated com-
munities where you cant do
anything?
My students figured out that its
all about safety, security, and pre-
dictability, which are things that
people who are 80 years old want. I
think they got a lot more out of
reading the story than they would
have if I had typed up a lecture on
this topic.
The level of engagement in the
course was higher than Gerlich had
experienced before in his online
courses. In 51 days the students
posted more than 2,000 messages,
or 40 a day for a class of 41. You
cant get that in a classroom, and I
never dreamed it was possible in an
online environment, based on my
26 prior experiences teaching
online. Id done well but never quite
to this level.
Feedback on the course was
overwhelmingly positive. Heres a
typical comment: At the end of my
workday, I would come and check
your blog and read the students
remarks. It was my time each day
2 Online Cl@ssroom
Teaching from the Road
COURSE MA NAGE ME NT
Continued on page 8 >>
Improve Efficiency without Sacrificing Quality
A key consideration when
designing online courses is whether
a given course activity will yield
enough benefit to the students to
warrant the amount of time and
effort expended by the instructor,
course designer, and students. This
was the main message from
Kathryn Ley, associate professor of
instructional technology at the
University of Houston-Clear Lake, in
her presentation at the 21st Annual
Conference on Distance Teaching &
Learning.
In her presentation and in a
follow-up interview with Online
Classroom, Ley offered the following
advice to maximize learning and
minimize extraneous cognitive load
through sufficient design, strategic
embedded learning support, and
efficient online communications.
Sufficient design
When designing an online course,
estimate the instructors and
students return on time and effort
by asking the following questions:
How much time will it take for the
instructor to prepare the activity?
How much time will the instructor
need to spend on logistics?
What instructor skills and tech-
nology are required?
How much time will the students
need to spend on logistics?
What student skills and technolo-
gy are required?
What will the activity add to the
learners knowledge or skills?
Will it be worth the cost?
How can the activity be modified
to reduce extraneous cognitive
load (logistics) on the learner and
to save the instructor mainte-
nance and processing time while
still providing adequate feedback
to the student?
Learning online will always have
some extraneous cognitive load
associated with it. The goal is to
minimize it. I would estimate that if
the logistics for 90 percent of the
learners is less than 10 percent of
the total time on the assignment,
the assignment is worthwhile, Ley
says.
One way to minimize the extrane-
ous cognitive load is to provide
students the information they need
in a straightforward manner rather
than having them expend time and
effort on tasks that are not related
to the assignments learning objec-
tives. For example, rather than
having students search the Web for
articles you want them to read, you
might want to pick the articles for
them, if the search for those articles
is unrelated to the assignments
learning objectives. If [searching for
an article] is logistics, dont make
them go get the article. Give it to
them, Ley says.
Embedded strategic support
Learner support is essential to
online learners success, but
providing adequate support can
make teaching an online course
overly burdensome. However, there
are ways to embed some of that
support in the course design.
For Ley, the syllabus is an
integral part of this support. Her
syllabus provides a description of
her vision of the learning
community (something she directs
students to when they are not living
up to these standards), an assign-
ment table, and assignment
instructions.
Ley does not use the course
calendar to remind students of
assignment due dates, because she
has determined it is not worth the
effort. Instead, she keeps an assign-
ment table on the syllabus, which
provides students a single place to
look for the information they
need.My syllabus, all assignment
instructions, and any additional
addenda are on my instructor
message board. Students dont need
to hunt around for this type of
information in e-mail, because it
will never be there, Ley says.
In addition, the last four charac-
ters of each assignments name
convey the month and day that the
COURSE DE SI GN
3 Online Cl@ssroom
Turning the Tables
in Threaded Discussions
Rather than facilitating
threaded discussions by asking
students open-ended questions,
why not have students ask the
questions? This is a strategy
that Kathryn Ley, associate
professor of education at the
University of Houston-Clear
Lake, tried recently with great
success.
In a recent online course, Ley
had each student formulate a
question about an upcoming
assignment. To get credit, the
student had to ask a substan-
tive questionone that could
not be answered directly by
quoting the course materials Ley
provided.
It was an eye-opener for
them and me, Ley says. They
got to ask questions, and I
answered them. I found out
what they didnt know in a way
that I would never been able to
before, and they found out what
they didnt know that they
would not have normally asked
if I hadnt required them to post
a question to get points.
Continued on page 8 >>
S
tudent behavior in an online
course can vary greatly
depending on motivation, maturity,
learning styles, technical proficien-
cy, and experience as an online
learner. Knowing what to expect
from students can have important
implications for course design and
management.
Phil Darg, adjunct online instruc-
tor at Lake Superior College, identi-
fies the four types of students:
Achievers, Taskers, Ball-droppers,
and Ghosts.
Achievers generally make up
between 10 percent and 20
percent of students in an online
course. They have excellent
reading and academic skills, often
have taken several online courses
before, are highly motivated and
self-disciplined, and have good
computer skills. Online education
is an absolute godsend for
Achievers. They can apply them-
selves to the utmost, do a great
job, and work at their own pace
often ahead. They are not slowed
down by a live classroom environ-
ment, Darg says.
Taskers make up 40 percent to
50 percent of students in an
online course. They have
moderate to high academic skills,
may or may not have taken online
courses before, and are motivated
by due dates and grades. Taskers
are those students who want to
know when something is due.
They take it one step at a time.
Theyre looking for structure. They
want to know the bottom line,
Darg says.
Ball-droppers make up 20
percent to 25 percent of the
enrollment in most courses. They
are academically challenged or
have moderate academic skills.
Many have not taken an online
course before and often make
incorrect assumptions about the
course schedule and criteria. They
are motivated after the fact (by
missing due dates) and have poor
to moderate computer skills.
Ball-droppers often aspire to be
Taskers but are distracted by
something in their lives or just
arent making the commitment to
learning online. Theyre not
checking in as often as they
should, Darg says.
Ghosts make up 5 percent to 10
percent of students in an online
course. They generally have poor
academic and computer skills.
Many have not taken an online
course before and are unmotivat-
ed and disconnected. Theyre reg-
istered for the course, but theyre
not communicating with the
instructor and theyre not really
doing their work. Theyll only
come in once in a while, and when
they do come in, theyll ask a
question that indicates that
theyve been absent from the
process for a significant period of
time, Darg says.
Student types and course design
Reaching these different types of
students in a single online course
can be difficult. For Achievers, its a
matter of giving them the freedom
to work at their own pace and
intensity level. For the other types
of students, its a matter of
engaging them and keeping them on
schedule (to one degree or another).
Ive concluded that I really can
create only one class, even though
there may be four different cate-
gories of students within that
class, Darg says. Ive tried to
create an environment where if
youre an Achiever and you want to
go, go, go, the barriers against
doing that are removed. If you want
to work ahead a little bit, thats no
problem.
The Taskers need the structure.
The same is true for the Ball-
droppers, but they also need that
communication and reminders
about what is going on in any given
week. For Ghosts, you can send
them as many e-mails as you want,
but you have absolutely no
assurance that they are opening
and reading that e-mail.
Because of these differences
among his students, Darg allows
students to work ahead if they want
to. What this means for course
design is that he needs to have the
entire course planned out by the
first week of the term. This can be
challenging for instructors who
want more flexibility in their sched-
uling. It gives Achievers the
certainty they need so they can
proceed at their own pace and plan
appropriately. Another thing Ive
noticed is that students need every
piece of information on how to
succeed online, how the course is
organized, and the best way to
approach reading the textbook and
online materials. I also provide work
samples from past students. I found
that has a huge effect on the quality
of papers coming in.
Based on his five years of online
teaching experience and the fact
that students work at different
paces, Darg does not have students
collaborate on group projects in his
courses. I concluded that the
majority of the students taking
online courses are looking for the
individual flexibility that they need
in order to take a course. Many
times Ive had students say, Im
really glad this course is online,
because if it wasnt and I couldnt
work at 3 a.m. on Sundays, I
wouldnt be able to get through it.
For that reason, I have shied away
a little from group work. The
advantage of that [for Achievers] is
that they cant be held back by poor
4 Online Cl@ssroom
Online Learner Types: Implications for Course Design
ST UDE NT S
performers in the group. However, if
youre not a person who is self-
motivated and self-disciplined,
youre going to face greater chal-
lenges because youre not going to
have that student encouragement to
get with the program.
Despite this absence of group
work, students interact in threaded
discussions. The discussion area is
the online community portion of the
course where student and teacher
are going to communicate with each
other, and everyone can see it.
Everyone is part of the community.
We can learn from more than one
person and explore different points
of view. Well have a number of dis-
cussion questions throughout the
term, and students are required to
participate and be part of that
online community.
Those students who would like to
work ahead can post comments in
any unit and come back later to
check for responses as others catch
up. However, once the week for a
particular discussion passes, Darg
locks the thread and moves on to
the next topic.
Monitoring student progress
Darg makes it a point to monitor
students activity in his courses to
determine which category each fits
into and how he can support them.
Darg will look at students amount
and frequency of communication, as
well as which course pages theyve
accessed.
After a couple of weeks, you
have an indication of whos
spending time in the class, whos
not spending time in class, and
whos communicating. As the
assignments start to come due, you
can use that as a marker to see
whos keeping up and whos falling
behind, Darg says.
Based on this monitoring of
students progress, Darg intervenes
when appropriate. If I notice that a
student is gone for five days or
hasnt read the current weeks
items, Ill send him or her messages
asking how theyre doing. That says,
Im watching your progress, and I
believe in your abilities to succeed,
but you have to buckle down a little
bit.
Darg usually responds to Ghosts
first. To help deal with Ghosts, Lake
Superior has a policy that enables
instructors to drop unresponsive
students from the course.
Instructors are required to check
student attendance, and once a
student has been gone from a class
for a significant period of time or
has not turned in an assignment for
a significant period of time (usually
two weeks), the instructor enters a
last day of attendance (LDA) for the
student. Basically what were
saying is, From our perspective this
student isnt performing.
Something like that can happen as
early as the third or fourth week of
the term. If there was a situation
where the student was motivated to
get back in the class, this would
send a strong message that he or
she needs to pay attention to
things. The LDA officially sends the
message that he or she has been
dropped from the class for nonat-
tendance. Some will appeal and
promise to be involved, and
sometimes they will get back in the
course.
A wider range of grades
From his experience teaching
online, Darg has found that grades
within online courses typically span
a wider range than they would in a
face-to-face course. Freed from the
constraints of the face-to-face
classroom, Achievers grades will
typically be higher online than in
face-to-face classes. Conversely,
students at the other end of the
spectrum, who might otherwise be
able to get by in face-to-face
classes, often are overwhelmed
online.
If a student is undisciplined, he
or she will probably do better in a
live class because of the pacing and
face-to-face interaction. If students
are self-disciplined and highly
motivated, in some ways moving
into the online environment can be
ideal because they can spend as
much time with it as they want.
They can work at their own pace,
and basically theyre not letting the
pace of a live class weigh them
down, Darg says.
Online learners can change the
type of students they are. A
students technical level of expertise
can affect how successful he or she
will be in an online course. Ive
found that when students are
taking an online class for the first
time, theyre not going to be in that
Achiever category; however, once
they learn the online course envi-
ronment, and if they have the
proper motivation and self-disci-
pline, they can easily move up into
that category because the only thing
that was holding them back was a
technical issue. For those students
who are academically challenged,
its a matter of motivation and disci-
pline, Darg says.
For more information, visit
http://phildarg.efoliomn2.com/.
5 Online Cl@ssroom
@
Ive concluded that I
really can create only
one class, even though
there may be four
different categories of
students within that
class.
result right away provides a
reference point for the supporting
information you provide next.
This week you earned 20/25
discussion points for posting
four responses to student case
studies.
You answered three of the four
sections correctly and earned
85/100 points.
3. State the correction as a
reminder or recommendation.
Phrase the correction as a sug-
gestion, reminder, or recommenda-
tion, but be clear and specific. Most
important, focus on the task or
requirement needed to be success-
ful, rather than on the student per-
sonally.
Remember, full participation
points are awarded for submit-
ting more than five posts a
week.
Dont forget to use the APA
format when citing sources.
It is important to include all the
required sections.
4. Provide an example or tip to
reach the goal.
After stating what was missed,
point students in the right direction
with helpful advice. Provide a road
map with simple tips. This models
proactive problem solving and helps
students brainstorm their own
solutions.
Heres an example of a solution
that earned full points and
shows how the answer was
derived.
Some students find it helpful to
take notes while watching the
presentations.
Before clicking send, I often
read my posts out loud to make
sure they are complete.
5. State your expectation.
Be clear about what you want
from students, so they understand
the goal. This reinforces the
suggested correction you stated
earlier and refocuses the student
back on the expectation and not on
what he or she missed.
In upcoming weeks, I will be
looking for
To maintain a perfect score in
future assignments,
To raise your grade,
6. Remind them of available help.
Students need to hear a message
multiple times, so remind them
where help is available. Not only
does this encourage students who
are hesitant to reach out for help, it
cuts down on their claims of not
knowing it was available.
We have a busy week, so make
sure to contact me or to post
general questions to the class.
Your success is important to
me, so dont hesitate to call/e-
mail me (or our class tutor)
when you have questions.
7. End with something motiva-
tional.
Remember the old adage about
sandwiching a negative between two
positives? It is so important to
close, especially corrective feedback,
with something positive or motiva-
tional. It helps build the students
confidence, and they respond better
to the advice.
You are doing a great job so far,
and I appreciate your commit-
ment and effort!
You are halfway therekeep up
the excellent work!
This has been a tough week
with challenging assignments,
and you did very well!
We are currently working with
instructors to implement the seven
steps. While another survey is
planned for this fall, pilot class
surveys are showing positive
results. In addition, the instructors
implementing this model are
becoming comfortable providing
constructive feedback, and new
online instructors are feeling more
confident about teaching online this
fall.
Contact Tammy Edwards at
tammy.edwards@nhcc.edu.
6 Online Cl@ssroom
<< From Page 1
@
classroom, even when students
have taken online courses before.
Students who succeed in online
courses generally work during
consistent times each week.
Because every online course is
different, even students who have
taken online courses before will
generally need two to four weeks
to adjust to the course design and
course management strategies.
Contrary to what students might
think before taking an online
course, it is very difficult to catch
up if they fall behind.
Reference
Springfield, Emily. How to Create
an Online Course. University of
Michigan School of Nursing.
Accessed August 23, 2005, at www-
personal.umich.edu/~espring/
edTechText.doc.
<< Tips from Page 1
7 Online Cl@ssroom
D
ifferent learners come to the
online classroom with different
levels of knowledge of the subject
and different needs. It is up to the
course designer and instructor to
devise ways to meet the needs of
individual learners without
impeding the progress of the group.
To address individual learners
needs, George Meghabghab,
associate professor of computer
science at Roane State Community
College in Tennessee, has developed
a tutoring system for his online
Java programming courses that
provides a degree of individualized
help without his having to spend all
his time in one-on-one sessions
with his students.
Meghabghab has two prepared
tutorials in PowerPoint for each of
the major concepts in the course (a
total of 32 tutorials). Since the
content of the course builds on
previous units, it is essential to
provide tutoring as early as
possible. The design and content of
these tutorials are based on
Meghabghabs estimates of the
upper and lower levels of the
students knowledge.
The key to providing students
with the appropriate level of
tutoring is determining what the
students understand, what they
roughly understand, and what they
dont understand at all. There are
different levels of understanding,
and so we have to have different
levels of tutoring, Meghabghab
says.
To provide the appropriate level
of tutoring for each student who
needs it (typically seven or eight out
of a class of 25 for any given
concept), Meghabghab has students
answer a series of questions related
to the concept and divides his
students who need tutoring into two
groupsthose who dont know
anything about the concept and
those who have some vague
knowledge of the concept. The level
of tutoring corresponds to how well
each student does on the concept
questions.
Students automatically receive
the appropriate tutorial for each
concept. (Those who answer the
concept questions correctly do not
receive a tutorial.) This automatic
delivery method is an advantage
over other forms of tutoring. It
means that more students who
need help get it, whereas in other
cases students usually have to seek
out help if they determine they need
it. This delivery method also
provides the appropriate level of
instruction when it is needed,
something that can be very difficult
in the face-to-face classroom,
Meghabghab says.
Meghabghab is careful to point
out to the students that merely
receiving a tutorial does not
indicate that one is an inferior
student. And although the tutorials
are sent automatically, they are
optional. However, as an incentive
Meghabghab adds two or three
points to an individuals final grade
for taking the tutorial and corre-
sponding self-tests.
After taking a tutorial and self-
test, students will often e-mail
Meghabghab that this extra instruc-
tion has helped, and Meghabghab
estimates that 90 percent of the
students who take a tutorial and
self-test say that it has helped them
on the subsequent quiz.
Students who begin the course in
need of tutoring often get to the
point in the course where the
regular course content is enough for
them to fully meet the courses
learning objectives. Meghabghab
estimates that 30 percent of the
students who need tutoring move
from one level of tutoring to
another.
Creating these online tutorials is
time-consuming, but Meghabghab
believes that this is a more efficient
way of providing individualized help
than through one-on-one
studentinstructor interaction.
Based on 125 students who have
participated in the course since the
inception of this tutoring system,
the failure/drop rate in
Meghabghabs courses decreased
from 20 percent to 10 percent,
which he feels is reasonable given
the complexity of the subject
matter.
Although this tutoring system
has helped him deliver tutoring in
an effective manner, Meghabghab is
not sure if this approach would
work in other disciplines, and it
does take quite a bit of time to
create the tutorials. Certainly more
research needs to be done in online
tutoring and in finding more intelli-
gent ways of looking at online
tutoring. How do we decide what
kind of material a student needs, to
help with his or her lack of
knowledge?
Contact George Meghabghab at
gmeghabghab@hotmail.com.
Tutoring System Provides Various Levels of Help to Meet
Individual Learners Needs
ST UDE NT SUP P ORT
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Share Your Ideas
If you have developed an
innovative online course or have
some online teaching tips you
would like to share with the
readers of Online Classroom,
contact Rob Kelly at
<robkelly@magnapubs.com>.
8 Online Cl@ssroom
assignment is due. This reduces the
number of inquiries about due
dates.
Efficient online communication
A common complaint among
online instructors is the amount of
time they spend responding to
students e-mail messages, particu-
larly as institutions try to accommo-
date more students in each online
course. The key is finding ways to
communicate more efficiently with
students.
Ley recommends setting a com-
munication policy that makes the
majority of the communication in the
course open to everybody, providing
greater equity and efficiency.
To achieve this, Ley communi-
cates through the instructor
message boarda daily message
that gives the status of the course,
reminds students about what is
coming up, and clarifies assignment
instructions. This daily message
helps create a learning community
by keeping students updated and
logging on to the course site, Ley
says. When I communicate with
students, they will log on to see what
Im saying. I know this because I pay
attention to when they log on.
Threaded discussions are the
main forum for student communica-
tion with the instructor and each
other. E-mail inherently generates
very complex communication among
multiple people. Its much simpler to
manage those communications if
you use the discussion board, Ley
says.
Ley recommends using threaded
discussions for every type of commu-
nication except messages that
discuss grades. This adds to the
sense of community and also
reduces the number of messages she
has to respond to.
Getting students to communicate
via discussion board rather than by
e-mail is relatively straightforward.
Ley makes it clear in the syllabus
that she wants communication to be
conducted in a public venue and will
politely remind students who do not
follow this rule. When a student
sends an e-mail message that should
have been posted in the discussion
board, Ley posts and answers the
question in the discussion board
(with the students name removed
from the message) and sends an e-
mail to the student asking him or
her to look on the discussion board
for the answer. After about two
weeks the students catch on to this
policy and rarely send inappropriate
e-mail messages.
To further improve the efficiency
of communication, Ley recommends
that, whenever possible, students
submit assignments in the body of
an e-mail message rather than as an
attachment. This eliminates the need
for the instructor to download each
students assignment, which can
take a substantial amount of time,
particularly in high-enrollment
courses. Another thing Ley recom-
mends is that students put the
name of an assignment in the
subject line of messages they send
relating to that assignment.
Contact Kathryn Ley at
ley@uhcl.edu.
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to get away from all the hustle and
bustle and be a part of this class.
I realized there is something
more going on here than just
reading a lecture and asking, What
do you think about blah, blah,
blah? Gerlich says.
None of this would have been
possible without the growing preva-
lence of WiFi hot spots. Before his
trip, Gerlich opened an account
with Flying J, a truck stop chain
that offers WiFi at many of its
locations. In some locations, Gerlich
was able to access the course at
free WiFi hot spotsat a camp-
ground, Panera Bread, Barnes &
Noble. [WiFi] is so pervasive right
now. I had no idea it was so
developed. It allowed me to do
exactly what my students are doing,
which is to have education on
demand, so I was teaching wherever
I could. It gave me much more
freedom, not to run and play, but to
develop professionally and to be
able to teach the class as I saw fit.
Gerlich had full access to the
courses control panel. He took
several precautions to ensure that
he could reach his students and
perform course administrative tasks
regardless of location. He carried a
directory of Flying J truck stops; he
had two dial-up accounts; he
brought along an Ethernet cable;
and he gave his students his cell
phone number.
Contact R. Nicholas Gerlich at
ngerlich@mail.wtamu.edu. For a
directory of WiFi hot spots, visit
www.wifi411.com.
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